“Theft of Oneself”: Runaway Servants in Early Maryland: Deterrence, Punishment, and Apprehension

Farley Grubb

Chapter Chapter 8 in Standard of Living, 2022, pp 167-183 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Immigrant indentured and transported convict servants had an incentive to breech their labor contracts by running away. Masters and servants in colonial Maryland engaged in strategic behaviors to deal with this contract breech incentive. In the seventeenth century, masters altered the colony’s statutory laws to deter and thwart servant escape, and servants chose the escape routes that offered the best chance of not being returned to Maryland. Strategic behaviors changed by the eighteenth century. Masters quickly advertised runaway servants in Maryland newspapers, and servants selected when to run that delayed the appearance of those ads as much as possible.

Keywords: Indentures; Indentured servants; Theft of oneself; Contract breach; Apprehension (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:stechp:978-3-031-06477-7_8

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-06477-7_8

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