Exit

Van der Linden distinguishes between exit through physical compulsion, constrained choice and death. Physical compulsion could take the form either of being forced to leave or of being forced to stay, and being forced to leave could be through the decision of the employer or other forces.2 Van der Linden, ‘Dissecting Coerced Labor’, pp. 310–13. To start with ‘other forces’, the servant institution was a relationship between servant, master and the Crown. For most of the decisions, the Crown delegated its power over people to masters, so that masters had the right to decide about work organisation and treatment. The master’s right to the servant’s labour for the full year was also emphasised in the Acts, so that even a servant with a legitimate reason to leave had to wait until it was time to give notice. But there were occasions when the master was deprived of his mastery, as with the decision of how many servants each master could employ. Another such instance was military service.

Military service – another kind of unfree labour – stood in a complex relationship to the servant institution, as for men it was both an alternative to service and a punishment for not having taken up the position as servant. In time of peace, the Crown did not have the right to take servants out of their master’s house, but in time of war this right was extended. However, for periods of drill, the Crown forced male servants out of their masters’ households and, if this period exceeded one month, the servant did not have the right to come back to his former servant position. For the master, this meant that he could employ another servant, but for the servant it meant lacking legal protection and thus being at risk for vagrancy accusations.3 Servant Act 1739 art. 1 §1, art. 6 §5; 1805 art. 1 §1, art. 8 §7; 1833 art. 1 §1, art. 8 §50. While this is neither the first nor the last time a state used force to acquire military labour, the relationship between peasant farmers, servants and military need for labour created a particular set of relationships. It has been argued that it was through placing the burden of conscription onto servants and other landless people that the Crown managed to create a comparatively strong group of peasant freeholders with political influence and the ability to pay taxes.4 Mats Hallenberg, ‘Bönder och alla dom andra: om statsbildning och social skiktning under svensk stormaktstid’, Arbetarhistoria 173–4 (2020), 60–9.

The Servant Acts strived to uphold the one-year contract, but did allow masters to give notice in advance if no measures, including chastisement, had brought relations with a servant to satisfaction. This satisfaction rested on the ability and knowledge of the servant to do the tasks required, and the behaviour of the servant. However, giving notice could not be done without reason, as in that case the servant was entitled to compensation. This meant that, even though servants could be forced to leave by their employer, it was a constrained right for masters. To be given notice is of course part of any labour relation, but the reasons for classifying this as physical compulsion are twofold. The first reason is that a servant who had been forced to leave his or her position in advance risked accusations of vagrancy and, by extension, incarceration. The second reason is the lack of reciprocity between master and servant in ending the contract. Not until the Act of 1805 was the servant’s right to exit addressed; before that, only punishment for leaving in advance was specified.5 Servant Act 1664 §5; 1686 §5; 1723 §6; 1739 art. 4 §11, art. 7 §1; 1805 art. 2 §3–5, art. 3 §6; 1833 art. 2 §5–6, art. 3 §10.

While being forced to leave, by employer or by another power, could be part of the servant position, it was being forced to stay that set the servant contract apart and constituted a major unfreedom. If a servant left his or her position in advance, the master could demand help from the local authorities to physically bring back the servant. If the master did not want the servant back, the servant could not just try to find another position; quite the contrary, as any master shielding a servant who had run away could be fined. It was only if the servant had been wrongfully sent away that he or she was free to find another household to work in. The Servant Act 1739 explicitly stated that a servant who had run away and whom the master did not want to take back should be considered a vagrant. The servant also had to pay back any wages received. These fines could be issued even if the servant had only planned to run away.6 Servant Act 1664 §5; 1686 §5; 1723 §6; 1739 art. 6 §4; 1805 art. 8 §8; 1833 art. 8 §52. Another obstacle to running away was that anyone ‘not known’ at a certain place needed to show a passport issued by the authorities explaining his or her reason for travelling.7 Theresa Johnsson, Vårt fredliga samhälle: ‘Lösdriveri’ och försvarslöshet i Sverige under 1830-talet (Uppsala, 2016), pp. 100–3. This was in force from 1812, but servants were also subject to specific regulations concerning their movements before that date. ‘Less approved’ servants could not move between regions, and servants in certain sparsely populated counties could not move unless there was a food crisis or they had found an opportunity to get married or inherit a farm in another county.8 Servant Act 1739 art. 8 §6–7; 1805 art. 3 §1–2.

Robert Steinfeld points out the importance of distinguishing between freely entered contracts and unfreedom once under a contract, and describes it as a major turning point when people no longer handed over the power over their lives for the contracted period to someone else by signing a contract, but rather kept the right to withdraw his or her labour at any point without punishment other than the economic: ‘The great political virtue of economic persuasion was that it left the ultimate decision formally to the laborer.’9 Robert J. Steinfeld, The Invention of Free Labor: The Employment Relation in English and American Law and Culture, 1350–1870 (Chapel Hill, 1991), p. 148. Although changes during the nineteenth century made the servant contract somewhat easier to dissolve for both master and servant, the servant could not withdraw his or her labour at any point of his or her choice. This long-lasting feature of the Servant Acts made even mid-nineteenth-century servants subject to physical compulsion.

The unfreedom of the contract had its end after a full work year, but this rule was not without exceptions. The most important was the detailed regulation regarding children as servants. In the Act of 1723 the paragraph stated that if a master took an orphan into the household, that person should stay as a servant in the household until the master had been compensated for the cost, according to a judge. Even after that, the servant should preferably not take up service at someone else’s household but stay with his or her benefactor. This was further developed in the Act of 1739, in which ‘boys and girls’ should stay for three years and, if they had also been taught certain skills, they should stay until the master thought he had been compensated. It was also added that a servant having been saved from begging or military service could be forced to teach another servant to the same skill level before he or she was allowed to leave, and that any ‘poor man’s child’ taken in as a servant under the age of twelve years should stay until he or she turned eighteen.10 Servant Act 1723 §9; 1739 art. 6 §3. Although one could say that children are always unfree since they are under parental jurisdiction, in the Servant Acts even adult servants who had started working as children could be hindered in ending their contract if their masters thought they had not yet been compensated for the cost of upbringing.

Van der Linden distinguishes between forced to stay and exit with constrained choice, and both were prevalent in the servant position. During the contracted work year, servants were forced to stay by the use of violent treatment from authorities if necessary. However, during the short period in which a change of employer was allowed, the degree of freedom increased significantly. At that time, servants could set employers against each other, accept a position with one master and, if receiving a better offer elsewhere, change his or her mind and take up employment at that place instead. However, once the contract was sealed, a year of subservience began, with very little opportunity to leave.

There were practical hindrances to making use of this short-lived freedom of choice, and the wordings of the Servant Acts also indicate that masters trying to hinder their servants from leaving by putting up practical obstacles was not unheard of. The basic rule was that if none of the parties gave notice the servant contract continued over the next year, making it a de facto permanent position. There was a certain period of time of a few weeks up to two months open for giving notice and negotiating with a new employer, but these two processes were separated in time. This meant that a decision first had to be made to terminate the contract and only when this decision was made were masters and servants allowed to find a new servant or a new situation. The time period changed with the different Servant Acts issued, so that under the 1664 and 1686 Acts servants and masters could give notice two months before the day a new contract started (at Michaelmas, 29 September), and thereafter start finding new employment or a new servant six weeks before at the earliest. In 1723 the period for giving notice started on 10 August, and allowed only two weeks, 14–29 September, for making new agreements. New time periods were also specified in all the later issued Acts.11 Servant Act 1664 §4, 6; 1686 §4, 6; 1723 §4–5; 1739 art. 4 §1–2, art. 5 §1–2; 1805 art. 7 §1; 1833 art. 7 §39. This created a potentially powerful check on leaving the contract, since a person was not only uninformed regarding the treatment of servants at a new place but not even allowed to make agreement with another household prior to the decision to quit the present employment.

Although gathering information about other possibilities was still allowed, there was a fine line not to be passed, because a potential employer could be accused of enticing the servant away from his or her master.12 Servant Act 1664 §5; 1686 §5; 1723 §6; 1739 art. 4 §10; 1805 art. 7 §4; 1833 art. 7 §42. That ‘stealing’ servants was morally wrong was an ideological underpinning of the servant institution, which also points to labour relations that were a relationship not only between the master and the servant but also between masters. Masters were understood as having a common master-interest in reducing the mobility of servants. Steinfeld analyses this moral understanding as a consensus needed to uphold the strict rules of unfree labour, and sees the eroding of this understanding as the necessary ground for new labour contracts to take form.13 Steinfeld, The Invention of Free Labor, p. 169.

The servant needed a document, the so-called orlovssedel, showing that he or she was free from the former employer, before making an agreement with a new one. This document was issued by the former employer after the servant or the master had given notice, but the wordings of the Acts showed a concern that masters could withhold this document or simply leave the household for those weeks in order to prevent the servant from finding a new position. The Acts covered for such events by allowing servants to give notice in the presence of trusted men if the master was absent.14 Servant Act 1664 §6; 1686 §6; 1723 §5, 1739 art. 4 §3–4; 1805 art. 4 §6–7, art. 7 §3; 1833 art. 4 §27–28, art. 7 §41. This meant a balancing of interests. In order to legitimate compulsory service and other unfree dimensions of the servant position, servants’ right to change employer was one legitimate interest. However, masters’ right not to engage in a competition on market terms in order to receive servants was another interest of importance.

The last alternative in van der Linden’s scheme for leaving is death, which characterised the most unfree labour relations such as chattel slavery. Servants were not bound to their position for life, but the Acts did prescribe what to do with the contract if a master died. In the Acts of 1805 and 1833, although the possibilities for ending the contract in advance had been somewhat increased, not even the death of a master meant the end of the servant contract. If the master’s heirs wanted to keep the servant, he or she had to stay. The same was true if the master sold the farm – the new owner could demand to keep the servant. And if the master moved to another farm, the servant was required to follow.15 Servant Act 1805 art. 8 §4–6; 1833 art. 8 §47–49. This shows how free and unfree dimensions were combined in unexpected ways, and that the story of the development of a free wage labour market cannot be told as a steady progression.