Woman's Life in Colonial Days by Carl Holliday

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Sometimes, too, the supposedly meek character of the colonial woman took
a rather Amazonian turn, and the court records, diaries, and chronicles
present case after case in which wives made life for their husbands more
of a battle cry than one gladsome song. Surely the following citations
prove that some colonial dames had opinions of their own and strong
fists with which to back up their opinions:

"Joan, wife of Obadiah Miller of Taunton, was presented for
'beating and reviling her husband, and egging her children to
healp her, bidding them knock him in the head, and wishing his
victuals might choake him.'"[294a]

"In 1637 in Salem, 'Whereas Dorothy the wyfe of John Talbie hath
not only broak that peace & loue, wch ought to hauve beene both
betwixt them, but also hath violentlie broke the king's peace, by
frequent laying hands upon hir husband to the danger of his
Life.... It is therefore ordered that for hir misdemeanor passed
& for prvention of future evill.... that she shall be bound &
chained to some post where shee shall be restrained of her
libertye to goe abroad or comminge to hir husband, till shee
manefest some change of hir course.... Only it is permitted that
shee shall come to the place of gods worshipp, to enjoy his
ordenances.'"[294b]

Women also could appeal to the strong arm of the law against the wrath
of their loving husbands: "In 1638 John Emerson of Scituate was tried
before the general court for abusing his wife; the same year for beating
his wife, Henry Seawall was sent for examination before the court at
Ipswich; and in 1663, Ensigne John Williams, of Barnstable, was fined by
the Plymouth court for slandering his wife."[295]

Josselyn records that in New England in 1638, "Scolds they gag and set
them at their doors for certain hours, for all comers and goers by to
gaze at...."

In Virginia: "A wife convicted of slander was to be carried to the
ducking stool to be ducked unless her husband would consent to pay the
fine imposed by law for the offense.... Some years after (1646) a woman
residing in Northampton was punished for defamation by being condemned
to stand at the door of her parish church, during the singing of the
psalm, with a gag in her mouth.... Deborah Heighram ... was, in 1654,
not only required to ask pardon of the person she had slandered, but was
mulcted to the extent of two thousand pounds of tobacco. Alice Spencer,
for the same offence, was ordered to go to Mrs. Frances Yeardley's house
and beg forgiveness of her; whilst Edward Hall, who had also slandered
Mrs. Yeardley, was compelled to pay five thousand pounds of tobacco for
the county's use, and to acknowledge in court that he had spoken
falsely."[296]

The mere fact that a woman was a woman seems in no wise to have caused
merciful discrimination among early colonists as to the manner of
punishment. Apparently she was treated certainly not better and perhaps
sometimes worse than the man if she committed an offense. In the matter
of adultery she indeed frequently received the penalty which her partner
in sin totally escaped. In short, chivalry was not allowed to interfere
in the least with old-time justice.

FOOTNOTES:

[230] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 237, p. 396.

[231] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 237.

[232] Howard: _History of Matrimonial Institutions_, p. 166.

[233] Howard: p. 163.

[234] Howard: p. 200.

[235] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 396.

[236] _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 336.

[237] Vol. III, pp. 144, 165.

[238] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 176.

[239] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 180.

[240a], [240b] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 232.

[241a], [241b] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 262.

[242] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 265.

[243a], [243b] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 266.

[244] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 269.

[245] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 271.

[246] Vol. III, p. 274.

[247] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 275.

[248] Ravenel: _Eliza Pinckney_, p. 55.

[249] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 491.

[250] Sewall's: _Letter-Book_, Col. I, p. 213.

[251] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 216.

[252] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 228.

[253] Vol. III, p. 172.

[254] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 368.

[255] _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 24.

[256] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 364.

[257] _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 347.

[258] _Diary_, p. 82.

[259] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 354.

[260] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 424.

[261] Weeden: _Economic, & Social History of N. Eng._, Vol. I, p. 299.

[262a], [262b] Vol. II, p. 371.

[263] _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 371.

[264] Vol. II, p. 400.

[265] Vol. II, p. 405.

[266] Vol. II, p. 406.

[267] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 31.

[268] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 40.

[269] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 108.

[270] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 137.

[271] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 173.

[272] _Writings_, Vol. I, p. 310.

[273] Goodwin: _Dolly Madison_, p. 33.

[274] Smyth: _Franklin_, Vol. I, p. 413.

[275] _Memoirs of an American Lady_, p. 53.

[276] Humphreys: _Catherine Schuyler_, p. 185.

[277] _Catherine Schuyler_, p. 204.

[278] _History of New England_, Vol. I, p. 73.

[279] _History of New England_, Vol. II, p. 190.

[280] Winthrop: _History of New England_, Vol. II, p. 61.

[281] _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 407.

[282] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 379.

[283] _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 288.

[284] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 349.

[285] _Diary_, Vol. I, p, 87.

[286] P. 170.

[287] _History of Matrimonial Institutions_, Vol. II, p. 170.

[288] _Ibid._, p. 172.

[289] _Ibid._, p. 187.

[290] _Ibid._, p. 196.

[291] Vol. I, p. 111.

[292] _Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century_, Vol.
I. p. 34.

[293] _History of New England_, Vol. II, p. 148.

[294a], [294b] Howard: _Matrimonial Inst._, Vol. II, p. 161.

[295] _Ibid._

[296] Bruce: _Institutional History_, Vol. I, p. 51.

CHAPTER VII

COLONIAL WOMAN AND THE INITIATIVE

_I. Religious Initiative_

Throughout our entire study of colonial woman we have seen many bits of
record that hint or even plainly prove that the feminine nature was no
more willing in the old days constantly to play second fiddle than in
our own day. Anne Hutchinson and her kind had brains, knew it, and were
disposed to use their intellect. Perceiving injustice in the prevailing
order of affairs, such women protested against it, and, when forced to
do so, undertook those tasks and battles which are popularly supposed to
be outside woman's sphere. Of Anne Hutchinson it has been truthfully
said: "The Massachusetts records say that Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was
banished on account of her revelations and excommunicated for a lie.
They do not say that she was too brilliant, too ambitious, and too
progressive for the ministers and magistrates of the colony, ... And
while it is only fair to the rulers of the colony to admit that any
element of disturbance or sedition, at that time, was a menace to the
welfare of the colony, and that ... her voluble tongue was a dangerous
one, it is certain that the ministers were jealous of her power and
feared her leadership."[297]

One of the earliest examples in colonial times of woman's ignoring
traditions and taking the initiative in dangerous work may be found in
the daring invasion of Massachusetts by Quaker women to preach their
belief. Sewall makes mention of seeing such strange missionaries in the
land of the saints: "July 8, 1677. New Meeting House (the third, or
South) _Mane_: In Sermon time there came in a female Quaker, in a Canvas
Frock, her hair disshevelled and loose like a Periwigg, her face as
black as ink, led by two other Quakers, and two others followed. It
occasioned the greatest and most amazing uproar that I ever saw."[298]
No doubt some of these female exhorters acted outlandishly and caused
genuine fear among the good Puritan elders for the safety of the
colonies and the morals of the inhabitants.

Those were troubled times. Indeed, between Anne Hutchinson and the
Quakers, the Puritans of the day were harassed to distraction. Mary
Dyer, for example, one of the followers of Anne Hutchinson, repeatedly
driven from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, returned just as often, even
after being warned that if she came back she would be executed. Once she
was sentenced to death and was saved only by the intercession of her
husband; but, having returned, she was again sentenced, and this time
put to death. The Quakers were whipped, disfigured by having their ears
and nose cut off, banished, or even put to death; but fresh recruits,
especially women, adorned in "sack cloth and ashes" and doing "unseemly"
things, constantly took the place of those who were maimed or killed.
Why they should so persistently have invaded the Puritan territory has
been a source of considerable questioning; but probably Fiske is correct
when he says: "The reasons for the persistent idea of the Quakers that
they must live in Massachusetts was largely because, though tolerant of
differences in doctrine, yet Quakerism had freed itself from Judaism as
far as possible, while Puritanism was steeped in Judaism. The former
attempted to separate church and state, while under the latter belief
the two were synonymous. Therefore, the Quaker considered it his mission
to overthrow the Puritan theocracy, and thus we find them insisting on
returning, though it meant death. It was a sacred duty, and it is to the
glory of religious liberty that they succeeded."[299]

_II. Commercial Initiative_

More might be said of the initiative spirit in religion, of at least a
percentage of the colonial women, but the statements above should be
sufficient to prove that religious affairs were not wholly left to the
guidance of men. And what of women's originality and daring in other
fields of activity? The indications are that they even ventured, and
that successfully, to dabble in the affairs of state. Sewall mentions
that the women were even urged by the men to expostulate with the
governor about his plans for attending a certain meeting house at
certain hours, and that after the good sisters had thus paved the way a
delegation of men went to his Excellency, and obtained a change in his
plan. Thus, the women did the work, and the men usurped the praise.
Again, Lady Phips, wife of the governor, had the bravery to assume the
responsibility of signing a warrant liberating a prisoner accused of
witchcraft, and, though the jailer lost his position for obeying, the
prisoner's life was thus saved by the initiative of a woman.

That colonial women frequently attempted to make a livelihood by methods
other than keeping a dame school, is shown in numerous diaries and
records. Sewall records the failure of one of these attempts: "April 4,
1690.... This day Mrs. Avery's Shop ... shut by reason of Goods in them
attached."[300] Women kept ordinaries and taverns, especially in New
England, and after 1760 a large number of the retail dry goods stores of
Baltimore were owned and managed by women. We have noticed elsewhere
Franklin's complimentary statement about the Philadelphia woman who
conducted her husband's printing business after his death; and again in
a letter to his wife, May 27, 1757, just before a trip to Europe, he
writes: "Mr. Golden could not spare his Daughter, as she helps him in
the Postoffice, he having no Clerk."[301] Mrs. Franklin, herself, was a
woman of considerable business ability, and successfully ran her
husband's printing and trading affairs during his prolonged absences. He
sometimes mentions in his letters her transactions amounting at various
times to as much as L500.

The pay given to teachers of dame schools was so miserably low that it
is a marvel that the widows and elderly spinsters who maintained these
institutions could keep body and soul together on such fees. We know
that Boston women sometimes taught for less than a shilling per day,
while even those ladies who took children from the South and the West
Indies into their homes and both boarded and trained them dared not
charge much above the actual living expenses. Had not public sentiment
been against it, doubtless many of these teachers would have engaged in
the more lucrative work of keeping shops or inns.

In the South it seems to have been no uncommon thing for women to manage
large plantations and direct the labor of scores of negroes and white
workers. We have seen how Eliza Pinckney found a real interest in such
work, and cared most successfully for her father's thousands of acres. A
woman of remarkable personality, executive ability, and mental capacity,
she not only produced and traded according to the usual methods of
planters, but experimented in intensive farming, grafting, and
improvement of stock and seed with such success that her plantations
were models for the neighboring planters to admire and imitate.

When she was left in charge of the estate while her father went about
his army duties, she was but sixteen years old, and yet her letters to
him show not only her interest, but a remarkable grasp of both the
theoretical and the practical phases of agriculture.

"I wrote my father a very long letter ... on the pains I had taken to
bring the Indigo, Ginger, Cotton, Lucern, and Cassada to perfection, and
had greater hopes from the Indigo...."

To her father: "The Cotton, Guiney corn and most of the Ginger planted
here was cutt off by a frost."

"I wrote you in former letters we had a fine crop of Indigo Seed upon
the ground and since informed you the frost took it before it was dry.
I picked out the best of it and had it planted but there is not more
than a hundred bushes of it come up, which proves the more unlucky as
you have sent a man to make it."

In a letter to a friend she indicates how busy she is:

"In genl I rise at five o'clock in the morning, read till seven--then
take a walk in the garden or fields, see that the Servants are at their
respective business, then to breakfast. The first hour after breakfast
is spent in musick, the next is constantly employed in recolecting
something I have learned, ... such as french and shorthand. After that I
devote the rest of the time till I dress for dinner, to our little
Polly, and two black girls, who I teach to read.... The first hour after
dinner, as ... after breakfast, at musick, the rest of the afternoon in
needlework till candle light, and from that time to bed time read or
write; ... Thursday, the whole day except what the necessary affairs of
the family take up, is spent in writing, either on the business of the
plantations or on letters to my friends...."[302]

And yet this mere girl found time to devote to the general conventional
activities of women. After her marriage she seems to have gained her
greatest pleasure from her devotion to her household; but, left a widow
at thirty-six, she once more was forced to undertake the management of a
great plantation. The same executive genius again appeared, and an
initiative certainly surpassing that of her neighbors. She introduced
into South Carolina the cultivation of Indigo, and through her foresight
and efforts "it continued the chief highland staple of the country for
more than thirty years.... Just before the Revolution the annual export
amounted to the enormous quantity of one million, one hundred and seven
thousand, six hundred and sixty pounds. When will 'New Woman' do more
for her country?"[303]

Martha Washington was another of the colonial women who showed not only
tact but considerable talent in conducting personally the affairs of her
large estate between the death of her first husband and her marriage to
Washington, and when the General went on his prolonged absences to
direct the American army, she, with some aid from Lund Washington,
attended with no small success to the Mount Vernon property.

_III. Woman's Legal Powers_

Just how much legal power colonial women had is rather difficult to
discover from the writings of the day; for each section had its own
peculiar rules, and courts and decisions in the various colonies, and
sometimes in one colony, contradicted one another. Until the adoption of
the Constitution the old English law prevailed, and while unmarried
women could make deeds, wills, and other business transactions, the
wife's identity was largely merged into that of her husband. The
colonial husband seems to have had considerable confidence in his
help-meet's business ability, and not infrequently left all his property
at his death to her care and management. Thus, in 1793 John Todd left to
his widow, the future Dolly Madison, his entire estate:

"I give and devise all my estate, real and personal, to the Dear Wife of
my Bosom, and first and only Woman upon whom my all and only affections
were placed, Dolly Payne Todd, her heirs and assigns forever.... Having
a great opinion of the integrity and honorouble conduct of Edward Burd
and Edward Tilghman, Esquires, my dying request is that they will give
such advice and assistance to my dear Wife as they shall think prudent
with respect to the management and disposal of my very small Estate....
I appoint my dear Wife excutrix of this my will...."[304]

Samuel Peters, writing in his _General History of Connecticut_, 1781,
mentions this incident: "In 1740, Mrs. Cursette, an English lady,
travelling from New York to Boston, was obliged to stay some days at
Hebron; where, seeing the church not finished, and the people suffering
great persecutions, she told them to persevere in their good work, and
she would send them a present when she got to Boston. Soon after her
arrival there, Mrs. Cursette fell sick and died. In her will she gave a
legacy of L300 old tenor ... to the church of England in Hebron; and
appointed John Hancock, Esq., and Nathaniel Glover, her executors.
Glover was also her residuary legatee. The will was obliged to be
recorded in Windham county, because some of Mrs. Cursette's lands lay
there. Glover sent the will by Deacon S.H. ---- of Canterbury, ordering
him to get it recorded and keep it private, lest the legacy should build
up the church. The Deacon and Register were faithful to their trust, and
kept Glover's secret twenty-five years. At length the Deacon was taken
ill, and his life was supposed in great danger.... The secret was
disclosed."

It is evident that the colonial woman, either as spinster or as widow,
was not without considerable legal power in matters of property, and it
is evident too that she now and then managed or disposed of such
property in a manner displeasing to the other sex. As shown in the above
incident of the church money, trickery was now and then tried in an
effort to set aside the wishes of a woman concerning her possessions;
but, in the main, her decisions and bequests seem to have received as
much respect from courts as those of the men.

A further instance of this feminine right to hold and manage
property--perhaps a little too radical to be typical--is to be found in
the career of the famous Margaret Brent of Maryland, the first woman in
the world to demand a seat in the parliamentary body of a commonwealth.
A woman of unusual intellect, decisiveness, and leadership, she came
from England to Maryland in 1638, and quickly became known as the equal,
if not the superior, of any man in the colony for comprehension of the
intricacies of English law dealing with property and decedents. Her
brothers, owners of great estates, recognized her superiority and
commonly allowed her to buy and sell for them and to sign herself
"attorney for my brother." Lord Calvert, the Governor, became her ardent
admirer, perhaps her lover, and when he lay dying he called her to his
bedside, and in the presence of witnesses, made perhaps the briefest
will in the history of law: "I make you my sole executrix; take all and
pay all." From that hour her career as a business woman was astonishing.
She collected all of Calvert's rentals and other incomes; she paid all
his debts; she planted and harvested on his estates; she even took
charge of numerous state affairs of Maryland, collected and dispersed
some portions of the colony's money, and was in many ways the colonial
executive.

Then came on January 21, 1648, her astounding demand for a vote in the
Maryland Assembly. Leonard Calvert, as Lord Baltimore's attorney, had
possessed a vote in the body; since Calvert had told her to take all and
pay all, he had granted her all powers he had ever possessed; she
therefore had succeeded him as Lord Baltimore's attorney and was
possessed of the attorneyship until Baltimore saw fit to appoint
another; hence, as the attorney, she was entitled to a seat and a voice
in the Assembly. Such was her reasoning, and when she walked into the
Assembly on that January day it was evident from the expression on her
face that she intended to be seated and to be heard. She made a speech,
moved many of the planters so greatly that they were ready to grant her
the right; she cowed the very acting governor himself, as he sat on the
speaker's bench. But that governor's very fear of her rivalry made him,
for once, active and determined; he had heard whispers throughout the
colony that she would make a better executive than he; he suddenly
thundered a decisive "No"; a brief recess was declared amidst the
ensuing confusion; and Margaret Brent went forth for the first time in
her life a defeated woman. Her power, however, was scarcely lessened,
and her influence grew to such an extent that on several occasions the
governor who had refused her a vote was obliged to humiliate himself and
beg her aid in quieting or convincing the citizens. The story of her
life leads one to believe that many women, if opportunity had offered,
would have proved themselves just as capable in business affairs as any
woman executive of our own times.

Many another example of feminine initiative might be cited. There was
that serious, yet ridiculous scene of long ago when the women of Boston
pinned up their dresses, took off their shoes, and waded about in the
mud and slush fortifying Boston Neck. Benjamin Tompson, a local poet,
found the incident a source of merriment in his _New England Crisis_,
1675; but in a way it was a stern rebuke to the men who looked on and
laughed at the women's frantic effort to wield mud plaster.

"A grand attempt some Amazonian Dames
Contrive whereby to glorify their names.
A ruff for Boston Neck of mud and turfe,
Reaching from side to side, from surf to surf,
Their nimble hands spin up like Christmas pyes,
Their pastry by degrees on high doth rise ...
The wheel at home counts in an holiday,
Since while the mistress worketh it may play.
A tribe of female hands, but manly hearts,
Forsake at home their pastry crust and tarts,
To kneed the dirt, the samplers down they hurl,
Their undulating silks they closely furl.
The pick-axe one as a commandress holds,
While t'other at her awk'ness gently scolds.
One puffs and sweats, the other mutters why
Can't you promove your work so fast as I?
Some dig, some delve, and others' hands do feel
The little wagon's weight with single wheel.
And lest some fainting-fits the weak surprize,
They want no sack nor cakes, they are more wise..."

That simple-hearted, kindly French-American, St. John de Crevecoeur, has
left us a description of the women of Nantucket in his _Letters from an
American Farmer_, 1782, and if his account is trustworthy these women
displayed business capacity that might put to shame many a modern wife.
Hear some extracts from his statement:

"As the sea excursions are often very long, their wives in their
absence are necessarily obliged to transact business, to settle
accounts, and, in short, to rule and provide for their families.
These circumstances, being often repeated, give women the
abilities as well as a taste for that kind of superintendency to
which, by their prudence and good management, they seem to be in
general very equal. This employment ripens their judgment, and
justly entitles them to a rank superior to that of other wives;
... The men at their return, weary with the fatigues of the sea,
... cheerfully give their consent to every transaction that has
happened during their absence, and all is joy and peace. 'Wife,
thee hast done well,' is the general approbation they receive,
for their application and industry...."

"...But you must not imagine from this account that the Nantucket
wives are turbulent, of high temper, and difficult to be ruled;
on the contrary, the wives of Sherburn, in so doing, comply only
with the prevailing custom of the island: the husbands, equally
submissive to the ancient and respectable manners of their
country, submit, without ever suspecting that there can be any
impropriety.... The richest person now in the island owes all his
present prosperity and success to the ingenuity of his wife: ...
for while he was performing his first cruises, she traded with
pins and needles, and kept a school. Afterward she purchased more
considerable articles, which she sold with so much judgment, that
she laid the foundation of a system of business, that she has
ever since prosecuted with equal dexterity and success...."

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