Richard Frethorne's 'The Plantation Is Very Weak'

Primary Document Analysis: “The Plantation is Very Weak”
The author of this Primary Source is Richard Frethorne. They were addressing this document as a letter to their parents about the many hardships they were experiencing in a plantation, and they were present at the event and a participant. This was written at the time of the event as well, and it is not a recollection of past events. The author is an Englishman, presumably young, and is at a failed plantation site in or near Jamestown. Their gender and age do connect with the subject of their letter in a logical way, because English young males and females were brought from across the Atlantic to be of service on plantations, where they often died of famine or disease, which also explains the deplorable conditions and death that Richard was surrounded by according to this document.
The purpose of this letter/document is to inform of the living conditions and state of affairs in the plantation where Richard is an indentured servant. It is also reasonable to assume from the text that Richard was addressing this letter to his parents and that they were his intended audience because the word “father”, used to refer to his …show more content…
This point of view is good, as it demonstrates the harsh conditions indentured servants had to endure and as this document is one of the only recovered documents recounting the experience of indentured servants in Jamestown, it has historical significance. However, due to the desire of the author to be redeemed from his indentured servitude, some aspects of the servitude may have been slightly exaggerated so that his parents were more likely to respond with urgency, and as this is believed to be a young person, they may not have been perceptive of the bigger reasons behind all of this famine and