Jillain Galle
Jillain Galle is the author of “Servants and Masters in the Plymouth Colony,” the article this site draws on for how servants and masters lived and worked in the colony.
Of the 104 passengers on the Mayflower voyage, about 20 were servants of some kind. Twelve of these died within a year. An excellent article, “Servants and Masters in the Plymouth Colony”, by Jillain Galle, describes the types of servants that worked in the Colony. We do not know what type of servant was Edward, in part because we do not know at what ages he entered and left Hopkin’s service. One record suggests that Edward was independent by 1627.
As Galle explains, however, we do know that indentured servants were not slaves! Although they were bound to their masters during their contracts, thereafter they were expected, eventually, to become freemen in the community. This, indeed, was Edward’s story.