A Letter from an Indentured Servant in Virginia

Source Analysis: A Letter from an Indentured Servant in Virginia, 1623

Imagine being torn away from your loved ones. Your family and friends, way of life, and more importantly your freedom-- never to be the same again. Imagine facing starvation and disease-- death becoming the fate of those around you. This heart wrenching letter was written from a plantation by the name of Martin’s Hundred-- which was located ten miles north from Jamestown. Although the person who wrote this letter was not actually the scribe, his voice shines through and paints a picture of his world in 1623.

The man was named Richard Frethorne, a “transplanted” indentured servant, torn from his homeland. Although Richard was sold into servitude by his own parents, he opens the letter by addressing his “Loving and kind father and mother.” He writes to them for his greatest concern is “...hoping in God of your [his father and mother] good health...” His letter does not mention an ounce of anger or disappointment of their decision to sell his life into servitude.

Richard writes of terrible illness making him and those around him sick. He describes “...the scurvy and bloody flux, and diverse other diseases...” which when they suffer from, there is no comfort. Richard was most likely describing dysentery, which was often deadly illness causing severe diarrhea containing blood and or mucous, leading to dehydration and eventually death.

He then painfully describes starvation. He tells of men that “...cry out day and night, O that they were in England without their limbs...” rather than face the pain of starvation. Imagine wishing to live without limbs just to have food in your stomach. Furthermore, he explains that they “...live in fear of the enemy every hour...” and that his “...plantation is very weak, by reason of death and sickness...” He was probably describing conflict