The Workers in American History

seventeenth century the beggared population of England became a "problem" to the ruling class. The extension of the wool trade gave added stimulus to the eviction of the poor from the land and transforming great estates of fertile soil into sheep pastures. The gulf between the plunderers and their victims widened and the desperate poverty of the latter increased the fear of labor revolts. "Colonization was thought by many to be the only means of obtaining permanent relief from the pressing political and economic dangers of pauperism."2 But even this pauperism was not permitted to be an unprofitable by-product of land thefts. The American colonies were regarded as a convenient dumping ground for these unfortunates, so that between the years 1661 and 1668 various proposals were made to the king and council to constitute an office for transporting to the plantations all vagrants, rogues and idle persons that could give no account of themselves, felons who had the benefit of clergy, and such as were convicted of petty larceny?such persons to be transported to the nearest seaport and to serve four years if over twenty years of age, and seven years if under twenty. It was poor wretches like these in England, Germany and other countries who were seized upon to provide white slave labor for the colonies. This cheap, servile labor was essential to the societyplanted by the corporations in the New World. Transported laborers could not be held to their tasks of producing ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.