A person who possesses and enjoys all the civil and political rights belonging to the people under a free government.
A member of a municipal corporation (a city or a borough) who possesses full civic rights, esp.
This was known as indentured servitude, and was not originally intended as a stigma or embarrassment for the person involved; many of the sons and daughters of the wealthy and famous of the time found themselves forced into such temporary servitude, Gary Nash reporting that "many of the servants were actually nephews, nieces, cousins and children of friends of emigrating Englishmen, who paid their passage in return for their labor once in America.
"[3] An indentured servant would sign a contract agreeing to serve for a specific number of years, typically five or seven.
At the end of his service, according to the contract, the indentured servant usually would be granted a sum of money, a new suit of clothes, land, or perhaps passage back to England.
Such persons were never forced to work for another individual, per se, but their movements were carefully observed, and if they veered from the Puritan ideal, they were asked to leave the colony.
But if he was deemed legally incompetent, didn't pass his probationary period, or again lost his freedom through some irresponsibility of his own, he would have his land and property confiscated and redistributed among the remaining freemen, even if the inheritor was a well-respected citizen.
[4] Initially, all persons seeking to be free needed to take the Oath of a Freeman, in which they vowed to defend the Commonwealth and not to conspire to overthrow the government.
The first handwritten version of the "Freeman's Oath" was made in 1634; it was printed by Stephen Daye in 1639 in the form of a broadside or single sheet of paper intended for posting in public places.