Customs and Fashions in Old New EnglandEarle, Alice Morse
History
Customs and Fashions in Old New England
Earle, Alice Morse
New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
When we reach newspaper days we find Indian servants frequently among
the runaways; as Mather said, they could not endure the yoke; and,
indeed, it would seem natural enough that any such wild child of the
forests should flee away from the cramped atmosphere of a Puritan
household and house. We read pathetic accounts of the desertion of aged
colonists by their Indian servants. One writes that he took his "Pecod
girle" as a "chilld of death" when but two years old, had reared her
kindly, nursed her in sickness, and now she had run away from him when
he sorely needed her, and he wished to buy a blackamoor in her place.
Sometimes the description of the costumes in which these savages took
their flitting, is extremely picturesque. This is from the _Boston News
Letter_ of October, 1707:
"Run away from her master Baker. A tall Lusty Carolina Indian woman
named Keziah Wampum, having long straight Black Hair tyed up with a
red Hair Lace, very much marked in the hands and face. Had on a
strip'd red blue & white Homespun Jacket & a Red one. A Black &
White Silk Crape Petticoat, A White Shift, as Also a blue one with
her, and a mixt Blue and White Linsey Woolsey Apron."
A reward of four pounds was offered for this barbaric creature.
Another Indian runaway in 1728 was thus bedizened, showing a startling
progress in adornment from the apron of skins and blanket of her
wildwood home.
"She wore off a Narrow Stript pinck Cherredary Goun turn'd up with
a little flour'd red & white Callico. A Stript Homespun Quilted
Petticoat, a plain muslin Apron, a suit of plain Pinners & a red &
white flower'd knot, also a pair of green Stone Earrings with White
Cotton Stockings & Leather heel'd Wooden Shoes."
Indian men often left their masters dishonestly dressed in their
masters' fine apparel, and even wearing beribboned flaxen wigs, which
must have been comic to a degree over their harsh, saturnine
countenances--"as brown as any bun."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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