Homelessness in Colonial America

"Sturdy Beggars"

(Article published in Street Speech by the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless) 

The problem of homelessness in America is not new.  As a matter of fact it is as old as the settling of the country by the colonists.  Just like today, people became homeless for a variety of reasons and stayed homeless for varying lengths of time during America’s first two centuries.  The first arrivals in the New World came from a broad cross section of English society and included many of England’s wandering homeless, vagrants, criminals, the mentally ill and misfits of all sorts.  Intent on increasing the population of the new colonies, English officials routinely offered criminals the choice of boarding ships headed for America as an alternative to going to prison.  Thus the potential was there from the beginning for the problem of homelessness to be introduced into the colonies by some of the new arrivals.  Many knew no other way of life and were ill equipped for survival on their own.  But not all new arrivals were reprobates.  Some who came were mountain men, hunters, trappers, and fur traders.  The movie Jeremiah Johnson accurately depicts this type of rugged individualist.  Others were seeking freedom, especially religious freedom or land and a chance at a better life.

 

The colonists needed hard workers to tame the wilderness.  Trees had to be felled, houses built, and land cleared for farming.  A strong community spirit quickly developed where everyone pulled together for the common good.  Those who were not willing to pitch in and do their part were called “sturdy beggars,” an English term for those who were fit and able to work, but begged or wandered for a living instead.  Since taking care of them put a serious strain on the meager resources of new communities, they were mostly left to fend for themselves and often starved or froze to death. 

As the colonies became self-governing communities, they enacted laws to keep order, levied taxes to generate revenue, and elected officials to manage town affairs.  Early welfare practices were modeled on the English Poor Laws enacted by the British. This included cash assistance known as “outdoor relief.”  Those eligible were usually long- time members of the community who had experienced a personal calamity like an injury, a long-term illness or the death of the family breadwinner.  The elderly, widows and orphans were also looked after.  Because local communities had to pay a special poor tax in order to provide this relief, assistance was neither generous nor frequent.  

Just as colonists believed they had a duty to care for their neighbors in need, they also believed they had the right to refuse aid to “outsiders.”  This led to the common practice of “warning out.”  It consisted of a notice ordered by the Board of Selectmen of a town, and served by the constable upon any newcomer who was likely to become dependent on town resources.  Communities thereby pressured or coerced undesirables to settle elsewhere or wander from colony to colony in search of aid.  The first “warning out” was recorded on June 6, 1654 in Plymouth Colony.  

As more and more settlements were established, skirmishes erupted.  As early as 1675 there was an Indian uprising known as King Philips War.  The effects of warfare quickly became the biggest cause of homelessness in colonial America.  It was a major consequence of the French and Indian Wars of 1756-63 and later, the American Revolution.  The classic, The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, is a story about the conflict between the French and the English that takes place in colonial America.  It paints a visceral picture of this period in history.  It was not a safe time for homesteaders living in isolation in the wilderness.  When war forced them to flee their homes they usually lost everything.

Another contributing factor to homelessness at this time was the economy.  What early colonial prosperity there was resulted from trapping and trading in furs. In addition, fishing was a primary source of wealth in Massachusetts and from 1612 tobacco was grown in Virginia. But throughout the colonies, people lived primarily on small farms and were self-sufficient.  If crops failed or market prices on commodities fell, hard times followed.  The colonial economy suffered one such downturn in the 1720’s and 30’s which led to a rise in the homeless population. 

Immigration of poor people to the colonies also led to a rise in homelessness.  Immigrants often arrived penniless, having spent their savings on the trip to America.  Many also arrived sick and could not find work.  Some cities, like Philadelphia, responded by passing a law allowing local authorities to expel arriving indigent immigrants.  In 1719 the arrival of hundreds of improvised Scotch-Irish refugees led authorities In Boston to order one ship of immigrants to leave the community at once. 

While the “wandering poor” could be found throughout the colonies, it was in the cities where they were most conspicuous.  Some cities established workhouses where inmates could be whipped if they refused to work or they were put in jail and subjected to hard labor.  In the colony of New York it was customary to inflict various types of corporeal punishment on convicted vagrants, including stockades, pillory, ear-cropping, and branding.  The Puritan work ethic supported this punitive approach to vagrancy, a view which was strangely at odds with the Puritan belief that charitable giving was a religious duty with no distinction made between the deserving and undeserving poor. 

Boston passed an act requiring their homeless to be ‘bound out’ to families needing laborers or servants.  This was a form of indentured servitude dating back to the early years of the American colonies. Workers or servants were not paid wages, but received food and shelter and clothing instead. All of these approaches were based on the belief at the time that the “idle poor” were unlikely to work unless forced to do so.  Public policies like these kept the growth of homelessness, for the most part, within manageable proportions. 

Prior to 1700 homelessness was considered a minor problem in the colonies.  Compared with many parts of Europe where the number of beggars in rural areas reached massive proportions, itinerant beggars here were not yet a serious problem.  The growth of homelessness in urban areas was much more significant, but even in our most populous cities like Boston, Philadelphia and New York, they did not compare to London or Paris.  Homelessness in young America would not become a significant problem until well into the next century.