The first American adoption law was passed in Massachusetts in 1851. Yet the first official adoption in what would become the United States was recorded in 1693, when Governor Phips of Massachusetts adopted a son. This was the first official recorded adoption in America. How could an adoption take place more than two centuries before the first adoption law?
Governor Phips’s adoption: 1693
Phips mentioned his adopted son in his will in 1693, and that was the first record of an adoption in the New World. However, he adopted the boy prior to this time. The adopted son was a nephew of Phips’s wife. Phips referred to him as adopted in his will. The young man petitioned to change his last name to Phips in 1716. Massachusetts law recognized adoption as a reason to make a legal name change, even though there were no laws about adoption itself.
Adoption was considered a private legal action, like buying a piece of land or a business contract. It did not require a court’s approval. It could, however, be a legally binding action. People often had a lawyer’s help to complete an adoption.
Informal adoptions
Apart from a very few recorded legal adoption like the Phips case, adoptions were usually informal. If a child were orphaned or the birth parents couldn’t provide a home of the child, relatives or community members would step up and take the child in.
However, these arrangements were not always adoptions. Often children were placed as apprentices or indentured servants in people’s homes. They received room and board but might not have been considered members of the family. They usually would not inherit from the parents of the household, though they might be mentioned in a will. Being given a home and learning skills that would allow them to support themselves as adults was considered a good return for the service these children provided.
Needy parents might offer — and even advertise — their children as workers in apprenticeships or indentures. Child labor was common and slavery was legal in most American colonies.
In 1729, the first orphanage in the Americas was opened by Ursuline nuns. At first, orphanages placed children in apprenticeships or indentures with families. Over time, there were fewer indentures and apprenticeships and more adoptions. The end of slavery and the restriction of child labor eventually ended the practice of indenturing children.
Naturally, situations like that of Governor Phips, who adopted his wife’s nephew, continued to be common. Many children were brought up by a grandparent, an older sibling, or an aunt or uncle without legal adoption.
Informal adoptions continued to take place even after adoption laws were in place, but there are dangers in these arrangements. Now, informal adoptions are rare. Without a legal adoption process, it is not possible for these caretakers to make decisions about health care, schooling, and other legal matters. In some cases, guardianship can be a better fit.
Legal adoptions before and after 1851
Both Mississippi and Texas had rules about adoption before 1851, when Massachusetts developed the first modern adoption law. By 1876, 24 states had adoption laws, and some form of adoption regulation existed in all the states by 1900. In addition to informal adoptions, adoption was accomplished prior to these laws by legal action to allow an adopted child to inherit from adoptive parents or to take on the adoptive parent’s name.
Changes in adoption and the widespread acceptance of modern adoption laws was part of the larger social change taking place in the second half of the 19th century. Divorce became a regulated legal action instead of a private transaction, children were seen as different from adults, and most people worked for wages by the end of the century. The idea of workers living with the family went out of fashion and adoption became, as it is to this day, a means of growing a family.
Are you considering adoption as a means to grow your family? Heimer Law can help. We specialize in Arkansas adoption.
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