2.3: European Women in the British Colonies

Life in the Chesapeake

The first continuously occupied English colony in North America was Jamestown, Virginia, settled in 1607 on the banks of the James River just upland from the Chesapeake Bay. The first arrivals were all men and boys, some of whom took Indigenous women, the most famous of which was Pocahontas (see Indigenous Women in the Colonies). It wasn’t until 1608 that a supply ship carried two English women to Jamestown and subsequent voyages continued to bring more. However, men outnumbered women in early colonial Virginia 10 to 1, and most English women were either Tobacco brides with arranged marriages or indentured servants (see Women Under English Law). The death rate in Virginia was very high in the first 50 years or so, with most adults not surviving past age 40 and the majority of children dying before the age of five. Thus, family life was very unstable, men and women often married several times because of the death of a spouse and need to care for surviving children. It was not uncommon for a woman to lose over half of her children before their fifth birthday, miscarriages and stillbirths were extremely common, and as many as 1 in 8 women died in childbirth.

Virginia was founded as an economic venture rather than a religious one, with tobacco being its primary export and cash crop, so women were valued for their contributions to the colony’s economy. Roughly 3/4 of the women who arrived in Virginia in the early 17th century became indentured servants, usually serving seven-year contracts, which ended with freedom but not much else. Because most women came to Virginia without family and because they were outnumbered by men, the vast majority of women in Virginia were able to choose their husband and were often able to marry fairly well. However, these women were still under English Law, which meant they were expected to be subservient to their husbands, and their husbands were allowed to “discipline” them in whatever way he saw fit, including beating them so long as he did not cause permanent damage.

The Chesapeake region expanded in 1632 to include Maryland, which was founded as a haven for English Catholics seeking religious freedom from the Church of England. In spite of its religious founding, Maryland developed in a similar fashion to Virginia, cultivating tobacco as a cash crop and using English indentured servants early on before adopting slavery as more Africans were brought to the colonies (see African Women in the Colonies). Women in Maryland experienced similar death rates, child mortality rates, and legal rights as those in Virginia.

The photo above is of the Jamestowne Rediscovery Archaeological site, taken by the author in 2024. The crosses in the foreground are a mass grave from the “Starving Time” 1609-1610, when over half of the residents died. The wood framed building in the background near the river is a reconstruction of barracks where the single men lived. Archaeologists have found a large number of artifacts of both English and Indigenous origin in this and several other buildings within the walls of Jamestown fort, which is further evidence that women from neighboring Indigenous communities lived with English men in the early years.

Life in the Middle Colonies

Between the New England colonies and the Chesapeake were the Middle or Mid-Atlantic colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. These were by far the most diverse colonies in terms of nationality, language, culture, and religion. For example, New York was originally founded by the Dutch in 1624 as a trading colony, and people in the area continued to speak Dutch for decades after it was taken by the English. Pennsylvania was founded as a haven for English Quakers (Society of Friends), a Christian sect whose core beliefs included the idea that every person had an “inner light” or a little bit of God in them. This unique belief meant that Quakers essentially believed in equality and pacifism. Women were allowed to speak at Friends’ religious meetings, and by the 18th century, they started anti-slavery societies that would become the cornerstone of the abolitionist movement as well as the women’s suffrage movement. The colony of Pennsylvania allowed religious freedom to all, making it a haven not only for the Society of Friends but other Christians as well as Jews and even those who did not practice religion at all.

Religious Dissenters

With the exception of Pennsylvania, none of the British colonies of North America allowed religious freedom in the early years of their founding, although the diversity of the colonies would necessitate flexibility over time. Men and women who traveled to a particular colony and were not of the dominant religion or held beliefs that differed from those of church leadership risked punishment ranging from prison to death. For women religious dissenters like Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer, it was even more dangerous because they were not only challenging religious authorities, they were challenging the male leadership of the colony.

Women’s Lives in the 17th and 18th Centuries

While regional and religious differences impacted colonial women in a variety of ways, they also had many shared experiences. For example, while Puritans may have granted some protection for wives and Quakers recognized women’s equality before God, patriarchy ran the households, the various religious groups, and the government of the English colonies. Women did not have the right to vote and married women could not own property. Household work was divided by gender throughout the colonies, and women were expected to manage the household regardless of where they lived or their socioeconomic status.

Women whose husbands were well-off had servants, indentured servants, or enslaved indigenous or Africans, to perform the daily tasks of cooking, baking, cleaning, washing, gardening, shopping, and childcare. These women were household managers rather than what we think of today as housewives. Like all women, they worked within whatever budget their husband gave them, and they managed the purchasing of household supplies and furnishings, ensured that the cooking, baking, wash, and other household chores were performed, and oversaw her children’s education. If their husband was prominent, she may also be expected to organize social gatherings such as teas and parties, and she may also be expected to manage her husband’s affairs in his absence. Since travel took weeks, men were often away from their businesses, farms, and plantations for weeks or months at a time, leaving their wives to manage those as well. For example, Benjamin Franklin spent 16 years in England while his wife managed his printing business in Philadelphia and Abigail Adams, wife of Founding Father John Adams, managed their farm at Braintree, Massachusetts while he was away on government business for most of the years of the American Revolution.

Most White women in the colonies were of middle status, neither very wealthy nor horribly poor. Some may have had servants or slaves to help them, but most could not afford the luxury of only managing the household. Instead, these women worked from sun up to sundown every day for their family’s survival. The family wash typically took an entire day, then there was the vegetable garden to tend, food to preserve, eggs to collect, soap to make, meals to prepare, bread to bake, usually while there was a small child underfoot who had to be kept out of the fire. At the end of the day, there was usually clothing to be repaired or sewing to be done. Seasonally, women also carded and spun wool, processed hemp, wove cloth, and smoked meat.

The photo above is a recreated colonial farmhouse at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, Virginia, taken by the author in 2024. The small wheeled machine is a spinning wheel, which was operated by a foot pedal that spun the wheel. Women and young girls pulled fibers of wool, cotton, or hemp into the wheel, which spun them into thread. The large machine behind the spinning wheel is a loom on which women wove the thread into cloth by hand. The cloth would then be dyed using a variety of plants depending upon the color desired. The brick fireplace behind the loom is where the women and girls would have prepared the family’s meals using a pot that hung over the fire and usually held scraps of meat and vegetables for stews. Coals were scooped from the back to the front of the fireplace in order to cook meat or cornbread in pans. Mothers had to constantly watch for young children who might crawl into the fire. A trick they used was to dress crawling babies in a very long dress that limited their movements and could be stepped on if baby crawled too close to the fire (the root of the saying “Mom put her foot down”) or they tied their walking toddler to their apron to keep them from wandering off (the root of the saying “cut the apron strings” when a child is older). The cat in the foreground is Rochambeau and he is living his best life. However, in the colonial period, cats played an important role in keeping rodents out of food stores.

Women in the 17th and 18th centuries married young compared to modern women, typically in their mid to late teens or early 20s. While wealthy families often continued to arrange their children’s marriages for family benefit, the colonial period saw the end of most arranged marriages in favor of companionate marriage, which was the idea that a couple should marry on the basis of mutual respect and admiration. Children still expected that their parents would be involved in their choice of spouse, at least to approve them, and parents supervised their daughters strictly during courtship, employing methods like the bundling bag (sewing the boy into a sack) if the couple had to share a bed during a long visit because of distance or inclement weather. However, once betrothed, couples were often allowed more freedom and time alone, which led to the socially tolerated practice of betrothal sex. Based on marriage and birth records, it is believed that approximately 1 in every 4 brides was pregnant on her wedding day.

Once married, women immediately began having children until they entered menopause, on average every 29 months. Birth control was unheard of, although wealthy couples who could afford it had separate bedrooms. For middle- and lower-class women, this meant that while they were performing all of the tasks described above, they were also either pregnant or nursing. Except for very wealthy women, who may have had a wetnurse, women nursed and tended their own children and most women gave birth to at least ten, although not all would survive to adulthood. Daughters were expected to care for younger siblings and help their mother with housework in preparation for when they married and managed their own household. Sons stayed in the house with their mothers until they were old enough to begin farm work or apprentice in their father’s occupation. As mentioned earlier, as many as 1 in 8 women died in childbirth, making motherhood extremely dangerous.

Midwives

Although today we think of midwives as people who deliver babies, the term during the colonial period meant far more. A midwife was a woman who had a wide array of medical knowledge and was called upon and trusted by her community to care for those in need. Midwives had knowledge of herbs and plants that were used to treat a variety of ailments, including wound care, headache, and upset stomachs. They were often called upon to set broken bones and perform other kinds of emergency care. Of course, midwives also delivered babies and helped with prenatal and postnatal care. The occupation was typically well respected and was one of the few times when women could expect some payment for their services, although these payments were often “in kind” rather than in cash, and if a patient couldn’t pay, they could still expect care.

One of the best known records of midwifery and women’s daily lives during the 18th century is the diary of Martha Ballard, who lived from 1735 to 1812. Ballard kept a journal for nearly 30 years, recording births, deaths, illnesses, and accidents throughout northern Massachusetts (now Maine). She delivered nearly 1,000 babies as well as set bones, treated coughs and colds, and cared for the sick and dying.

Women’s Education

Education for women during the 17th and 18th centuries was not considered a priority. Religious groups such as the Puritans and Quakers believed women should learn to read in order to read the Bible and wealthy families typically taught their daughters to read, but writing was considered a separate skill that women did not need. Nevertheless, a number of colonial women learned to read and write, including Martha Ballard, who left her diary as a treasure trove of information about midwifery and daily life. Women who could write usually used the skill for personal communication, such as letter writing or household record keeping. However, some women used their skills to teach others, and a rare few actually published their work.

The New England colonies highly valued literacy for all children and passed laws requiring communities with over 50 residents to have a school, although the town was left to itself to fund the building and teacher. Consequently, most small towns in New England had Dame Schools, which were operated by a literate woman who was willing to open her home to teach other people’s children, usually without pay. Children who attended Dame Schools were taught to read, write, do sums, and memorize Bible verses.

The earliest woman to publish in the English colonies was Anne Bradstreet, who published The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America in 1650. Her poetry and prose explored themes of religion, death, marriage, family, nature, dedications to famous people of her age, even her move to the Americas. Here is a stanza of one of her best loved poems, “Contemplations”:

Under the cooling shadow of a stately Elm

Close sate I by a goodly Rivers side, Where gliding streams the Rocks did overwhelm; A lonely place, with pleasures dignifi’d. I once that lov’d the shady woods so well, Now thought the rivers did the trees excel,

And if the sun would ever shine, there would I dwell. (Bradstreet 1650)

Conclusion

European women had an important impact on the development of colonial life. Through women writers like Martha Ballard and Anne Bradstreet, we have an idea of what their daily lives were like and how they may have felt about them. Their hard work on their husbands’ farms and businesses helped their families to survive and built communities, towns, and eventually cities that would form a new country.

Question to Consider

Have society’s expectations of women, especially mothers, changed much since the 18th century?