Primarily the 1600s

 Initially small communities characterized by kindness and mutual aid  By mid-1600s indigents started to appear  Poor law provisions adopted in Plymouth, Virginia, Connecticut and Massachusetts  Smallest unit of local government handled poor relief

 Boarding out the poor at public expense  Tax relief  Free medical attention

 Towns didn’t want burden of indigent strangers  Residency requirements instituted that were declared illegal in 1969  Plymouth defined a resident as someone who stayed for 3 months without being expelled

 Ships’ masters posted bond for those they brought or return them to home port  Problems with “unsettled poor” in cities and frontier areas due to wars  State treasury sent funds to communities to help nonresidents

 Mather – let the idle starve  Virginia compulsory labor for the idle  Massachusetts had unemployed turned into indentured servants, whipped and expelled or put in jail

 Native people slaughtered if they refused to become “civilized” and Christianized  Negative views of Africans as inferior, uncivilized people  Slaves the responsibility of masters  Free blacks denied aid and developed own self- help mechanisms

 Apprenticed in cases of orphans or poor parenting  Attached everyone to a family  Provided labor when in short supply, while training young

 Strangers warned away  Another category of needy in community  Boarded at homes initially  Confined to quarters if perceived dangerous  Beginning of ideas that special care might be required

 Generous and compassionate care for “truly needy” who were attached to a community  Harsh treatment for the voluntarily idle, strangers, and people of color  Some recognition of collective help needed for destitute who had no community