Colonial America

1
Colonial America

• Primarily the 1600s

2
Caring for the needy

• Initially small communities characterized by
  kindness and mutual aid
• By mid-1600s indigents started to appear
• Poor law provisions adopted in Plymouth,
  Virginia, Connecticut and Massachusetts
• Smallest unit of local government handled poor
  relief

3
Methods for helping poor neighbors

• Boarding out the poor at public expense
• Tax relief
• Free medical attention

4
Strangers dealt with harshly

• Towns didnt want burden of indigent strangers
• Residency requirements instituted that were
  declared illegal in 1969
• Plymouth defined a resident as someone who stayed
  for 3 months without being expelled

5

• Ships masters posted bond for those they brought
  or return them to home port
• Problems with unsettled poor in cities and
  frontier areas due to wars
• State treasury sent funds to communities to help
  nonresidents

6
Sturdy Beggars

• Mather let the idle starve
• Virginia compulsory labor for the idle
• Massachusetts had unemployed turned into
  indentured servants, whipped and expelled or put
  in jail

7
People of Color

• Native people slaughtered if they refused to
  become civilized and Christianized
• Negative views of Africans as inferior,
  uncivilized people
• Slaves the responsibility of masters
• Free blacks denied aid and developed own
  self-help mechanisms

8
Children

• Apprenticed in cases of orphans or poor parenting
• Attached everyone to a family
• Provided labor when in short supply, while
  training young

9
Mentally Ill

• Strangers warned away
• Another category of needy in community
• Boarded at homes initially
• Confined to quarters if perceived dangerous
• Beginning of ideas that special care might be
  required

10
Overall

• Generous and compassionate care for truly needy
  who were attached to a community
• Harsh treatment for the voluntarily idle,
  strangers, and people of color
• Some recognition of collective help needed for
  destitute who had no community