Children at the Birth of Empire

British Law, Liberty, and the Global Migration of Destitute Children, c. 1607–1760

Kristen McCabe Lashua

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781000873061
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This is the first study to focus specifically on destitute children who became part of the early British Empire, uniting separate historiographies on poverty, childhood, global expansion, forced migration, bound labor, and law.

Britons used their nascent empire to employ thousands of destitute children, launching an experiment in using plantations and ships as a solution for strains on London's inadequate poor relief schemes. Starting with the settlement of Jamestown (1607) and ending with Britain's participation in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), British children were sent all around the world. Authorities, parents, and the public fought against the men and women they called "spirits" and "kidnappers, " who were reviled because they employed children in the same empire but without respecting the complexities surrounding children's legal status when it came to questions of authority, consent, and self-determination. Children mattered to Britons: protecting their liberty became emblematic of protecting the liberty of Britons as a whole. Therefore, contests over the legal means of sending children abroad helped define what it meant to be British.

This work is written for a wide audience, including scholars of early modern history, childhood, law, poverty, and empire.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Spellings and Quotations
• Introduction: Children at the Birth of Empire
• Part I Understanding Early Modern Childhood
• Part II Destitute Children Abroad
• Part III The Legalities of Child Migration
• Bibliography
• Index