Souls for Sale

Book excerpt: In 1773, John Frederick Whitehead and Johann Carl B]ttner, two young German men, arrived in America on the same ship. Each man sold himself into servitude to a different master, and, years later, each wrote a memoir of his experiences, leaving invaluable historical records of their attitudes, perceptions, and goals. Despite their common voyage to America and similar working conditions as servants, their backgrounds and personalities differed. Their divergent interpretations of their experiences are the substance of rich and varied firsthand accounts of the transatlantic migration process, the servant labor experience of Germans in colonial America, and post-servitude life. Souls for Sale presents these parallel memoirs -- Whitehead's published here for the first time -- to illustrate the condition of German redemptioners as well as their religious, familial, and literary contexts during a crucial period of migration in Europe and America. The editors provide helpful introductions to the works as well as notes to guide the reader.