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.
