Very interesting Char. Thank you for sharing this information. . Robin Borba Besotes .
Researching: Bettencourt, Borba, Barbe, Da Rosa, Jacinto, Rodrigues, Mattos California Towns: Newman, Turlock, Crowslanding, San Jose, San Juan, Tres Penos, Hollister, Watsonville, Pacific Grove ----- Original Message ----- From: "Family History" <researchp...@gmail.com> To: "Azores Genealogy" <Azores@googlegroups.com> Sent: 2009-04-17 20:25 Subject: [AZORES-Genealogy] Re: "arrives in MA as a 12-yr-old to be an indentured-servant for a family in Boston" Delores, I sent some info to the list that I read in the book Azores: Nine Islands. It stated that children (during certain years of the Azores history) who could not be cared for by their mothers were given over to nannies (paid by the government) who cared for them until age 7 years then they were sold to be indentured servants until age 18 or 21 years. It did not sound as though there were lots of children in this circumstance as the book said a very high percentage of the children died before age 7 years. The mothers must have been sick with grief to have to give them up, then to have them die, because there was not enough food on the islands. I was told by a German researcher that there were periods of famine where villages in Germany knew that they could only support so many people with the food that they had. And there was no food to buy. So the villages would gather what money they could and buy passage for as many people as possible to send them elsewhere, often to the United States, so that they would have a chance at living rather than so many starving to death. Char --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To unsubscribe from this group, send email to azores-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Follow the confirmation directions when they arrive. For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership." -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
