Landscapes of Indenture: Scottish Prisoners of War in 17th Century New England

Join award-winning historian Emerson "Tad" Baker in a rare and insightful look at the little-known story of around 400 Scottish prisoners of war, shippped to New England as indentured servants by Oliver Cromwell's government after its victories in the battles of Dunbar and Worcester in 1650 and 1651.
In Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, these Scots POWs served five-to-seven year indentures - one of the first major groups of unfree labor to help build colonial New England. But once their indentures expired, they were not welcome back in Britain. So the Scots built new lives on New England’s frontier, with their former comrades-in-arms becoming their new extended family. As Presbyterians and royalists whose native tongue was Scots or Scottish Gaelic, these men stood out in a Puritan-dominated New England.
Most of these young men served their indentures at the Saugus ironworks, the sawmills of Maine and New Hampshire, or in other hard and dangerous jobs that no free labor wanted to do. The last of the Scottish prisoners’ indentures expired between 1657 and 1659, leaving New England merchants with a need to find a more reliable and inexpensive source of labor. Given that global colonialism relied on the dispossession of both land and labor, it is not surprising that the first records of enslaved Africans in Maine date to the 1660s, just after the Scots indentures expired.
***
Emerson "Tad" Baker is a professor of history at Salem State University and has previously served as vice provost and dean of the graduate school. He is the award-winning author or co-author of six books on the history and archaeology of early New England, including A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Baker has served as consultant and on-camera expert for historical documentaries and TV shows for networks ranging from PBS and TLC to Smithsonian and the History Channel.
The majority of Baker’s scholarship has focused on 17th century Maine and New Hampshire. He directed excavations on the Chadbourne Site (1643-1690), a trading post and sawmill in South Berwick, Maine, for thirteen seasons. This work was the focus of the Old Berwick Historical Society’s 2017 exhibit (and exhibit catalog) Forgotten Frontier: Untold Stories of the Piscataqua. He is currently part of an international team of archaeologists and historians undertaking the Landscapes of Indenture project, which studies the Scottish prisoners, and the relationship between forced labor, natural resource exploitation, and environmental change in early New England.
***
**Follow us on Twitter: / historicbostons
**Join the conversation on Facebook: / 34704. .
**Visit our Website: historicboston...
***
NOTE: All presentations convey the views of the presenter and not necessarily those of the Partnership of Historic Bostons.
***
Image: This ca.1707 McIntire garrison in the Scotland district of York is the oldest standing house in Maine. It was built by the son of a Scottish soldier who was taken captive at the Battle of Dunbar. Credit: Emerson Baker