Richard B. Morris, Government and Labor in Early America, 1946.

POOR RELIEF

A program which favored compulsory labor for the unemployed was by iron logic compelled to advocate the regulation of poor relief, and to keep it within strict limits. The medieval Statute of Labourers prohibited all almsgiving except to the impotent poor, who were to remain at their place of residence or be sent to the place of their birth.1 The poor law code inaugurated at the end of Elizabeth's reign placed responsibility upon the parish to maintain and set to work children whose parents were unable to support them, to purchase stocks of material to carry on work for the poor, and to relieve the impotent and unemployable through general taxation.2 A logical consequence of this principle of local responsibility was the Law of Settlement of 1662, which authorized the overseer to expel from the parish any person occupying property renting for less than £10 a year who was deemed likely at some future time to be in need, and to convey such person to the parish where he had last legally settled.3

The scrutiny to which strangers entering New England were subjected was in large measure due to a reluctance on the part of the local authorities to be burdened with the maintenance of immigrants incapable of supporting themselves and their families.4 Where the immigrant became chargeable before gaining a residence, the burden of support fell upon the person responsible for his entry.5 The old English custom of "warning out" was practiced in New England to avoid responsibility for the support of prospective paupers.6 Generally the New England colonies required the towns to maintain their own poor.7 Ultimately the workhouse was set up for the tramp and vagrant whereas the pauper remained under the care of town officials.8 In some New England towns the practice of binding out indigent widows to service was so successful that poorhouses were not built.9

While in New England the supervision of the poor remained a responsibility of town government, the English parish system, which was responsible for administering poor relief in the mother country, was duplicated in the Southern colonies.10 The vestries could apprentice poor children,11 make levies for the poor, and allot aid according to the needs of individual cases. In turn, the vestries could be called to account by the county courts, which on occasion administered poor relief.12

In the Middle colonies poor relief administration combined features of the New England town system and the parish system of the Southern colonies.13 Persons obtaining relief were required to wear a badge. In New Jersey the pauper had to wear on the shoulder of the right sleeve a large blue or red "P" together with the first letter of the name of the city or county in which he resided.14 Owing to the heavy immigration to these areas, the legislation of the Middle colonies was especially distinguished for its restrictions on entertaining persons not legally settled in the colony, on allowing servants procured from gaols, hospitals, or workhouses of neighboring colonies to gain a settlement, and its requirements that importers give security to indemnify the province if the person imported became a public charge.15

Throughout the colonies the binding out of poor children and orphans as authorized by the English Poor Laws was the regular practice of town officials, parish vestries, or county courts.16 The preamble of a Virginia statute of 1646 providing for the binding out of poor children to be employed in public flaxhouses pays tribute to the parliamentary acts "with great wisdome ordained," which served as a pattern for this statute, according to which the county commissioners were given the same powers of binding out as had been conferred by the English legislation upon the justices of the peace.17

Notes

1 12 Ric. II, cc. 3 and 7.

2 43 Eliz. c. 2. See also Tawney and Power, Tudor Econ. Docs., II, 296-369.

3 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 12. See also Karl de Schweinitz, England's Road to Social Security (Philadelphia, 1943), pp. 39-47.

4 For example, in 1713, the selectmen of Boston proposed that a committee be appointed "to consider Some Expedient for the more Effectual preventing of the Poor belonging to other places, from Obtruding them Selves on the Town." Boston Selectmen Rec., 1701-15, p. 178 (1713). See also infra, pp. 148, 219 n., 416.

5 See Jernegan, Laboring and Dependent Classes, p. 192 and note. Residence requirements ranged from three months to a year. The law required close relatives to support their dependents. See Mass. Acts and Resolves, IV, 705 (1764); Providence, R.I., Superior Court Rec, 1769-90, fols. 186-189 (1773).

6 See Mass. Acts and Resolves, I, 67, 378-381, 538-539, II, 42, IV, 735 (1765), 911 (1767); J. H. Benton, Warning Out in New England (Boston, 1911); Essex, VIII, 45 (1680); York, Me., Court Rec, lib. II (transcribed), f. 379 (1680); Hampshire, Mass., C. P., lib. 1728/9-35, f. 7 (1729); Boston Town Rec., II, 10 (1636), 90 (1647), VII, 134, 135 (1679); VIII, 102 (1714), 177 (I723). F0r the English background, see J. H. Thomas, Town Government in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1933), pp. 117, 118, 132, 133.

7 Plymouth Col. Rec., XI, 41 (1642); Conn. Code of 1673, p. 57; Conn. Code of 1702, p. 94; Mass. Acts and Resolves, 1692-93, c. 28. The Boston Town Records have innumerable references to poor relief. See, e.g., VII, 214, 215 (1693), 231 (1698); VIII, 3 (1700), 23 (1702), 43, 44 (1707), 93 (1713); Boston Selectmen Rec., 1701-15, p. 23 (1702); 1716-36, pp. 122 (1723), 146 (1725), 237 (1733). Beginning with 1736 and running down to the Revolution, the selectmen found it necessary to take more frequent action with reference to poor relief as the problem became steadily more acute. There are forty instances of action being taken by the selectmen between 1736 and 1742; thirty instances between 1742 and 1753; twenty-six between 1754 and 1763, some involving ten or a dozen persons; and fifty instances between 1764 and 1768, some involving two or three persons. See ibid., 1736-42, 1742-33, 1734-63, 1764-68, passim. For poor relief in other Massachusetts towns, see Chatham Town Rec., lib. I, fols. 51 (1731), 123 (1745), passim; II, fols. 17, 19 (1752); Falmouth Town Book, lib. II (May 1, 1775; Dec. 15, 1777). For Rochester, see W. R. Bliss, Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay (Boston, 1900), p. 40 (1729). See also Hampden Co., Mass., Court Mins., lib. 1710, 1714-84, f. 16 (1721).

8 E. W. Capen, The Historical Development of the Poor Law of Connecticut (New York, 1905). pp. 17, 18.

9 The poor widows of Wareham, Mass., were sold at auction annually to reimburse the town for sums advanced them. Bliss, op. cit., pp. 97-100. See also Wareham Town Rec, lib. I (1782). For an instance of the binding out of a married couple, see Plymouth Col. Rec., III, 37, 38 (1653).

10 See, e.g., Hening, I, 433, II, 25, 356, III, 264, VI, 29, 32; S.C. Stat., II, 116 (1695), 593 (1712), 606 (1713).

11 See infra, p. 386n.

12 A frequent form of relief was exemption from levies. See, e.g., Ann Arundel, 1720-21, fols., 48, 49 (1720), 260 (1721); Charles, 1674-76 (1675); Frederick, 1750-51, f. 295 (1751); Prince George, lib. A, 1696-1702, f. 51 (1696), 1746-47 (Nov., 1746); Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia, ed. H. R. Mcllwaine (Richmond, 1924), p. 248 (1671). "Augusta Parish Vestry Book," Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia, extracted from the Original Court Records of Augusta County, 1745-1800 (hereafter Augusta County Rec), ed. Chalkley (3 vols., Rosslyn, 1912), II, 451 (1756), 455 (1767); Bristol Parish Vestry Book, and Register, 1720-89 (Richmond, 1898), pp. 1 (1720), 16 (1724), 28 (1726), 38 (1728); J. S. Moore, Annals of Henrico Parish (Richmond, 1904), pp. 1, 11, 12, 42, 98, 145, 162; VMH, XII, 183 (1739); XIII, 26 (1718); S.C. Gazette, April 2, 1744. For municipal regulations in the South, see Norfolk C.C. Mins., fols. 367-369, 375, 376 (1798).

13 A New York act of 1683 provided for local supervision of the poor; that of 1691 made support of the poor a town charge only; and the act of 1693 provided for poor relief to be administered by a board of vestrymen and church wardens elected annually by the freeholders of every city or county. In New York City the common council named the church wardens overseers of the poor in 1736 and they continued to serve in this capacity until the act of 1784 which abolished that office and substituted a public administrative system for the previous combination of church officers and overseers. By that act the overseers of the poor were to be elected at the annual meetings of inhabitants and freeholders. The principle of local responsibility was clearly embodied in the act and strict provisions were laid down for the legal settlement and removal of the unsettled poor. A good deal of charitable relief was administered by the mayor's court. See R. B. Morris, ed., Select Cases of the Mayor's Court of New Yor\ City, 1674-1784 (American Legal Records, II, Washington, D.C., 1935), pp. 29, 67-71; N.Y. Col. Laws, I, 328-333; M.C.C. IV. 309. 310; Laws of New York (Holt, 1784), p. 146; R. F. Seybolt, Apprenticeship and Apprenticeship Education in Colonial New England and New York (New York, 1917), pp. 67, 68; A. E. Peterson and G. W. Edwards, New York as an Eighteenth Century Municipality (New York, 1917), pp. 182-199, 296-308; Martha Branscombe, The Courts and the Poor Laws in New York State, I784-1929 (Chicago, 1943), pp. 13, 14.

14 M.C.C., II, 330; Pa. Stat. at Large, III, 224, 225 (1718); Allinson, N.J. Acts, pp. 410, 411 (1774).

15 Allinson, op. cit., p. 404 (1774); Pa. Stat. at Large, IV, 139, 167 (1729), 266-277 (1735). See also Gloucester, N.J., Q.S., lib. 1771-83 (Sept., 1771); Kent, Del., Co. Court, lib. 1703-17, f. 48 (1706); Newcastle, Del., G.S., lib. 1778-93, f. 175 (1782). Servants and apprentices were denied legal settlement by virtue of their service. Van Schaack, Laws of N.Y. (1774), I, 753 (1773); Nevill, Acts of N.J. General Assembly (1761), II, 218 (1758).

16 See infra, pp. 384, 385.

17 Hening, I, 336 (1646).