The Real Lives of Women & Wives in Jamestown

The Sky 1 TV drama “Jamestown” tells the fictitious story of three very different female characters, which is set in a “real” historical period.  Writer, Bill Gallagher says: “There are two histories of America. There’s the one about the Pilgrim Fathers and God – the history that’s celebrated on Thanksgiving Day - and then there’s this other history, which is all about colonization, greed, gold, women and the need to transport England to America.”In this blog post we look at the real-life stories of Jamestown's first white English female settlers, the peacekeeping role of the Native Indian women and the first female African slaves who shaped their own #hiddenherstories in America.

Any effort to assess the historical significance of women in any colonial past must begin by considering who is included in the category "women." With the exception of Pocahontas, who made it into popular legend by virtue of the assistance she provided to the English sufferers at Jamestown, white English women have been the focus of most histories of colonial women. The importance of Female African Slaves and Native Indian women’s interactions with the pale strangers at the "James City" military compound was just as significant to the history of the region as the mail order brides. In the last two decades, new scholarship on Native American and African women has raised important questions about this shifting the focus. It has become increasingly clear that women of at least three races and several different nationalities actively shaped the history of Jamestown. 

Despite the lopsided sex ratio of four English men for every English woman early in seventeenth century Jamestown, the presence of voluntarily imported English women as, wives, mothers, servant’s agricultural workers and highly valued immigrants had a crucial impact on the development of the English settlement. From 1619 on, African women also became part of the historical tapestry being woven at Jamestown. Brought to Virginia against their will, these African women became part of the bound work force that produced the colony's "gold"-tobacco. When Virginia created the legal framework for slavery, African women were again a central concern because of their potential to reproduce the slave labour force.

On May 13, 1607, an expedition of about 100 English men and boys had reached a marshy peninsula about 30 miles up the James River, now in the state of Virginia, USA. There they anchored their three small ships – the Godspeed, the Discovery, and the Susan Constant. The following day, these brave, adventurous men stepped onto American soil and went on to build the very first permanent English settlement to be established in the New World; they named it Jamestown for King James I of England. Eight months later when a supply ship arrived, which also brought more colonists, only 38 of the original 100 settlers remained. Famine, rebellion and Indian attacks had decimated their numbers - the survivors were badly in need of help, but it would be a long nine months before any English women would arrive to change things for the better.

 The initial group contained a disproportionate number of well-heeled adventurers, a handful of artisans, and only a small number of the agricultural labourers whose practical experience might have helped the fledgling settlement survive its first winter a little better. The maleness of the landing party at Jamestown and the overwhelmingly male character of the settlement in subsequent years had a huge negative impact on relations with local Native Americans.

God, glory and gold were the original forces that lured the male settlers to the new and untamed wilderness of Virginia. They carried with them the Church of England and the hopes to convert the Native Americans to Protestant Christianity. They wanted to establish an English hold on the New World and exploit its resources for use in the mother country. Some desired to find its fabled gold and riches and others longed to discover a northwest passage to the treasures of the Orient.

The settlers were directed by the Virginia Company of London, a joint-stock commercial organization. The company's charter provided the rights of trade, exploration and settlement in Virginia. The first settlers that established Jamestown in 1607 were all male and whilst some historians agree that "...it was thought that women had no place in the grim and often grisly business of subduing a continent..." the omission of women in the first group of settlers may also have meant that they were just not, as yet, necessary.

The company's first priority in Virginia was to build an outpost, explore and determine the best use of Virginia's resources for commercial profits. The exclusion of women in the first venture supports the theory that it was an exploratory expedition rather than a colonizing effort. According to historian Philip A. Bruce, it is possible that had colonization not been required to achieve their commercial goals, the company might have delayed sending permanent settlers for a number of years.

Once the commercial resources were discovered, the company's revenues would continue only if the outpost became permanent. For Jamestown to survive, many unstable conditions had to be overcome. A clash of cultures existed between the Englishmen and the Native Americans with whom they soon found to need to trade as well as to Christianize. The Settlers were unprepared for the rugged frontier life in a wilderness and many intended to remain in Virginia only long enough to make their fortune and then return home again to England.

Providing the stability needed for Jamestown's survival was one of the indispensable roles played by the English women who came to live there. Their initial arrival in 1608 and throughout the next few years contributed greatly to Jamestown's ultimate success. Lord Bacon, a member of His Majesty's Council for Virginia, stated about 1620 that:

 "When a plantation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women as well as with men; that the plantation may spread into generations, and not be ever pieced from without."

 

Sir Edwin Sandy, Treasurer of the Virginia Company of London, said "...the plantation can never flourish till families be planted and the respect of wives and children fix the people on the soil." 

Sandys’s difficult task was persuading potentially suitable brides to come to Jamestown. Luckily, the financial obstacles to marriage in 17th-century England worked in his favour. Securing a home and setting up a domestic household were expensive. And unless they were born into wealth, most men and women needed to amass a significant nest egg before they could marry. For working-class Englishwomen, this typically meant years of domestic service, and many found the prospect of scrubbing other people’s floors and chamber pots less than appealing. Marital immigration offered an attractive alternative.

The first task that women had to do was to secure their passage, by requesting testimonials and recommendations from people who were willing to accompany them, in person, to the Virginia Company. They activated the networks of associates, friends and kin that they had in London and elsewhere, asking them to support their claims. Mary Ghibbs, 20, who was born in Cambridge, asked her uncle Lott Peere, who she lived with, and his associate Gabriel Barbour to recommend her; both who were deeply involved in the affairs of the Virginia Company. Richard Hoare and Joan Child, the brother and sister of Audrey Hoare, 19, an apprentice to a fustian maker, accompanied her to the Virginia Company’s office. Having family and friends present in London was a kind of security—the company could be sure that these were not desperate young women who were running from a scandal.

It is clear from the statements they made to the Virginia Company that they came from a range of social backgrounds: daughters of gardeners and shoemakers, as well as the kinswomen of gentlemen, such as Margaret Bourdman, 20, the niece of Sir John Gypson, who received ‘good testimony’ from her employers and neighbours. The skills that they claimed to possess reflected this variety of experience and status: while Ann Tanner, 27, the daughter of a husband-man in Chelmsford, knew how to spin, sew, brew, bake, and make cheese and butter – general ‘huswifery’ Ann Harmer, 21, the daughter of a gentleman, stated that she knew how to ‘do all manner of works gold and silk’. Ghibbs noted that she was skilled in making bone lace, an assertion, it seems, that was meant to bolster her gentle status, femininity and moral upstanding. No doubt some attributes would be more practical than others on arrival at Jamestown.

The Arrival of English Women at Jamestown

The women also showed their willingness to go, perhaps even hinting at their suitability for the tough environment of Jamestown. Abigail Downing, who voyaged to the colony a little later in 1623, paid the cost of her own passage so that she would be ‘free to dispose of herself when she commeth to Virginia’, in order to find and marry an ‘honest man’. She also promised that she would ‘take pains and … do all service that is fit’ in order to ‘earn her diet’. We do not know Abigail’s background or age, but she was already widowed and was said to be from a family of ‘honest people’ and ‘good fashion’. Whatever accomplishments she had, whether in ‘huswifery’ or the finer art of lace-making, she could apply her skills to running her own household or commerce in Jamestown. Her oath would have been comforting news to the jaded colonist Thomas Nicholls, who complained the same year that ‘women do … nothing’, except ‘devour the food of the land without doing any days deed’.  

Although many of the women traveled alone, as Abigail Downing did, some were accompanied by relatives, or planned to meet family in the colony. Ursula Clawson’s kinsman, Richard Pace, accompanied her alongside his wife back to Virginia, where he had already settled. Jamestown was often the final destination in journeys women had made across England before setting sail from the Isle of Wight. Many had left home already to take up employment in London and family separation, especially at the point when young women went into service and afterwards married, was expected.

The Virginia Company offered substantial incentives to the women who signed up to leave England for Jamestown. They were provided with a dowry of clothing, linens, and other furnishings, free transportation to the colony, and even a plot of land. They were also promised their pick of wealthy husbands and were provided with food and shelter while they made their decision. 

Jamestown Settlement

After a husband had been chosen, he would reimburse the Virginia Company for his wife’s travel expenses, furnishings, and land with 120 pounds (later raised to 150) of “good leaf” tobacco. This is roughly equivalent to $5,000 in today’s currency—an amount that only the relatively well-off could afford to part with. The tobacco payment was intended to cover the cost of the woman’s passage to Virginia and is why the Jamestown brides are sometimes referred to as “tobacco wives.” It is also why the women are frequently accused of having been sold into "slavery". .

Nevertheless, this characterization is false and reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the status of women in Jamestown. Although the financially strapped Virginia Company was eager to recoup the costs of sponsoring the Jamestown brides, it was not selling women. The arriving brides had full control over their marital choice, and the Company even accepted the possibility that with this freedom a woman might “unwarily or fondly … bestow herself” on a man who didn’t have enough wealth to put up 120 pounds of tobacco. If that happened, the Company simply requested that the man pay them back if and when he was able to do so. The fact that the Jamestown brides were not sold is important and represents a conscious decision by the Company, which could have, as was easy and common at the time, kidnapped potential colonists instead. 

With their rations tied to the performance of traditional female employments like sewing, laundering, cooking and cleaning, but lacking adequate thread, wash basins, soap, brushes or the assistance of female neighbours and kin, English women probably found little to be cheerful about in the New World. Although the fact that there were far more men than women  in Jamestown meant that even a woman with few marital opportunities in England might prosper through marriage in Virginia, it may also have increased the odds of a woman being assaulted, kidnapped, raped, or pressed into early marriage. 

Such conditions persisted in the colony until at least the 1620s, as the case of Mara Bucke attests. Bucke, the thirteen-year old orphan of minister Richard Bucke, was at the centre of a struggle in 1624 that pitted her guardians, brother-in-law John Burrows and sister Bridget Burrows, against the overseers of her deceased father's estate. Several neighbours heard rumours that a prominent Jamestown resident- Reverend David Sandys-planned to "steale Away" Bucke from the Burrows's plantation on the south side of the James River. Perhaps as a preventive measure, Bucke's guardians tried to arrange a marriage with a man they preferred, the reluctant Mr. Richards. Acting on behalf of the overseers of Richard Bucke's estate, the Court took security from Burrows to insure that neither he nor his wife would permit "any motione of marriadge to be made" by their charge. The Reverend Sandys, for his part, successfully sued the parties who suspected him of planning to kidnap Bucke. Bucke, who was described as "dull" witted by two witnesses, remained in the care of Burrows until at least the age of fifteen, after which time she disappears from the records. 

Pocahontas

The very first woman to really foster stability in Jamestown was not an English woman but a native Virginian.  Pocahontas, the daughter of chief Powhatan. was among the first Native Americans to bring food to the early settlers and trade with them. She was eventually educated and baptized in the English Religion and in 1614 married English settler John Rolfe. She helped create the "Peace of Pocahontas," which for several years, appeased the clash between the two cultures. Having adopted English clothing and habits, Pocahontas gave birth to a son and sailed to England to demonstrate the success of the Virginia Company's venture abroad. 

While in England, she met the king and queen and other members of the English aristocracy. Ultimately, a respiratory disease prevented her from making the return trip to Virginia, and she died in Gravesend, England in 1617. Had she lived, she might have continued to be an important cultural broker and a mentor to her son, Thomas Rolfe. As the Virginia Company showed off Pocahontas as evidence of what the English might accomplish among the "savages," they were developing their "mail-order brides" plan for the men of Jamestown.

One of the first English women to help provide a home life in the rugged Virginia wilderness was Anne Burras who arrived in Jamestown on September 30, 1608 on the Mary and Margaret - the ship bringing the Second Supply. She came as a 14-year-old maid to Mrs. Thomas Forrest who had come to Jamestown to join her husband. Thomas Forrest was the first colonist to have authority over both his wife and a dependent female member of his household. Anne’s marriage to carpenter John Laydon three months after her arrival became known as the first Jamestown wedding. While Jamestown fought to become a permanent settlement and began the stabilization process which would eventually spur the colony's growth, Anne and John began their own struggle to raise a family in the new Virginia wilderness.

Women of Jamestown

Virginia Laydon was the first child of English colonists to be born in the Jamestown colony. Sisters Alice, Katherine, and Margaret soon followed. All six members of the Laydon family were listed in the muster of February 1624/5. Anne was 30 years of age when the muster was taken. All four children are listed as born in Virginia. John Laydon was shown as having 200 acres in Henrico in May 1625. However, the 1624/5 muster shows the family living in Elizabeth City. A patent to "John Leyden, Ancient Planter", dated December 2, 1628, refers to 100 acres on the east side of Blunt Point Creek.

Another young woman, Temperance Flowerdew, was an early British settler of the Jamestown Colony. She was a key member of the Flowerdew family, many of whom were significant participants in the history of Jamestown. She was wife of two Governors of Virginia, the sister of another early colonist, aunt to a representative at the first General Assembly, and cousin to the Secretary to the Colony.

Temperance Flowerdew was the daughter of Anthony Flowerdew, of Hethersett, Norfolk, and his wife Martha Stanley, of Scottow, County Norfolk. She married Richard Barrow on April 29, 1609 at St Gregory by St Paul's, London. As Mrs Barrow, she sailed for Jamestown aboard the Falcon, commanded by Captain John Martin, in May 1609 in a convoy of nine ships as part of the Virginia Company of London's Third Supply Mission. Whether she was accompanied by her husband is not of record. 

The flagship of the convoy, the Sea Venture, had the new leaders for Jamestown aboard, including George Yeardley. During the trip, the convoy encountered a severe storm which was quite likely a hurricane. The Sea Venture became separated from the rest of the convoy, ultimately coming aground on the island of Bermuda, where it was stranded for months. The Falcon continued on, reaching Jamestown in August 1609.

Temperance Barrow arrived in Jamestown just before the winter of The Starving Time - an extraordinarily harsh winter which the majority of the townspeople did not survive. As provisions grew scarce, some thirty colonists tried to steal corn from Powhatan, but most of the men were slain during the attempt, with only two escaping.

 The "common stores that should have kept all of the colonists through the winter” were instead "severely reduced by Indian raids and consumed by the commanders". The colonists subsisted on roots, herbs, acorns, berries, and fish. By the end of the winter, the five hundred English who had been left in Virginia only numbered about sixty. 

By 1618, Richard Barrow had died, and Temperance then married George Yeardley. The couple had three children, Elizabeth (c. 1614), Argoll (1618) and Francis (1623).

George Yeardley was appointed Deputy Governor of Jamestown by Sir Thomas Dale in April 1616 and secured a peace with the Chickahominy Tribe that made it possible for the colonists to trade with them and live in peace for the next two years. When the Yeardley’s returned to England in 1617, Yeardley was knighted by King James I and was appointed Governor of Virginia – a position he held until 1621.

Following his appointment, Yeardley received a patent grant of 1,000 acres known as Flowerdew Hundred Plantation. There are conflicting stories regarding the naming of this land. It may have been named by the previous owner, Temperance's brother Stanley Flowerdew, or it may have been named by Yeardley in honour of his wife's wealthy father. The second possibility is perhaps more likely, since Yeardley named another plantation after his wife's equally wealthy mother.  Among their many crops, the Yeardley’s grew tobacco which they then sent to England to sell. In 1624, Yeardley sold Flowerdew Hundred to Abraham Piersey, and the deed from that land sale is said to be the oldest in America.

Yeardley died on November 13, 1627 and a year later on March 31, 1628, Temperance married her late husband’s successor, Governor Francis West and became one of the wealthiest women in Virginia. Upon her death, her estate was transferred to her three orphaned children despite the efforts of her third husband to claim it. George Yeardley's brother, Ralph Yeardley, became trustee for the property. Governor West went to London to contest the will, but failed in the effort.

Ordinary male settlers were granted acres of land dependent on the time and situation of their arrival. This was the beginning of private property for Virginia men. These men, however, asked that land also be allotted for their wives who were just as deserving "...because that in a newe plantation it is not knowen whether man or woman be the most necessary."

Headrights for single women, however, were revoked after the Company discovered that if a woman held her own land, she was less likely to be willing to marry. Marriage and the production of children who would be Virginia citizens from birth was much more important to investors than the promotion of opportunities for independent women.

"...a fit hundredth might be sent of women, maids young and uncorrupt, to make wives to the inhabitants and by that means to make the men there more settled and less movable...."

 

Ninety arrived in 1620 and the company records reported in May of 1622 that:

"57 young maids have been sent to make wives for the planters, divers of which were well married before the coming away of the ships."

Jamestown would not have survived as a permanent settlement without these daring women who were willing to leave behind their English homes, become wives to husbands they had not  yet met, and face the challenges of living in a strange new land. These women created a sense of stability in the untamed wilderness of Virginia. They helped the male settlers see Virginia not just as a temporary place for profit or adventure, but as a country in which to forge a new home.

One was Alice Richards, a twenty-five year old widow. Richards came highly recommended by the churchwarden of her London parish who claimed that, in the six years of her residence in St. James at Clarckenwell, "shee hathe demeaned herself in honest sorte & is a woman of an honest lyef & conversation." Richards was one of only three widows to arrive in this initial shipment of fifty-seven. Another woman, Ann Jackson, was twenty years old and single. Her father William, a gardener, lived in Westminster. She requested his permission to travel to Jamestown with her brother John and the Virginia Company recorded that with his ‘consent she comes’. Both of these women were married within months of their arrival in the autumn of 1621. The voluntary immigration of women eager to start new lives in the New World is what made Jamestown’s bridal program a huge success.

It also had lasting implications for the colony’s gender relations. The colonial government offered female colonists freedoms and opportunities unavailable to most 17th-century Englishwomen. For instance, married women were subject to a legal disability known as coverture, or “covered woman.” Coverture held that upon marriage, a woman’s independent legal identity was subsumed or “covered” by her husband’s. Accordingly, married women in England could not hold property in their own name, alter or dispose of property without their husband’s consent (even if they inherited the property), make wills, or appoint executors without their husband’s agreement.

But in Virginia, the need for female immigration frequently caused leaders to relax or ignore the rules of coverture. In fact, even before the Jamestown brides were recruited, members of the Virginia House of Burgesses had recognized the unique position of female colonists and asked the Virginia Company to set aside parcels of land for both male and female colonists because “[i]n a newe plantation it is not knowen whether man or woman be the most necessary.” Then, when the Jamestown brides enlisted, a similar request was made to set aside a parcel of land for them as well.

Providing female colonists with free land was a substantial immigration incentive, but it was actually the generous property and inheritance laws that offered women the greatest benefit. Because malaria, dysentery, and influenza were widespread in colonial Virginia, early death was also common. This meant that most marriages were short, but the morbid upside was that colonial law and practice ensured widowed women were uncommonly well provided for. In England, widows were only required by law to receive one-third of their deceased husband’s estate. In Virginia, widows almost always inherited more than that. Among other things, this meant that colonial widows didn’t feel economic pressure to remarry after their husband’s death, and many chose to remain single.

Independent wealth also allowed colonial women to exert an unusual degree of control over their lives, particularly their marital decisions. In one story, a Virginia woman named Sarah Harrison is recorded as refusing to go along with a crucial portion of the marriage ceremony. According to witnesses, when the clergyman asked for her promise to “obey,” Harrison answered, “No obey.” When the question was repeated, she gave the same response. After the third refusal, the reverend acquiesced to her demand and performed the ceremony with no mention of the promise to obey.

Harrison’s marriage is also remarkable because only a short time earlier, she had been engaged to another man. Harrison had even signed a contract promising to marry her first fiancé, and breaching a marriage contract was serious matter under English law at the time. Nevertheless, Harrison received no punishment.

In fact, she was one of many Virginian women who jilted their former fiancés. The most famous of these women was Cicely Jordan. In 1623, Jordan’s husband died. A few days later, she agreed to marry Reverend Greville Pooley. Jordan knew that such a quick engagement was scandalous, so she asked Pooley to keep it a secret. He didn’t, and, not surprisingly, Jordan dumped him. Pooley then sued Jordan for breach of promise. Based on his actions, Pooley seems like a horrid marriage prospect, but under the law at that time, his suit had merit, and he would have been expected to win, as Jordan had clearly breached her promise. Nevertheless, the Virginia government refused to punish her. Despite the law on the books, colonial women like Jordan were often exempted from the legal restrictions that controlled the lives and marital choices of their counterparts in England. For women considering marital immigration, this freedom may have been the greatest immigration incentive of all.

Like most Americans, the Jamestown brides came in search of a better life. It may seem surprising that an institution as derided and ridiculed as mail-order marriage could serve this role, but for the Jamestown brides, and the many women who came after them, marital immigration could be both empowering and liberating. 

Female servant trading with Native American woman at Jamestown

During Jamestown’s first twenty years, some of the women arrived as indentured servants who signed contracts in England to work in Jamestown without wages. For many poorer women, signing on as an indentured servant was the only way to emigrate. Once the servant arrived, a colonist already there would reimburse the Virginia Company for the woman’s voyage expenses, and she worked without pay for four to seven years.

Indentured servants were essential to the colony – they ensured that the tobacco crop would be successful. Female servants also did other agricultural work, milking cows and caring for cattle, hogs, and poultry. They also took over the cooking, caring for children and the sick, planting vegetable gardens, and doing laundry for households that did not include women. Because of the skewed gender ratio, indentured women sometimes married planters prosperous enough to pay off the remainder of their terms.

A woman was expected to remain unmarried during her term of indenture. After her time was served, she was given a set of clothing and something with which she could start a new life. Sometimes it was money but more often it was tobacco or some other commodity.

Most of Virginia’s prominent families evolved from such humble beginnings. As women bore successive generations of children, they moved up the James River to Williamsburg and then Richmond, building the vast estates and plantation mansions that characterized the area before the American Revolution.

When a free woman  in Jamestown married – and there was great pressure to do so – society expected her to begin childbearing immediately and to reproduce regularly. Women frequently gave birth to ten or twelve children, but childbirth was very dangerous for women. Jamestown was surrounded by wilderness, and few trained doctors or midwives were available. Female neighbours and relatives helped women through their labour.

Men and women of Jamestown

Having children was very important because of the labour-intensive tobacco culture. Family members worked their own tobacco fields, and children added to the labour force. Colonial children were therefore considered an economic asset. Disease spread easily, however, and so few sicknesses could be cured that an infant had only a fifty percent chance of growing to adulthood. One quarter of babies died before their first birthday.

Families in seventeenth century Jamestown were patriarchal, meaning that the man was the head of the household. Every member of the family, including slaves and servants, and everything connected with family property was under the command of the man of the house. Until the first son was old enough, the woman of the household was in charge if the man was absent. Men who owned large plantations often were absent because of business, political, or military obligations, and when that was the case, women were considered “deputy husbands,” especially in legal matters.

But women were always in charge of the daily management of the family home. They planted gardens, where they grew vegetables such as carrots, beets, radishes and chives, and herbs for cooking and medicinal purposes. The main meal of the day was served at noontime, and the settlers called it dinner. It was cooked over an open hearth and would commonly consist of pork, poultry or seafood, bread and cider, wine or ale.

First African slaves come to Jamestown in 1619

From 1619 on, African women were also part of the historical tapestry being woven at Jamestown. They were able to work like the men in the fields and could reproduce more native-born slaves. The women also had to provide dinner for their families after the day’s work. Often the slaves had to have their own gardens and kill animals for food.

Angelo, a Christian woman who originated from Angola, was sold to Captain William Pierce and was among 17 African women who arrived in the colony in 1619, along with 15 enslaved African men, the first African Slaves in English America.

Another such woman was noted in the colony's records only as "Mary a Negro Woman." Mary had come to Virginia on the Margaret and John in 1622, just months after the Powhatan Indian attack on English settlements. Her name suggests that, like her fellow enslaved Angolans, she had been baptized before her arrival in the colony. In 1625, when the colonies muster listed twenty-three Africans, Mary was one of ten African women. Within a few years she seems to have married an African named Anthony and moved to Virginia's Eastern Shore, where the couple purchased land and raised a family. Fortunate to have reached adulthood before the colony firmed up laws defining slavery, Mary and her husband enjoyed a measure of freedom that later African arrivals to the colony would not be permitted.

Female slaves were primarily brought to the colonies as investments by the plantation owners. Those who did not farm the land were in the homes with the gentry class women. They cared for the children of the household, cleaned and cooked. Working indoors was not necessarily better than working outside.

In the fields, groups worked together out of the watchful eye of the master, but being in the house meant constant supervision. Hard physical labour like doing laundry, carrying water and routine chores such as emptying chamber pots and making beds had to be done every day. They were also at the beck and call of their masters and master’s wives 24 hours a day.

We know very little about their lives, but these too are the real women who faced violence and were forced onto ships before disembarking at Jamestown. Their fates were tied up with those of the English women who married tobacco planters and who would reap the rewards of their unfree labour.

The progression of Virginia law in the seventeenth century makes clear that colonial leaders did not want white women to perform agricultural labour. In 1643, for example, the General Assembly decided that African women were tithable, or eligible to be taxed, as white and black men were. This distinction may reflect lawmakers' expectation that African women would be field labourers, thus contributing to the colony's wealth, and European women would remain in the domestic sphere. The legislators hoped their decision to limit white women to domestic work would further stabilize the colony's social order and give husbands more authority and control over their wives.

Male authority in early Virginia—based on reputation, not family tradition—was fragile, and women did not always submit to it. Specifically, some women used words to improve their reputations, to acquire a small degree of power in their communities, and even to express political opinions. They questioned males' ability to govern and used gossip to control stories about themselves and their neighbours. This type of disorderly speech was a threat to colonial officials. In December 1662, the General Assembly passed a law stating that a "brabling" (quarrelsome or riotous) wife could be ducked, or plunged underwater, as punishment for slandering her husband or neighbours. The statute trivialized female communication and freed husbands from the burden of paying a fine for their wives' behaviour.

At the same legislative session, the General Assembly turned its attention to the status of Africans in Virginia. Although many planters who purchased Africans held these individuals as lifelong slaves, no law guaranteed a colonist's right to do so. Some men also questioned whether a black child born in Virginia was a slave. The lawmakers (men who owned the majority of Africans in Virginia) determined that "all children borne in this country shalbe held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother"—that is, a child born to an enslaved woman would also be a slave for his or her lifetime. In addition to securing colonists' right to own an individual as property, this law made African women the key to the expansion of slavery in Virginia. The General Assembly also attempted to limit the size of the colony's free black population by imposing harsh punishments on interracial couples and white women who gave birth to mulatto children. By establishing white participation in interracial relationships as the transgression, the scholar Kathleen M. Brown has argued, the General Assembly cast Africans in the role of moral corruptor, distancing African women in the colony even further from white women.

Extant county court records indicate that mothers of free black and mulatto children took it upon themselves to learn about the colony's laws and protect the fragile freedom of their children. Elizabeth Banks, of York County, a white indentured servant, arranged to have her mulatto daughters, Ann and Mary, bound out to planters who lived a short distance from her. As an adult, Mary Banks appeared before York County's justices of the peace to make similar arrangements for her children, Hannah and Elizabeth. These women and other mothers of free black and mulatto boys and girls negotiated apprenticeships, secured food and shelter, and laboured so there would be money to buy necessities for their families.

The events of Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677), and the role that female voices played in them, highlight the instability of Virginia society in the late seventeenth century. By this time, the men at the top of Virginia's social and economic order controlled much of the colony's wealth. They owned thousands of acres of land, had indentured servants and slaves who laboured for their benefit, and had wives and children over whom they had authority. In contrast, many of the men at the bottom of the social order had neither land nor a wife. As tobacco prices dropped due to overproduction, it became harder for these individuals to support themselves.

Discontent with their position, many of these men eagerly joined Nathaniel Bacon when he challenged Governor Sir William Berkeley for control of the colony in 1676. Berkeley had branded Bacon a rebel, and as such, Bacon could not attend meetings of the county court or parish churches to recruit supporters. Instead, women such as Lydia Cheesman, Ann Cotton, and Sarah Drummond openly challenged the governor's authority, spread word of Bacon's plans, and urged their husbands to enlist with the rebel. The historian Stephen Saunders Webb has described these women as "news wives.". Other women demonstrated their loyalty to the governor and especially to his wife, Lady Frances Culpeper Stephens Berkeley, who spoke out in support of her husband and even sailed to England to present his side of story to Charles II.

In part because of the efforts of news wives, hundreds joined Bacon's army. Among them were indentured servants and slaves to whom Bacon had promised freedom in exchange for their participation. This coming together of free men, indentured servants, slaves, and women threatened the security of Virginia's nascent patriarchy. After the rebellion collapsed in 1677, the colony's leaders passed legislation to suppress any future alliances. A series of laws passed in the last quarter of the seventeenth century increased restrictions on slaves, while the "Act of Reliefe" penalized those who "shall presume to speake, write, disperse or publish by words, writeing or otherwise, any matter or thing tending to rebellion." First offenders had to pay a fine of 1,000 pounds of tobacco and stand in the stocks for two hours—unless they were married women, or femes covert, who had to pay the fine or endure twenty lashes to the bare back.

Ducking stool punishment for wayward women and wicked wives at Jamestown

By the end of the seventeenth century, one's role in Virginia society depended on both gender and race. Black women, whether enslaved or free, occupied a position at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. They could not fulfill the English ideal of the good wife because they were primarily agricultural labourers. In contrast, white females could be good wives even if they spent some time tending tobacco plants.

A good wife in early eighteenth-century Virginia had different responsibilities from her counterpart in England. In Virginia, as in England, a good wife cared for her children, cooked, cleaned, tended the garden, and managed the work done by a staff of domestics. But unlike that of her English counterpart, a Virginia wife's staff included enslaved men, women, and children. Learning how to manage slaves who had recently been imported into the colony from Africa was an additional challenge for white Virginians of either sex. To them, these slaves were different from the enslaved men, women, and children who had been born in Virginia. Most of the new slaves did not speak English, and many had ritual scarification and body piercings.

Extant documents indicate that some husbands and wives of the gentry class struggled to determine who was in control of the household. The planter elite believed they needed to impose their authority on their wives and to manage the domestic work in their homes. The need to control one's wife was crucial because failure to manage a woman was a sign that a man was not in control of his life. William Byrd II, for example, recorded his frustration on the occasions when his wife, Lucy Parke Byrd, did not submit to his authority. Byrd challenged her husband, perhaps in part because she wanted to direct the work of the slaves who laboured in their home. It was uncertain exactly what work was to be done by a good wife if her husband owned slaves to labour for their benefit.

By the second quarter of the eighteenth century, however, the role and duties of a good wife in Virginia were clearer. An elite woman's main responsibility was to prepare her children to be members of Virginia's gentry. In addition to providing instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion, gentry wives made sure that their sons and daughters knew proper etiquette, how to converse with guests, and how to dance. The wife of a prosperous planter also taught her children how to manage enslaved labourers, including the personal slave who would tend to their daily needs. Establishing these behaviours helped gentry families maintain their power, which was consolidated largely through marriage.

While the patriarchal ideal dominated both theory and practice by the mid-eighteenth century, a minority of adult women operated successfully outside this norm. This was especially true of widows, who as feme soles continued to buy and sell land, negotiate contracts, and manage households with servants and slaves. A majority of widows remarried, but many did not, preferring instead to remain single and independent. In some areas of Virginia, these widows and other single women were a significant economic force, representing up to 15 percent of the landowners and owning nearly 20 percent of the land.

Women also participated in the political life of the colony even though they had no official role. While it is possible that a few wealthy widows may have voted in the seventeenth century, a 1699 law made clear that this was a male-only activity. Women did, however, help enfranchise men through land they brought to a marriage and this in turn gave some of them indirect power to influence the voting behaviour of their husbands. Candidates, too, understood that treating wives with cordiality and respect might impact the outcome of an election.

Middling and poor women also worked to make sure that their children were ready for adulthood. They taught sons and daughters the basic math and writing skills that would enable them to keep accounts and manage their households or plantations. By mid-century, some middling and poor females decided to move to one of the colony's urban areas, such as Williamsburg or Norfolk, where they might run taverns, work as milliners, become midwives, or wash and mend clothes. Christiana Campbell and Jane Vobe kept two of Williamsburg's most popular taverns and counted the colony's leaders, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, among their customers. Catherine Rathell and Sisters Margaret and Jane Hunter (later Jane Charlton) opened shops that helped Williamsburg residents and visitors to keep up with the latest British fashions. The midwife Catherine Blaikley used a red morocco pocketbook to hold money, receipts, and notes. When she died in 1771 the Virginia Gazette reported that Blaikley had delivered more than 3,000 babies born to white and black women in the Williamsburg area. Ann Ashby (also known as Ann Jones), a free black woman, laundered clothing, repaired torn garments, and knit stockings for her customers. Although Rathell, Hunter, Charlton, Blaikley, and Ashby worked to support themselves and their families, their actions did not challenge gender roles because their businesses were an extension of the domestic work performed by women.

By the mid-eighteenth century, the majority of enslaved people in Virginia had been born in the colony. They spoke English and knew how to negotiate with their owners to gain small concessions in work demands, food, and clothing. In the eyes of the law, however, black women were supposed to perform strenuous agricultural labour and increase their masters' wealth by bearing children. Most slave owners gave little thought to the stability of their slaves' domestic lives, often dividing families to turn a profit. They also divided enslaved families in their wills if it would benefit their heirs. Nevertheless, enslaved mothers made an effort to teach their children about slavery and to preserve their culture.

Women's lives changed between the end of the French and Indian War (1754–1763) and the issuance of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. When Virginia's burgesses and merchants pledged not to import specified goods as a way to protest taxes imposed by Great Britain, some women also promised to do without these items. The decision not to import material objects not only gave women an opportunity to express their political views, it also changed the daily work done by many women because they had to learn how to produce items they previously purchased from British merchants. Elite wives also taught some enslaved women how to make soap and candles. Other female slaves learned how to spin thread and weave cloth. Seamstresses turned the Virginia cloth into clothing that colonists wore to protest "taxation without representation." It became a sign of honor to wear clothes made in Virginia from cloth spun in the colony.

Once Virginians declared their independence from Great Britain, women of all classes found their lives changed. Wives of both Patriots and Loyalists learned how to operate households during times of food shortages and high prices. Some Loyalist families decided to leave Virginia and once they arrived in England, the women in these households learned how to adapt to the gender expectations in their new country. Wives of Continental soldiers functioned as the heads of their households while their husbands were gone. For some enslaved women, Dunmore's Proclamation (1775) offered a chance to seize independence and begin life as free women. Whether Virginia women spent the Revolution in America or in England, they continued to perform domestic work, raise their children, and add stability to their societies.

Even if one considers only the early history of the Jamestown settlement, an era during which English and African women were scarce, one is confronted with a rich and multicultural history in which women played significant parts. Pocahontas and the "powdered wife" present us with two seemingly opposite possibilities for women, as political actors and as victims, but the historical reality is much more complex. As pilfering laundresses, marriageable nieces, transported gentlewomen, sexual partners, and field workers, women of many colours and nationalities became part of the historical tapestry of Jamestown. Their lives and their points of view were as varied as those of their menfolk, defying our efforts to reduce them to caricatures or mere TV characters.