When Elizabeth McCoy was charged with “obstinately refusing to obey the lawfull commands of her Mistress Mary Robinson,” she was imprisoned for only three days but denied bread.81 The harsher punishment of African Americans has several explanations. Whites consistently felt more entitled to black labor than they did to that of native born whites or even immigrants who might share their own European ancestry. For whites, slavery still reflected a financial investment, making the rebellion of a slave both a social and a financial threat, whereas servants could more easily be replaced. African Americans may have been more likely to attempt freedom than others—and were probably more often mistreated in the first place.
Women of both European and African ancestry were imprisoned together. Sarah Evans and Elizabeth Folmer both arrived on September 17, 1795. Evans received a very strict punishment upon escaping her apprenticeship to Joshua Peeling. She was kept in prison for four months before being discharged to the almshouse.82 One can only imagine her ordeal—and the stories she and other women would share during those four months. Elizabeth Folmer had it comparatively easy. Though she left her master Thomas Palmer, she was released from prison after two weeks. Even more importantly, she experienced “six or seven weeks” of freedom before being caught in the first place.83 When Evans and Folmer arrived, an enslaved woman named Jane was already there, serving thirty days on charges of “being a very refractory disobedient girl and of absenting herself from her mistress service.”84 When Margaret Mullen entered the prison on September 18th, she would have met a number of other runaways and possibly shared a room with Sarah, Elizabeth, or Jane. Mullen was bound to John Cardner and punished for five days for her attempt at escape.85 Despite the harsh conditions of the prison, the companionship of other young women who shared their plight may have been a welcome relief from the strict orders, overbearing meddling, or abuse of a master or mistress.
Men of wealth and political power were especially frustrated by the resistance and rebellion of their domestic help during this contentious period and were twice as likely as women to file charges for the punishment and capture of runaways.86 In 1791, Nance, was charged with thirty days of hard labor for “being disorderly and disobedient to her master William Pollard Esq.”87 Eliza Johnson was described as a “mullato” and charged with “very bad behavior to her master Hugh McCollough.”88 Matilda Pringle was a bound servant who ran away from Doctor James Tate.89 Eleanor Moor was charged with “disorderly behaviour by her master Hugh Moon,” while Rebecca “negress” was charged for “misbehavior to her master.”90 A gutsy young woman described as “Marinet blk girl” was charged “on the solemn affirmation of John McLeed with being his indentured sevt. And greatly misbehaving herself towards her said master and his family.”91 In 1791, Catharine Frame was said to be “misbehaving herself toward her master and mistress Hugh Saveing and wife and being with child and refusing to tell the father of it,” and sent to prison “to be kept at labour thirty days” as punishment.92 The fact that men with social capital and political authority struggled to maintain order in their own homes is dramatically revealing. If women in their service refused their authority, how could they expect deference of their wives or command the respect of colleagues? Such challenges to their authority could have a ripple effect that would be uncomfortable at best, disastrous at worst. Rather than respect the increasing attempts of servants and those enslaved to grasp freedom and autonomy, elites chose to denigrate the character of the lower sorts and embrace the expansion of penal authority.
This list of powerful, learned men who imprisoned their female domestic help for challenging their authority goes on. Emanuel Eyre was appointed to the Philadelphia County Assembly with four others in an announcement that also named sheriffs, coroners, and the commissioner John Baker. On July 1, 1790, an enslaved woman named Phillis was “charged with deserting her masters service Emanuel Eyres to be kept at hard labour for one month.” She was held for 26 days.93 When Francis Hopkinson died, Williams Lewis was appointed judge of the District Court for the District of Pennsylvania by the president of the United States in July 1791. Not long before, Lewis had ordered an enslaved woman Mila first to prison for disobedience and then to a Mr. Todd, likely as a sale.94 Edward was the mathematical and writing master at the English School of the Philadelphia Academy. He and his wife charged Justina, their “negress” servant, with “behaving herself exceedingly indolent and disobedient.” She was released September 11, 1795, by Hilary Baker.95 Alice Cassady was punished for running away from Captain John Foster in July of 1795 and then by John Kean, a successful merchant, in September of that same year.96 Peter Blight was named a director of the Insurance Company of North America in January 1795. Months later, he ordered his servant Catharine Louise Figg to prison for stealing from him and running away. She was discharged after two months.97 Men sought the help of the state in managing the laboring women in their lives.
Conflict between female laborers and the women who controlled their labor were also common.98 Mistresses were rarely sympathetic allies of their bound laborers but instead turned to the state for assistance with disciplining and punishing those who refused their orders. Widows especially struggled. Mary Meredith was widowed when her husband Daniel, a brass founder, died in 1777.99 In 1790, Mary struggled to maintain her authority over the eslaved Dinah. Dinah was charged with “being idle disorderly and disobedient towards her mistress Mary Meredith to be kept at labour thirty days.”100 Dinah was released after just two weeks, signaling that Mary needed Dinah back helping in the house. The widow Souder charged her servant Sarah Morton with assault and threatening.101 Souder was probably married to Casper Souder, who had owned a tavern in Northern Liberties. He must have died sometime between 1784 and 1795.102 In 1790, Nancy was charged with “disobeying the lawful commands of her mistress to be kept at hard labour,” though she stayed in prison for only four days.103 Servant and enslaved women could terrorize their mistresses just as some mistresses surely terrorized their workers. In 1795, Calypso was held for “being a very ill tempered and of behaving very indolent toward her mistress madam [?] and others.”104 The conflict between enslaved and bound workers and privileged women who owned their labor was not mollified by any sense of shared suffering or the marginalization of their sex. Mistresses reported more difficulty with insubordination than masters did. While men would mostly be away from home conducting business, meeting with friends, or visiting coffeehouses, women worked closely with servants and slaves in accomplishing domestic tasks, day in and day out. Mistresses constantly ordered, monitored, and disciplined their servants and slaves, making the possibility for direct conflict even greater. The ideological basis for elites to treat domestic help with mistrust, contempt, and violence was already established by the institution of slavery. For example, in Berks County, just outside Philadelphia, a white woman named Elizabeth Bishop murdered her black female servant without consequence in 1772, even though the evidence established her guilt.105
The slave labor economy defined social roles and expectations in ways that justified systemic violence against African Americans. As Thavolia Glymph has shown, enslaved women in a later period in the U.S. South were expected to undertake an extensive, often impossible list of tasks and “to do these things in silence and reverence, barefooted and ill-clothed.”106 When enslaved women questioned, challenged, or failed to meet these impossible expectations, they could be beaten, abused, or sold away from loved ones.107 The anecdotes cited from the vagrancy dockets capture what Glymph describes as “a kind of warring intimacy” between mistresses and those enslaved.108 Even the most minor challenge or imperfection could be viewed by a mistress as justification for extreme violence. Just as slaveholding mistresses were not held accountable for their role in household violence, the same can be said of Philadelphia’s elite men and women. Spared the association with violent overseers who might enforce discipline in the plantation South, elite whites in the city turned to the state to enact violence and impose order for them.
Prison Labor
The early years of manufacturing coincided with the quest for new ways to discipline rebellious workers. While some states still relied on corporal punishment, capital
