Most of the families we have discussed in this history, excepting the Dutch and Walloons who came to New Netherland so early, traveled across the Atlantic Ocean sometime during the first three-quarters of the 18th century. (My mother's grandparents came later, during the 1880s and aboard very different ships, but some of what follows applies to them as well.) Almost all of those whose itineraries we can identify evidently came down the Rhine River and through the Dutch port at its mouth, Rotterdam, and then via England to America. Other emigrants came directly from the British Isles, including Ireland. Probably a majority of these people paid their own way across the Atlantic Ocean, but a few individuals no doubt came to America as indentured servants.
Whatever the circumstances, or the motivations – an inability to secure adequate land, a desire for religious freedom, or simply a restless nature, they all ultimately made the fateful decision to resettle permanently in America. The time came to pack up a few of one's dearest possessions and to say goodbye (given the state of long-distance travel and communication, especially for persons in lower socioeconomic groups, almost certainly forever) to family and friends staying behind. This was an undramatic form of heroism, to be sure, but the courage of the decision to leave all that was familiar behind and look for a place to begin anew should not be underestimated. Everything, quite literally, was riding on the rightness of this move.
An ocean crossing at that time was no pleasure cruise. A week's food would typically include two or so pounds of oatmeal, four or five pounds of bread or biscuit, a pound of molasses, another pound of peas, and probably less than a pound of meat or cheese. There were rarely any fruits or fresh vegetables at all and certainly none after the first week or so of the voyage. Meals were scanty and monotonous, therefore. Often the food spoiled, leaving not much more than bread and water for sustenance. Even the bread and water could be problematical: the bread might go moldy and become filled with weevils; water, never plentiful enough for anything more than basic survival, sometimes became brackish or barely drinkable. This simple diet was repeated for six, seven, eight, or nine weeks, the duration of a normal passage.
Living conditions aboard ship were spartan at best. It was usual for up to one hundred passengers, possibly even more, to be crowded into a small, dank space between decks. If this space was five feet in height it was unusually roomy. There was no fresh air, no heat, no lighting, and no privacy. Accommodations were rude at best – perhaps a wooden shelf or the deck itself upon which to sleep, and nothing but a small common area in which to pass the long days and weeks of the voyage. Sanitary conditions could become appalling, especially as seasickness and illness afflicted so many, and disease spread very quickly. Exercise in the fresh air on deck was rare, and only the prospect of a new life in America and family cohesiveness could relieve the boredom.
Stormy conditions (surely frightening to those who had never been aboard a ship or seen an ocean before), homesickness, uncertainty about where the ship was or might end up, and the dangers of foundering and pirates added to the anxiety that most of the passengers must have felt for weeks on end. In short, the ocean crossing was not a trip that anyone who came to America this way truly enjoyed, and for many the conditions left trauma they never forgot. It is a wonder that more people did not die en route, but since in general emigrants (and indentured servants) were young people in their teens and twenties they were in reasonably good health – at least for that era of history. When death did strike, the victims were usually the most vulnerable among them: the youngest and the oldest passengers, who were after they succumbed were committed to a watery grave.
This saga of uprooting one's family and traveling to a new life was often repeated in America. For many families, after all, the decision to set out for America was really only the first of several moves. Most immigrants moved from port city to hinterlands rather quickly, perhaps into an area only recently settled – or even directly to the frontier. But even those families who at first resided not far from the seaboard saw members of subsequent generations set out on a series of one-way journeys south or west into unfamiliar territory. The motivations again could be economic, religious, political, or personal. As we have seen throughout this history, some families were nearly constantly on the move after their first members arrived in America. Again the time came to pack up, say goodbye, and shove off on a voyage into the unknown.
Painful as the moment of decision might be, families were rarely alone. It was not uncommon, as we have seen, for interrelated families to travel together. Making their way down old Indian paths or animal traces that were in the process of becoming roads (many of these routes are still in use today), a group of two, three, or more family groups would set sail, as it were, for a new place. If they were lucky they had wagons or carts for their household goods and equipment, maybe with some space set aside for those unable to walk. Or perhaps they had mostly packhorses and sledges that they dragged, mile after mile. Dodging stumps and rocks, struggling through swamps and the mud that followed the rain, paying dearly to be ferried across streams too deep to ford, the travelers drove their horses or oxen, herded their cattle and other animals – and tried to keep track of all their children. Sometimes they built rafts or barges on which they loaded their possessions, poling these craft up (less often down) the rivers or having animals drag them along. Either way, none of this was easy work.
Day after exhausting day, the drudgery went on. Sometimes, the travelers passed small settlements or a homestead. At other times, they were breaking new ground. Wherever they were, though, places to eat and to stay were rare, rude, and far from reliable, so the travelers had to sleep in the open and depend for food upon their own limited supplies or success at hunting. On and on they went, rising through foothills and passing through (sometimes) low gaps, then holding back the weight of the loads as the ground sloped down on the other side. Would they have enough food? Would the water they found be clean enough to drink? Would the weather turn ugly? Would they encounter Indians or robbers? Would someone be injured, get sick, have to deliver a baby, or die? What would the travelers find when they finally did arrive (assuming they had a specific destination in mind)? And would it all prove to be worth the sacrifices?
Much of this is beyond our comprehension, insofar as details go, but surely we can grasp the sense of gravity and the tension that accompanied any these voyages – by sea or by land – and their many trials. (Surely we can imagine as well the spirit of adventure that must have compensated for some of the danger and tribulations.) So let us give thanks for all these voyagers: those who cut their ties with the familiar in order to carry the seeds of a new beginning onward to a another place – perhaps only to pick up and repeat the process all over again. Somehow our lives seem rather tame by contrast.
And let us always be grateful to those whom God spared: the strong, resilient, and persevering people who stubbornly endured such conditions to plant their – and thus our – families on these shores, and then to push onward in search of a better life further inland.
Previous | Table of contents
rev. 8/26/10
Copyright © 2000-2011, Donn C. Neal. All rights reserved.
donnnealATyahoo.com
