True Life: A Servant in early Virginia.
Merriam Webster's dictionary defines propaganda as "the spreading of ideas, .
information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a .
person". This idea of advertising anything and everything to the public invades our daily .
living. It can be found on billboards, radio stations, and television sets. This concept is .
not by any means new or recent. The art of selling has its origins in the days of Adam .
and Eve. The serpent had to promote and sell Eve on eating the apple from the forbidden .
tree, and he performed his job well. From that point on, every society has either mastered .
or perfected the concept of propaganda a little more than the one before. This was .
certainly the case in seventeenth-century colonial Virginia. Servants and those poor, .
single men and women who had very little chances in rising high on the ladder of success .
in England were the key targets for this type of advertisement. The thought of a "new .
world" where no one knew your past and the hope of being able to rise above your birth .
status were the incentives needed for these young men and women to take the journey of .
a lifetime. Guided by the lavish promises of the labor recruiters, these are the hopes and .
realities, opportunities and injustices, and the legal and social status experienced by .
indentured servants in colonial Virginia. .
High hopes abounded within those courageous men and women who took the .
2.
voyage to the New World. However, these aspirations of a better life were most often .
crushed by harsh realities. Opportunities for women of Anne's status in England were .
very few. Children who had been born a bastard lived their life with a stigma attached to .
their name. Chances were slim at best for Anne to be able to raise a family and get .
married. The life that England could offer Anne and other like her was hardly one at all.
