From Irish Indentured Servant to Mississauga Landowner - the story of Thomas J. Copeland

William Copeland

As with new immigrants, historic immigrants to what is now Mississauga were often looking for a better life with more opportunities. Among the stories of immigration, we find stories of fugitives and refugees from the southern border, loyalists, freedom seekers, and even runaway indentured servants, looking for a new start.  

Before the transatlantic slave trade, indentured servitude had been the primary system of labour in the British American colonies. Indentured servitude was an American invention with English roots. Most colonists expected that Indigenous Americans would work for them. It was only after attempts to enslave the Powhatan people failed that the American colonists looked to Britain for labour. One such British indentured servant was Thomas J. Copeland, the first ancestor of the Copeland family of Cooksville to build his home in historic Mississauga. The Copeland family’s story in Mississauga is well known for their time as owners of Copeland’s General Store in Cooksville. For years, the general store served the community and generations of Copelands worked there.  

Between 1607 and 1800, approximately seven hundred thousand Europeans immigrated to British North America. Indentured servants accounted for three quarters of those who crossed the Atlantic. Even so, this form of labour remains an under-researched concept in American history. These individuals exchanged the cost of the passage to the British colonies for three to seven years of labour for their employers. Similarly, apprentices bound themselves in exchange for being taught certain skills. Apprentices and servants were usually young and unmarried people seeking money to establish their own households and a large percentage of British men and women spent a portion of their youth in service. Most of the indentured servants entered contracts voluntarily, but there were also convicts who were forced to work as a part of their sentence. 

Runaway Servant Advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1768

Legally, most indentured servants had certain rights, but they all lived nonetheless prescribed lives. Servants were expected to be obedient to their masters. Masters assumed nearly total control over their servants. In legal disputes between a servant and their master, the courts typically sided with the master, enabling their masters to have nearly full authority over decisions of treatment and punishment. Though masters were responsible for feeding and housing their servants, they had control over the day-to-day work of their servants and could punish them physically if chores were not completed.  

However, unlike slaves, servants were considered legally human, though second-class citizens. Their servitude was based on a contract that limited their service to a finite period of time. They did not pass their status of servitude on to descendants. Still, servants operated in this purgatory of unfree and free status. Servants were often given inadequate food and clothing, and beatings were common. Masters were permitted to sell their servants’ contracts, which essentially reduced the servants to property. But when their period of servitude ended, a servant received freedom dues. Freedom dues included clothes, tools, food, and for the first half of the 17th century, 50 acres of land.  

Most servants came from desperately poor backgrounds and had no other opportunities. This was probably the situation that Thomas J. Copeland found himself in when he entered indentured servitude long before he came to historic Mississauga. In 1768, Thomas J. is recorded as a runaway servant fleeing from his master, David Patten, in Pennsylvania. Born in Ireland and a weaver by trade, Thomas J. offered up his services in exchange for passage to America. Unfortunately, what he found in Pennsylvania as an Irish indentured servant was likely a terrifying situation. With no one to turn to and little to no protection by the law, Thomas had no choice but to run away, becoming a fugitive at about 20 years old.  

Cooksville - Copeland General Store - SE Corner of Dundas and Hurontario, 1912

Life for a runaway servant would have been difficult as neighbours and friends of the masters would be helping the authorities locate the runaways as well. Servants would have to steal horses, food, clothing, guns, sails, or boats to aide in their escape, all of which were punishable offences as well. The goal was to get as far away from their masters as possible in order to not be found, with fugitives having to face the wilderness and elements of Colonial North America. If a runaway servant was caught, the length of their indenture was usually increased, with the time they were gone doubled and added to their contract. The gamble was risky, but one that Thomas Copeland was prepared to make. 

Thomas J. Copeland’s master put an ad in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1768, offering 20 shillings to whoever would return his runaway servant. It is unclear if Thomas J. was returned to his master or not. In all likelihood, he would have been found and returned to his master, being then punished and his service extended. It seems he remained for many years in Pennsylvania after this event, his first son being born in 1793 in the state. By 1808, Thomas J., who had likely already ended his servitude, immigrated with his family to Canada and purchased land from Philip Cody in historic Mississauga.  

Copeland Family, 1914

In Mississauga, Thomas J. Copeland and his family would finally find a place of opportunity and safety. It was a new beginning. Thomas J. bought 50 acres of Lot 8, concession 1 (now located on the east side of Tomken Road, south of Burnhamthorpe Road). On this land Thomas J. built a log cabin for his family and by about 1820, the Copelands had a large Georgian-style home in which his family and future descendants lived.  

Thomas J. Copeland’s life had changed much in his time – from a poor boy in Ireland, to indentured servant in America, to an upstanding member of Mississauga’s early community. It is this resilience and excellent work ethic that many newcomers and immigrants of Mississauga can relate to. Thanks of the hardships Thomas J. Copeland endured, his descendants enjoyed all the freedoms and opportunities in Mississauga that he had dreamed of.  

Former Copeland General Store, Cooksville

Thomas J.’s great grandson, William Henry Charles Copeland, went on to open Copeland’s General Store Cooksville in 1912. The store was an institution of Cooksville, the building being one of the last remaining historic buildings in Cooksville’s Four Corners still standing today. William would operate it for over 35 years, a legacy that would not have been possible without the hard work and determination of Thomas J. Copeland, an indentured servant. 

Further Reading 

• Bly, Antonio T. and Haygood, Tamia. “Escaping Servitude: A Documentary History of Runaway Servants in Eighteenth-Century Virginia”. Lexington Books; 2015.

• Gagan, David. Hopeful Travellers: Families, Land, and Social Change in Mid-Victorian Peel County, Canada West. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1981.

• Galenson, David W. “The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 44, no. 1, 1984.

• Morgan, Kenneth. “Slavery and Servitude in Colonial North America: A Short History.” New York: New York University Press, 2001.