lack of white laborers. The Germans also were first and most emphatic
in condemning the cruelties connected with the "white slavery" of the
so-called Redemptioners.

SLAVERY OF REDEMPTIONERS.

35. Cruelly Deceived by the Newlanders.--Toward the middle of the
eighteenth century there were some 80,000 Germans in Pennsylvania,
almost one-half of the entire inhabitants. In 1749 about 12,000 arrived.
Benjamin Franklin and others expressed the fear: "They come in such
numbers that they will soon be able to enforce their laws and language
upon us, and, uniting with the French, drive all Englishmen out." Many
of the Germans were so-called Redemptioners, who, in payment of their
freight, were sold and treated as slaves for a stipulated number of
years. Most of them had been shamefully deceived and decoyed into the
horrors of this "white slavery" by Dutch and English merchants and
conscienceless agents whom Muhlenberg called Newlanders (Neulaender).
In Holland they were called "soul-traders." By means of stories of the
fabulous wealth acquired in America they enticed Germans and other
emigrants into the signing of papers in the English language which not
only committed them and their children to slavery, but sometimes
separated husband and wife, parents and children. The following is an
instance of the revolting horrors connected with this trade: In 1793,
when the yellow fever prevailed in Chester, a cargo of Redemptioners
was sent thither, and a market for nurses opened. (Jacobs, 236.) In
Pennsylvania this kind of slavery continued from about 1740 to the
second decade of the nineteenth century. Quakers and other "friends of
liberty and humanity" exploited the system. Foremost among those who
exposed and condemned it were Germans, notably Muhlenberg, who described
the abominable business of the Newlanders as follows: "These Newlanders
first make themselves acquainted with the merchants in the Netherlands.
From them they receive, in addition to free freight, a certain
gratification (_douceur_) for each family or each unmarried person which
they enlist in Germany and bring to the traders in Holland. In order to
attain their object, they resort to all manner of tricks. As long as the
comedy requires it, they make a great show in dress, frequently look at
their watches, and make a pretense of great wealth, in order to excite a
desire within the hearts of people to emigrate to so happy and rich a
country. They give such descriptio