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Individual Record
Name
Surname:
Rolfe
Given Name:
Barbara
Soundex Code:
R410
Birth, Christening and Other Information
Gender:
Female
Date of Birth or Christening:
about 1615
Orphan:
Unknown
Position in Parent's Family:
Unknown
Landowner:
Unknown
Literate:
Unknown
Convict:
Unknown
Port of Departure
Town:
London
County:
Middlesex
Nation:
England
Length of Indenture
Year of Indenture:
1635
Place of Indenture
Colony:
Massachusetts
Death Information
Colony:
Maine
Testate:
Unknown
Research Notes
Comments:
"... a woman who journed to New England in 1635, Barbara Rolfe, was so unpleasant that no one on board ship was willing to take her in as a servant on her arrival in Massachusetts. Indeed, she was driven out of the colony itself. ... One family believed that New England offered a solution to the strains of a difficult daughter, Barbara Rolfe, who traveled at age 20 on the Hopewell's second trip to New England in the fall of 1635, was forced out of England by her parents. Rolfe's experiences remind us that although men were the majority of servants, women traveled as servants as well. ... According to Thomas Babb, the master of the Hopewell, Barbara's father, George Rolfe, approached Babb about his daughter, 'whoo the said complt by noe fare meanes that hee could use could possiblie pswade to live in a civill and orderely course of lyfe, but contrary to his fatherly admonitions and persuasions did runne on in a coarse of disobedience both to the extreame griefe and discreditt of him the said complt; and hee the said complt said hee much feared if shee should continue heere in this kingdome that shee the said Barbara would come to some further mischeife.' Mr. Rolfe persuaded Captain Babb to take Barbara to New England with him and to hire her out once he got there, for which service Rolfe agreed to provide Barbara with all necessities for the voyage and to pay Babb the same sum for her passage that other travelers paid. George Rolfe's wife, furthermore, agreed that the Rolfes would compensate Babb for all other expenses he incurred in transporting Barbara. George Rolfe gave Babb 20s. in partial payment for the passage, with £4 more due to Babb within a month. Babb promised Barbara he would find her 'some good place' upon her arrival in New England. Apparently the attributes that had spurred Mr. Rolfe to exile his daughter to the colonies, however, distinguished Barbara also on board ship: Babb reported that 'her carriage in her passage to Newe England, and att her first arivall there was soe eivell' that Babb was forced to provide for her himself for two months, because no one else would have her. Finally, Babb left Barbara with a Mr. Trelawney (a merchant of Plymouth, England, who was active in settling Maine), whom the people of Massachusetts, 'seeing the loose behavior of the said Barbara inforced ... to carry the said Barbara out of their pattent.' Trelawney took Barbara 30 leagues away and found her a position. Babb later heard that Barbara married, but with her journey to Maine, Barbara Rolfe disappeared from sight." (1)
Source Citations:
(1) Alison Games, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999), 70, 80-81; (2) John Camden Hotten, The Original Lists of Persons of Quality; Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700 (1874; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1983), 131.