Social and Economic Networks in Early Massachusetts: Atlantic Connections

3. British Communities: Agricultural Laborers and Tenant Farmers in Essex County

Three british communities: agricultural laborers and tenant farmers in essex county 1 In early Massachusetts, non-Puritan residents constructed social relationships based on physical proximity (in neighborhoods, for example), but also on nationality, shared experiences as captives or servants, and marriage and kinship . These mixed communities and social networks consisted of non-Puritan English—most of whom migrated for economic reasons—Scots, Irish, Channel Islanders, and Welsh settlers, in differing degrees. Some communities were largely Scottish, others Irish, and some had fairly even mixes of non-Puritans of several nationalities. What they all had in common, however, was both a lack of affiliation with Puritan religious ideology and lower-to-middling social and economic status.1 Yet these communities flourished within and alongside more traditional kinds of communities. Non-Puritan residents, as with all colonists, belonged to many communities and held several identities simultaneously. Although this chapter emphasizes several less-noticed forms of community in Essex County, non-Puritan agricultural workers did not separate themselves from larger social cohorts. This lack of sharp divisions between communities meant that all residents joined in the construction of society. Mixed-nationality communities of tenant farmers, servants, and laborers began to develop in Essex County in the late 1650s and early 1660s as a result of demographic pressure. The Scottish prisoners sent to New England in 1651 and 1652 were all male, as were many of the Irish who had been spirited to the colonies. Scottish and Irish men, therefore, married Irish- and lower-status Englishwomen, precluding widespread endogamous marriages even if these men had wanted to marry within their national group. Although historians generally interpret exogamous marriage as a dilution of ethnic identity, such marriages were common among groups with extensive international ties. Scots, for instance, with their long history of emigration, did not see exogamous marriage as extraordinary. In Massachusetts, out-group marriage allowed the Scots and Irish to begin families and to carve places for themselves within coastal communities. Far from being set apart by endogamous marriage, the Scots and Irish became part of networks of non-Puritan residents, living under English law and Puritan religious strictures without necessarily assimilating into Puritan society.2 Filling in the geographical and economic interstices of Massachusetts society, laborers and tenant farmers developed extensive networks that substituted for kinship ties left behind in England, Scotland, and Ireland. These communities consisted of people who shared similar places in society, who had common experiences of servitude, and who supported each other in lieu of long-standing family ties. The presence of such networks contributed to the colony’s development by providing stability for the “lower sorts,” believed by contemporaries to be the most volatile and untrustworthy segment of the population. Members of these communities also constituted a fairly settled labor pool, which allowed the local economy to develop and expand.3 British communities can be seen most easily in northern Essex County, near Ipswich.4 In Essex, unlike Suffolk County, official records survived remarkably well, and the diversified economy supported occupations unrelated to farming. Inland counties were more dependant on subsistence farming for a longer period, although in a few places, such as Springfield, similar communities appear to have developed as well. Springfield, of course, was a fur trade center as well as an agricultural community, and traded extensively with other Connecticut River towns. In Springfield, Stephen Innes notes the presence of a small group of Scottish men, most of whom arrived as captives from the war between England and Scotland in the early 1650s. He estimates that the numbers of Scots “never exceeded a dozen men,” although “their impact on the community was considerable ,” and argues that the Scots “were suffered to remain in the community because of their contributions to the local economy,” but that they “tested the limits of social tolerance” as well. As described by Innes, the Scots in Springfield were more contentious than those in the coastal counties; appearances before the magistrates included the usual presentments for drinking, fighting, and slander, but also card playing, an offense not found in the Essex County records. The less restrictive atmosphere in Springfield, being further from the center of authority in Boston, and the almost complete dependence on one employer, 52 u social and economic networks in early massachusetts John Pynchon, may have made these non-Puritan residents more of a challenge for local magistrates.5 Geographically, British communities in Essex County were...