The northern colonies were, on the other hand, settled by townfolk, by
that sturdy middle class which had wedged its way socially between the
aristocracy and the peasantry, which asserted itself politically in
the Cromwellian Commonwealth and later became the industrial master of
trade and manufacture. These hard-headed dissenters founded New
England. They built towns and almost immediately developed a
profitable trade and manufacture. With a goodly sprinkling of
university men among them, they soon had a college of their own.
Indeed, Harvard graduated its first class as early as 1642.

Supplementing these pioneers, came mechanics and artisans eager to
better their condition. Of the serving class, only a few came
willingly. These were the "free-willers" or "redemptioners," who sold
their services usually for a term of five years to pay for their
passage money. But the great mass of unskilled labor necessary to
clear the forests and do the other hard work so plentiful in a pioneer
land came to America under duress. Kidnaping or "spiriting" achieved
the perfection of a fine art under the second Charles. Boys and girls
of the poorer classes, those wretched waifs who thronged the streets
of London and other towns, were hustled on board ships and virtually
sold into slavery for a term of years. It is said that in 1670 alone
ten thousand persons were thus kidnaped; and one kidnaper testified in
1671 that he had sent five hundred persons a year to the colonies for
twelve years and another that he had sent 840 in one year.

Transportation of the idle poor was another common source for
providing servants. In 1663 an act was passed by Parliament empowering
Justices of the Peace to send rogues, vagrants, and "sturdy beggars"
to the colonies. These men belonged to the class of the unfortunate