THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD
There were many marked differences between the period of settlement and
the early colonial period, which latter, for our present purpose, we may
roughly class as that extending from 1630 to 1685. Of course the most
salient difference was that in the colonial epoch there first appeared
the racial American as we now know him--not the red man of the forest
and plain, to whom such title was really due, but the white American,
the son of the soil, but not of generations of dwellers thereupon,--the
American as universally entitled to-day.
It must be remembered that there is no parallelism in the chronology of
the beginnings of the North and the South. The Virginia colony was, in
matter of time, far in advance of that on the shores of Massachusetts
Bay, and the colonial period had fairly begun in the South when
settlement was yet hardly established in the North. Many white children,
native Americans, had succeeded Virginia Dare in the southern colony
before Peregrine White made his appearance as the pioneer American of
the New England dominion; and therefore the American type had to some
extent become confirmed in the one section before it had been modelled
in the other. So that synchronistic treatment of the development of the
American race in its beginnings is impossible, and this tends to produce
confusion of statement and consequently of thought. It is fortunate for
our present purpose, therefore, that the development of a distinct
feminine type seems to have been almost confined to New England. The
Virginia woman was not markedly individual; she had certain definite
characteristics, even from the first, but these seem to have been rather
of environment as modifying original race than of race as taking
impression from environment. There were many reasons for this, which we
shall consider later in the chapter; but for the present we will leave
the woman of Virginia to turn to her younger but stronger sister of the
North, the American Puritan woman.
If it be true--and denial is hardly possible--that during the period of
settlement women played but a small part, at least as individuals, in
the general result and progress, the same statement concerning the early
colonial period, at least in New England, would meet with prompt and
strenuous denial at the hands of history. We are accustomed to vaunt the
present as the day of feminine influence in matters of human interest;
but it may be doubted if, as far as our own country is concerned, the
palm must not be awarded to the early days of the Puritan settlements.
Such award may not be altogether to the liking of the fair sex, since
the effect of the feminine influence was almost invariably in the
direction of turbulence and revolt; but that effect was very intense and
formative. It was chiefly in the matters of religion, or that which
passed for such, that woman's influence was exerted and effectual; but
it must be remembered that religion was the paramount subject in the
consideration of the Puritan, whether male or female. None the worse for
that, doubtless, were those staunch, if stern, followers of conscience;
but one may be permitted to wish that they had been less unbending, less
gloomy,--less Puritanical, in short,--in their ideas concerning that
which they termed Christianity. As in all else, it was the women who
were the extremists in this matter; and fanaticism, persecution, and
enthusiasm were by the women rather than the men maintained at a height
of fervor, not to say frenzy, that stopped short not even at the taking
of life to further its own ends or to crush the purposes of others.
Before entering into this more particular portion of our present
subject, however, it may be well to cast a hurried glance at the status
of woman in the Puritan settlements when these began to attain to the
dignity of colonies. As early as 1631 we find the court of Plymouth
sending for the elders and charging them to urge upon the conscience of
the people that they should avoid the costliness of apparel which was
beginning to be noted, as a detriment to the young colony; but,
unfortunately, the worshipful court did not take into consideration all
the circumstances of the case, for we read that "divers of the elders'
wives were partners in the general disorder," and we may be entirely
sure that the elders did not dare too strenuously to urge reform in this
matter. Winthrop tells us that "little was done about it." So that even
here we find feminine influence paramount, and on the side of disorder;
and this was to be the history of the sex in New England for many a day,
even though there were to be notable exceptions to the rule thus begun.
When we read the "Twelve Good Rules" of the infant colony, we are
constrained to believe that some of them were framed with especial
reference to women, and that they were dictated by some sad experiences.
The twelve rules ran thus:
1. Profane no divine ordinance.
2. Touch no state matters.
3. Urge no healths.
4. Pick no quarrels.
5. Encourage no vice.
6. Repeat no grievances.
7. Reveal no secrets.
8. Maintain no ill opinions.
9. Make no comparisons.
10. Keep no bad company.
11. Make no long meals.
12. Lay no wagers.
Truly a Draconian code in its paternalism; but we are inevitably forced
to the conclusion that the framers thereof had in their minds' eye their
helpmeets when they laid down rules 6 and 8, while they must have smiled
at one another when they wrote rule 7.
One of the first regulations of the infant colony was in regard to
marriage, and ever and anon we find the Solons of the settlement laying
down new legislation for the better enforcement of the marriage tie as a
thing to breed accord rather than discord in the colony. It would seem
that there was considerable trouble in regulating the matrimonial
desires of maidens under guardianship and maid-servants, since in 1638
there was published a regulation which deserves quotation in whole, both
for its quaintness of phraseology and for the light which it throws upon
female servitude in the colony, whether undergone because of ties of
blood or of bondage resulting from apprenticeship:
"Whereas divers persons unfit for marriage, both in regard of their
yeong yeares, as also in regard of their weake estate, some practiseing
the inveagleing of men's daughters and maids under gardians, contrary to
their parents and gardians likeing, and of mayde servants, without leave
and likeing of their masters: It is therefore enacted by the Court that
if any shall make any motion of marriage to any man's daughter or mayde
servant, not having first obtained leave and consent of the parents or
master so to doe, shall be punished either by fine or corporall
punishment, or both, at the discretions of the bench, and according to
the nature of the offence.
"It is also enacted, that if a motion of marriage be duly made to the
master, and through any sinister end or covetous desire, he will not
consent thereunto, then the cause to be made known unto the magistrates,
and they to set down such order therein as upon examination of the case
shall appear to be most equall on both sides."
While it would seem from the first part of this somewhat puzzlepated
enactment that "yeong yeares" were considered as disabling one from
"inveagleing" young ladies into the toils of matrimony, yet in cases
where it was evident that the objection of the master of the maid
servant was founded upon entirely personal grounds of his own gain there
was recourse to a tribunal for the obtaining of justice. This portion of
the law shows how careful were the old fathers of the country to
encourage marriage wherever this could be done with no risk to the
harmony of the settlement. We can also see how strict were the ideas of
female servitude. Not only had the parent or guardian absolute power
over the hand of the daughter or ward, but the master of an indentured
servant could at least obstruct her matrimonial designs. In all these
cases there was the same basal idea--the loss of service. The interest
of the father in his daughter, of the guardian in his ward, and of the
master in his maid servant were supposed to be identical and to be
founded on actual loss sustained through the transference of right of
service from them to an alien in the family. In this "fiction of the
law" one can see the persistence of an idea as old as the status of
woman as a mere chattel, and it is curious to note that in some phases
it survives even unto the present day.
There are recorded numerous instances of the enforcement of the law
which has been quoted. One Will Colefoxe, in 1647, was brought before
the court at Stratford and fined five pounds for "labouring to inveagle
the affection of Write his daughter;" and, among several other notable
instances, we find Arthur Hubbard in 1660 fined the same amount as
Colefoxe, the court this time being that of Plymouth, the complainant
Thomas Prence, the Governor of the colony, and the charge that of
"disorderly and unrighteously endeavoring to gain the affections of
Mistress Elizabeth Prence." It would seem that Master Hubbard was as
persistent as he was unrighteous, for after an interval of seven years
we find him again mulcted of the same amount for the same offense
regarding the same lady; but his patient waiting had its reward, as in a
few months he became the happy husband of Mistress Prence.
Yet the law did not exclusively care for the father and threaten the
suitor, for the latter, as we have seen, had recourse of law if he were
unjustly rejected by the master of a "mayde;" and it would seem that
this part of the statute was held to apply to the father as well, since
in 1661 Richard Taylor obtained judgment against the father of Ruth
Whieldon for interfering with the marriage of the young pair. Probably
the court issued something in the nature of a perpetual injunction; but
its task must have been most difficult in the case of another youth,
Ralph Parker by name, who, having been sent about his business by the
sire of his faire ladye, actually sued said sire for loss of time
incurred in courting. Nor were there lacking maids to aid their lovers
to avoid the penalty of the law. There is record of one Sarah Tuttle who
was, on May Day in the year 1660, and in the colony of New Haven, while
on an errand to a neighbor, Dame Murline, kissed by Jacob Murline in the
very presence of his mother and sisters. The chronicler,--doubtless with
shocked feelings but not without a suggestion of a smacking of lips as
well,--records that "they sat down together, his arm being about her and
her arm upon his shoulder or about his neck; and hee kissed her, and she
kissed him, or they kissed one another, continuing in this posture about
half an hour, as Maria and Susan testified." Which, when one considers
the detail, was doubtless very shocking; and we cannot wonder that
Goodman Turtle haled Murline into court on the charge of "inveagleing
the affections of Sarah his daughter." But behold! Sarah, "being asked
in court if Jacob inveagled her said, 'No!'" This was a baffling of
justice, perhaps unprecedented; for only absolute "inveaglement" could
constitute guilt under the statute, and the party most concerned denied
the criminality of the accused by taking the guilt upon herself. It is
no wonder that the scandalized court took occasion to call Sarah a
"bould Virgin," and fined her a goodly amount, though on what count does
not appear. Two years afterward half the fine was remitted, nor does it
appear that the remaining moiety was ever paid; which seems just as
well, since the real sufferer would probably have been Master Tuttle,
the plaintiff, who would naturally be called on to pay his daughter's
debt--which would have been a miscarriage of justice indeed.
It would seem from these accounts that matrimony was hedged about with
difficulty in the time of the Puritans; but this was far from being the
true state of the case. On the contrary, marriage was in every way given
"incurridgement." In several towns bachelors about to change their
condition were allotted tracts of ground from the commonwealth, and
"maid lotts" were granted at Salem until frowned upon by that grand old
Puritan, Endicott, who placed on the town records his opinion that it
were best to discontinue the custom and "avoid all presedents & evil
events of granting lotts unto single maidens not disposed of."
"Spinsters of uncertain age" were difficult to find in those days; the
time and circumstances called for matrimony as a duty to the State as
well as to oneself. The death of the sister-in-law of Governor Bradford
was recorded with the addition of some words of wonder that, though
ninety-one years of age, "she was a godly old maid never married." Yet
even then there was a measure of respect for those women who refrained
from matrimony, and some of these were commended for their choice. There
is to be found in the _Life and Errors_ of John Dunton an account of a
maiden lady which is worth quoting, not only for the picture of the lady
herself, but for the light which it throws upon some of the customs of
its time,--which was, however, rather later than the days which have
thus far been considered.
"It is true an _old_ (or superannuated) Maid in Boston is thought such a
curse as nothing can exceed it (and looked on as a dismal spectacle);
yet she by her good nature, gravity, and strict virtue convinces all (so
much as the fleering Beaux) that it is not her necessity but her choice
that keeps her a Virgin. She is now about thirty years (the age which
they call a _Thornback_) yet she never disguises herself, and talks as
little as she thinks of Love. She never reads any plays or Romances,
goes to no Balls or Dancing-match (as they do who go to such Fairs) to
meet with Chapmen. Her looks, her speech, her whole behaviour are so
very chaste, that but once, (at Governor's Island, where we went to be
merry at roasting a hog) going to kiss her, I thought she would have
blushed to death.
"Our Damsel knowing this, her conversation is generally amongst the
women (as there is least danger from that sex) so that I found it no
easy matter to enjoy her company, for most of her time (save what was
taken up in needle work and learning French &c.) was spent in Religious
Worship. She knew Time was a dressing-room for Eternity, and therefore
reserves most of her hours for better uses than those of the Comb, the
Toilet, and the Glass.
"And as I am sure this is most agreeable to the Virgin Modesty which
should make Marriage an act of their obedience rather than their choice.
And they that think their Friends too slow-paced in the matter give
certain proof that lust is their sole motive. But as the Damsel I have
been describing would neither anticipate nor contradict the will of her
parents, so do I assure you she is against Forcing her own by marrying
where she cannot love; and that is the reason she is still a Virgin."
The ideas of the old critic would hardly commend themselves in their
entirety to modern times; yet they hold a germ of truth.
Marriage customs among the early colonists presented some curious
contrasts. The practice of "bundling," probably imported from Wales, was
long extant in the rural districts; yet in the same district in which
this custom was most prevalent there was another practice of the
opposite extreme of prudery, whereby those who were passing through the
first and even intermediate stages of courtship were forced to "do their
spiriting" in the presence of the household, the only license of
propinquity granted to them being the privilege of whispering their
words through a hollow stick about six feet long, known as a
"courting-stick." The use of this as a conductor ensured secrecy to the
speech of love; but the enforced separation must have been terribly
disheartening at times, and there must have been occasions when the
lover longed to lay the stick upon the backs of the company and put them
to flight. It must have been as difficult to be impassioned through this
medium as nowadays to propose through a telephone.
There was abundant protection for wives in the early laws of the
northern colonies. Bigamy was forbidden in a law which forbade a man to
"marrie too wifes which were both alive for anything that can appear
otherwise at one time," which strikes one as more well-meaning than
lucid. The husband must not beat his wife or even abuse her with angry
words, while she, on the other hand, if she gave vent to "a curst and
shrewish tongue" was in danger of the stocks or the ducking-stool. The
husband was not allowed to desert his wife for long or even to keep her
in an outlying and dangerous situation, else the town "will pull his
house down." Woman may have been regarded as the weaker vessel by the
old Puritans, but they were determined that her interests should not be
neglected, at least so far as in that age was well and customary.
Though marriage was in many ways hedged about with safeguards, there
existed in the earliest times at Plymouth a form of public betrothal
which too often was considered as sufficient by the parties thereto. It
was called a pre-contract, but was not entirely binding. There was
usually a sermon preached on the occasion of the ceremony, and it was
the custom to allow the bride to choose the text which she thought most
applicable to the general or particular circumstances of the case.
Marriage was for long by banns, and the ceremony was at first performed
by magistrates and not by clergymen. This fact, as well as the further
fact that any "man of dignity" came under the generic title of
"magistrate" in the meaning of the custom, gave rise to many
complications and no little scandal--as in the case of old Governor
Bellingham, who when a widower of forty-nine married himself to Penelope
Pelham, who was not half his age. This acting in the dual capacity of
bridegroom and magistrate was a little too much for the patience of the
community, and the governor was called upon to stand trial for his
offence; but as he insisted upon his prerogative of occupying the bench
the result was not edifying.
There were many local customs at marriages which were by no means
admirable, such as the scrambling for the bride's garter, the bedding of
the newly wedded pair, and like fashions, imported from the rural
districts of England. These things were carried to such a length that
restrictive laws were found necessary, and in 1651 "mixt and unmixt"
dancing at taverns during wedding ceremonies was distinctly forbidden.
Dancing may seem to us incongruous with the spirit of the old Puritan
life; but dance they did, as is evident from the law referred to and
from the fact that dancing persisted as an accompaniment of all
weddings. Though a little out of its period, it may be recorded here
that in 1769 there were danced at one wedding ninety-two jigs, fifty
contra-dances, forty-three minuets, and seventeen hornpipes, all being
safely accomplished by a little past midnight.
Enough of the general for the present; let us come to the particular in
exemplification of the status of women among the old Puritans. In the
beginning of this chapter the statement was made that women played a
most prominent part in the religious polity of the northern colonies,
and it is well that the assertion should now be established. The early
history of New England holds the stories of more than one remarkable
woman, and one of the most remarkable among them was Mrs. Anne
Hutchinson, who may be selected as in many regards a typical New England
woman of the early colonial days. It is true that Mrs. Hutchinson was
not an American by birth and had even passed some forty years of life
when she first stood upon the shores of our country; but she was of
those who invaded this land filled with the spirit of liberty that
afterward took such strong root, and in the genius of her nature she was
emphatically American. The old New England spirit found no better
exposition than in this daughter by adoption, and it is for this reason
that she has been chosen, being of one stock with the native Puritans,
as typical of the woman of her time and country.
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who had been born in England about 1590, landed at
Boston on September 18, 1634. She came in the name of religious liberty,
seeking that freedom which she was denied in the land of her birth; but
even on her voyage to our shores she had excited suspicions as to her
orthodoxy, and there was some delay, probably at the instance of the
Rev. Mr. Symms, her fellow passenger, in granting her membership in the
first church of Boston. She had been somewhat free, according to Mr.
Symms, in "venting her revelations" on the outward voyage; but her
kindly attitude toward friends and acquaintances soon reconciled most of
the Bostonians to her presence in their midst. The fact was that Mrs.
Hutchinson was what was in those days known as a "notable" woman. She
could be helpful to those in trouble in mind, body, or spirit, and she
was skilful in a very comprehensive pathology. Welde, of Roxbury, tells
us that she was "a woman very helpful in the time of childbirth and
other occasions of bodily disease, and well furnished with means for
those purposes." True, he also calls her "the American Jezabel;" but
even in his blame of her he admits, though he probably did not mean it
as a compliment, that she was "of a nimble wit and active spirit and a
very voluble tongue, more bold than a man, though in understanding and
judgment inferior to many women." The latter part of this description
simply meant that Master Welde did not agree with the theories
promulgated by Mrs. Hutchinson.
And indeed it needed not to be very prejudiced to agree with Master
Welde herein. For Mrs. Hutchinson, though she "sat under" Mr. Cotton and
professed great love for his doctrines, was undoubtedly more than
tainted by Antinomianism,--a word, in its broad acceptation, signifying
the consciousness of "justification by faith," and an abiding
justification that could not be shaken even by the commission of sin.
Hence, said the enemies of the Antinomians, these latter took advantage
of their presumed state of grace to live as they pleased, licentiously
or cleanly, they being surely saved by their faith and therefore free to
mould their works as they chose. This was carrying to its extreme the
theory of sanctification professed by the Antinomians; yet it was not an
unfair deduction from the tenets of that body. The Antinomians were
looked upon as menaces to the morality of any land in which they took
root, as pursuing pleasure and vice under the cloak of fanaticism. To
make matters worse in the Boston colony just at this time with which we
are concerned, the new governor, Henry Vane, was vehemently suspected of
being an advocate of the hated sect; and therefore when Mrs. Hutchinson
began to hold women's meetings at which she set forth her religious
tenets, which were perilously close to Antinomianism,--though she, as
well as her chief ally and brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, never
admitted the applicability of the title,--there arose an outcry against
these proceedings. Wheelwright was brought to trial on certain counts,
and he and Governor Vane, with Cotton himself,--he having been gradually
brought into the controversy in a rather singular manner,--formed a
party which was opposed to the mass of the Puritans and was considered
little less than a scandal. At the end of a three weeks' session, held
in Cambridge to deal with this matter of heresy, the first American
clerical synod condemned the opinions of the recalcitrants, and then
proceeded to adopt a resolution which is of more importance to us than
was their general condemnation; it ran thus:
"That though women might meet (some few together) to pray and edify one
another, yet such a set assembly (as was then in practice at Boston)
where sixty or more did meet every week, and one woman (in a prophetical
way, by resolving questions of doctrine and expounding Scripture) took
upon her the whole exercise, was agreed to be disorderly and without
rule."
Though this expression of opinion, for it was after all but little more,
on the part of the synod was aimed at the special case of Mrs.
Hutchinson, it is none the less of some general interest in its broad
statement. Evidently the Puritans were at one with St. Paul in his
opinion that women should be silent in the churches.
None the less for the fulminations of the synod did Mrs. Hutchinson
continue to hold the meetings that were so repugnant to the elders of
the colony; and by this time she had become a real power. That she was
entirely convinced of the truth of her tenets, of the divine source of
her "revelations," and of the honesty and purity of her own purpose is
certain; that she was considerably influenced by a love of notoriety and
an intense natural combativeness is at least probable. Opposition,
especially that which took the form of contempt for her sex and
intelligence, only inflamed her the more; and soon she became really
turbulent in her denunciations of the ruling powers. Matters became so
grave, threatening not only the orthodoxy but the peace of the colony,
that drastic methods were decided upon. John Wheelwright was first
disfranchised and banished, and then Mrs. Hutchinson was summoned before
the Court. The proceedings on the occasion of her arraignment may best
be set forth in the words of Winthrop, that prejudiced yet trustworthy
chronicler:
"The Court also sent for Mrs. Hutchinson, and charged her with divers
matters, as her keeping two public lectures every week in her house,
whereto sixty or eighty persons did usually resort, and for reproaching
most of the ministers (viz., all except Mr. Cotton) for not preaching a
covenant of free grace, and that they had not the seal of the Spirit,
nor were able ministers of the New Testament: which were clearly proven
against her, though she sought to shift it off. And after many speeches
to and fro, at last she was so full as she could not contain, but vented
her revelations, amongst which this was one, that she had it revealed to
her that she should come into New England and should here be persecuted,
and that God would ruin us and our posterity, and the whole State, for
the same. So the Court proceeded and banished her; but, because it was
winter, they committed her to a private house, where she was well
provided, and her own friends and the elders permitted to go to her, but
none else."
To the modern mind there is in that account merely the picture of an
excitable, overwrought, hysterical woman, keyed to the pitch of
rejoicing in martyrdom and "venting her revelations" to this end and
under an impulse of enthusiasm. It seems impossible that she should be
taken seriously; yet perhaps the Court was in the right, for such a
woman, at once intelligent and fanatical, may have been a greater threat
to the community than it is possible for us to realize at this day.
Excommunication followed the sentence of the court, and her bearing
under this ban confirms the opinion above expressed concerning her
happiness in finding martyrdom; for we are told by Winthrop that "after
she was excommunicated, her spirits, which seemed before to be somewhat
dejected, revived again, and she gloried in her sufferings, saying that
it was the greatest happiness, next to Christ, that ever befel her." She
was to have plenty of that kind of "happiness" in her life, for Mr.
Cotton, once her firm ally, pronounced against her the censure of the
church, and even one of her sons deserted her in her adversity and took
sides with her enemies; her husband appears to have been from the first
either a very feeble ally or a silent disapprover of her methods. She
was persecuted in many ways, even after her removal to Providence, Rhode
Island, and certain maternal troubles, the result of physical causes,
were gleefully taken advantage of by her enemies and chronicled as
divine punishments for heresy. The latter part of her life must be
written down a failure, though it held a brave struggle to maintain a
gallant front to her foes; and when, in August, 1643, she fell one of
the victims of an Indian massacre even her best friends must have felt
that there was little cause to regret her fate. She had been in the
colonies about two years before she began to preach, about four before
she was excommunicated, and about nine before her death. In that time
she had proved a firebrand and a disturber of the peace such as had not
before been known and she had threatened to disrupt the colony of Boston
and rend it into lasting separation. She had failed; but she had made
manifest a danger.
She had done more than this. She had proved the possibility of woman as
an element in the polity and progress of the State. In her way she was a
pioneer. She was the first American woman to take a decided lead in
matters of general interest. She was the first to hold meetings, to
claim for her sex the privilege of freedom as claimed by the men of the
Pilgrims. She was the first American woman to uprear the banner of her
sex in the matter of independence; she may be said to have been the
prototype of all the succeeding upholders of "women's rights." When
Winthrop, at her trial, brought up the accusation of having held women's
meetings, she quoted "a clear rule in Titus, that the elder women should
instruct the younger." Then Winthrop asked her if she would instruct an
hundred men if they desired it, to which she replied that she would not,
but would instruct any one man who might so wish. She insisted
positively upon her right to teach in her own way, and asked: "Do you
think it not lawful for me to teach women, and why do you call me to
teach the Court?" She may have been somewhat hazy as to her real
theological creed, but she assuredly held clear ideas as to the rights
of her sex.
Above all, and in this she was highly typical of the American woman of
later days, she was an enthusiast. Contrary though the theory be to the
general belief, the most salient and persistent trait among the Puritans
was enthusiasm, however it hid itself behind a cold and contained
exterior. It was their enthusiasm that made them what they were, that
enabled them to found their portion of a mighty nation; they were the
most intensely enthusiastic people that ever went to the making of a
nation; not a Cavalier, not a Frenchman, not a Castilian, ever held the
fire that burned in the spirit of these old Puritans, even though the
stroke of iron was needful visibly to call it from their flint. In Anne
Hutchinson that overpowering quality of enthusiasm was to be found in a
superlative degree, and thus, above all, we find in her the type of the
coming woman of America.
Hardly had the echoes of the Antinomian controversy died away when there
came to New England a yet more rending cataclysm, in which women were
again the leading spirits. This was the "intrusion" of the Quakers. To
us it may seem as absurd as wonderful that the noble doctrines of the
Society of Friends should once have been regarded as especially dictated
by the Father of Lies; but when the Quakers reached at last the shores
of New England with their "pernicious doctrines," it seemed to the
Puritans that the devil had been unchained in their midst. When on July
11, 1656, there arrived in the port of Boston a ship which among other
passengers brought to the colony two women, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher,
who were known to be members of the accursed sect, there ensued a
general consternation which was well satirized by Bishop in his _New
England Judged_, when he writes: "Two poor women arriving in your
harbour so shook ye, to the everlasting shame of you, as if a formidable
army had invaded your borders." It would require little less than a
volume to set forth the reasons which caused the Puritans so to hate and
fear the Quakers; but it is enough for our present purpose that we
understand that not a plague of small-pox or cholera could have created
such consternation as did the coming of these two feeble women. Mary
Fisher, a most enthusiastic follower of Fox, had already undergone
martyrdom in the attempt to spread the faith of her co-religionists,
having been imprisoned in England for months and whipped "until the
blood ran down her body." She was later to travel even as far as the
dominion of the "Grand Turk" and hold speech with that potentate, and at
last to die, an old woman, at Charleston, South Carolina. When she and
Ann Austin made their appearance in the harbor of Boston--more terrible
to the Puritans than the sea-monster to Andromeda--they were promptly
imprisoned and their tracts, with which they were of course provided,
were burned in the market-place. They were held in bondage for some
weeks and were then placed on board their ship and exiled. But they had
done their work, if only in exciting terror, and the fire that consumed
their tracts was to be a spark that lighted a great conflagration. When
the General Court met, it passed a long and incendiary law against the
coming of the Quakers, telling of their "divilish opinions," and
providing for the fining and whipping of offenders. This did not keep
away the detested sect, who believed that they were intrusted by God
with a message to the world and would not be silenced. There were among
them many devoted men; but there were yet more devoted women, and the
second, like the first, "intrusion" of the Quakers was by women, Ann
Burden and Mary Dyer. In August, 1657, arrived a pioneer in Mary Clark,
who boldly proclaimed that she came with "a message from the Lord," and
who found her welcome in the receipt of twenty stripes and banishment.
Salem began to be known as a stronghold of the Quakers or at least of
their admirers, and among others one Cassandra Southwick, an old woman,
was imprisoned for sympathy extended to the Friends. Perhaps there was
other reason as well, for under the date of March 9, 1660, we find that
"Major Hawthorne, at dinner with the Gov. and Magistrates at a Court of
Assistants, said that at Salem there was a woman, called Cassandra
Southwick, that said she was greater than Moses, for Moses had seen God
but twice, and his back, and she had seen Him three times, and face to
face, instancing the places." Probably Cassandra--ominous name!--was a
fanatic who had become insane from a sense of self-importance, as was
too often the case with religious enthusiasts, and had made herself
obnoxious to the powers of the colony by her claims. We hear no more of
her after her imprisonment; but she too was typical of a certain phase
of New England femininity in those days.
It is in Mary Dyer, however, that we find the true type of the New
England Quakeress--a type which persists in more than one aspect of the
American woman. Believing that she was sent by God with His words to
mankind, she would not be hushed from uttering them. Sent away from
Boston on her first appearance there, she soon returned and preached the
"infamous" doctrines of her sect--"peace and goodwill toward men." In
the interval between her visits the offence of which she was guilty in
preaching the creed of the Quakers had been made capital--one of the
deepest blots that rest upon even this speckled period of New England
history. Mary Dyer felt that in returning to Boston to preach she was
going to her death; but she held it her duty, and she did not shrink. On
September 14, 1659, she was condemned to banishment or death, if she did
not leave within two days; but it was no desire to escape the ultimate
penalty that led her on this occasion to return to her Rhode Island
home, for on October 8th she once more appeared in Boston. She was at
once arrested and with two other Friends was condemned by the Court "to
suffer the poenalty of the lawe (the just reward of their transgression)
on the morrow." One sees a twinge of conscience in the clause in
parentheses, as excusatory of themselves to posterity. Mary Dyer,
however, though included in the original sentence, was, on the
intercession of her son, reprieved from death and her sentence commuted
to banishment, "to be forthwith executed if she returned. In the
meanwhile she was to go with the other two condemned to the place of
execution, and to stand upon the gallows with a rope about her neck till
her companions were executed." She went to her ignominious punishment
"as to a Wedding Day" and heartened her companions for their
trial--though they needed no encouragement. Moreover, she did not wish
to accept her own life at the hands of those who had made the unjust law
under which her companions suffered, she probably believing that the
already large number of Quaker sympathizers would be enlarged by the
spectacle of a woman put to death for her faith. Probably, too, she was
of the same enthusiastic spirit as Anne Hutchinson, that rejoiced in
martyrdom. At all events, though once more banished, she reappeared in
Boston, and in little more than six months from the date of her last
sentence she was once more before the Court upon the charge of
"rebelliously returning into this jurisdiction, notwithstanding the
favour of this Court towards her," and she was sentenced to die on June
1st. On that day she accordingly went to her death, as calmly and
triumphantly as to the crown of her life, as indeed the moment probably
seemed to her.
It is difficult to gauge the character of Mary Dyer, who may be taken as
the type of the New England Quaker of her day, even though she was of
alien birth. That she was a woman of pure and holy spirit there can be
no doubt; and though her persistent affronting of death may seem to
savor of fanaticism, it was fanaticism, if at all, of that sort which
inspired the early Christian martyrs. She was utterly sincere; and
sincerity may plead forgiveness for any mere error.
In Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer we have seen two types of the New
England woman as leaders of men. The former was perhaps more of a power,
the latter of an influence; but each was complement to the other, not in
task but in type. It needs no wonderful discernment to see in these
women the rise and florescence of the New England spirit which has come
down to our own day and has permeated and informed the whole American
genius of femininity. Through their descendants--in some cases unworthy
of their ancestors, whom they deserted or even betrayed the blood of
Mrs. Hutchinson and Mrs. Dyer is with us; but that is of less moment
than the survival of their spirit, of the independence of the American
woman when convinced of right, of her steadfastness in following her
impulses, undeterred by sneers or even bodily perils. Though they were
not directly of the Puritan mothers, not directly of the stock which has
most numerically survived, the names of Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer
are deserving of honorable memorial as among the first founders of the
feminine republic of America.
They were pioneers also. Anne Hutchinson was the first woman preacher of
whom we have record on these our shores, and she was the first of the
many religious "prophetesses" who were to rise up and for a time draw
men and women to them because of their personality rather than from any
merit in their tenets. It was probably far less that which Mrs.
Hutchinson preached than that which she was that brought to her meetings
those "seventy or eighty" devoted women who looked upon her as one
inspired. Mary Dyer had no following, was, like Him she preached,
"despised and rejected of men"; but she was in a sense the protomartyr
among women in our country, and she kindled a flame which in another
guise rose to a gigantic conflagration when the time came for women to
speak fearlessly and openly their thoughts concerning great matters.
That our picture may know some completeness, however, it is needful to
glance at the effect of these women and others like them upon the female
world of New England. While Anne Hutchinson in some sense stood alone of
her sex, Mary Dyer was only one of a great number of devoted men and
women, merely singled out by her fate for enduring memory. The women of
the Quakers, driven by the Spirit, went through the land preaching, in
defiance of all the laws that were fulminated against them. We must not
be too sudden or violent in our condemnation of the men who sat in
judgment upon these people, for to the Puritan the Quaker represented a
peril which in this day we cannot comprehend, while the Puritan had also
the excuse for harshness that he owned the land and only desired the
Quaker to remain outside his borders. Yet, when this is said, we can but
give the most hearty admiration to the superb courage of the people who
believed it to be their duty to intrude where they were not desired,
and, believing, shrank from no consequence of their faith. Their women,
with whom we have most particularly to do, suffered grievously for their
devotion; they were whipped at the cart's tail, they were maimed, they
were branded, they were even hanged; yet they persisted. By their
devotion they not only gained many adherents--rarely open sympathizers,
but secret friends--but set a standard for womanhood. Gradually the
Puritan camp, under the constancy of their foes, became divided. The
majority of the Puritans, and especially of their women, grew more and
more virulent as the Quakers persisted in their "intrusion"; but there
was among the women an element, ever growing and strengthening, which
found inspiration in the methods of those whom they had at first
contemned. They had themselves suffered for their faith, though not as
these others; and they found a respect for those who shrank from no
penalty so that they might testify to their faith and do service. It is
after the coming of the Quakers that we find the New England woman more
determined, more active, more bound to high ideals. The mark of the
despised Quakers remained deeply graven, in effect if not in heredity,
on the New England character, especially in its women. Moreover, the
example of the female preachers of the Quakers had its effect in urging
upon the New England woman hitherto undreamed-of possibilities of making
herself heard in the councils of the land. Seeing what women could do as
well as bear, the New England woman was made stronger for both, and she
did not forget the lesson which came to her through those whom at first
she received with hatred and despite.
Such were the great religious feminine uprisings and revolts in New
England. Woman had proved that she was capable of establishing at least
a partial independence, had shown that she was gradually coming to be a
force that would have to be reckoned with in future estimates of the
commonwealth. It is true that the fathers of the land did not read the
signs of the times and believed the new movement of feminine progress to
be but sporadic and of certain termination in the near future; but they
had some excuse for their blindness in the existence and nature of
another feminine movement which placed the female nature in a most
unenviable light,--that of witchcraft.
Under the chronological system which has been adopted--though it has
been stretched several times nearly to the breaking-point--it becomes
necessary to treat of witchcraft in New England in two separate
chapters, the Salem outbreak falling by date within the later period of
colonization.
Before we too greatly blame our forefathers and foremothers for their
superstition and cruelty in the matter of witchcraft, it may be well to
remember a few facts in connection with the subject. Such men as
Cranmer, Bacon, Luther, Melancthon, and Kepler have recorded their
belief in witchcraft, and as late as 1765 Blackstone wrote: "To deny the
possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery is at once
flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both
of the Old and New Testaments; and the thing itself is a truth to which
every nation in the world hath, in its time, borne testimony either by
example, seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws which at least
suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits." Blackstone was
not unenlightened; and so we can see that a belief in the actual and
present existence of witchcraft was not inexcusable in our New England
forbears. Belief in witchcraft was prevalent in England down to the
nineteenth century; and even in the English Church in the seventeenth
century there was a canon which forbade clergymen to cast out devils
without being duly licensed to do so, and such licenses were actually
issued by the Bishop of Chester. It must also be remembered that America
was considered, by virtue probably of the color of its aborigines, to be
the peculiar domain of His Satanic Majesty, who delighted in dwelling
within its shores. Hence it would have been rather strange if there had
not arisen in the colonies accusation of witchcraft. This, however, does
not preclude our sympathy with the victims or our conclusions as to the
nature of the women who believed in such charges and as to the
civilization which condemned the witches to death. For it was usually on
charges brought by women against women that there came accusation of
witchcraft; the men were rarely more than judges and executioners. Thus
the subject falls well within our scope of discussion and narration.
The first New World victim of such an accusation was Margaret Jones,
who, in 1648, was condemned at Charlestown, where she lived, and was
duly hanged. The ground of accusation seems to have been that Goody
Jones, as she was called after the fashion of the day, was a medical
practitioner who did not believe in venesection or in the use of violent
emetics, but worked her cures by means of herbs and simples, and thus
aroused the jealousy and distrust of the regular physicians. The case is
instructive as showing the very slight grounds that were sufficient to
bring about a charge of witchcraft; and it is also instructive, as
demonstrating the childlike credulity of some of the strongest men of
the time, that Governor Winthrop, who presided at the trial of Goody
Jones, records as a proof of the woman's guilt that at the hour of her
execution there came "a very great tempest in Connecticut which blew
down many trees." There were at least two other victims within the next
two years; but in 1656 we find a case that is really startling, as
showing the ranks into which the prevalent superstition could penetrate
as a fatality. In that year was hanged on Boston Common Mistress Ann
Hibbins, whose husband had been a member of the Council of Assistants
and an esquire, and whose brother, Richard Bellingham, was
deputy-governor of Massachusetts. We know very little of the merits of
this case, which is unfortunate, as the facts would undoubtedly be
interesting, looking to the high social standing of the victim. Mistress
Hibbins was tried before Endicott, and we may be sure that that stern
old Puritan paid no attention to the social position of the accused. We
know that the Rev. John Norton, who had breathed fire and flame against
the Quakers and was no friend to any who disturbed the peace of the
colony, held that Mistress Hibbins was wrongfully done to death and
declared that she was condemned "only for having more wit than her
neighbors;" and he tells us that the circumstance which held most weight
against her was her remark, on seeing two people inimical to her talking
together, that she was sure that they were talking about her. It would
not seem that magic was needed to suggest such a conclusion; but the
judges thought that no one but a witch could have divined such an
abstruse fact, and Mrs. Hibbins suffered for her feminine penetration.
Acquittals were not unknown, but they were rare. But whether acquitted
or not, those accused of witchcraft, who were not seldom women of
extremely refined and gentle natures, were subjected to many indignities
as well as great cruelties during the time they rested under suspicion
or charge. These outrages, effected for the purpose of proving or
testing the witches, were in some cases of such a nature as to make it
undesirable to do more than allude to them. In like manner, the
punishments on conviction were often carried out in a manner revolting
to the delicacy of the condemned. It is recorded, however, that on one
occasion, where the accused had confessed to doing most wonderful
things, the jury, marvellously gifted with common sense, simply found
that said accused had lied in the confession, whereupon the court passed
sentence of a fine or a whipping; but such a jury was very rare, and one
of the most remarkable features of the whole matter is found in the
confessions of the self-styled witches. When Goody Glover, in 1688, was
accused of having bewitched a child named Margaret Goodwin, in revenge
for an accusation of theft, she was visited in prison by Cotton Mather,
and to him she confessed that she had made a compact with the Evil One
and was in the habit of frequenting Sabbats held by him. She had been
sentenced, and the confession could do her no possible good or harm; it
and all of its kind must have been dictated by a sheer hysterical
nervousness or else by a fanatical craze for notoriety. Indeed, it was
in those days a badge of distinction, albeit a perilous one, to be
declared a witch; and next in fame was to enjoy the reputation of having
been bewitched by some noted sorceress. Of this latter insanity the
above-named Margaret Goodwin was a notable example. Though but a child,
she was shrewd enough to enjoy the attention which she excited as a
victim of witchcraft; and she steadfastly refused to be cured, even
though Cotton Mather, then but a young preacher, took her into his own
home for treatment. As a somewhat peculiar and in some ways
characteristic product of her time and place Margaret Goodwin deserves a
moment's attention from us. She was a perfect little elf in shrewdness
and she could act like a Rachel. She was determined that she would not
lose the notoriety and the comfortable home which she had found, so she
played her part to perfection. Mather hated Quakers, Catholics, and even
the Church of England; so Margaret found that she could read most easily
Quaker or "Popish" tracts as well as the Book of Common Prayer, but not
a word in the Bible or any Puritan work. What symptoms of the workings
of the devil could seem surer to a man of Mather's prejudices and
sympathies? Then again Margaret could not be prevailed upon to enter
Mather's study, and would scream and kick like a young donkey until she
was dragged by force into the room, when she would become calm and
assert that the devil had just fled from her in the form of a mouse,
unable to endure the presence of the sacred works which lined the walls.
Probably she had learned these things from the old dames of her native
village, with their remnants of Teutonic folklore; but the strange part
of the affair was that Cotton Mather, who tells us all these details,
had no doubt whatever of the genuineness of the possession. If the
accusers of Goody Glover were typical of the credulity and superstition
of their age, Margaret Goodwin, with her shrewd ability to make use of
the most salient tendencies and prejudices of her benefactor in order to
deceive him, was a type of a certain other aspect of Puritanism which
has not yet entirely died away--and never will as long as New England
possesses individuality of human product. So that even the minx who
fooled Cotton Mather to the top of his bent seems to be worthy of rescue
from obscurity in this retrospect of the path by which American women
have reached their present position and characteristics.
It may be objected to the women whose names appear in this chapter that
they were not typical New England women, but were only typical of phases
of New England life in the early days of the colonies. Whether or not
this allegation be just, we can assuredly learn from their stories and
characters much of the atmosphere in which lived the New England woman
of the greater part of the seventeenth century. She was at once a
product and a producer, a cause and an effect, of her environment. There
was constant action and reaction; she molded her time and her time
molded her. She lived, as we have seen, if we have rightly understood
that which we have read, in an atmosphere of religious turmoil and
energy, of purity of purpose and integrity of faith, and of the darkest
and most narrowing superstition. All these things acted mentally and
spiritually upon the woman of New England. They entered into her life
and character; she was energized as well as controlled and directed by
them. There was of course no steadfastness, no persistence, of one
straitly-hewn type; but there was an ever-recurring tendency, a gradual
advance along the line of least resistance. Many were the faults of the
Puritan woman: she was cold, she was hard, she was fanatical, she was
credulous; but she was virtuous, she was truthful,--in higher sense than
mere veracity,--she was faithful,--in deeper sense than mere
constancy,--and she was strong with a strength that came to her from
resistance to the influences which sought her downfall. And she was
deep--deep with the depth of the sea and the forests and the universal
spirit of the new land that had made her its child.
She was sternly repressed. Subjection to her husband was a rule of the
Puritan woman's life, accepted by her as rightful and even necessary.
For it she found Biblical authority, and that was sufficient for her in
all things. Yet, though literally and not merely nominally under the
rule of her husband, the Puritan woman never thought of herself as a
slave, either to a man or a system. Privately she might be a scold and a
shrew,--if she had not the fear of the ducking-stool or the scold's
bridle before her eyes,--but publicly she was under tutelage, and
respected herself, even as she was respected, none the less on that
account. It was a matter of time and place; it was a self-imposed
condition rather than the survival of barbarism, as it is considered
to-day by the theorists of femininity.
So, at the close of the early period of colonization, when the land was
beginning to thrill with the first stirrings of nationality, the Puritan
woman, not yet a type though strongly individual, stood looking into the
future as one that sees but does not fear the coming time of need and
responsibility. No longer English, not yet American, she stood a
transition product, but one that was to find result in a permanency that
would lay the strongest impress upon the nation that was to arise in
after years.
Meanwhile, there was advancing in another portion of our country--a
portion so remote from New England as practically to be a different land
in all but ties of birth--a feminine civilization of a type widely
different from that of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Northern
culture was strongly and preeminently democratic in its origins; that of
the South, before the close of the period now under consideration, had
come to be as preeminently aristocratic. Beginning in the same way as
that of Massachusetts,--even with lower origin, since for a time it
threatened to be a mere penal settlement,--Virginia soon began to
attract to herself a class of adventurers widely differing from those
who sought religious liberty on the bleak shores of Plymouth Bay.
Differing from the general rule in such matters, in Virginia it was the
better class which survived, the convict class being gradually submerged
by the persistence of the higher grade of immigrants. It must not,
however, be forgotten in recalling the origin of the Virginian feminine
culture that even among the convicts there were many who were mere
prisoners of state and were of birth and standing the equal of any free
men whom they left behind them in England. Nor are origins of so much
concern as results; it is only where the former are evidently and
persistently causal that they need dwelling on in this work. Therefore,
we will pass from Virginia in the act of formation to Virginia as
settled by a people who were as individual in their way, though a most
diverse one, as their brethren of New England; but before completing the
journey from Massachusetts to Virginia let us pause for a moment at an
intermediate colony, to commemorate the deed of another woman pioneer in
America, Mistress Margaret Brent, of Maryland, the first American woman
to demand equal rights with men in the councils of state, the prototype
of every female reformer of later times.
It is necessary to suppose the reader familiar with the government and
affairs generally in that peculiar palatinate, the colony of Lord
Baltimore in Maryland. On the 9th of June, 1647, Leonard Calvert, the
Governor of Maryland and vice-gerent of Lord Baltimore, died at St.
Mary's, then the capital of the colony. He was attended during his fatal
illness by his kinswomen, Mistresses Margaret and Mary Brent, and the
former was made administrator to his estate. From this resulted an
unprecedented incident, when in January, 1648, the new governor having
called a session of the Assembly, Mistress Margaret Brent appeared in
the council chamber and demanded "to have a vote in the House for
herself and another as his Lordship's [Lord Baltimore] attorney." Upon
the refusal of the Assembly, shocked at such a revolutionary demand, to
consider the matter, Mistress Brent "protested in form against all the
proceedings of that Assembly, unless she might be present and vote as
aforesaid." Her protest did her very little good, unless it be well to
have one's name handed down as a baffled reformer, but she thus won for
herself at least a right to have her name placed on the pages of any
volume dealing with the progress of the women of America. As far as
there is any record, Margaret Brent was absolutely the first woman who
ever even dreamed of being accorded equal rights of citizenship in a
commonwealth of modern times, though antiquity could show other
examples. She was at all events the first American woman to demand the
privilege of the ballot and of a share in the government of her country;
and her demand was based on the same foundation as that of her sisters
in later times, that of the rights conferred by the care of property and
a stake in the welfare of the commonwealth. The women reformers of our
day should promote Margaret Brent to the position of their patron saint
and protomartyr.
Let us resume the journey to Virginia and study as best we may the
aspects of feminine culture as found in the great Southern colony.
Unfortunately, even in general matters there is great dearth of
authoritative record of Virginia colonial days, and in the matter of the
doings of individual women, or even of the sex generally, we find but
little of interest. We can only gather up the fragments and judge from
them of the feast of which they tell. Though Maryland may be considered
a southern colony, and was indeed so regarded, we must not take Margaret
Brent as representative of the feminine status or spirit in the South.
The women of Virginia in the early colonial days were less independent,
less assertive, than their sisters of New England, where women, as we
have seen, occasionally took the lead in matters of public import. It
was not so in Virginia. There women were held in less account, though
not in less respect, than in the northern colonies. This was caused by a
multiplicity of reasons, chief among which is the fact that in Virginia
there was far greater difference of rank and station than in the North.
The consequence of this was that, while in New England the woman was a
needful and recognized adjunct of the home, that unit on which was based
the civilization of the North, in Virginia she was more of ornament than
necessity. Hence, while in the councils of New England woman had made
herself felt and recognized as a power and thus had come to be held in
mental esteem as a sex, though not always overtly, as we have seen, she
was in Virginia still the lady, the almsgiver, the comforter and
inspirer, but not the fellow-laborer, the equal in danger and toil and
therefore in counsel. For it cannot be denied, save by him who has
studied history with blind eyes, that in the matter of descent the
colonists of Virginia were far superior to those who made to blossom the
bleak shores of Massachusetts Bay. On both records there are too many
blots of birth to make it safe for the ancestral tuft-hunter to delve
very deep into the past in his search on American soil; but the balance
of rank is with the Virginian. Therefore it is that, while we
instinctively regard the early New England woman, taken collectively, as
a worker, a true colonist, we turn to the representative Virginia woman
of the same day with the expectation of seeing a dame dressed in a short
skirt of divers colors, with huge ruff and high-heeled shoes, with
mincing gait and some pretty little affectations of speech and bearing,
and we are not disappointed in the expectation.
There is another very important influence in the result of Southern
culture as discriminated from that of the North,--the existence of
slavery. Though in some of the Northern colonies there was Indian slave
labor, there was but little of pure menial service in the household
itself. The New England woman, as we shall see more clearly in the next
chapter, was her own servant; she was the worker as well as the lady of
the house. It was not so in Virginia. From the day--ill-omened in many
respects, but powerful in formative effect upon the culture it
modified--when the Dutchman left behind him his twenty negro slaves, the
conditions of servitude in the Virginia plantations were altered; and
when the plantations had become a colony, slavery was well established.
It was still held in disfavor by many, at home and abroad; but it had
come to remain for years and even centuries. The consequence of the
importation and constant increase of slave labor was felt in many ways,
but in none so strongly as in the conditions of the household. The
Virginia lady had her troops of servants--not so many at first, but
still in sufficient numbers to save her any need of personal labor,
while her sister of the North was compelled, because of circumstances if
not of choice, to do with her own hands the daily tasks that arise in
the well-ordered household. True, this difference was not so marked at
the time which we are immediately considering as it became soon
afterward. It is stated that in 1649 there were in Virginia but three
hundred negro slaves; and, though the strict accuracy of such
computation may be doubted, it may be admitted as substantially correct.
But there was rapid and constant increase, and long before the end of
the early colonial period slavery had become an established institution
and had produced the effects upon Virginia society which were later to
take such emphasized shape. The Virginia lady of the colonial period was
teaching as a mistress of the manor rather than as a housewife. She was
less notable in her accomplishments of "huswifery" than were the women
of New England; but she had charms which they lacked, the charms that
come from opportunity to indulge the impulse of refinement.
Of course all Virginia in its feminine element was not made up of the
cream bubbles of society. There was the lower stratum as well; there
were even strata, diminishing in numbers as in importance as one neared
the bottom of the pail. There were in Virginia, as in New England, laws
which show that the Virginia woman was not always a lady or at least did
not always "demean herself as such." We find, for instance, that there
is an enactment which determines that "women causing scandalous suits"
are to be ducked; and for the furtherance of this penalty there shall be
set up "neere the court house in every county," besides a pillory,
stocks, and a whipping post--a ducking-stool. This same ducking-stool,
which was an importation from England and not an American innovation,
consisted of a pole, with a rude chair fastened to the end, hanging over
a pond or stream, the pole being so balanced that anyone seated in the
chair, and secured there, might be lowered into the water, held therein
until drowning was imminent, and then again hoisted to air and life.
This weapon of an offended justice was, in Virginia as in New England,
made the penalty for divers offences, and the language of one act is
amusing in its evidently masculine origin, where it condemns to the
ducking-stool "brabling women who often slander and scandalize their
neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often brought into
chargeable and vexatious suits and cast in great damages." That "poor"
is significant of experience and consequent wrath.
Yet, while these and similar precautions against feminine dominance by
force prove the existence, if we did not know of them otherwise, of
degrees in Virginia feminine station, the representative Virginia woman
was of more pampered and easier existence than was her sister of the
North. In New England as well there were toward the end of the early
colonial period well defined strata of society; but they were neither so
far separated nor so marked as were those of Virginia. The New England
dame was called "Goody" or "Mistress" according to her social standing,
the latter title being for long reserved for the spouse of a knight; the
"Goodies" were not only enormously in the majority, but they were types
of the popular existence. The Virginia woman was softly nurtured and
clad in purple and fine linen,--the latter literally after a time; the
New England woman was expected to do her duties to her husband as he to
her, and her garb was homespun.
Even the conditions of ordinary life were different in the two great
colonies. New England existence was from the first a segregation; there
was a constant tendency to draw together in towns. In Virginia, on the
other hand, there was a tendency to differentiation of residence;
beginning as a chain of plantations the colony continued in this
character. The consequence was a number of small feudalities in outward
aspect and the assumption by the Virginia lady of the position of the
_châtelaine_. Each of the great ladies was a little queen, ruling over a
certain number of acres and subjects; and this attribute of the colony,
at first accidental and of small scope, grew into a condition. Now, this
existence, and the tendencies that brought it about, were far more
English than were the conditions of the northern colonies; and so it is
that in early Virginia we find far less individuality of femininity than
we find in early New England. England held her influence in
Virginia,--the England of the royal court; for it must be remembered
that Virginia was strongly loyal. She never accepted the rule of the
Roundhead; and the influx of the Cavaliers, some of their own wills and
some on compulsion as political convicts, not only confirmed Virginian
politics but Virginian manners. More English than England itself, these
eager Carolists never acknowledged a hiatus in the rule of the Stuarts,
and the Restoration found them entirely in accord with its returning
theories and the majority of its practices. But not all, for Virginia
had some morals left her even after the coming of the Cavaliers.
An incident in connection with "Bacon's Rebellion" will indicate the
esteem and place in which women were held in the days when Berkeley
ruled Virginia as its nominal governor and real emperor,--the
culminating days of the period with which we have to do. The stalwart
rebel, being in danger of attack before he was ready, sent into the
surrounding country and gathered in the wives of several of the
prominent gentlemen who were themselves in the camp of his antagonist,
the autocratic Berkeley. We are told that it is probable that these
ladies were brought to the stronghold of the rebel in their carriages,
which shows in itself the advance of Virginian luxury beyond that of New
England, where a pillion was all that could be expected by any but the
most modish people; for Bacon rebelled in 1676, and coaches were not
general in New England until nearly two decades later, though we are
told that John Winthrop had one in 1685. The ladies were brought to
Bacon's camp at "Greenspring," whether afoot, on pillions, or in
carriages, but assuredly "sorely against their wills." There have been
handed down to us the names of four of these ladies: "Madame Bray,
Madame Page, Madame Ballard and Madame Bacon,"--the latter a connection
of the rebel himself. They were treated courteously enough in some ways,
but they were informed that they would be held as hostages for the
forbearance of Sir William until preparations had been made for his
reception; and still greater precautions were taken against attack, as
will be seen.
For Mr. Bacon, though he had the repute of a _preux chevalier_, yet sent
one of the ladies to inform her husband and those of the other dames
that he meant to place the ladies "in the forefront of his men" while
the fortifications were in progress, thus securing his forces against
attack by interposing the shield of sacred femininity between them and
their enemies. When the "white-aproned" herald delivered her message,
"the poor gentlewomen were mightily astonished, and neather were their
husbands void of amazement at this subtill invention." No wonder; for
though as a conception the words of General Bosquet, _C'est magnifique!_
might have been applied, certainly they would needs be followed by the
rest of the famous saying, _mais ce n'est pas la guerre!_ The chronicler
of the affair continues in a strain which is worthy of at least partial
quotation for its sardonic humor. "If Mr. Fuller thought it strange that
the Divell's black garde should be enrouled God's soldiers," he says,
the husbands made it no less wonderful that their innocent and harmless
wives should thus be entred a white garde to the Divell. And this action
was a method in war that they were not well acquainted with that before
they could come to pierce their enemy's sides they must be obliged to
dart their weapons through their wives brest. "The Divell" of the
foregoing is of course Bacon himself; and really, when we think of the
poor ladies set in their "white aprons" on the breastworks, not sure
whether they have most to fear from front or rear, from friend or foe,
we are tempted to consider the title well bestowed. Yet Bacon was
generally held to be a man of gallantry as well as a gallant man; but
the incident is not to the point. At last "the guardian angells withdrew
into a place of safety," the works being finished; and, strange to say,
we hear no more concerning them, though they were left in the camp of
the rebels when Berkeley's troops were repulsed, and what befel them
during the subsequent triumph--a brief one--of the Baconian forces and
the burning of Jamestown we are not told. It is to be hoped that they
were restored to their homes with more courtesy than they were brought
thence.
Bacon's antagonist, Sir William Berkeley, did not prove himself more
gallant or considerate to women than the defeated rebel. After Bacon had
been defeated and had wisely died, the wife of Major Cheeseman, one of
the captured rebels, was present during the interrogation of her husband
by Berkeley, and when the latter demanded Cheeseman's reasons for
rebelling, the lady very courageously came forward and prevented his
reply by telling the enraged Sir William that "It was her provocation
that made her husband join in the cause that Bacon contended for; if he
had not been influenced by her instigations he had never done that which
he had done;" and then, kneeling to Berkeley, she continued, "Since what
her husband had done was by her means, and so by consequence she most
guilty, she prayed that she might be hanged and he pardoned." It was a
womanly and wifely speech; and those who are unacquainted with the
character of Berkeley will find it difficult to believe that he answered
her by a proposition so gross and insulting that it proved him utterly
wanting the true instincts, however he may have had the veneer, of a
gentleman, as well as in understanding of a woman's heart. Cheeseman was
not hanged, however; but he died in prison, and the circumstances were
thought mysterious, so that Berkeley was not held guiltless of the
death.
In the narrated incidents we can find a point of contrast between the
female cultures of the North and the South. We can well imagine a
Puritan wife addressing a dignitary as Mrs. Cheeseman addressed Governor
Berkeley; but it is impossible to fancy Puritan women in the situation
in which those "white gardes of the Divell" found themselves. The former
would never have submitted to the degradation; they would not, for their
lives, have so hampered the hands of their husbands. It was not the
pioneer woman of a new continent who stood upon those ramparts and made
their own breasts the shields of their enemies, but the delicately
reared and nurtured woman of a pampered class. Yet that there was good
courage among these fine ladies is shown, if showing were necessary, in
the example of Mrs. Cheeseman; but it was not universal as among the
women of the Puritans, though both its presence and absence formed but a
general rule to which there were many and important exceptions.
With all their divergences and differences, however, there was between
the North and South one point of contact which was typical, racial, and
individual, and which in its persistence grew to be national. It was of
course a continuation of Anglo-Saxon tradition, applied to new
circumstances which made it but the more powerful in influence; but it
was a tradition which was to be potent in the formation of the American
spirit. This was the home. For the home, as we know it, is almost, if
not entirely, uniquely American and English. There may be entered a
saving clause concerning the Teutonic nations, but it would not impeach
the full integrity of the statement. Only in the Anglo-Saxon races has
the home possessed the peculiar sanctity which it holds in this day
among those same peoples; and in America this has been distinctively the
case. For a race of pioneers, which builds in the desert its own
continuing cities, sees in its edifices, however humble at first,
something which is not evident to the inhabiter of ancient cities. The
dweller in the wilderness gazes with a peculiar affection upon the
little tract which he has reclaimed; and the cottage or even hut, with
its humble household gods and goods, takes in his eyes a strange and
extrinsic value because of that which they represent to him, in
achievement and of necessity.
Therefore, north and south, the first thought of the pioneer settler was
to establish the home; and the first requisite of the home is its
presiding deity, the wife. Thus the American woman had from the first a
peculiar value in the eyes of her husband; she was more surely "flesh of
his flesh and bone of his bone" than were other wives, for she shared of
necessity all his perils and triumphs, while his work was patiently done
for her as for himself. She represented to him his gage to fortune as
well as his best-beloved and most-needed companion; and she was
necessary to him. This attitude of the husband, unexpressed, perhaps
uncomprehended, was none the less effective in forming the womanly ideal
of the home. Because that home had been gained--in the aggregate at
last, in the individual at first--by the sweat of her goodman's brow and
was maintained and guarded by the labor of his hands and the courage of
his heart, therefore the American wife was conscious of a peculiar duty
toward the husband, a peculiar tenderness toward the home, which to her
represented as much as to him.
In this way and for these reasons the sanctity of the American home
became peculiarly marked, and there arose in that home an atmosphere of
holiness and purity that was in contrast to the households of other
nations at that day. There is no more appropriate place than this, on
the border line of the two epochs of colonization, when the American
type began to be defined and recognized, for a brief glance at the
American home in its spiritual features. As with the homes in rural
England, but differing in this respect, as in so many others, from the
city life of the mother country, the purity of the home was its most
noteworthy and carefully conserved feature. In many respects there was
likeness between the home of America and that of Holland; certainly,
though in many aspects the resemblance failed, there was a closer
resemblance than between the former and the home in any other nation.
Whether this came from the brief sojourn of the Pilgrims in Holland
cannot be said with certainty, though it seems most improbable; the
greater likelihood is that the conditions which prevailed in colonial
America were those best adapted to the genius of the Dutch people in the
matter of domesticity, as later shown in the somewhat similar conditions
and results in South Africa. Certain it is that the American home, like
that of Holland, was in all ways, materially and morally, preeminently
_clean_. There are many faults to be attributed to our ancestors north
and south; but they had great virtues as well, and this of cleanliness
in the home was one, and a great one. Even at this early day there was
plenty of roystering and even vice in the colonies, more especially in
Virginia, where the gay young blades ruffled it in imitation of the
sparks of the court of the Stuarts; but the home was still preserved
free from contamination. Woman was from the first held as a sacred
thing, as a being to be reverenced and even worshipped, not with the
affected gallantry of the English cavaliers or the French exquisites,
but in all honesty and honor. They knew her value, these men of the old
colonies; and they felt that an affront to her purity and virtue was a
blow at the very foundation of the country they were learning to love.
So it was that in America, as nowhere else, woman was in the
mid-colonial days held in honor and honest reverence, and so it was that
the American home, founded amid the clamor of the war-whoop and standing
as the true stronghold of civilization, grew to be the finest emblem of
the spirit of the new land and the noblest monument to the character and
influence of its women.