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Just and Reasonable Treatment: Racial Treatment in the Terms of Pauper Apprenticeship in Antebellum Maryland

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Howard Bodenhorn
Abstract

This paper investigates the economics of pauper apprenticeship in antebellum Maryland and several results emerge. Contrary to some earlier interpretations, the system did not arbitrarily indent poor children. Court officials negotiated contracts that reflected an apprentice's productivity; officials did not offer one-size-fits-all contracts to minimize the costs of indenting indigent children. Black and white children received comparable compensation during the term of the indenture, but blacks were promised and received substantially less education than whites. It was in the provision of education that Maryland's system discriminated against blacks and undermined their ability to achieve long-run economic independence.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9752.

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Date of creation: Jun 2003
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9752

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
N31 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Grubb, Farley, 1992. "Educational Choice in the Era Before Free Public Schooling: Evidence from German Immigrant Children in Pennsylvania, 1771?1817," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(02), pages 363-375, June. [Downloadable!]
  2. Hamilton, Gillian, 1996. "The Market for Montreal Apprentices: Contract Length and Information," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 496-523, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Grubb, Farley, 1992. "Fatherless and Friendless: Factors Influencing the Flow of English Emigrant Servants," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(01), pages 85-108, March. [Downloadable!]
  4. Spence, A Michael, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 355-74, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Grubb, Farley, 2000. "The Statutory Regulation of Colonial Servitude: An Incomplete-Contract Approach," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 42-75, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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