- James KingUnited States
North Central Louisiana / No Longer A Resident of the Shreveport/Bossier City Area / Currently I sponsor gaming groups in Monroe & Alexandria, LA.
Louisiana
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In colonial times, settlers of newly-established settlements *did* have a Common House where provisions and food for the entire colony were stored for distribution for use by all the colonists. To the best of my knowledged, food and provisions weren't distributed by any sort of qualitative/means-tested proportioning based on the perceived wealth and/or able-bodiedness of the colonists. The use of the Common House for food-and-provision storage was but a temporary stop-gap measure to make sure new colonists were able to get settled in and up and running. But then again, there was no lack of jobs in new settlements.
So, if you're trying to capture some actual historical theme and content in your variant, you might want to consider exploring those avenues. For even though they didn't call it "Welfare", the Common House was indeed created to serve the welfare of the entire colony through the winter months because newly-settled colonists didn't all have homes, farms, barns, gardens, etc. from Year One of settling in the New World.
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