English Colonies - Women & the American Story

Key Ideas

1. The English common law practice of coverture limited the legal and economic opportunities of married women in the English colonies.

2. English colonial courts actively enforced gender roles and women’s subordination.

3. The knowledge enslaved women brought to the English colonies was critical to the economic success of the colonies.

4. Native women played a proactive role in tribal responses to English colonization.

5. In spite of their legal and cultural limitations, English women in the colonies made contributions to the Enlightenment.

Introduction

Henry Popple, A map of the British Empire in America with the French and Spanish Settlements adjacent thereto, 1734. New-York Historical Society Library.

Women in the English Colonies, 1607–1715

The history of the early English colonies in North America can be divided into two familiar stories.

In the southern colonies of Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas, most of the white colonists were young poor people. They arrived as servants indentured to a small community of wealthy people who wanted cheap labor to grow tobacco on their plantations. They came hoping to work their way up, from a servant controlled by masters to an independent farmer or merchant. In the northern colonies, the area known today as New England, Puritan families settled in small towns. They wanted to build perfect religious communities away from the religious persecution they had lived under in Europe. English communities in the North and South cooperated and clashed with the Native people who already inhabited the lands they claimed. They also forcibly brought enslaved people from Africa who were made to work in building the new societies.

Section Essential Questions

1. What roles did women play in colonial England in the seventeenth century? How did these roles change for women of different races and classes?

2. In what circumstances were women allowed to push the boundaries of their assigned roles? How did they challenge boundaries when it wasn’t “allowed”?

3. How did women contribute to the establishment of the economy, society, politics, and culture in New England?

4. What gender-specific challenges did women face in the English colonies?

Resources

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JOSEPH GROVER

This document illustrates how women in English society were economically marginalized by the common law practice of coverture.

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS:

colonial society, British colonies in North America

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LEGISLATING REPRODUCTION AND RACIAL DIFFERENCE

The Virginia colony laws collected here demonstrate how the colonial government used legislation about women to shore up race-based slavery.

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS:

slavery, race and racism, British colonies in North America

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MORTAR AND PESTLE FOR POUNDING RICE

This image of a mortar and pestle evokes and illustrates the agricultural techniques brought to the English colonies by enslaved women.

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS:

slavery, colonial society, transatlantic slave trade, European coloniation of the Americas, British colonies in North America, race and racism

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PATENT FOR CLEANING AND CURING CORN

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.

CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS:

colonial society, European colonization of the Americas, British colonies in North America

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