Children at the Birth of Empire: British Law, Liberty, and the Global Migration of Destitute Children, c. 16071760 [Paperback]

Introduction: Children at the Birth of Empire  Part 1: Understanding Early Modern Childhood  1. To Stock the Next Generation with Noble Plants : Cultural Concepts of Childhood  2. The Law is their Guardian : English Legal Concepts of Childhood  Part 2: Destitute Children Abroad  3. Destitute Children and Nursing Fathers : Caring for Londons Youngest Vagrants  4. A Global Answer to the Poore Orphans Cry: Children and the Growth of Empire  Part 3: The Legalities of Child Migration  5. Spirited, Convicted, or Compelled: The Forced Migration of Children, 16071700  6. Charity, Consent, and Kidnapping : Stolen Children and the Rise of Childrens Self-Determination, 16801760.  Conclusion: Britains Children, Britains Liberty

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.

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 Londons inadequate poor relief schemes. Starting with the settlement of Jamestown (1607) and ending with Britains participation in the Seven Years War (17561763), 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 tlC7