Queen Isabella I’s instructions on the governance of Hispaniola in 1501 were the blueprint for the development of the Spanish colonies of the Americas.
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The four poems collected here demonstrate the hardship of living in a time when the mortality rate was much higher than today.
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In this document, the Dutch government awards Sarah Roelfs Kierstede van Borsum a land grant in recognition of her services as a translator in meetings with the Lenni-Lenape.
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This document illustrates how women in English society were economically marginalized by the common law practice of coverture.
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This document illuminates the way the Dutch Orphanmasters’ Court protected the inheritance rights of young women, and one mother’s attempt to keep them from meddling in her affairs.
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The cradleboard and "loopwagen" allowed Oneida and Dutch women to work while still keeping their children safe and close by. They symbolize the double duty all mothers in the early colonial period had to do.
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This document recounts how two wives of New Amsterdam councilmembers opened negotiations with English invaders in 1664.
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This beautiful painting demonstrates the wealth, power, and extent of the trade network of the Dutch Republic in the 1600s. A companion art activity accompanies this resource.
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This image of a mortar and pestle evokes and illustrates the agricultural techniques brought to the English colonies by enslaved women.
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The first patent issued to an English colonist was for a new invention created by Philadelphian inventor Sybilla Masters. The patent was filed under her husband’s name because women could not be legally recognized.
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