While sweets have happy memories of childhood for many people, linking as they do to treats and celebrations, they also have a far sorrier side in history. First and foremost, of course, is the link between sugar and slavery, articulated so well in Sidney Mintz’s seminal book on the topic: Sweetness and Power. However, it also seems that sweet food (or the promise of it) was used by ‘spirits’ to lure English and Welsh children away from family and friends. These ‘spirits’ were people who ‘spirited’ children and adults away to the Americas, at best through deception and misrepresentation. At worst, it was against their will. On arrival, their victims became servants labouring on plantations. Such was the problem, the word ‘kidnapped’ was coined and comes from conjoining ‘kid’ (child) and ‘nap’ (to sieze) (Fass, 1997).
Examples of 'spirits' and what they did in the Middlesex County Records
The Middlesex County Records of the 17th Century provide many examples of ‘spirits’ being prosecuted. On the 21st April 1655 it is recorded that Anne Shaddocke had to appear at court as she was suspected to be: ‘one that taketh up children to transport them to St Christopher’s Island [often called St Kitts today].’ In another example, Sarah Sharp appeared (4th May 1657), accused of being a ‘common taker up of children, and a setter to betray young men and maydens to be conveyed into shipps … she hath at this time fower persons aboard a ship whereof one is a child about eleven years of age, all to be transported to forrain parts as the barbadoes and Virginia.’ The records for 11th August 1662 also show how a young apprentice - Edmond Gregory - had been enticed away by a Robert Phage: ‘without the consent of his parents, freinds or master … to be transported beyond the seas to Virginia.’ Women were as much implicated in the practice of ‘spiriting’ as men and it was clearly lucrative.
The promise of sweets
But how were people enticed to go? With adults this might have been through use of intoxicating liquor or perhaps via the (dubious) promise of more prosperous times to come. But it seems for children, ‘spirits’ commonly used the promise of sweet food to entrap them into coming with them. They might even have been given presents of sweets (Emerson Smith, 1947). For an impoverished child – perhaps living on the streets of a big city like London or Bristol – this might have been enough to trick them into being ‘spirited away.’ Sadly we are yet to find first hand accounts from children which detail exactly what happened to them and what sweets/sweet foods were used.
Holding the children then transporting them
Until a ship was available to transport the children to the Americas, they - and adult victims too - would have been held in depots in the seedier parts of a city near to the docks. William Bullock, in Virginia Impartially Examined, published in 1649, talks of holding children and adults in depots such as St Katherines near to the Tower of London (north side of the river and right side of this image). Those wanting to procure a servant to work on a plantation would have known where to find such places and would have paid the 'spirit' for the servant(s) along with the cost of the food they had eaten while incarcerated. It might have been a month or so until a ship bound to America could take them. Lookouts might also have been employed for a small fee to keep watch for anxious families hoping to find their missing loved one.
Turning a 'blind eye'
The line between licit and illicit recruitment of labour for plantations was very fine indeed - even for child labour, which was not considered as abhorrent as we think of it today in the West. There were legitimate recruiting agencies, but captains of ships bound for the Americas often relied on 'spirits' to do the 'recruiting' for them (Wareing, 2017). The mid 17th Century was a time when handbills littered the streets, posters were pasted onto walls and taverns, and fairs and public rallies were all trying to encourage people to emigrate to the Americas. Even with this 'hard sell' the plantations seemed to require ever more cheap labour. There was an acute shortage of labour at this time (before the mass enslavement and transportation of African peoples - including children) and where these workers came from was often conveniently ignored. By the 1650s, 7000 people a year were emigrating to the Americas from England and Wales, nearly half as indentured servants (Evans, 2017).
Even though an ordinance of parliament (in 1645) ordered Marshals of the Admirality and Cinque Ports to search vessels for children and for Customs Houses to list passengers on board ships, this did little to stop the 'spiriting' away of children. If your child had been kidnapped you would have had to petition the authorities in the hope of getting them back. By 1660 a Registry office was established where servants were expected to declare they were willing to go - and in the case of children, parents could say they were willing for their child to be transported (Emerson Smith, 1947). However, it did not stop the practice entirely. It seems, then, that for some unfortunate children, the sugary delights promised them had a bittersweet ending in indentured labour far away in the Americas.
References
Bullock, William (1649) Virginia Impartially Examined, London: Printed by John Hammond and are to be sold at his house over-against S. Andrews Church in Holborne.
Emerson Smith, Abbott (1947) Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict labor in America 1607-1776, University of North Carolina Press.
Evans, James (2017) Emigrants: Why the English Sailed to the New World, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Fass, Paula, S. (1997) Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jeaffreson, John Cordy (ed) (1886) Middlesex Country Records Volume 3 1625-1667, London: the Middlesex Country Records Society.
Mintz, Sidney (1985), Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, London: Penguin.
Wareing, John (2017) Indentured Migration and the Servant Trade from London to America, 1618-1718: 'there Is Great Want of Servants', Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Image credits
Top image is' A topographicall description and admeasurement of the yland of Barbados in the West Indyaes with the mrs. names of the seuerall plantacons' 1700, courtesy of Jessica Lee on Wikimedia Commons
Bottom image is 17th century map of London, originally started by W.Hollar, student of German engraver Mattheus Merian, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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References to Middlesex County Records are so interesting. I wonder how many children were entrapped like this.
This really catches the imagination and is so well informed.
Enticing children away with sweets is very relevant today as it was in the past. We all warn our children not to accept sweets from strangers.
Interesting that you say children were enticed with sweets from Britain to work on plantations before people were stolen from Africa to use as slaves. I did not know this.
Thanks for the posts. To be clear (in response to Sarah) enslaved Africans had been transported to the Americas for many years. It was a bit later (and certainly in the 18th century) that this was done on an industrial scale as I noted in my post. You cannot begin to compare these numbers with children taken from England and Wales.
But it is interesting to connect the story about 'spiriting' children away with warning children about people offering sweets today. Tales like Hansel and Gretel seem to carry warnings like this too.