... of wives, widows, indentured servants, and prisoners migrated to the island. These settlers seized on the economic opportunities on offer in Port Royal. Female inhabitants helped to turn Port Royal into the epicenter of licit and illicit trade in the Caribbean. Foreshadowing what was to come, this initial...

... and wage labor.” It was pervasive in the middle colonies of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but slave labor there was incorporated into a diverse economy; slaves worked in artisan shops, in the maritime industries, and on farms, alongside white and black indentured servants and wage workers...

...This runaway slave advertisement introduces six people to the reader, but the story it tells is clearly Molson’s; he is its protagonist. Although their legal status was different, indentured servants and enslaved individuals often made common cause, escaping together. Richard Molson’s biracial...