Thursday, January 28, 2010
Essay Question
Select one of the women we have discussed so far in class, from your readings or from the articles on the blog and write a short biography. When and where did she live? What was her background, education, and contribution to American history? What were the challenges she faced, both at home and in society? What obstacles did she overcome? How did she demonstrate a certain value system and what were those values? Why is she historically significant?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Study Guide Part II
1. What were the moral and ideological issues around abortion and the case of Sarah Grosvenor?
2. How did a society based on nuclear families support the argument for women's equality?
3. How were the households of Native American women different from colonists, according to Anne Marie Plane?
4. Discuss the family bonds, domestic work and rearing and bearing children done by African Slave women.
5. What laws came about due to the mixing of races?
6. Discuss: Marraige, Divorce and Dower
7. Discuss Anne Hutchinson, her trial and why this is historically significant.
8. Why were women accused of witchcraft?
9. Why was the Seneca Falls Convention important and discuss what important document came out of that event.
10. Why was going West different for white women?
11. What were the Homestead Acts?
12. Why was blocking sufferage important in Utah and what happened to the Mormons?
13. Why is Comstock important?
Identify:
Republican Mother
Elizabeth Stanton
Susan B. Anthony
WCTU
Frederick Douglass
Lucretia Mott
Lucy Stone
Victoria Woodhull
YMCA
2. How did a society based on nuclear families support the argument for women's equality?
3. How were the households of Native American women different from colonists, according to Anne Marie Plane?
4. Discuss the family bonds, domestic work and rearing and bearing children done by African Slave women.
5. What laws came about due to the mixing of races?
6. Discuss: Marraige, Divorce and Dower
7. Discuss Anne Hutchinson, her trial and why this is historically significant.
8. Why were women accused of witchcraft?
9. Why was the Seneca Falls Convention important and discuss what important document came out of that event.
10. Why was going West different for white women?
11. What were the Homestead Acts?
12. Why was blocking sufferage important in Utah and what happened to the Mormons?
13. Why is Comstock important?
Identify:
Republican Mother
Elizabeth Stanton
Susan B. Anthony
WCTU
Frederick Douglass
Lucretia Mott
Lucy Stone
Victoria Woodhull
YMCA
Revolution in America PP Notes
nThe French and Indian War
n1754 to 1763 war fought over the land in America between the English and French.
nIt was called the Seven Years War in Europe.
nCalled the French and Indian War because the Indians helped the French in the war against the British. The Indians had nothing to lose. The British were taking their land, the French were not.
nThe British won, but at a cost a lot of money.
nProclamation of 1763
nForbid colonists to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains.
nCreated to protect colonists from the Indians
nMany colonists reacted with anger toward the Proclamation. They did not like being told what to do or where they could live.
nThe American Revolution was like a parent/child relationship.
nLet’s examine what this means.
nTaxes
nFrench and Indian War cost a lot of money.
nParliament (the British government) decided to tax to colonies to help pay for it.
nThe first tax was the Sugar Act of 1764. It placed a tax on molasses and sugar imported by the colonies.
nStamp Act of 1765 placed a tax on all printed material, such as newspapers and playing cards.
nThis tax upset the colonists even more.
nNo Taxation without Representation
nThe colonists claimed “no taxation without representation” because they were being taxed but had no vote in Parliament and had no say in how the colonies were being governed.
nThe colonists started a boycott, or a refusal to buy certain goods, from the British.
nSam Adams and the Sons of Liberty
nSamuel Adams led the protests in Boston against the taxes.
nHe began a secret society called the Sons of Liberty.
nTar and Feather
nThe Sons of Liberty used violence to scare off the tax collectors.
nThe Stamp Act was repealed (to do away with) because of all the protests.
nThe Boston Massacre
nColonial men were shouting insults at the British soldiers.
nThey started throwing things, probably snow balls and rocks.
nSomeone yelled “fire” and the Red Coats (what the British soldiers were called) shot.
nFive colonists were killed. These were the first Americans killed in the War for Independence.
nSam Adams started calling the incident the Boston Massacre. He used the incident to get more people angry at the British.
nA Tax on Tea
nParliament began taxing tea. Tea was the most important beverage in the colonies.
nThe colonists decided to boycott all British tea.
nThe Boston Tea Party
nColonists dressed up like Mohawk Indians and boarded three British ships full of tea.
nThe colonists dumped all the tea into the harbor, about 90,000 pounds.
nKing George III was furious!
nThe Intolerable Acts
nLaws passed to punish the colonists for the Boston Tea Party.
nThe port of Boston was closed until the tea was paid for.
nThe Quartering Act was put into place which forced colonists to quarter, or house and supply British soldiers.
nMore Tea Parties
nBoston was not the only city to have a “tea party.”
nThey took place in Charleston, New York, Annapolis, and others.
nEdenton Tea Party
nThe Edenton Tea Party was one of the earliest organized women’s political actions in United States history. The women joined in the boycott of British tea.
nFirst Continental Congress
nA group of important men met to discuss the crisis in the colonies.
nMilitias were set up. (citizen soldiers)
nThe “Shot Heard Round the World”
nBritish soldiers in Boston were sent to capture the militias weapons.
nPaul Revere, William Dawes, and Israel Bissell warned the colonists that, “The Red Coats are coming.”
nBritish troops marched to Concord to capture colonial leaders and the ammunition and weapons that were stored there.
nThe first two battles of the American Revolution were fought at Lexington and Concord, when the American militia met up with British forces.
nThe Second Continental Congress
nThe Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to discuss the next move of the colonists.
nAppointed George Washington as commander of the colonial army.
nWar with Great Britain was imminent.
nCommon Sense
nCommon Sense, written by Thomas Paine was a pamphlet that encouraged colonists to declare independence from Great Britain.
nCommon Sense was very influential because it was read by many people.
nThe Declaration of Independence
nThe United States first needed to declare independence from Great Britain.
nThomas Jefferson, at the young age of 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence.
nThe Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776.
nThat is why we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th.
nThis is the day that the United States of America declared their independence from King George and Great Britain.
nBenjamin Franklin
nBenjamin Franklin, one of the most famous men in the world, was sent to France to ask for military aid as well as a loan.
nAnd so the war began
n1754 to 1763 war fought over the land in America between the English and French.
nIt was called the Seven Years War in Europe.
nCalled the French and Indian War because the Indians helped the French in the war against the British. The Indians had nothing to lose. The British were taking their land, the French were not.
nThe British won, but at a cost a lot of money.
nProclamation of 1763
nForbid colonists to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains.
nCreated to protect colonists from the Indians
nMany colonists reacted with anger toward the Proclamation. They did not like being told what to do or where they could live.
nThe American Revolution was like a parent/child relationship.
nLet’s examine what this means.
nTaxes
nFrench and Indian War cost a lot of money.
nParliament (the British government) decided to tax to colonies to help pay for it.
nThe first tax was the Sugar Act of 1764. It placed a tax on molasses and sugar imported by the colonies.
nStamp Act of 1765 placed a tax on all printed material, such as newspapers and playing cards.
nThis tax upset the colonists even more.
nNo Taxation without Representation
nThe colonists claimed “no taxation without representation” because they were being taxed but had no vote in Parliament and had no say in how the colonies were being governed.
nThe colonists started a boycott, or a refusal to buy certain goods, from the British.
nSam Adams and the Sons of Liberty
nSamuel Adams led the protests in Boston against the taxes.
nHe began a secret society called the Sons of Liberty.
nTar and Feather
nThe Sons of Liberty used violence to scare off the tax collectors.
nThe Stamp Act was repealed (to do away with) because of all the protests.
nThe Boston Massacre
nColonial men were shouting insults at the British soldiers.
nThey started throwing things, probably snow balls and rocks.
nSomeone yelled “fire” and the Red Coats (what the British soldiers were called) shot.
nFive colonists were killed. These were the first Americans killed in the War for Independence.
nSam Adams started calling the incident the Boston Massacre. He used the incident to get more people angry at the British.
nA Tax on Tea
nParliament began taxing tea. Tea was the most important beverage in the colonies.
nThe colonists decided to boycott all British tea.
nThe Boston Tea Party
nColonists dressed up like Mohawk Indians and boarded three British ships full of tea.
nThe colonists dumped all the tea into the harbor, about 90,000 pounds.
nKing George III was furious!
nThe Intolerable Acts
nLaws passed to punish the colonists for the Boston Tea Party.
nThe port of Boston was closed until the tea was paid for.
nThe Quartering Act was put into place which forced colonists to quarter, or house and supply British soldiers.
nMore Tea Parties
nBoston was not the only city to have a “tea party.”
nThey took place in Charleston, New York, Annapolis, and others.
nEdenton Tea Party
nThe Edenton Tea Party was one of the earliest organized women’s political actions in United States history. The women joined in the boycott of British tea.
nFirst Continental Congress
nA group of important men met to discuss the crisis in the colonies.
nMilitias were set up. (citizen soldiers)
nThe “Shot Heard Round the World”
nBritish soldiers in Boston were sent to capture the militias weapons.
nPaul Revere, William Dawes, and Israel Bissell warned the colonists that, “The Red Coats are coming.”
nBritish troops marched to Concord to capture colonial leaders and the ammunition and weapons that were stored there.
nThe first two battles of the American Revolution were fought at Lexington and Concord, when the American militia met up with British forces.
nThe Second Continental Congress
nThe Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to discuss the next move of the colonists.
nAppointed George Washington as commander of the colonial army.
nWar with Great Britain was imminent.
nCommon Sense
nCommon Sense, written by Thomas Paine was a pamphlet that encouraged colonists to declare independence from Great Britain.
nCommon Sense was very influential because it was read by many people.
nThe Declaration of Independence
nThe United States first needed to declare independence from Great Britain.
nThomas Jefferson, at the young age of 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence.
nThe Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776.
nThat is why we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th.
nThis is the day that the United States of America declared their independence from King George and Great Britain.
nBenjamin Franklin
nBenjamin Franklin, one of the most famous men in the world, was sent to France to ask for military aid as well as a loan.
nAnd so the war began
Study Guide Part I
1. What is structural discrimination? How does it work?
2. What was the Enlightenment? What thinkers influenced early feminism in America? What were the arguments in support of equality?
3. Discuss the lives and cultures of women in: Native American tribes, Chinese immigrants, European immigrants, African slaves.
4. What is Feminism? Why is it important?
5. What is Abolition and why did women support it? How did it relate to Sufferage?
6. Discuss the rights (or lack of) for women in colonial America?
7. What about the New World caused women in the colonies to have more legal rights than British women?
8. How did life in the colonies force a cultural change for colonists from their old traditions?
9. Discuss the Slave Trade and Middle Passage.
10. What was the First Feminist Revolt? Why is it important?
11. What was the cult of Domesticity?
12. What was a Republican Mother? Discuss her ideals and contributions.
13. Who were the Founding Mothers and what did they do?
14. What is patriarchal society like? What does patriarch mean?
15. Identify and discuss: John Locke, Mary Wollstonecraft, J.S. Mill, Condorcet, Ottis, de Gourges, and Abigail Adams.
16. Identify: Puritans, Quakers, Pilgrims
17. Identify all of the women on the Vocabulary List
2. What was the Enlightenment? What thinkers influenced early feminism in America? What were the arguments in support of equality?
3. Discuss the lives and cultures of women in: Native American tribes, Chinese immigrants, European immigrants, African slaves.
4. What is Feminism? Why is it important?
5. What is Abolition and why did women support it? How did it relate to Sufferage?
6. Discuss the rights (or lack of) for women in colonial America?
7. What about the New World caused women in the colonies to have more legal rights than British women?
8. How did life in the colonies force a cultural change for colonists from their old traditions?
9. Discuss the Slave Trade and Middle Passage.
10. What was the First Feminist Revolt? Why is it important?
11. What was the cult of Domesticity?
12. What was a Republican Mother? Discuss her ideals and contributions.
13. Who were the Founding Mothers and what did they do?
14. What is patriarchal society like? What does patriarch mean?
15. Identify and discuss: John Locke, Mary Wollstonecraft, J.S. Mill, Condorcet, Ottis, de Gourges, and Abigail Adams.
16. Identify: Puritans, Quakers, Pilgrims
17. Identify all of the women on the Vocabulary List
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Woman's Rights Movement
(Stanton)The American Woman's Rights movement grew out of abolitionism in direct but complex ways. The movement's early leaders began their fight for social justice with the cause of the slaves, and learned from Anti-Slavery Societies how to organize, publicize and articulate a political protest. It wasn't long, however, before they also learned that many of the men who were opposed to slavery were also opposed to women playing active roles or taking speaking parts in abolitionist movement. The attempt to silence women at Anti-Slavery Conventions in the United States and England led directly to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's and Lucretia Mott's decision to hold the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, N.Y, in June 1848. One of the articles of belief proclaimed at that and subsequent conventions was that women were in some sense slaves too.
(Mott)
History of Woman's Suffrage
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (and Others)
New York: Fowler & Wells, 1881
Appendix—Chapter IV.
Seneca Falls and Rochester Conventions.
WOMEN OUT OF THEIR LATITUDE.
We are sorry to see that the women in several parts of this State are holding what they call "Woman's Rights Conventions," and setting forth a formidable list of those rights in a parody upon the Declaration of American Independence.
The papers of the day contain extended notices of these Conventions. Some of them fall in with their objects and praise the meetings highly; but the majority either deprecate or ridicule both.
The women who attend these meetings, no doubt at the expense of their more appropriate duties, act as committees, write resolutions and addresses, hold much correspondence, make speeches, &c., &c. They affirm, as among their rights, that of unrestricted franchise, and assert that it is wrong to deprive them of the privilege to become legislators, lawyers, doctors, divines, &c., &c.; and they are holding Conventions and making an agitatory movement, with the object in view of revolutionizing public opinion and the laws of the land, and changing their relative position in society in such a way as to divide with the male sex the labors and irresponsibilities of active life in every branch of art, science, trades, and professions.
803
Now, it requires no argument to prove that this is all wrong. Every true hearted female will instantly feel that this is unwomanly, and that to be practically carried out, the males must change their position in society to the same extent in an opposite direction, in order to enable them to discharge an equal share of the domestic duties which now appertain to females, and which must be neglected, to a great extent, if women are allowed to exercise all the "rights" that are claimed by these Convention-holders. Society would have to be radically remodelled in order to accommodate itself to so great a change in the most vital part of the compact of the social relations of life; and the order of things established at the creation of mankind, and continued six thousand years, would be completely broken up. The organic laws of our country, and of each State, would have to be licked into new shape, in order to admit of the introduction of the vast change that is contemplated. In a thousand other ways that might be mentioned, if we had room to make, and our readers had patience to hear them, would this sweeping reform be attended by fundamental changes in public and private, civil and religious, moral and social relations of the sexes, of life, and of the Government.
But this change is impractical, uncalled for, and unnecessary. If effected, it would set the world by the ears, make "confusion worse confounded," demoralize and degrade from their high sphere and noble destiny, women of all respectable and useful classes, and prove a monstrous injury to all mankind. It would be productive of no positive good, that would not be outweighed tenfold by positive evil. It would alter the relations of females without bettering their condition. Besides all, and above all, it presents no remedy for the real evils, that the millions of industrious, hard-working, and much suffering women of our country groan under and seek to redress.— Mechanic's (Albany, N.Y.) Advocate.
INSURRECTION AMONG THE WOMEN.
A female Convention has just been held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., at which was adopted a "declaration of rights," setting forth, among other things, that "all men and women are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." The list of grievances which the Amazons exhibit, concludes by expressing a determination to insist that women shall have "immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States." It is stated that they design, in spite of all misrepresentations and ridicule, to employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and National Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and press in their behalf. This is bolting with a vengeance.—Worcester (Mass.) Telegraph.
THE REIGN OF PETTICOATS.
The women in various parts of the State have taken the field in favor of a petticoat empire, with a zeal and energy which show that their hearts are in the cause, and that they are resolved no longer to submit to the tyrannical rule of the heartless "lords of creation," but have solemnly determined to demand their "natural and inalienable right" to attend the polls, and assist in electing our Presidents, and Governors, and Members of Congress and State Representatives, and Sheriffs, and County Clerks, and Supervisors, and Constables, &c., &c., and to unite in the general scramble for office. This is right and proper. It is but just that they should participate in the beautiful and feminine business of politics, and enjoy their proportion of the "spoils of victory." Nature never designed that they should be confined exclusively to the drudgery of raising children, and superintending the kitchens, and to the performance of the various other household duties which the cruelty of men and the customs of society have so long assigned to them. This is emphatically the age of "democratic progression," of equality and fraternization—the age when all colors and sexes, the bond and the free, black and white, male and female, are, as they by right ought to be, all tending downward and upward toward the common level of equality.
The harmony of this great movement in the cause of freedom would not be perfect, if women were still to be confined to petticoats, and men to breeches. There must be an "interchange" of these "commodities" to complete the system. Why should it not be so? Can women not fill an office, or cast a vote, or conduct a campaign, as judiciously and vigorously as men? And, on the other hand, can not men "nurse" the
804babies, or preside at the wash-tub, or boil a pot as safely and as well as women? If they can not, the evil is in that arbitrary organization of society which has excluded them from the practice of these pursuits. It is time these false notions and practices were changed, or, rather, removed, and for the political millennium foreshadowed by this petticoat movement to be ushered in. Let the women keep the ball moving, so bravely started by those who have become tired of the restraints imposed upon them by the antediluvian notions of a Paul or the tyranny of man.—Rochester (N.Y.) Daily Advertiser, Henry Montgomery, Editor.
"PROGRESS," is the grand bubble which is now blown up to balloon bulk by the windy philosophers of the age. The women folks have just held a Convention up in New York State, and passed a sort of "bill or rights," affirming it their right to vote, to become teachers, legislators, lawyers, divines, and do all and sundries the "lords" may, and of right now do. They should have resolved at the same time, that it was obligatory upon the "lords" aforesaid, to wash dishes, scour up, be put to the tub, handle the broom, darn stockings, patch breeches, scold the servants, dress in the latest fashion, wear trinkets, look beautiful, and be as fascinating as those blessed morsels of humanity whom God gave to preserve that rough animal man, in something like a reasonable civilization. "Progress!" Progress, forever!—Lowell (Mass.) Courier.
To us they appear extremely dull and uninteresting, and, aside from their novelty, hardly worth notice.—Rochester Advertiser.
This has been a remarkable Convention. It was composed of those holding to some one of the various isms of the day, and some, we should think, who embraced them all. The only practical good proposed—the adoption of measures for the relief and amelioration of the condition of indigent, industrious, laboring females—was almost scouted by the leading ones composing the meeting. The great effort seemed to be to bring out some new, impracticable, absurd, and ridiculous proposition, and the greater its absurdity the better. In short, it was a regular emeute of a congregation of females gathered from various quarters, who seem to be really in earnest in their aim at revolution, and who evince entire confidence that "the day of their deliverance is at hand." Verily, this is a progressive era!—Rochester Democrat.
THE WOMEN OF PHILADELPHIA.
Our Philadelphia ladies not only possess beauty, but they are celebrated for discretion, modesty, and unfeigned diffidence, as well as wit, vivacity, and good nature. Whoever heard of a Philadelphia lady setting up for a reformer, or standing out for woman's rights, or assisting to man the election grounds, raise a regiment, command a legion, or address a jury? Our ladies glow with a higher ambition. They soar to rule the hearts of their worshipers, and secure obedience by the sceptre of affection. The tenure of their power is a law of nature, not a law of man, and hence they fear no insurrection, and never experience the shock of a revolution in their dominions. But all women are not as reasonable as ours of Philadelphia. The Boston ladies contend for the rights of women. The New York girls aspire to mount the rostrum, to do all the voting, and, we suppose, all the fighting too. . . . Our Philadelphia girls object to fighting and to holding office. They prefer the baby-jumper to the study of Coke and Lyttleton, and the ball-room to the Palo Alto battle. They object to having a George Sand for President of the United States; a Corinna for Governor; a Fanny Wright for Mayor; or a Mrs. Partington for Postmaster. . . . Women have enough influence over human affairs without being politicians. Is not everything managed by female influence? Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sweethearts manage everything. Men have nothing to do but to listen and obey to the "of course, my dear, you will, and of course, my dear, you won't." Their rule is absolute; their power unbounded. Under such a system men have no claim to rights, especially "equal rights."
A woman is nobody. A wife is everything. A pretty girl is equal to ten thousand men, and a mother is, next to God, all powerful. . . . The women of Philadelphia, therefore, under the influence of the most serious "sober second thoughts," are resolved to maintain their rights as Wives, Belles, Virgins, and Mothers, and not as Women."—Philadelphia Ledger and Daily Transcript.
805
WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.
This is the age of revolutions. To whatever part of the world the attention is directed, the political and social fabric is crumbling to pieces; and changes which far exceed the wildest dreams of the enthusiastic Utopians of the last generation, are now pursued with ardor and perseverance. The principal agent, however, that has hitherto taken part in these movements has been the rougher sex. It was by man the flame of liberty, now burning with such fury on the continent of Europe, was first kindled; and though it is asserted that no inconsiderable assistance was contributed by the gentler sex to the late sanguinary carnage at Paris, we are disposed to believe that such a revolting imputation proceeds from base calumniators, and is a libel upon woman.
By the intelligence, however, which we have lately received, the work of revolution is no longer confined to the Old World, nor to the masculine gender. The flag of independence has been hoisted, for a second time, on this side of the Atlantic; and a solemn league and covenant has just been entered into by a Convention of women at Seneca Falls, to "throw off the despotism under which they are groaning, and provide new guards for their future security." Little did we expect this new element to be thrown into the cauldron of agitation which is now bubbling around us with such fury. We have had one Baltimore Convention, one Philadelphia Convention, one Utica Convention, and we shall also have, in a few days, the Buffalo Convention. But we never dreamed that Lucretia Mott had convened a fifth Convention, which, if it be ratified by those whom it proposes to represent, will exercise an influence that will not only control our own Presidential elections, but the whole governmental system throughout the world. . . . The declaration is a most interesting document. We published it in extenso the other day. The amusing part is the preamble, where they assert their equality, and that they have certain inalienable rights, to secure which governments, deriving their powers from the just consent of the governed, are instituted; and that after the long train of abuses and usurpations to which they have been subjected, evincing a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.
The declaration is, in some respects, defective. It complains of the want of the elective franchise, and that ladies are not recognized as teachers of theology, medicine, and law. . . . These departments, however, do not compose the whole of the avenues to wealth, distinction, and honor. We do not see by what principle of right the angelic creatures should claim to compete with the preacher, and refuse to enter the lists with the merchant. A lawyer's brief would not, we admit, sully the hands so much as the tarry ropes of a man-of-war; and a box of Brandreth's pills are more safely and easily prepared than sheets of a boiler, or the flukes of an anchor; but if they must have competition in one branch, why not in another? There must be not monopoly or exclusiveness. If they will put on the inexpressibles, it will not do to select those occupations only which require the least exertion and are exempt from danger. The laborious employments, however, are not the only ones which the ladies, in right of their admission to all rights and privileges, would have to undertake. It might happen that the citizen would have to doff the apron and buckle on the sword. Now, though we have the most perfect confidence in the courage and daring of Miss Lucretia Mott and several others of our lady acquaintances, we confess it would go to our hearts to see them putting on the panoply of war, and mixing in scenes like those at which, it is said, the fair sex at Paris lately took prominent part.
It is not the business, however, of the despot to decide upon the rights of his victims; nor do we undertake to define the duties of women. Their standard is now unfurled by their own hands. The Convention of Seneca Falls has appealed to the country. Miss Lucretia Mott has propounded the principles of the party. Ratification meetings will no doubt shortly be held, and if it be the general impression that this lady is a more eligible candidate for the Presidential chair than McLean or Cass, Van Buren or old "Rough and Ready," then let the Salic laws be abolished forthwith from this great Republic. We are much mistaken if Lucretia would not make a better President than some of those who have lately tenanted the White House.—New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, Proprietor.
This is the age of revolutions. To whatever part of the world the attention is directed, the political and social fabric is crumbling to pieces; and changes which far exceed the wildest dreams of the enthusiastic Utopians of the last generation, are now pursued with ardor and perseverance. The principal agent, however, that has hitherto taken part in these movements has been the rougher sex. It was by man the flame of liberty, now burning with such fury on the continent of Europe, was first kindled; and though it is asserted that no inconsiderable assistance was contributed by the gentler sex to the late sanguinary carnage at Paris, we are disposed to believe that such a revolting imputation proceeds from base calumniators, and is a libel upon woman.
By the intelligence, however, which we have lately received, the work of revolution is no longer confined to the Old World, nor to the masculine gender. The flag of independence has been hoisted, for a second time, on this side of the Atlantic; and a solemn league and covenant has just been entered into by a Convention of women at Seneca Falls, to "throw off the despotism under which they are groaning, and provide new guards for their future security." Little did we expect this new element to be thrown into the cauldron of agitation which is now bubbling around us with such fury. We have had one Baltimore Convention, one Philadelphia Convention, one Utica Convention, and we shall also have, in a few days, the Buffalo Convention. But we never dreamed that Lucretia Mott had convened a fifth Convention, which, if it be ratified by those whom it proposes to represent, will exercise an influence that will not only control our own Presidential elections, but the whole governmental system throughout the world. . . . The declaration is a most interesting document. We published it in extenso the other day. The amusing part is the preamble, where they assert their equality, and that they have certain inalienable rights, to secure which governments, deriving their powers from the just consent of the governed, are instituted; and that after the long train of abuses and usurpations to which they have been subjected, evincing a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.
The declaration is, in some respects, defective. It complains of the want of the elective franchise, and that ladies are not recognized as teachers of theology, medicine, and law. . . . These departments, however, do not compose the whole of the avenues to wealth, distinction, and honor. We do not see by what principle of right the angelic creatures should claim to compete with the preacher, and refuse to enter the lists with the merchant. A lawyer's brief would not, we admit, sully the hands so much as the tarry ropes of a man-of-war; and a box of Brandreth's pills are more safely and easily prepared than sheets of a boiler, or the flukes of an anchor; but if they must have competition in one branch, why not in another? There must be not monopoly or exclusiveness. If they will put on the inexpressibles, it will not do to select those occupations only which require the least exertion and are exempt from danger. The laborious employments, however, are not the only ones which the ladies, in right of their admission to all rights and privileges, would have to undertake. It might happen that the citizen would have to doff the apron and buckle on the sword. Now, though we have the most perfect confidence in the courage and daring of Miss Lucretia Mott and several others of our lady acquaintances, we confess it would go to our hearts to see them putting on the panoply of war, and mixing in scenes like those at which, it is said, the fair sex at Paris lately took prominent part.
It is not the business, however, of the despot to decide upon the rights of his victims; nor do we undertake to define the duties of women. Their standard is now unfurled by their own hands. The Convention of Seneca Falls has appealed to the country. Miss Lucretia Mott has propounded the principles of the party. Ratification meetings will no doubt shortly be held, and if it be the general impression that this lady is a more eligible candidate for the Presidential chair than McLean or Cass, Van Buren or old "Rough and Ready," then let the Salic laws be abolished forthwith from this great Republic. We are much mistaken if Lucretia would not make a better President than some of those who have lately tenanted the White House.—New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, Proprietor.
For these articles and others:
Abolition PP Notes
nDeclaration of Independence
nQuakers and other groups opposed slavery
nDevelopment of secret runaway slave communities
nUnderground Railroad
nInternational laws forbidding slavery
n1776 – Independence would be the beginning of an actual end to slavery in the U.S.
nAbolition Groups
nSociety of Friends
nPennsylvania Antislavery Society
nNew York Manumission Society
n(NY abolished slavery 1799 – members like Alexander Hamilton)
nInfluence of Anti-Slavery Campaigns
nRobert Carter III – freed more slaves than any other owner in history: 450 in 1791
nFreed slaves in the Upper Southern States went from 1% to 10% after 1776
nMany men who free slaves were influenced by their fight in the Revolution and it’s principles of equality for all men
nAnti-Slavery society formed in 1787
nSlave trade abolished in 1807, bye Britain
nSlaves in British colonies set free in 1834
nArguments for abolition…
•Moral Argument: ‘it was wicked’
•Economic Argument: ‘slavery was not worth it’
•Legal Argument: ‘slavery was illegal’
•Religious Argument: ‘slavery was unchristian’
•Political Argument: ‘slaves hated slavery’
•Revolutionary Argument: ‘slavery would lead to more revolts’
nMoral Argument
n‘Slavery is an evil of the first magnitude. It is a most horrible iniquity to traffic with the souls of men. Any man who deals with his fellow creatures with such wickedness should be held as the abomination of all mankind. Those who are the procurers and holders of slaves are the greatest villains in the world.’
nEconomic Argument
nIn 1776 Adam Smith, in his book The Wealth of Nations argued that slave labour was inefficient, maintaining that a person with no rights had no reason to work hard.
nBy the 1790s, French sugar was costing 20% less than British sugar. London merchants were no longer able to make good profits from the sugar trade.
nThey started to transfer their investments from Caribbean plantations to the new cotton mills in Lancashire or the Empire in India.
nLegal Argument
nBy the 1770s there were some 15,000 black people in Britain. Most, brought by their owners from the West Indies, worked as household servants.
nA number of test cases seemed to show that slavery was not legal under British law
nSomerset case 1771-72: a slave, James Somerset, had been brought to England and now refused to be taken, against his will, back to the colonies. The law decided that he could not be forced to go.
nLegal Argument
nZong case 1781: the slave ship Zong had left Africa with 470 slaves and a crew of 17. By the time it was nearing Jamaica, most of the slaves were ill. The captain knew that he would not be able to sell the slaves in such poor condition so he ordered the sick slaves to be thrown overboard. He claimed that he had to do this to save the lives of the others and the crew because he was short of water. This allowed him to claim on the insurance value of the slaves. In fact, the insurers refused to pay and the case went to court. The ship owners claimed that the slaves were ‘goods and property’, not human beings. This case caused widespread horror, and helped to get the Anti-Slavery campaign going.
nReligious Argument
n‘repugnant to our religion’ (Barnsley Methodists)
n‘A system full of wickedness, hateful to God, and a curse and disgrace to Britain’ (Derby)
n‘A system revolting to the feelings of mankind and inconsistent with the counsels of Heaven’ (Hereford Ladies)
nAgitation to abolish the slave trade began in Britain in the 1760s. Many of its first members were Quakers.
nThey received massed support from the Baptists and Methodists and, in 1787, persuaded Granville Sharp to become the chairman of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
nProblems in the Caribbean
nThere was never a time when the white British rulers of their Caribbean islands felt totally secure.
nSlavery was never accepted, by the Africans particularly, but also by the native born black populations.
nThere were a number of serious revolts:
n1730-40 First Maroon war, Jamaica
n1735-36 Revolt in Antigua
n1760 Tacky’s revolt in Jamaica
n1763 Kofi’s revolt in Guyana
n1795-96 Second Maroon War in Jamaica
n1795-97 Fedor’s rebellion, Grenada
nThe Revolutionary Argument
nThe idea of fighting against oppression was encouraged by the ideas and activities of the French Revolution.
nThe French island of Saint Domingue was the richest colony in the world, and the biggest slave market in the Americas.
nThe French Revolution began in 1789 and, in 1791, the French Government declared all people equal.
nThe whites in Saint Domingue would not accept this, and the slaves rose up in revolt.
nThe Revolutionary Argument
nTheir leader was Toussaint L’Ouverture and, in 1794, the French Government granted all slaves in Saint Domingue their freedom.
nThe British, and other slave-owning countries in the Caribbean were horrified and sent troops to crush the rebellion.
nThey were easily defeated by Toussaint L’Ouverture.
nIn 1798 he became the first ruler of an independent black state.
nSlave Abolition Act 1833
nAfter 1807 slaves were still held, just not sold
nAct 1833 Was given approval from British crown:
nEnded slavery, but forced into indentured servants with apprecticeships (1834)
nApprenticeships slowly ended (1840)
nAfter 1807 slaves were still held, just not sold
nQuakers and other groups opposed slavery
nDevelopment of secret runaway slave communities
nUnderground Railroad
nInternational laws forbidding slavery
n1776 – Independence would be the beginning of an actual end to slavery in the U.S.
nAbolition Groups
nSociety of Friends
nPennsylvania Antislavery Society
nNew York Manumission Society
n(NY abolished slavery 1799 – members like Alexander Hamilton)
nInfluence of Anti-Slavery Campaigns
nRobert Carter III – freed more slaves than any other owner in history: 450 in 1791
nFreed slaves in the Upper Southern States went from 1% to 10% after 1776
nMany men who free slaves were influenced by their fight in the Revolution and it’s principles of equality for all men
nAnti-Slavery society formed in 1787
nSlave trade abolished in 1807, bye Britain
nSlaves in British colonies set free in 1834
nArguments for abolition…
•Moral Argument: ‘it was wicked’
•Economic Argument: ‘slavery was not worth it’
•Legal Argument: ‘slavery was illegal’
•Religious Argument: ‘slavery was unchristian’
•Political Argument: ‘slaves hated slavery’
•Revolutionary Argument: ‘slavery would lead to more revolts’
nMoral Argument
n‘Slavery is an evil of the first magnitude. It is a most horrible iniquity to traffic with the souls of men. Any man who deals with his fellow creatures with such wickedness should be held as the abomination of all mankind. Those who are the procurers and holders of slaves are the greatest villains in the world.’
nEconomic Argument
nIn 1776 Adam Smith, in his book The Wealth of Nations argued that slave labour was inefficient, maintaining that a person with no rights had no reason to work hard.
nBy the 1790s, French sugar was costing 20% less than British sugar. London merchants were no longer able to make good profits from the sugar trade.
nThey started to transfer their investments from Caribbean plantations to the new cotton mills in Lancashire or the Empire in India.
nLegal Argument
nBy the 1770s there were some 15,000 black people in Britain. Most, brought by their owners from the West Indies, worked as household servants.
nA number of test cases seemed to show that slavery was not legal under British law
nSomerset case 1771-72: a slave, James Somerset, had been brought to England and now refused to be taken, against his will, back to the colonies. The law decided that he could not be forced to go.
nLegal Argument
nZong case 1781: the slave ship Zong had left Africa with 470 slaves and a crew of 17. By the time it was nearing Jamaica, most of the slaves were ill. The captain knew that he would not be able to sell the slaves in such poor condition so he ordered the sick slaves to be thrown overboard. He claimed that he had to do this to save the lives of the others and the crew because he was short of water. This allowed him to claim on the insurance value of the slaves. In fact, the insurers refused to pay and the case went to court. The ship owners claimed that the slaves were ‘goods and property’, not human beings. This case caused widespread horror, and helped to get the Anti-Slavery campaign going.
nReligious Argument
n‘repugnant to our religion’ (Barnsley Methodists)
n‘A system full of wickedness, hateful to God, and a curse and disgrace to Britain’ (Derby)
n‘A system revolting to the feelings of mankind and inconsistent with the counsels of Heaven’ (Hereford Ladies)
nAgitation to abolish the slave trade began in Britain in the 1760s. Many of its first members were Quakers.
nThey received massed support from the Baptists and Methodists and, in 1787, persuaded Granville Sharp to become the chairman of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
nProblems in the Caribbean
nThere was never a time when the white British rulers of their Caribbean islands felt totally secure.
nSlavery was never accepted, by the Africans particularly, but also by the native born black populations.
nThere were a number of serious revolts:
n1730-40 First Maroon war, Jamaica
n1735-36 Revolt in Antigua
n1760 Tacky’s revolt in Jamaica
n1763 Kofi’s revolt in Guyana
n1795-96 Second Maroon War in Jamaica
n1795-97 Fedor’s rebellion, Grenada
nThe Revolutionary Argument
nThe idea of fighting against oppression was encouraged by the ideas and activities of the French Revolution.
nThe French island of Saint Domingue was the richest colony in the world, and the biggest slave market in the Americas.
nThe French Revolution began in 1789 and, in 1791, the French Government declared all people equal.
nThe whites in Saint Domingue would not accept this, and the slaves rose up in revolt.
nThe Revolutionary Argument
nTheir leader was Toussaint L’Ouverture and, in 1794, the French Government granted all slaves in Saint Domingue their freedom.
nThe British, and other slave-owning countries in the Caribbean were horrified and sent troops to crush the rebellion.
nThey were easily defeated by Toussaint L’Ouverture.
nIn 1798 he became the first ruler of an independent black state.
nSlave Abolition Act 1833
nAfter 1807 slaves were still held, just not sold
nAct 1833 Was given approval from British crown:
nEnded slavery, but forced into indentured servants with apprecticeships (1834)
nApprenticeships slowly ended (1840)
nAfter 1807 slaves were still held, just not sold
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Vocabulary for Midterm
Abigail Adams
Wife of John Adams, second president of the United States, Abigail Adams was among the most remarkable women of the Revolutionary period.
Her father, the Rev. William Smith, was for more than forty years minister of the Congregational Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Her mother, Elizabeth Quincy, was the great-great-granddaughter of the eminent Puritan divine, Thomas Shepard of Cambridge.
Abigail was alone at home for ten years while Mr. Adams was away as a delegate to the Continental Congress and later on diplomatic business in Europe. Over time Abigail Adams became extensively acquainted with the best English literature, and wrote in a terse, vigorous and often elegant style.
Two volumes of her letters were published by her grandson under the titles "Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams" and "Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution." Her letters provide valuable background material on the life of the times, especially of the era during wartime.
She shared the intense interest of her husband in the political disputes that were to culminate in war. Later, when Mr. Adams became President, opposing political contemporaries argued that she exerted undue political influence over her husband.
Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) is one of the most important figures in the history of American Literature. She is considered by many to be the first American poet, and her first collection of poems, "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts", doesn't contain any of her best known poems, it was the first book written by a woman to be published in the United States. Mrs. Bradstreet's work also serves as a document of the struggles of a Puritan wife against the hardships of New England colonial life, and in some way is a testament to plight of the women of the age. Anne's life was a constant struggle, from her difficult adaptation to the rigors of the new land, to her constant battle with illness.
Catherine Ferguson
Born a slave, Catherine Ferguson was eight years old when her mother was sold. She never saw her mother again. That permanent separation undoubtedly impressed upon her the needs of desolate children, and they became the great care of her life.
When she was sixteen years old, a lady friend purchased Catherine's freedom for $200. Catherine married at eighteen and had two children but both died in infancy.
Although she herself never learned to read, Catherine gathered the poor and neglected children of the neighborhood, white and black, for religious instruction every Sunday at her modest dwelling on Warren Street in New York. A minister who heard of her work convinced her to move her school to the basement of his new church on Murray Street. Thus, Catherine Ferguson's Sunday school was the first to be established in the city of New York.
But her benevolent labors did not end with her Sunday school duties. Twice a week she held prayer meetings for the children and adults in her neighborhood. She continued that work for over 40 years in every neighborhood in which she lived.
Over the course of her life she took in under her wing a total of 48 children from the streets or from unfit parents. She raised them or kept them until she found suitable homes for them.
Of Catherine Ferguson a biographer wrote: "The example of such a life ought not to be lost...to perpetuate the memory of Katy Ferguson and her deeds for the benefit of posterity. She was a philanthropist of truest stamp."
Anne Hutchinson
Anne Hutchinson was an important figure in the early history of American Christianity. She challenged many of the prevailing ideas of the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and, because of that, would become a symbol both for religious dissenters and for women in America.
She and her husband emigrated from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony as members of a Puritan. Soon after her arrival, she began to hold religious meetings in her home. Her views were not in line with the Puritan doctrine and she was charged with heresy and questioned before a court and then a religious tribunal - but, unfortunately for them, she was more knowledgeable than they and was very able to counter every argument and accusation.
Finally, she gave up trying to defend herself on legal grounds and began to tell about revelations she had received directly from God. This gave the tribunal an easy excuse to condemn her and sentence her to be banished. She first moved to Rhode Island, the destination of many religious dissenters, but after her husband died in 1642 she went on to Long Island with her ten children. There all were killed in a raid made by native Indians.
Dolley Madison
Dolly Madison was a granddaughter of John Payne, an English gentleman who migrated to Virginia early in the 18th century. After her first husband Philadelphia lawyer John Todd died in the yellow-fever epidemic of 1793, she was introduced to and eventually married James Madison, who was then Secretary of State.
Dolly served as unofficial first lady to President Thomas Jefferson, who was a widower. Later, she became the official First Lady as the wife of President Madison. Her enormous popularity as a hostess is credited with Madison's re-election to a second term.
Raised as a Quaker, Dolly did not acquire such "graceful and ornamental accomplishments" as music, dancing, painting and foreign languages, considered then as the most important parts of female education. Nor in her early life did she enjoy the advantages of wealth or rank. It was her great personal charm, abundant warmth and generosity that won her a host of friends and admirers. It has been said that Dolly never forgot a name she heard or a face that she had seen.
During the burning of the White House by the British in 1814, confronted by confusion and terror, she removed the portrait of George Washington from the house, saving it from the devastation that followed.
Lucretia Mott
Educated in Boston, Lucretia Mott became a teacher at the age of fifteen. Eight years later after moving to Philadelphia, she took charge of a small school in that city. After a year she appeared in the ministry of the Society of Friends, and was soon acclaimed for the clarity and eloquence of her presentations.
Early in life Lucretia became active in the movement against slavery . She became one of its most prominent and vocal advocates, continuing so until the emancipation. She helped form the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia and, later, was active in founding female anti-slavery organizations. She traveled extensively throughout New England, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio and Indiana, where she did not refrain from denouncing slavery. When attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, she was denied membership because she was a woman. Eventually, she took part in establishing women's rights journals in England and France, and contributed her talents in furthering that cause in the United States.
She helped form the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848 to improve the legal and political status of women. She was active in the movement until her death.
Mary Philipse
Daughter of Frederick Philipse, speaker of the New York Colonial Assembly and one of the early great landholders on the Hudson River, Mary Philipse was carefully educated and enjoyed all of the advantages that society offered.
She was described as having great personal beauty, with dark eyes and hair, strong-willed yet of a kindly disposition.
George Washington was a Virginia Colonel, 24 years of age, who had just won his first laurels on the field of battle. On his way to Boston to meet General Shirley, he stopped at the house of Colonel Robinson in New York. There he met Miss Mary Philipse, visiting her brother-in-law during the winter months. George's young heart was touched by her charm and beauty. He left reluctantly, continuing on to Boston. On his return he was again the willing guest of Colonel Robinson. He remained there, in Mary's company, as long as duty would allow. Speculation is that he offered her his hand but was refused, though that is in doubt. The most probable version of the story is that he was called away by his public duties before he was able to make sufficient overtures into the lady's heart.
Truth was that Washington's time was taken up almost totally by military matters. Shortly thereafter, he heard that Colonel Roger Morris, his companion-in-arms and confidante on the bloody field of Monongahela, won Mary's hand. The couple were married in 1758. They built a mansion on the outskirts of New York where they lived happily, until the dark days of the Revolution. Then, after Colonel Morris affirmed his allegiance to England and the King, their house was confiscated and, ironically, became Washington's headquarters in the autumn of 1776.
Mary, her sister and the wife of Rev. Charles Inglis were the only women accused of treason during the Revolution. Mary went to England with her husband where he died in 1794. Mary lived for another 31 years. She died at the age of 96 and was buried by her husband's side near Saviour-gate church in York.
Molly Pitcher
During the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778 the fighting was fierce and intense. The heat of battle was searing, and the soldiers' throats were parched. Many were exhausted and wounded.
All through the day — amidst the smoke and fire of the fighting — a private's young wife, Mrs. John Hays, carried water in a pitcher back and forth from a well to her husband and his fellow artillery gunners. Thus, the nickname Molly Pitcher.
As the battle ensued Molly's husband was wounded and could not continue, but she knew his job well enough to grab a rammer and keep the gun firing. She served at the cannon for the remainder of the battle.
For her heroic service she was ultimately granted relief by an Act of the Pennsylvania Legislature.
Betsy Ross
Operating an upholsterer's shop in Philadelphia, Betsy Ross is credited with making the first stars-and-stripes flag. She did so at the request of George Washington, Robert Morris and George Ross.
Attributing Betsy Ross as the maker of the flag is based on family tradition made public by her grandson William Canby in a paper delivered before the Pennsylvania Historical Society in 1870. Records of the Pennsylvania State Navy Board show that payment was ordered for "making ships' colours, etc." on May 29, 1777.
The stars-and-stripes was adopted as the national flag by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777.
Catharine Sedgwick
On her father's death Catharine Sedgwick — when she was 24 years old — took over the management of a private school for young ladies in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an endeavor she continued for fifty years.
At the same time, encouraged by her two brothers, she wrote a work of fiction entitled "A New England Tale." It appeared anonymously in 1822.
Her second novel, "Redwood," also published anonymously, was reprinted in England and translated into four languages. Six other novels followed.
Miss Sedgwick also wrote and published a collection of her "Sketches and Tales" from magazines. She next authored a series of papers descriptive of everyday life, including such titles as "The Poor Rich Man and The Rich Poor Man" and "Live and Let Live." Her travels through Europe over a year's time resulted in "Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home."
Sedgwick wrote numerous historical sketches and biographies, and edited and authored several articles for literary publications. Her writing is considered to be thoroughly American in thought and feeling, and captured the character and manners of New England.
Sojourner Truth
The woman we know as Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in New York as Isabella Baumfree. She was sold several times, and had five children. In 1827, New York law emancipated all slaves, but Isabella had already left her husband and run away with her youngest child. She discovered that a member of the Dumont family had sold one of her children to slavery in Alabama. Since this son had been emancipated under New York Law, Isabella sued in court and won his return.
In 1843, she took the name Sojourner Truth, believing this to be on the instructions of the Holy Spirit and became a traveling preacher (the meaning of her new name). In the late 1840s she connected with the abolitionist movement, becoming a popular speaker. In 1850, she also began speaking on woman suffrage. Her most famous speech, Ain't I a Woman?, was given in 1851 at a women's rights convention in Ohio.
Sojourner Truth met Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote about her for the Atlantic Monthly and wrote a new introduction to Truth's autobiography, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth.
During the Civil War Sojourner Truth raised food and clothing contributions for black regiments, and met Abraham Lincoln at the White House in 1864. While there, she tried to challenge the discrimination that segregated street cars by race. Active until 1875, when her grandson and companion fell ill and died, Sojourner Truth returned to Michigan where her health deteriorated and she died in 1883 in a Battle Creek sanitorium of infected ulcers on her legs. She was buried in Battle Creek, Michigan, after a very well-attended funeral.
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."
Tubman was born a slave in Maryland around 1820. At age five or six, she began to work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. She escaped from slavery and fled to Philadelphia. This was the beginning of her journey into the South to help slaves escape.
Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as "Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
Becoming friends with the leading abolitionists of the day, Tubman took part in antislavery meetings. On the way to such a meeting in Boston in 1860, in an incident in Troy, New York, she helped a fugitive slave who had been captured.
During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.
Mercy Warren
One of the most educated and brilliant women of her time, Mercy Warren was close friends with Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams, James Winthrop and Elbridge Gerry.
Wife of Revolutionary War leader James Warren, she wrote a number of political plays including "The Group" in which Gov. Hutchinson and other Tories were satirized. Other plays were "The Sack of Rome" and "The Ladies of Castile." Her play "The Squabble of the Sea-Nymphs" gives an account of the Boston tea-party.
Her three-volume "History of the American Revolution" published in 1805 is valuable because of her first-hand knowledge of many of the key personalities of the war.
Martha Washington
No list of notable early American women would be representative without that of America's first First Lady.
When she was seventeen years old, Martha Dandridge married Daniel Parke Custis, one of the wealthiest planters of eastern Virginia. Eight years later her husband died, leaving her with two children. Characterized at the time as "the prettiest and richest widow in Virginia," she met Colonel George Washington in 1758. They were married a year later.
They made Mount Vernon their home where Martha managed her husband's plantations in his absence. During the war she visited him in camp — sharing his honors, anxieties and hopes. Almost at the very hour of Washington's victory over the British at Yorktown, Martha's only son Col. John Parke died from camp fever only a few miles away. Arriving at the scene, Washington wept like a child. He vowed to Martha, "I adopt his two younger children as my own, from this hour."
As wife of the president, Martha was a gracious hostess, both in New York and in Philadelphia, and known for her official receptions every Thursday afternoon at the Executive Mansion.
Mary Ball Washington
To Mary Ball Washington we owe the precepts and example that governed her son throughout his life. The moral and religious maxims found in her favorite manual — "Sir Matthew Hale's Contemplations" — made an indelible impression on George's memory and on his heart, as she read them aloud to her children. That small volume, with his mother's autograph inscribed, was among the cherished treasures of George Washington's library as long as he lived.
When George was 14 years old, his half-brother Lawrence obtained a midshipman's warrant for him in the English naval service. George made plans to embark on board a man-of-war, then in the Potomac. His baggage was already on the ship.
But at the last minute his mother refused to give her consent, preventing her son from a life that would have cut him off from the great career he would eventually pursue.
A noted biographer described her action as "the debt owed by mankind to the mother of Washington."
Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley was America's first black poet.
Born in Senegal, Africa in 1753, she was kidnapped on a slave ship to Boston and sold at the age of seven to John and Susannah Wheatley. Phillis was soon accepted as a member of the family, and was raised and educated with the Wheatley's other two children.
Phillis soon displayed her remarkable talents by learning to read and write English. At the age of twelve she was reading the Greek and Latin classics, and passages from the Bible. At thirteen she wrote her first poem.
Phillis became a Boston sensation after she wrote a poem on the death of the evangelical preacher George Whitefield in 1770. Three years later thirty-nine of her poems were published in London as "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral." It was the first book published by a black American.
In 1775 she wrote a poem extolling the accomplishments of George Washington and sent it to the commander-in-chief. Washington responded by praising her talents and inviting her to his headquarters.
After both of her benefactors died, Phillis was freed as a slave. She married Dr. John Peters in 1778, moved away from Boston and had three children. After an unhappy marriage, she moved back to Boston, only to die in poverty alone in her apartment at the age of 30.
Years later her "Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley" was published in 1834. "The Letters of Phillis Wheatley, the Negro Slave Poet of Boston" appeared in 1864.
Wife of John Adams, second president of the United States, Abigail Adams was among the most remarkable women of the Revolutionary period.
Her father, the Rev. William Smith, was for more than forty years minister of the Congregational Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Her mother, Elizabeth Quincy, was the great-great-granddaughter of the eminent Puritan divine, Thomas Shepard of Cambridge.
Abigail was alone at home for ten years while Mr. Adams was away as a delegate to the Continental Congress and later on diplomatic business in Europe. Over time Abigail Adams became extensively acquainted with the best English literature, and wrote in a terse, vigorous and often elegant style.
Two volumes of her letters were published by her grandson under the titles "Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams" and "Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution." Her letters provide valuable background material on the life of the times, especially of the era during wartime.
She shared the intense interest of her husband in the political disputes that were to culminate in war. Later, when Mr. Adams became President, opposing political contemporaries argued that she exerted undue political influence over her husband.
Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) is one of the most important figures in the history of American Literature. She is considered by many to be the first American poet, and her first collection of poems, "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts", doesn't contain any of her best known poems, it was the first book written by a woman to be published in the United States. Mrs. Bradstreet's work also serves as a document of the struggles of a Puritan wife against the hardships of New England colonial life, and in some way is a testament to plight of the women of the age. Anne's life was a constant struggle, from her difficult adaptation to the rigors of the new land, to her constant battle with illness.
Catherine Ferguson
Born a slave, Catherine Ferguson was eight years old when her mother was sold. She never saw her mother again. That permanent separation undoubtedly impressed upon her the needs of desolate children, and they became the great care of her life.
When she was sixteen years old, a lady friend purchased Catherine's freedom for $200. Catherine married at eighteen and had two children but both died in infancy.
Although she herself never learned to read, Catherine gathered the poor and neglected children of the neighborhood, white and black, for religious instruction every Sunday at her modest dwelling on Warren Street in New York. A minister who heard of her work convinced her to move her school to the basement of his new church on Murray Street. Thus, Catherine Ferguson's Sunday school was the first to be established in the city of New York.
But her benevolent labors did not end with her Sunday school duties. Twice a week she held prayer meetings for the children and adults in her neighborhood. She continued that work for over 40 years in every neighborhood in which she lived.
Over the course of her life she took in under her wing a total of 48 children from the streets or from unfit parents. She raised them or kept them until she found suitable homes for them.
Of Catherine Ferguson a biographer wrote: "The example of such a life ought not to be lost...to perpetuate the memory of Katy Ferguson and her deeds for the benefit of posterity. She was a philanthropist of truest stamp."
Anne Hutchinson
Anne Hutchinson was an important figure in the early history of American Christianity. She challenged many of the prevailing ideas of the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and, because of that, would become a symbol both for religious dissenters and for women in America.
She and her husband emigrated from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony as members of a Puritan. Soon after her arrival, she began to hold religious meetings in her home. Her views were not in line with the Puritan doctrine and she was charged with heresy and questioned before a court and then a religious tribunal - but, unfortunately for them, she was more knowledgeable than they and was very able to counter every argument and accusation.
Finally, she gave up trying to defend herself on legal grounds and began to tell about revelations she had received directly from God. This gave the tribunal an easy excuse to condemn her and sentence her to be banished. She first moved to Rhode Island, the destination of many religious dissenters, but after her husband died in 1642 she went on to Long Island with her ten children. There all were killed in a raid made by native Indians.
Dolley Madison
Dolly Madison was a granddaughter of John Payne, an English gentleman who migrated to Virginia early in the 18th century. After her first husband Philadelphia lawyer John Todd died in the yellow-fever epidemic of 1793, she was introduced to and eventually married James Madison, who was then Secretary of State.
Dolly served as unofficial first lady to President Thomas Jefferson, who was a widower. Later, she became the official First Lady as the wife of President Madison. Her enormous popularity as a hostess is credited with Madison's re-election to a second term.
Raised as a Quaker, Dolly did not acquire such "graceful and ornamental accomplishments" as music, dancing, painting and foreign languages, considered then as the most important parts of female education. Nor in her early life did she enjoy the advantages of wealth or rank. It was her great personal charm, abundant warmth and generosity that won her a host of friends and admirers. It has been said that Dolly never forgot a name she heard or a face that she had seen.
During the burning of the White House by the British in 1814, confronted by confusion and terror, she removed the portrait of George Washington from the house, saving it from the devastation that followed.
Lucretia Mott
Educated in Boston, Lucretia Mott became a teacher at the age of fifteen. Eight years later after moving to Philadelphia, she took charge of a small school in that city. After a year she appeared in the ministry of the Society of Friends, and was soon acclaimed for the clarity and eloquence of her presentations.
Early in life Lucretia became active in the movement against slavery . She became one of its most prominent and vocal advocates, continuing so until the emancipation. She helped form the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia and, later, was active in founding female anti-slavery organizations. She traveled extensively throughout New England, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio and Indiana, where she did not refrain from denouncing slavery. When attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, she was denied membership because she was a woman. Eventually, she took part in establishing women's rights journals in England and France, and contributed her talents in furthering that cause in the United States.
She helped form the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848 to improve the legal and political status of women. She was active in the movement until her death.
Mary Philipse
Daughter of Frederick Philipse, speaker of the New York Colonial Assembly and one of the early great landholders on the Hudson River, Mary Philipse was carefully educated and enjoyed all of the advantages that society offered.
She was described as having great personal beauty, with dark eyes and hair, strong-willed yet of a kindly disposition.
George Washington was a Virginia Colonel, 24 years of age, who had just won his first laurels on the field of battle. On his way to Boston to meet General Shirley, he stopped at the house of Colonel Robinson in New York. There he met Miss Mary Philipse, visiting her brother-in-law during the winter months. George's young heart was touched by her charm and beauty. He left reluctantly, continuing on to Boston. On his return he was again the willing guest of Colonel Robinson. He remained there, in Mary's company, as long as duty would allow. Speculation is that he offered her his hand but was refused, though that is in doubt. The most probable version of the story is that he was called away by his public duties before he was able to make sufficient overtures into the lady's heart.
Truth was that Washington's time was taken up almost totally by military matters. Shortly thereafter, he heard that Colonel Roger Morris, his companion-in-arms and confidante on the bloody field of Monongahela, won Mary's hand. The couple were married in 1758. They built a mansion on the outskirts of New York where they lived happily, until the dark days of the Revolution. Then, after Colonel Morris affirmed his allegiance to England and the King, their house was confiscated and, ironically, became Washington's headquarters in the autumn of 1776.
Mary, her sister and the wife of Rev. Charles Inglis were the only women accused of treason during the Revolution. Mary went to England with her husband where he died in 1794. Mary lived for another 31 years. She died at the age of 96 and was buried by her husband's side near Saviour-gate church in York.
Molly Pitcher
During the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778 the fighting was fierce and intense. The heat of battle was searing, and the soldiers' throats were parched. Many were exhausted and wounded.
All through the day — amidst the smoke and fire of the fighting — a private's young wife, Mrs. John Hays, carried water in a pitcher back and forth from a well to her husband and his fellow artillery gunners. Thus, the nickname Molly Pitcher.
As the battle ensued Molly's husband was wounded and could not continue, but she knew his job well enough to grab a rammer and keep the gun firing. She served at the cannon for the remainder of the battle.
For her heroic service she was ultimately granted relief by an Act of the Pennsylvania Legislature.
Betsy Ross
Operating an upholsterer's shop in Philadelphia, Betsy Ross is credited with making the first stars-and-stripes flag. She did so at the request of George Washington, Robert Morris and George Ross.
Attributing Betsy Ross as the maker of the flag is based on family tradition made public by her grandson William Canby in a paper delivered before the Pennsylvania Historical Society in 1870. Records of the Pennsylvania State Navy Board show that payment was ordered for "making ships' colours, etc." on May 29, 1777.
The stars-and-stripes was adopted as the national flag by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777.
Catharine Sedgwick
On her father's death Catharine Sedgwick — when she was 24 years old — took over the management of a private school for young ladies in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an endeavor she continued for fifty years.
At the same time, encouraged by her two brothers, she wrote a work of fiction entitled "A New England Tale." It appeared anonymously in 1822.
Her second novel, "Redwood," also published anonymously, was reprinted in England and translated into four languages. Six other novels followed.
Miss Sedgwick also wrote and published a collection of her "Sketches and Tales" from magazines. She next authored a series of papers descriptive of everyday life, including such titles as "The Poor Rich Man and The Rich Poor Man" and "Live and Let Live." Her travels through Europe over a year's time resulted in "Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home."
Sedgwick wrote numerous historical sketches and biographies, and edited and authored several articles for literary publications. Her writing is considered to be thoroughly American in thought and feeling, and captured the character and manners of New England.
Sojourner Truth
The woman we know as Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in New York as Isabella Baumfree. She was sold several times, and had five children. In 1827, New York law emancipated all slaves, but Isabella had already left her husband and run away with her youngest child. She discovered that a member of the Dumont family had sold one of her children to slavery in Alabama. Since this son had been emancipated under New York Law, Isabella sued in court and won his return.
In 1843, she took the name Sojourner Truth, believing this to be on the instructions of the Holy Spirit and became a traveling preacher (the meaning of her new name). In the late 1840s she connected with the abolitionist movement, becoming a popular speaker. In 1850, she also began speaking on woman suffrage. Her most famous speech, Ain't I a Woman?, was given in 1851 at a women's rights convention in Ohio.
Sojourner Truth met Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote about her for the Atlantic Monthly and wrote a new introduction to Truth's autobiography, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth.
During the Civil War Sojourner Truth raised food and clothing contributions for black regiments, and met Abraham Lincoln at the White House in 1864. While there, she tried to challenge the discrimination that segregated street cars by race. Active until 1875, when her grandson and companion fell ill and died, Sojourner Truth returned to Michigan where her health deteriorated and she died in 1883 in a Battle Creek sanitorium of infected ulcers on her legs. She was buried in Battle Creek, Michigan, after a very well-attended funeral.
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."
Tubman was born a slave in Maryland around 1820. At age five or six, she began to work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. She escaped from slavery and fled to Philadelphia. This was the beginning of her journey into the South to help slaves escape.
Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as "Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
Becoming friends with the leading abolitionists of the day, Tubman took part in antislavery meetings. On the way to such a meeting in Boston in 1860, in an incident in Troy, New York, she helped a fugitive slave who had been captured.
During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.
Mercy Warren
One of the most educated and brilliant women of her time, Mercy Warren was close friends with Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams, James Winthrop and Elbridge Gerry.
Wife of Revolutionary War leader James Warren, she wrote a number of political plays including "The Group" in which Gov. Hutchinson and other Tories were satirized. Other plays were "The Sack of Rome" and "The Ladies of Castile." Her play "The Squabble of the Sea-Nymphs" gives an account of the Boston tea-party.
Her three-volume "History of the American Revolution" published in 1805 is valuable because of her first-hand knowledge of many of the key personalities of the war.
Martha Washington
No list of notable early American women would be representative without that of America's first First Lady.
When she was seventeen years old, Martha Dandridge married Daniel Parke Custis, one of the wealthiest planters of eastern Virginia. Eight years later her husband died, leaving her with two children. Characterized at the time as "the prettiest and richest widow in Virginia," she met Colonel George Washington in 1758. They were married a year later.
They made Mount Vernon their home where Martha managed her husband's plantations in his absence. During the war she visited him in camp — sharing his honors, anxieties and hopes. Almost at the very hour of Washington's victory over the British at Yorktown, Martha's only son Col. John Parke died from camp fever only a few miles away. Arriving at the scene, Washington wept like a child. He vowed to Martha, "I adopt his two younger children as my own, from this hour."
As wife of the president, Martha was a gracious hostess, both in New York and in Philadelphia, and known for her official receptions every Thursday afternoon at the Executive Mansion.
Mary Ball Washington
To Mary Ball Washington we owe the precepts and example that governed her son throughout his life. The moral and religious maxims found in her favorite manual — "Sir Matthew Hale's Contemplations" — made an indelible impression on George's memory and on his heart, as she read them aloud to her children. That small volume, with his mother's autograph inscribed, was among the cherished treasures of George Washington's library as long as he lived.
When George was 14 years old, his half-brother Lawrence obtained a midshipman's warrant for him in the English naval service. George made plans to embark on board a man-of-war, then in the Potomac. His baggage was already on the ship.
But at the last minute his mother refused to give her consent, preventing her son from a life that would have cut him off from the great career he would eventually pursue.
A noted biographer described her action as "the debt owed by mankind to the mother of Washington."
Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley was America's first black poet.
Born in Senegal, Africa in 1753, she was kidnapped on a slave ship to Boston and sold at the age of seven to John and Susannah Wheatley. Phillis was soon accepted as a member of the family, and was raised and educated with the Wheatley's other two children.
Phillis soon displayed her remarkable talents by learning to read and write English. At the age of twelve she was reading the Greek and Latin classics, and passages from the Bible. At thirteen she wrote her first poem.
Phillis became a Boston sensation after she wrote a poem on the death of the evangelical preacher George Whitefield in 1770. Three years later thirty-nine of her poems were published in London as "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral." It was the first book published by a black American.
In 1775 she wrote a poem extolling the accomplishments of George Washington and sent it to the commander-in-chief. Washington responded by praising her talents and inviting her to his headquarters.
After both of her benefactors died, Phillis was freed as a slave. She married Dr. John Peters in 1778, moved away from Boston and had three children. After an unhappy marriage, she moved back to Boston, only to die in poverty alone in her apartment at the age of 30.
Years later her "Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley" was published in 1834. "The Letters of Phillis Wheatley, the Negro Slave Poet of Boston" appeared in 1864.
Africa PP Notes
lAfrica
Muslims
Jews
Christians
Pagans
Matrilineal authority
Patrilineal society
lEconomics
lSlave Culture
lReligion: Islam, Pagan, Christianity
lSocial structure: Color, gender, age, ability
lCrafts/art/music: Weaving, pottery, wood work, New gospel with tribal sounds (Amazing Grace,
lFolklore:
‘Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Savior too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye.
“Their color is a diabolic dye.”
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refined, and join the angelic train
“I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!”
Muslims
Jews
Christians
Pagans
Matrilineal authority
Patrilineal society
lEconomics
lSlave Culture
lReligion: Islam, Pagan, Christianity
lSocial structure: Color, gender, age, ability
lCrafts/art/music: Weaving, pottery, wood work, New gospel with tribal sounds (Amazing Grace,
lFolklore:
‘Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Savior too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye.
“Their color is a diabolic dye.”
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refined, and join the angelic train
“I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!”
Enlightenment PP Notes
lThe Enlightenment
lVoltaire – Enlightened monarch, religious tolerance, rights to property, respect of man
lRousseau – General will, the Social Contract, child development, passion in writing
lLocke – All men can reason, “life, liberty and property,” men are a “clean slate” upon which their experiences write
lDiderot – Created the concept of encyclopedia, developed the idea that blind could read
lLater Thinkers
lKarl Marx – Believed in the proletariat and father of modern communism (early19th)
lDarwin – Theory of evolution
lEinstein – Theory of relativity
lFreud – Idea of unconscious mind, Id, Super Ego, Ego
lForces of Change
lPopulation boom in Europe
lPotato crops
lImprovement in agriculture
lIndustrialization of factories
lShift in intellectual thought
lSpread of ideas: communication
lEducation and literacy
lWestern expansion
lDevelopment of new ruling/business models
lThe Age of Revolution
lMove away from monarchies
lParliaments
lRepresentation
lFreedom of ideas and speech
lAwareness and interest of the people
lLimited power: government, church
lMarket economies
lAmerican Revolution
lThe Stamp Act 1765
l“ No taxation without representation”
lDivergence of national interests
lNeed for different laws
lFrench Revolution
l1789 - 1815
lMirabeau – constitutional monarchy
lDanton – the beginnings of Politicians
lRobespierre – the “Incorruptible”
lCondorcet – man of the enlightenment
lMarat – Extremist leader
lNapoleon – Military leader, dictator
lThe Industrial Revolution
l1848
lBritain to Western Europe to the United States
lChange social structure and cultural values forever
lChanged working environments and revenue potential
lSocial Changes
lPeople left the country, for city life
lChild labor decreased, children became valued
lMore adults used to run factories
l Women
lCultural Shifts
lConsumption and consumerism
l“Middle class” values
lBeginnings of product crazes (Popular culture)
lConsolidation of the Industrial Order
lContinued after 1850
lUnification in Germany and Italy
lRise of socialism
lStandard of living improved
lSlow population growth
lRise of capitalism and industry (U.S.)
lRailroads
lWestern World
lEconomic dependency, political support, colonization
lBroadening reach:
–Social/cultural values
–Institutions
–Arts/science/philosophies
lRising tensions in Europe
lLoss of colonies
lTriple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy
lTriple Entente: Britain, Russia, France
lVoltaire – Enlightened monarch, religious tolerance, rights to property, respect of man
lRousseau – General will, the Social Contract, child development, passion in writing
lLocke – All men can reason, “life, liberty and property,” men are a “clean slate” upon which their experiences write
lDiderot – Created the concept of encyclopedia, developed the idea that blind could read
lLater Thinkers
lKarl Marx – Believed in the proletariat and father of modern communism (early19th)
lDarwin – Theory of evolution
lEinstein – Theory of relativity
lFreud – Idea of unconscious mind, Id, Super Ego, Ego
lForces of Change
lPopulation boom in Europe
lPotato crops
lImprovement in agriculture
lIndustrialization of factories
lShift in intellectual thought
lSpread of ideas: communication
lEducation and literacy
lWestern expansion
lDevelopment of new ruling/business models
lThe Age of Revolution
lMove away from monarchies
lParliaments
lRepresentation
lFreedom of ideas and speech
lAwareness and interest of the people
lLimited power: government, church
lMarket economies
lAmerican Revolution
lThe Stamp Act 1765
l“ No taxation without representation”
lDivergence of national interests
lNeed for different laws
lFrench Revolution
l1789 - 1815
lMirabeau – constitutional monarchy
lDanton – the beginnings of Politicians
lRobespierre – the “Incorruptible”
lCondorcet – man of the enlightenment
lMarat – Extremist leader
lNapoleon – Military leader, dictator
lThe Industrial Revolution
l1848
lBritain to Western Europe to the United States
lChange social structure and cultural values forever
lChanged working environments and revenue potential
lSocial Changes
lPeople left the country, for city life
lChild labor decreased, children became valued
lMore adults used to run factories
l Women
lCultural Shifts
lConsumption and consumerism
l“Middle class” values
lBeginnings of product crazes (Popular culture)
lConsolidation of the Industrial Order
lContinued after 1850
lUnification in Germany and Italy
lRise of socialism
lStandard of living improved
lSlow population growth
lRise of capitalism and industry (U.S.)
lRailroads
lWestern World
lEconomic dependency, political support, colonization
lBroadening reach:
–Social/cultural values
–Institutions
–Arts/science/philosophies
lRising tensions in Europe
lLoss of colonies
lTriple Alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy
lTriple Entente: Britain, Russia, France
Quiz 1 - 3
¡Quiz 1 (History 9)A- True B- False
1.Women who bore children outside of marriage could be whipped, branded or fined.
2.Hutchinson was put on trial as a heretic, and ordered to leave ‘as a leper.’
3.The Protestant view of a woman’s soul helped to promote literacy for women.
4. Under colonial law eventually women would gain three important rights that married British women did not possess.
5.First courts recognized a wife’s right to share her husband’s home and bed.
6.Second to be supported by her husband even if he abandoned her.
7.Third, a wife’s right to be protected from violence at her husband’s hand.
¡
8.As many as 20,000 women marched with the British and American armies in the war for independence.
9.In law in colonial America there was no such institution as slave marriage.
10.Harriet Tubman stole some 3oo slaves from the South after her own escape in 19 trips over 10 years.
¡Quiz 2 (History 9)A- True B- False
1.Resistance is not a defining aspect of female slavery.
2.Sojourner Truth spoke at the women’s convention in Ohio, in 1851.
3.One image of the slave woman is of having inordinate strength, with an ability for tolerating an unusual amount of misery and heavy work.
4. Many women who had been a Mammy were left in old age and abandoned.
5.The Gospel of Domesticity perpetuated the idea that women belong in the home, and under the rule of her husband.
6.Slaves suffered a heavy proportion of deaths due to SIDS because of malnutrition and over work of mothers.
7.Women in Africa dominated agriculture but in the New World ideas about women’s gender appropriate work was different.
¡
8.Urban slave women had little hope of creating a family that could remain intact.
9.It was illegal for whites to marry blacks, native Americans or mulattos.
10.Jamestown had indentured servants but not slaves working in the community.
¡Quiz 3 (History 9)A- True B- False
1.Women of the middle class were isolated from the world of men and commerce.
2.Cut off from the money economy, a woman could work all day for her family but in the eyes of the world she did not work.
3.Women rejected the moral code of domesticity.
4. To be a lady, one had to employ domestic help in the U.S.
5.The same ideas used to justify the revolution were used in early feminist arguments for equality.
6.Angelina was the first woman in the U.S. to address a legislative body.
7.Puritans did not view marriage as a social contract and did not allow for divorce.
¡
8.Anne Hutchinson faced a trial before the ministers but not a secular trial.
9.Even wealthy women were accused of witchcraft.
10.Women who wanted to marry well had to have their feet bound.
1.Women who bore children outside of marriage could be whipped, branded or fined.
2.Hutchinson was put on trial as a heretic, and ordered to leave ‘as a leper.’
3.The Protestant view of a woman’s soul helped to promote literacy for women.
4. Under colonial law eventually women would gain three important rights that married British women did not possess.
5.First courts recognized a wife’s right to share her husband’s home and bed.
6.Second to be supported by her husband even if he abandoned her.
7.Third, a wife’s right to be protected from violence at her husband’s hand.
¡
8.As many as 20,000 women marched with the British and American armies in the war for independence.
9.In law in colonial America there was no such institution as slave marriage.
10.Harriet Tubman stole some 3oo slaves from the South after her own escape in 19 trips over 10 years.
¡Quiz 2 (History 9)A- True B- False
1.Resistance is not a defining aspect of female slavery.
2.Sojourner Truth spoke at the women’s convention in Ohio, in 1851.
3.One image of the slave woman is of having inordinate strength, with an ability for tolerating an unusual amount of misery and heavy work.
4. Many women who had been a Mammy were left in old age and abandoned.
5.The Gospel of Domesticity perpetuated the idea that women belong in the home, and under the rule of her husband.
6.Slaves suffered a heavy proportion of deaths due to SIDS because of malnutrition and over work of mothers.
7.Women in Africa dominated agriculture but in the New World ideas about women’s gender appropriate work was different.
¡
8.Urban slave women had little hope of creating a family that could remain intact.
9.It was illegal for whites to marry blacks, native Americans or mulattos.
10.Jamestown had indentured servants but not slaves working in the community.
¡Quiz 3 (History 9)A- True B- False
1.Women of the middle class were isolated from the world of men and commerce.
2.Cut off from the money economy, a woman could work all day for her family but in the eyes of the world she did not work.
3.Women rejected the moral code of domesticity.
4. To be a lady, one had to employ domestic help in the U.S.
5.The same ideas used to justify the revolution were used in early feminist arguments for equality.
6.Angelina was the first woman in the U.S. to address a legislative body.
7.Puritans did not view marriage as a social contract and did not allow for divorce.
¡
8.Anne Hutchinson faced a trial before the ministers but not a secular trial.
9.Even wealthy women were accused of witchcraft.
10.Women who wanted to marry well had to have their feet bound.
Early America PP Notes
Early British Colonies
Beginning in the early 1600s, the English establish colonies along the eastern shore of North America
The English Settle at Jamestown
A Disastrous Start
• In 1607 the English establish Jamestown, a colony in North America
• Groups of investors who hope to profit form joint-stock companies
• Colonists seek gold, suffer from disease and famine
• John Smith forces colonists to farm; gets help from Powhatan
Tobacco Requires a Supply of Labor
• Indentured servants—pay for food, housing, and passage with labor
• Indentured servants and slaves provide labor
for tobacco growth
” Puritans Create a “New England”
Puritans
• Puritans want to rid Church of England of Catholic rituals
• In 1620 a Separatist group, the Pilgrims, found colony at Plymouth
The Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Puritans found colony in Massachusetts Bay, centered in Boston
• John Winthrop, a Puritan leader, wants to create “City upon a Hill”
Dissent in the Puritan Community
• Roger Williams flees to Rhode Island for religious freedom
• Anne Hutchinson banished for speaking
against church
Native Americans Resist Colonial Expansion
• Native Americans help settlers survive in new environment
• Disputes between Native Americans and Puritans over land, religion
King Philip’s War
• Tensions between natives and colonists grow for 40 years
• In 1675 chief Metacom leads several tribes in King Philip’s War
• Native Americans surrender due to casualties, disease, and famine
Settlement of the Middle Colonies
The Dutch Found New Netherland
• Dutch set up New Amsterdam as center of fur-trading colony (1625)
• Dutch take over New Sweden on the Delaware River (1655)
• British duke of York takes colony, renames it New York (1664)
The Quakers Settle Pennsylvania
• William Penn, a Quaker, founds Pennsylvania (“Penn’s Woods”)
• Quakers, the Society of Friends, are pacifist Protestants who
- worship without formal ministers
- believe in equality, cooperation, religious toleration
England and Its Colonies Prosper
Thirteen Colonies
• From the 1600s to 1700s, thirteen British colonies are established
• Georgia is founded as a debtor haven, crown assumes control in 1752
• Colonies export raw materials, Britain manufactures goods
Mercantilism and the Navigation Acts
• Mercantilism—economic system to make a nation self-sufficient
• Nation obtains gold, silver, and establishes a favorable balance of trade
• British pass Navigation Acts in 1651 to control colonial trade
Colonial Governments
• Colonies run by a governor, who is appointed by the Crown
• Governor appoints judges, oversees local assembly and colonial trade
• Colonial assemblies pass laws; governors have veto power
Growing Spirit of Self-Determination
• Colonies want greater political and economic freedom
• Desire for freedom eventually leads to rebellion
The Colonies Come of Age
Even though both Northern and Southern colonies prosper, many colonists begin to question British authority.
A Plantation Economy Arises in the South
Life in a Diverse Southern Society
• English, German, Scots, Scots-Irish settlers; mostly small farmers
• Plantation owners control much of the South’s economy and politics
The Middle Passage
• Triangular trade—trade between Africa, West Indies, and the colonies
• Middle passage—sea route to West Indies, used to transport slaves
Africans Cope in Their New World
• 80-90% of slaves work in fields, 10-20% as servants or artisans
• Slaves keep their culture alive; some resist
or rebel
Commerce Grows in the North
Colonial Cities and Trade
• Northern colonies develop trade-based economy, some industries
• Philadelphia becomes Britain’s second largest port after London
• Colonial merchants trade as far away as California
• Northern colonies attract Jews, Dutch, Germans, and others
Farming in the North
• Northern farms produce varied cash crops, use less slave labor
• Slavery and anti-black prejudice exist in the North
The Enlightenment
European Ideas Inspire the Colonists
• Renaissance scientists look for rational explanation of world
• Discover that the earth revolves around the sun
• Enlightenment—intellectual movement that values reason and science
• Benjamin Franklin, colonial politician, embraces Enlightenment ideas
The Great Awakening
Religious Revivals
• Puritans lose influence in Massachusetts, lose dedication to religion
• Great Awakening—revivals to restore Puritan dedication and intensity
• Jonathan Edwards preaches people are sinful; must seek God’s mercy
• Great Awakening revives religion, leads many to change congregations
Effects of the Great Awakening and
Enlightenment
• Both movements lead people to question authority of church and state
• Movements create atmosphere that leads to American Revolution
The French and Indian War
Britain and France
• France and Britain fight three inconclusive wars in 1600s and 1700s
• French and Indian War—conflict reignites in colonies in 1754
Rivals for an Empire
• French colony based on fur trade, allies with Native Americans
War Erupts
• French build Fort Duquesne in land claimed by Virginia (Ohio Valley)
• French crush Virginia militia under George Washington in 1754
• 1755–1756, French and allies continue to
defeat British militia
Britain Defeats an Old Enemy
• British troops capture Quebec in a surprise attack in 1759
• William Pitt, British politician, leads Britain to victory
• Treaty of Paris ends war (1763), France gives up almost all its land
Changes for Native Americans
• Ottawa leader, Pontiac, fears loss of land; captures British forts
• British use smallpox as a weapon; Native Americans greatly weakened
• Proclamation of 1763—colonists can’t settle west of Appalachians
Beginning in the early 1600s, the English establish colonies along the eastern shore of North America
The English Settle at Jamestown
A Disastrous Start
• In 1607 the English establish Jamestown, a colony in North America
• Groups of investors who hope to profit form joint-stock companies
• Colonists seek gold, suffer from disease and famine
• John Smith forces colonists to farm; gets help from Powhatan
Tobacco Requires a Supply of Labor
• Indentured servants—pay for food, housing, and passage with labor
• Indentured servants and slaves provide labor
for tobacco growth
” Puritans Create a “New England”
Puritans
• Puritans want to rid Church of England of Catholic rituals
• In 1620 a Separatist group, the Pilgrims, found colony at Plymouth
The Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Puritans found colony in Massachusetts Bay, centered in Boston
• John Winthrop, a Puritan leader, wants to create “City upon a Hill”
Dissent in the Puritan Community
• Roger Williams flees to Rhode Island for religious freedom
• Anne Hutchinson banished for speaking
against church
Native Americans Resist Colonial Expansion
• Native Americans help settlers survive in new environment
• Disputes between Native Americans and Puritans over land, religion
King Philip’s War
• Tensions between natives and colonists grow for 40 years
• In 1675 chief Metacom leads several tribes in King Philip’s War
• Native Americans surrender due to casualties, disease, and famine
Settlement of the Middle Colonies
The Dutch Found New Netherland
• Dutch set up New Amsterdam as center of fur-trading colony (1625)
• Dutch take over New Sweden on the Delaware River (1655)
• British duke of York takes colony, renames it New York (1664)
The Quakers Settle Pennsylvania
• William Penn, a Quaker, founds Pennsylvania (“Penn’s Woods”)
• Quakers, the Society of Friends, are pacifist Protestants who
- worship without formal ministers
- believe in equality, cooperation, religious toleration
England and Its Colonies Prosper
Thirteen Colonies
• From the 1600s to 1700s, thirteen British colonies are established
• Georgia is founded as a debtor haven, crown assumes control in 1752
• Colonies export raw materials, Britain manufactures goods
Mercantilism and the Navigation Acts
• Mercantilism—economic system to make a nation self-sufficient
• Nation obtains gold, silver, and establishes a favorable balance of trade
• British pass Navigation Acts in 1651 to control colonial trade
Colonial Governments
• Colonies run by a governor, who is appointed by the Crown
• Governor appoints judges, oversees local assembly and colonial trade
• Colonial assemblies pass laws; governors have veto power
Growing Spirit of Self-Determination
• Colonies want greater political and economic freedom
• Desire for freedom eventually leads to rebellion
The Colonies Come of Age
Even though both Northern and Southern colonies prosper, many colonists begin to question British authority.
A Plantation Economy Arises in the South
Life in a Diverse Southern Society
• English, German, Scots, Scots-Irish settlers; mostly small farmers
• Plantation owners control much of the South’s economy and politics
The Middle Passage
• Triangular trade—trade between Africa, West Indies, and the colonies
• Middle passage—sea route to West Indies, used to transport slaves
Africans Cope in Their New World
• 80-90% of slaves work in fields, 10-20% as servants or artisans
• Slaves keep their culture alive; some resist
or rebel
Commerce Grows in the North
Colonial Cities and Trade
• Northern colonies develop trade-based economy, some industries
• Philadelphia becomes Britain’s second largest port after London
• Colonial merchants trade as far away as California
• Northern colonies attract Jews, Dutch, Germans, and others
Farming in the North
• Northern farms produce varied cash crops, use less slave labor
• Slavery and anti-black prejudice exist in the North
The Enlightenment
European Ideas Inspire the Colonists
• Renaissance scientists look for rational explanation of world
• Discover that the earth revolves around the sun
• Enlightenment—intellectual movement that values reason and science
• Benjamin Franklin, colonial politician, embraces Enlightenment ideas
The Great Awakening
Religious Revivals
• Puritans lose influence in Massachusetts, lose dedication to religion
• Great Awakening—revivals to restore Puritan dedication and intensity
• Jonathan Edwards preaches people are sinful; must seek God’s mercy
• Great Awakening revives religion, leads many to change congregations
Effects of the Great Awakening and
Enlightenment
• Both movements lead people to question authority of church and state
• Movements create atmosphere that leads to American Revolution
The French and Indian War
Britain and France
• France and Britain fight three inconclusive wars in 1600s and 1700s
• French and Indian War—conflict reignites in colonies in 1754
Rivals for an Empire
• French colony based on fur trade, allies with Native Americans
War Erupts
• French build Fort Duquesne in land claimed by Virginia (Ohio Valley)
• French crush Virginia militia under George Washington in 1754
• 1755–1756, French and allies continue to
defeat British militia
Britain Defeats an Old Enemy
• British troops capture Quebec in a surprise attack in 1759
• William Pitt, British politician, leads Britain to victory
• Treaty of Paris ends war (1763), France gives up almost all its land
Changes for Native Americans
• Ottawa leader, Pontiac, fears loss of land; captures British forts
• British use smallpox as a weapon; Native Americans greatly weakened
• Proclamation of 1763—colonists can’t settle west of Appalachians
Early Feminism PP Notes
•Feminism Comes to America
•• Scottish Enlightenment – John Locke
•• French Enlightenment – Condorcet, de
•Gouges
•• American Enlightenment – John Otis, The
•Rights of the British Colonies Asserted
•and Proved (1764); Abigail Adams
•• English Liberalism – Mary Wollstonecraft;
•John Stuart Mill
•John Locke 1632-1704
• The Glorious Revolution
– First and Second
•Treatises on Government (1689)
•Nuclear family is the base unit of any free society
– With women as key figures
– As co-equals with husbands
•Nicolas de Caritat, Marquisde Condorcet (1743-94)
•" De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité " (1791)
– (On the admission of women to the rights of citizens)
•Attacks the foundations of the argument against women’s equality:
Surely they were all violating the principle of equal rights by debarring women from citizenship rights, and thereby calmly depriving half of the human race of the right to participate in the formation of the laws. Could there by any stronger evidence of the power of habit over enlightened men, than the picture of them invoking the principle of equal rights for three or four hundred men who had been deprived of equal rights by an absurd prejudice, and yet forgetting it with regard to 12 million women? For this exclusion not to constitute an act of tyranny, we would have to prove that the natural rights of women are not exactly the same as those of men,
or else that they are incapable of exercising them.
•Condorcet on Women (1)
•Women had right to speak out in public
•Women were reasonable, sensible, with a sense of morality, and were very often leaders
•Argued that women, as people, also must not be unfairly ruled
– links it to taxation without representation
– says patriarchy is a restriction of women's rights to representation
– Male tyranny negates the concept of liberty
•Condorcet on Women (2)
•Condorcet argued women were obviously men's equals
– except in matters requiring brute strength
– the brightest women were already superior to men of limited talents
•and improvements in education would readily narrow what gaps there were
•Condorcet on Women (3)
•Condorcet concluded with his generation's most detailed statement of the political rights and responsibilities of women:
– "Perhaps you will find this discussion too long; but think that it is about the rights of half of human beings, rights forgotten by all the legislators; that it is not useless even for the liberty of men to indicate the means of destroying the single objection which could be made to republics, and to make between them and states which are not free a real difference."
•Olympe De Gouges(1748-93)
•Déclaration de Droits de la Femme et la Citoyene (1791)
– Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (from Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 1789)
•Demanded a women’s assembly, suffrage, and education.
•Charged with treason under the rule of the National Convention
– Arrested, tried, and executed by guillotine in 1793
•Enlightenment Debate in America
•Early American politics shaped by the
Scottish and French Enlightenments
– Especially John Locke, seen as the philosophical father of the U.S. Constitution
– And Condorcet, who was a close friend of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin
•Some Americans address women’s rights directly
•James Otis and theWoman Question
•James Otis of Boston
•Author of a 1764 pamphlet, The Rights of
•the British Colonies Asserted and Proved
•Asked questions about the origins of government.
– And if it was based on the original social compact, he wanted to know who were those present and who were thus parties to that compact.
•James Otis on the Social Contract
•"Who acted for infants and women, or who appointed guardians for them? Had these guardians power to bind both infants and women during life and their posterity after them? What will there be to distinguish the next generation of men from their forefathers, that they should not have the same right to make original compacts as their ancestors had? If every man has such right, may there not be as many original compacts as there are men and women born or to be born? Are not women born as free as men? Would it not be infamous to assert that the ladies are all slaves by nature? If every man and woman born or to be born has and will have a right to be consulted and must accede to the original compact before they can with any kind of justice be said to be bound by it, will not the compact be ever forming and never finished?"
•Otis’s Embarrassing Questionsabout Women’s Roles in theRevolutionary Republic
•"If upon the abdication all were reduced to a state of nature, had not apple women and orange girls as good a right to give their respectable suffrages for a new King as the philosopher, courtier, petit-maitre and politician? Were these and ten millions of other such...consulted?"
•Abigail Adams (1744-1818)
•Series of letters between her and John Adams throughout the Constitutional Convention in which she urges him to support women’s equal citizenship
•Influenced by Scottish and French Enlightenment thinkers
•Abigail to John, 31 March 1776
•“I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”
•“That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex.”
•John to Abigail, 14 April 1776
•“I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government every where. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient – that schools and Colledges were grown turbulent -- that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters. But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented.”
•“We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems…. which would compleatly subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat…. A fine Story indeed.”
•Abigail to John, 7 May 1776
•“I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies, for whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over Wives. But you must remember that Arbitary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken – and notwithstanding all your wise Laws and Maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our Masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet.”
•Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97)
•British writer and philosopher
•A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
– A strong advocacy for making women equal through education and legal change
•Wollstonecraft (1)
•Writing in response to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand- Périgord's 1791 report to the French National Assembly that women should be educated in domesticity for the betterment of the nation
•Wollstonecraft argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society
– women are essential to the nation
– As the teachers of their children
– And as the companions (rather than mere wives) to their husbands
•Argues that double standards prevent women from fulfilling their potentials
•Wollstonecraft (2)
•Women are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men
•Builds on the argument of “inalienable natural rights”
– Since God gives those rights to humans, for one part of society to deny them to another part is a “sin.”
•Limits of her feminism
– Never explicitly states women’s equality
– Intended to argue that in a longer essay, but died in childbirth before she could write it.
•Wollstonecraft (3)
•In arguing for women’s human rights, she invokes religion to attack the “religious” arguments for women’s exclusion from those rights:
– “Let it not be concluded that I wish to invert the order of things; I have already granted, that, from the constitution of their bodies, men seem to be designed by Providence to attain a greater degree of virtue. I speak collectively of the whole sex; but I see not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their virtues should differ in respect to their nature. In fact, how can they, if virtue has only one eternal standard? I must therefore, if I reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain that they have the same simple direction, as that there is a God.”
•Meaning: if not all men are virtuous, this does not disprove that men are capable of virtue (because that is God’s will); so if not all women are reasonable, the fact that some are should be taken as proof that women are capable of reason, as men are capable of virtue. And if women are capable of reason, God made them so, as God made men capable of virtue. To prevent women from being so is a sin.
•John Stuart Mill (1806-73)
•English philosopher and member of Parliament
– On Liberty (1859) championed individual freedom vs. an oppressive state
– “The Subjection of Women” (1869)
•Clearly influenced by, and possibly co-authored by his brilliant wife, Harriet Taylor
– Mill credited her as his co-author
•Mill’s “The Subjection of Women” (1)
•Sees women as “obviously” equal to men in intellect, if not in body.
– Subjecting women is wrong and holds humanity back
•"... [T]he legal subordination of one sex to another — is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of
•perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other."
– And posits that women’s subjection is the symbol of oppression
•"Under whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to the suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same.“
•Advocates the emancipation of women on utilitarian grounds
– It would elevate all society by placing an emphasis on thought over brute strength and end a system which coarsens human interaction
•“The anxiety of mankind to intervene on behalf of nature...is an altogether unnecessary solicitude. What women by nature cannot do, is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing."
•Mill’s “The Subjection of Women” (2)
•Denies the knowability of women’s “supposed inferiority”
– Because there has never been true freedom for women or just compensation for their labors and contributions
– "I deny that any one knows or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. Until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences between women and men, distorted as they have been. What is natural to the two sexes can only be found out by allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely.“
•Concludes:
– "... [T]he legal subordination of one sex to another — is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other."
•• Scottish Enlightenment – John Locke
•• French Enlightenment – Condorcet, de
•Gouges
•• American Enlightenment – John Otis, The
•Rights of the British Colonies Asserted
•and Proved (1764); Abigail Adams
•• English Liberalism – Mary Wollstonecraft;
•John Stuart Mill
•John Locke 1632-1704
• The Glorious Revolution
– First and Second
•Treatises on Government (1689)
•Nuclear family is the base unit of any free society
– With women as key figures
– As co-equals with husbands
•Nicolas de Caritat, Marquisde Condorcet (1743-94)
•" De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité " (1791)
– (On the admission of women to the rights of citizens)
•Attacks the foundations of the argument against women’s equality:
Surely they were all violating the principle of equal rights by debarring women from citizenship rights, and thereby calmly depriving half of the human race of the right to participate in the formation of the laws. Could there by any stronger evidence of the power of habit over enlightened men, than the picture of them invoking the principle of equal rights for three or four hundred men who had been deprived of equal rights by an absurd prejudice, and yet forgetting it with regard to 12 million women? For this exclusion not to constitute an act of tyranny, we would have to prove that the natural rights of women are not exactly the same as those of men,
or else that they are incapable of exercising them.
•Condorcet on Women (1)
•Women had right to speak out in public
•Women were reasonable, sensible, with a sense of morality, and were very often leaders
•Argued that women, as people, also must not be unfairly ruled
– links it to taxation without representation
– says patriarchy is a restriction of women's rights to representation
– Male tyranny negates the concept of liberty
•Condorcet on Women (2)
•Condorcet argued women were obviously men's equals
– except in matters requiring brute strength
– the brightest women were already superior to men of limited talents
•and improvements in education would readily narrow what gaps there were
•Condorcet on Women (3)
•Condorcet concluded with his generation's most detailed statement of the political rights and responsibilities of women:
– "Perhaps you will find this discussion too long; but think that it is about the rights of half of human beings, rights forgotten by all the legislators; that it is not useless even for the liberty of men to indicate the means of destroying the single objection which could be made to republics, and to make between them and states which are not free a real difference."
•Olympe De Gouges(1748-93)
•Déclaration de Droits de la Femme et la Citoyene (1791)
– Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (from Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 1789)
•Demanded a women’s assembly, suffrage, and education.
•Charged with treason under the rule of the National Convention
– Arrested, tried, and executed by guillotine in 1793
•Enlightenment Debate in America
•Early American politics shaped by the
Scottish and French Enlightenments
– Especially John Locke, seen as the philosophical father of the U.S. Constitution
– And Condorcet, who was a close friend of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin
•Some Americans address women’s rights directly
•James Otis and theWoman Question
•James Otis of Boston
•Author of a 1764 pamphlet, The Rights of
•the British Colonies Asserted and Proved
•Asked questions about the origins of government.
– And if it was based on the original social compact, he wanted to know who were those present and who were thus parties to that compact.
•James Otis on the Social Contract
•"Who acted for infants and women, or who appointed guardians for them? Had these guardians power to bind both infants and women during life and their posterity after them? What will there be to distinguish the next generation of men from their forefathers, that they should not have the same right to make original compacts as their ancestors had? If every man has such right, may there not be as many original compacts as there are men and women born or to be born? Are not women born as free as men? Would it not be infamous to assert that the ladies are all slaves by nature? If every man and woman born or to be born has and will have a right to be consulted and must accede to the original compact before they can with any kind of justice be said to be bound by it, will not the compact be ever forming and never finished?"
•Otis’s Embarrassing Questionsabout Women’s Roles in theRevolutionary Republic
•"If upon the abdication all were reduced to a state of nature, had not apple women and orange girls as good a right to give their respectable suffrages for a new King as the philosopher, courtier, petit-maitre and politician? Were these and ten millions of other such...consulted?"
•Abigail Adams (1744-1818)
•Series of letters between her and John Adams throughout the Constitutional Convention in which she urges him to support women’s equal citizenship
•Influenced by Scottish and French Enlightenment thinkers
•Abigail to John, 31 March 1776
•“I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”
•“That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex.”
•John to Abigail, 14 April 1776
•“I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government every where. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient – that schools and Colledges were grown turbulent -- that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters. But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented.”
•“We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems…. which would compleatly subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat…. A fine Story indeed.”
•Abigail to John, 7 May 1776
•“I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies, for whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over Wives. But you must remember that Arbitary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken – and notwithstanding all your wise Laws and Maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our Masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet.”
•Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97)
•British writer and philosopher
•A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
– A strong advocacy for making women equal through education and legal change
•Wollstonecraft (1)
•Writing in response to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand- Périgord's 1791 report to the French National Assembly that women should be educated in domesticity for the betterment of the nation
•Wollstonecraft argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society
– women are essential to the nation
– As the teachers of their children
– And as the companions (rather than mere wives) to their husbands
•Argues that double standards prevent women from fulfilling their potentials
•Wollstonecraft (2)
•Women are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men
•Builds on the argument of “inalienable natural rights”
– Since God gives those rights to humans, for one part of society to deny them to another part is a “sin.”
•Limits of her feminism
– Never explicitly states women’s equality
– Intended to argue that in a longer essay, but died in childbirth before she could write it.
•Wollstonecraft (3)
•In arguing for women’s human rights, she invokes religion to attack the “religious” arguments for women’s exclusion from those rights:
– “Let it not be concluded that I wish to invert the order of things; I have already granted, that, from the constitution of their bodies, men seem to be designed by Providence to attain a greater degree of virtue. I speak collectively of the whole sex; but I see not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their virtues should differ in respect to their nature. In fact, how can they, if virtue has only one eternal standard? I must therefore, if I reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain that they have the same simple direction, as that there is a God.”
•Meaning: if not all men are virtuous, this does not disprove that men are capable of virtue (because that is God’s will); so if not all women are reasonable, the fact that some are should be taken as proof that women are capable of reason, as men are capable of virtue. And if women are capable of reason, God made them so, as God made men capable of virtue. To prevent women from being so is a sin.
•John Stuart Mill (1806-73)
•English philosopher and member of Parliament
– On Liberty (1859) championed individual freedom vs. an oppressive state
– “The Subjection of Women” (1869)
•Clearly influenced by, and possibly co-authored by his brilliant wife, Harriet Taylor
– Mill credited her as his co-author
•Mill’s “The Subjection of Women” (1)
•Sees women as “obviously” equal to men in intellect, if not in body.
– Subjecting women is wrong and holds humanity back
•"... [T]he legal subordination of one sex to another — is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of
•perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other."
– And posits that women’s subjection is the symbol of oppression
•"Under whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to the suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same.“
•Advocates the emancipation of women on utilitarian grounds
– It would elevate all society by placing an emphasis on thought over brute strength and end a system which coarsens human interaction
•“The anxiety of mankind to intervene on behalf of nature...is an altogether unnecessary solicitude. What women by nature cannot do, is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing."
•Mill’s “The Subjection of Women” (2)
•Denies the knowability of women’s “supposed inferiority”
– Because there has never been true freedom for women or just compensation for their labors and contributions
– "I deny that any one knows or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. Until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences between women and men, distorted as they have been. What is natural to the two sexes can only be found out by allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely.“
•Concludes:
– "... [T]he legal subordination of one sex to another — is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other."
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Essay Writing Tips
Essays should fill at least four pages in a blue book.
Below are some tips.
PREPARATION BEFORE THE TEST
1. Questions could be one of three types: trace or narrate a story/process define the significance of something compare and contrast
2. The best way to prepare is to come to class, take notes, and form study groups. Brainstorm together and ask: "What facts need to be in this essay to make it complete?"
3. The essay questions are formed using the study guide. Use the study guide to help you. Read the text and review lectures for the additional information you will need.
4. Draft a list. List everything that will go toward making a full essay. This list will constitute the building blocks of your essay.
5. Demonstrate your this statement "in action," which means use examples. Incorporate facts and details. Don't ignore dates and places.
6. Memorize your list.
7. Conclude with, "What is the significance of all this?"
EXECUTION OF THE ESSAY ON EXAM DAY
8. Study the question randomly assigned to you (you will have already seen the possibilities on study guide).
9. Gauge time (about half hour).
10. Replicate the list you memorized in #4 above on scratch paper.
11. Think in terms of paragraphs. Let your list suggest the clusters that will comprise each paragraph.
12. Start each paragraph with a general statement. Then support your essay referring to your list.
13. Start writing.
OTHER POINTS
14. Refrain from moral judgment, religious confessional, or overdone Americanism. Adopt the stance of the dispassionate, scholarly observer.
15. Unlike a research paper, book review, or film review, your test essay is not expected to have polished style. However, it should demonstrate logical organization, critical thinking and mastery of content.
By Dr. Craig Livingston, revised by Prof. Ramsey
Below are some tips.
PREPARATION BEFORE THE TEST
1. Questions could be one of three types: trace or narrate a story/process define the significance of something compare and contrast
2. The best way to prepare is to come to class, take notes, and form study groups. Brainstorm together and ask: "What facts need to be in this essay to make it complete?"
3. The essay questions are formed using the study guide. Use the study guide to help you. Read the text and review lectures for the additional information you will need.
4. Draft a list. List everything that will go toward making a full essay. This list will constitute the building blocks of your essay.
5. Demonstrate your this statement "in action," which means use examples. Incorporate facts and details. Don't ignore dates and places.
6. Memorize your list.
7. Conclude with, "What is the significance of all this?"
EXECUTION OF THE ESSAY ON EXAM DAY
8. Study the question randomly assigned to you (you will have already seen the possibilities on study guide).
9. Gauge time (about half hour).
10. Replicate the list you memorized in #4 above on scratch paper.
11. Think in terms of paragraphs. Let your list suggest the clusters that will comprise each paragraph.
12. Start each paragraph with a general statement. Then support your essay referring to your list.
13. Start writing.
OTHER POINTS
14. Refrain from moral judgment, religious confessional, or overdone Americanism. Adopt the stance of the dispassionate, scholarly observer.
15. Unlike a research paper, book review, or film review, your test essay is not expected to have polished style. However, it should demonstrate logical organization, critical thinking and mastery of content.
By Dr. Craig Livingston, revised by Prof. Ramsey
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Painful Beauty (Week 3)
(Bound foot)
Suffering for beauty is a concept familiar to most women, who have dyed, plucked or shaved their hair, squeezed their feet into uncomfortable high heels or even surgically enhanced parts of their anatomy. Millions of Chinese women went even further — binding their feet to turn them into the prized "three-inch golden lotuses."
{From Status Symbol to Subjugation: Legend has it that footbinding began during the Shang dynasty (1700-1027 B.C.), ordered by an empress who had a clubfoot. But historical records date the practice to a later dynasty: An emperor was captivated by a concubine, a talented dancer who bound her feet to suggest the shape of a new moon and performed a "lotus dance."}
Footbinding was first banned in 1912, but some continued binding their feet in secret. Some of the last survivors of this barbaric practice are still living in Liuyicun, a village in Southern China's Yunnan province.
Wang Lifen was just 7 years old when her mother started binding her feet: breaking her toes and binding them underneath the sole of the foot with bandages. After her mother died, Wang carried on, breaking the arch of her own foot to force her toes and heel ever closer. Now 79, Wang no longer remembers the pain.
'Young Bones Are Soft'
"Because I bound my own feet, I could manipulate them more gently until the bones were broken. Young bones are soft, and break more easily," she says.
At that time, bound feet were a status symbol, the only way for a woman to marry into money. In Wang's case, her in-laws had demanded the matchmaker find their son a wife with tiny feet. It was only after the wedding, when she finally met her husband for the first time, that she discovered he was an opium addict. With a life encompassing bound feet and an opium-addict husband, she's a remnant from another age. That's how author Yang Yang, who's written a book about them, sees these women.
"These women were shunned by two eras," Yang says. "When they were young, footbinding was already forbidden, so they bound their feet in secret. When the Communist era came, production methods changed. They had to do farming work, and again they were shunned."
A Dwindling Few
Outside the temple in Liuyicun, old women sit chatting, some resting their shrunken feet in the sunlight. Seven years ago, there were still 300 women with bound feet in this village. But many have since died. The village's former prosperity, from its thriving textile business, was the reason every family bound their daughters' feet. And they carried on long after footbinding was outlawed in 1912.
Zhou Guizhen remembers tricking the government inspectors.
"When people came to inspect our feet, my mother bandaged my feet, then put big shoes on them," Zhou says. "When the inspectors came, we fooled them into thinking I had big feet."
Zhou is now a fragile 86-year-old with a rueful chuckle. Tottering along in her blue silk shoes embroidered with phoenixes, she marvels at how the world has changed. Born into a rich family and married into fabulous wealth, all her possessions were confiscated by the Communists.
A Regretful Decision
Now she opens the door to her dark, decrepit one-room hut with earthen floors and paper-lattice windows through which the cold wind whistles. Values have been turned upside down since her childhood. Then, she says, bound feet were seen as a mark of class. Now, they stand for female subjugation.
"I regret binding my feet," Zhou says. "I can't dance, I can't move properly. I regret it a lot. But at the time, if you didn't bind your feet, no one would marry you."
These "golden lotuses" were proof of a foot fetish on a national scale, with hobbled feet acting as another erogenous zone, the most forbidden of them all. But for author Yang Yang, whose mother had bound feet, the reality was far more prosaic.
"The bandages that women used for footbinding were about 10 feet long, so it was difficult for them to wash their feet," Yang says. "They only washed once every two weeks, so it was very, very stinky. But when I was young I was very free, because when I was naughty my mother couldn't run fast enough with her bound feet to catch me and beat me."
Despite their self-inflicted disabilities, these women are survivors. Wang often baby-sits her neighbors' toddler, carrying the plump 20-pound child on her back as she goes about her daily chores. As Wang surveys her tiny shoes, cocking her head from side to side, it's clear she's proud of her little feet.
Lingering Pride
"There's not a single other woman in Liuyicun who could fit their feet into my shoes," she says. "When my generation dies, people won't be able to see bound feet, even if they want to."
These women even gained fame of a sort, forming a bound-feet disco dancing troupe which toured the region. Zhou was once the star of the troupe, but now she's too old to dance.
Such public display is a far cry from their youth, when their bound feet restricted their freedom, keeping them close to their homes. But the local press criticized the dance troupe, talking of exploitation and freak shows. These women yet again are victims of history in a society that finds their plight an embarrassing reminder of its own recent brutality towards women.
Wealthy Chinese women with bound feet pose for a photo, circa 1900-1920.
Footbinding: From Status Symbol to Subjugation
by Louisa Lim
by Louisa Lim
Legend has it that the origins of footbinding go back as far as the Shang dynasty (1700-1027 B.C.). The Shang Empress had a clubfoot, so she demanded that footbinding be made compulsory in the court.
But historical records from the Song dynasty (960-1279 A.D.) date footbinding as beginning during the reign of Li Yu, who ruled over one region of China between 961-975. It is said his heart was captured by a concubine, Yao Niang, a talented dancer who bound her feet to suggest the shape of a new moon and performed a "lotus dance."
During subsequent dynasties, footbinding became more popular and spread from court circles to the wealthy. Eventually, it moved from the cities to the countryside, where young girls realized that binding their feet could be their passport to social mobility and increased wealth.
When the Manchu nobility came to power in 1644, they tried to ban the practice, but with little success. The first anti-footbinding committee was formed in Shanghai by a British priest in 1874.
But the practice wasn't outlawed until 1912, when the Qing dynasty had already been toppled by a revolution. Beginning in 1915, government inspectors could levy fines on those who continued to bind their feet. But despite these measures, footbinding still continued in various parts of the country.
A year after the Communists came to power in 1949, they too issued their own ban on footbinding. According to the American author William Rossi, who wrote The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, 40 percent to 50 percent of Chinese women had bound feet in the 19th century. For the upper classes, the figure was almost 100 percent.
Some estimate that as many as 2 billion Chinese women broke and bound their feet to attain this agonizing ideal of physical perfection. Author Yang Yang says that women with tiny feet were a status symbol who would bring honor upon the entire clan by their appearance.
"Some married women with bound feet would even get up in the middle of the night to start their toilette, just to ensure they would look good in daytime," he says.
In Liuyicun, the practice persisted so long because of the village's economic prosperity — and its inhabitants' desire for obvious wealth signifiers, like daughters with bound feet.
Some scholars say footbinding deepened female subjugation by making women more dependent on their men folk, restricting their movements and enforcing their chastity, since women with bound feet were physically incapable of venturing far from their homes.
Certainly the "three-inch golden lotuses" were seen as the ultimate erogenous zone, with Qing dynasty pornographic books listing 48 different ways of playing with women's bound feet.
For those unfortunate women who paid the ultimate price for beauty, there was little choice involved.
Liuyicun resident Wang Lifen, 79, describes her own attitude as a child, saying, "I didn't want to bind my feet, but the whole village told me that I had to. So I did."
And 86-year-old Zhou Guizhen says, "At that time everybody had bound feet. If you didn't, you'd only be able to marry a tribesman from an ethnic minority."
These women disfigured their feet to guarantee their own future, but according to Yang Yang, this act ultimately consigned them to tragic lives. Most of Liuyicun's bound-feet women were forced to perform hard physical labor in the late 1950s, digging reservoirs, for example — work which was punishing enough for ordinary women, but agonizing for those with tiny, misshapen feet.
Their families also suffered food shortages as they were often unable to fulfill their production quotas at work, or walk into the mountains to pick vegetables and fruit like other mothers.
"Their tiny feet sealed their tragic fates," Yang says.
These articles can be viewed on NPR at:
But historical records from the Song dynasty (960-1279 A.D.) date footbinding as beginning during the reign of Li Yu, who ruled over one region of China between 961-975. It is said his heart was captured by a concubine, Yao Niang, a talented dancer who bound her feet to suggest the shape of a new moon and performed a "lotus dance."
During subsequent dynasties, footbinding became more popular and spread from court circles to the wealthy. Eventually, it moved from the cities to the countryside, where young girls realized that binding their feet could be their passport to social mobility and increased wealth.
When the Manchu nobility came to power in 1644, they tried to ban the practice, but with little success. The first anti-footbinding committee was formed in Shanghai by a British priest in 1874.
But the practice wasn't outlawed until 1912, when the Qing dynasty had already been toppled by a revolution. Beginning in 1915, government inspectors could levy fines on those who continued to bind their feet. But despite these measures, footbinding still continued in various parts of the country.
A year after the Communists came to power in 1949, they too issued their own ban on footbinding. According to the American author William Rossi, who wrote The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, 40 percent to 50 percent of Chinese women had bound feet in the 19th century. For the upper classes, the figure was almost 100 percent.
Some estimate that as many as 2 billion Chinese women broke and bound their feet to attain this agonizing ideal of physical perfection. Author Yang Yang says that women with tiny feet were a status symbol who would bring honor upon the entire clan by their appearance.
"Some married women with bound feet would even get up in the middle of the night to start their toilette, just to ensure they would look good in daytime," he says.
In Liuyicun, the practice persisted so long because of the village's economic prosperity — and its inhabitants' desire for obvious wealth signifiers, like daughters with bound feet.
Some scholars say footbinding deepened female subjugation by making women more dependent on their men folk, restricting their movements and enforcing their chastity, since women with bound feet were physically incapable of venturing far from their homes.
Certainly the "three-inch golden lotuses" were seen as the ultimate erogenous zone, with Qing dynasty pornographic books listing 48 different ways of playing with women's bound feet.
For those unfortunate women who paid the ultimate price for beauty, there was little choice involved.
Liuyicun resident Wang Lifen, 79, describes her own attitude as a child, saying, "I didn't want to bind my feet, but the whole village told me that I had to. So I did."
And 86-year-old Zhou Guizhen says, "At that time everybody had bound feet. If you didn't, you'd only be able to marry a tribesman from an ethnic minority."
These women disfigured their feet to guarantee their own future, but according to Yang Yang, this act ultimately consigned them to tragic lives. Most of Liuyicun's bound-feet women were forced to perform hard physical labor in the late 1950s, digging reservoirs, for example — work which was punishing enough for ordinary women, but agonizing for those with tiny, misshapen feet.
Their families also suffered food shortages as they were often unable to fulfill their production quotas at work, or walk into the mountains to pick vegetables and fruit like other mothers.
"Their tiny feet sealed their tragic fates," Yang says.
These articles can be viewed on NPR at:
Monday, January 11, 2010
Phillis Wheatley
One Being Brought From Africa To America
'TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought now knew,
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
'Their colour is a diabolic die.'
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
Phillis Wheatley
Aboard a Slave Ship (Week 2 in class)
Aboard a Slave Ship, 1829
In 1807 the British Parliament passed a bill prohibiting the slave trade. In January the following year the United States followed suit by outlawing the importation of slaves. The acts did nothing to curtail the trade of slaves within the nation's borders, but did end the overseas commerce in slaves. To enforce these laws, Britain and the United States jointly patrolled the seas off the coast of Africa, stopping suspected slave traders and confiscating the ship when slaves were found. The human cargo was then transported back to Africa.
Interception at Sea
Conditions aboard the slave ships were wretched. Men, women and children crammed into every available space, denied adequate room, food or breathing space. The stench was appalling - the atmosphere inhumane to say the least. The Reverend Robert Walsh served aboard one of the ships assigned to intercept the slavers off the African coast. On the morning of May 22, 1829, a suspected slaver was sighted and the naval vessel gave chase. The next day, a favorable wind allowed the interceptor to gain on its quarry and approach close enough to fire two shots across her bow. The slaver heaved to and an armed party from the interceptor scrambled aboard her. We join Reverend Walsh's account as he boards the slave ship:
"The first object that struck us was an enormous gun, turning on a swivel, on deck - the constant appendage of a pirate; and the next were large kettles for cooking, on the bows - the usual apparatus of a slaver. Our boat was now hoisted out, and I went on board with the officers. When we mounted her decks we found her full of slaves. She was called the Feloz, commanded by Captain Jose' Barbosa, bound to Bahia. She was a very broad-decked ship, with a mainmast, schooner rigged, and behind her foremast was that large, formidable gun, which turned on a broad circle of iron, on deck, and which enabled her to act as a pirate if her slaving speculation failed. She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard 55. The slaves were all inclosed under grated hatchways between decks. The space was so low that they sat between each other's legs and [were] stowed so close together that there was no possibility of their lying down or at all changing their position by night or day. As they belonged to and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded like sheep with the owner's marks of different forms. These were impressed under their breasts or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me with perfect indifference 'burnt with the red-hot iron.' Over the hatchway stood a ferocious-looking fellow with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave driver of the ship, and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them and seemed eager to exercise it. I was quite pleased to take this hateful badge out of his hand, and I have kept it ever since as a horrid memorial of reality, should I ever be disposed to forget the scene I witnessed.
As soon as the poor creatures saw us looking down at them, their dark and melancholy visages brightened up. They perceived some- thing of sympathy and kindness in our looks which they had not been accustomed to, and, feeling instinctively that we were friends, they immediately began to shout and clap their hands. One or two had picked up a few Portuguese words, and cried out, "Viva! Viva!" The women were particularly excited. They all held up their arms, and when we bent down and shook hands with them, they could not contain their delight; they endeavored to scramble up on their knees, stretching up to kiss our hands, and we understood that they knew we were come to liberate them. Some, however, hung down their heads in apparently hopeless dejection; some were greatly emaciated, and some, particularly children, seemed dying.
But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly was how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram, in low cells three feet high, the greater part of which, except that immediately under the grated hatchways, was shut out from light or air, and this when the thermometer, exposed to the open sky, was standing in the shade, on our deck, at 89'. The space between decks was divided into two compartments 3 feet 3 inches high; the size of one was 16 feet by 18 and of the other 40 by 21; into the first were crammed the women and girls, into the second the men and boys: 226 fellow creatures were thus thrust into one space 288 feet square and 336 into another space 800 feet square, giving to the whole an average Of 23 inches and to each of the women not more than 13 inches. We also found manacles and fetters of different kinds, but it appears that they had all been taken off before we boarded.
The heat of these horrid places was so great and the odor so offensive that it was quite impossible to enter them, even had there been room. They were measured as above when the slaves had left them. The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water. This was opposed by the mate of the slaver, who, from a feeling that they deserved it, declared they would murder them all. The officers, however, persisted, and the poor beings were all turned up together. It is impossible to conceive the effect of this eruption - 517 fellow creatures of all ages and sexes, some children, some adults, some old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling out together to taste the luxury of a little fresh air and water. They came swarming up like bees from the aperture of a hive till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation front stem to stern, so that it was impossible to imagine where they could all have come from or how they could have been stowed away. On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were lying nearly in a torpid state after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death, and when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand.
After enjoying for a short time the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs towards it. No entreaties or threats or blows could restrain them; they shrieked and struggled and fought with one another for a drop of this precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it.
It was not surprising that they should have endured much sickness and loss of life in their short passage. They had sailed from the coast of Africa on the 7th of May and had been out but seventeen days, and they had thrown overboard no less than fifty-five, who had died of dysentery and other complaints in that space of time, though they had left the coast in good health. Indeed, many of the survivors were seen lying about the decks in the last stage of emaciation and in a state of filth and misery not to be looked at. Even-handed justice had visited the effects of this unholy traffic on the crew who were engaged in it. Eight or nine had died, and at that moment six were in hammocks on board, in different stages of fever. This mortality did not arise from want of medicine. There was a large stock ostentatiously displayed in the cabin, with a manuscript book containing directions as to the quantities; but the only medical man on board to prescribe it was a black, who was as ignorant as his patients.
While expressing my horror at what I saw and exclaiming against the state of this vessel for conveying human beings, I was informed by my friends, who had passed so long a time on the coast of Africa and visited so many ships, that this was one of the best they had seen. The height sometimes between decks was only eighteen inches, so that the unfortunate beings could not turn round or even on their sides, the elevation being less than the breadth of their shoulders; and here they are usually chained to the decks by the neck and legs. In such a place the sense of misery and suffocation is so great that the Negroes, like the English in the Black Hole at Calcutta, are driven to a frenzy. They had on one occasion taken a slave vessel in the river Bonny; the slaves were stowed in the narrow space between decks and chained together. They heard a horrible din and tumult among them and could not imagine from what cause it proceeded. They opened the hatches and turned them up on deck. They were manacled together in twos and threes. Their horror may be well conceived when they found a number of them in different stages of suffocation; many of them were foaming at the mouth and in the last agonies-many were dead. A living man was sometimes dragged up, and his companion was a dead body; sometimes of the three attached to the same chain, one was dying and another dead. The tumult they had heard was the frenzy of those suffocating wretches in the last stage of fury and desperation, struggling to extricate themselves. When they were all dragged up, nineteen were irrecoverably dead. Many destroyed one another in the hopes of procuring room to breathe; men strangled those next them, and women drove nails into each other's brains. Many unfortunate creatures on other occasions took the first opportunity of leaping overboard and getting rid, in this way, of an intolerable life."
References: Walsh, Robert, Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829 (1831).
To see this aricle:
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pfslaveship.htm
In 1807 the British Parliament passed a bill prohibiting the slave trade. In January the following year the United States followed suit by outlawing the importation of slaves. The acts did nothing to curtail the trade of slaves within the nation's borders, but did end the overseas commerce in slaves. To enforce these laws, Britain and the United States jointly patrolled the seas off the coast of Africa, stopping suspected slave traders and confiscating the ship when slaves were found. The human cargo was then transported back to Africa.
Interception at Sea
Conditions aboard the slave ships were wretched. Men, women and children crammed into every available space, denied adequate room, food or breathing space. The stench was appalling - the atmosphere inhumane to say the least. The Reverend Robert Walsh served aboard one of the ships assigned to intercept the slavers off the African coast. On the morning of May 22, 1829, a suspected slaver was sighted and the naval vessel gave chase. The next day, a favorable wind allowed the interceptor to gain on its quarry and approach close enough to fire two shots across her bow. The slaver heaved to and an armed party from the interceptor scrambled aboard her. We join Reverend Walsh's account as he boards the slave ship:
"The first object that struck us was an enormous gun, turning on a swivel, on deck - the constant appendage of a pirate; and the next were large kettles for cooking, on the bows - the usual apparatus of a slaver. Our boat was now hoisted out, and I went on board with the officers. When we mounted her decks we found her full of slaves. She was called the Feloz, commanded by Captain Jose' Barbosa, bound to Bahia. She was a very broad-decked ship, with a mainmast, schooner rigged, and behind her foremast was that large, formidable gun, which turned on a broad circle of iron, on deck, and which enabled her to act as a pirate if her slaving speculation failed. She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard 55. The slaves were all inclosed under grated hatchways between decks. The space was so low that they sat between each other's legs and [were] stowed so close together that there was no possibility of their lying down or at all changing their position by night or day. As they belonged to and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded like sheep with the owner's marks of different forms. These were impressed under their breasts or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me with perfect indifference 'burnt with the red-hot iron.' Over the hatchway stood a ferocious-looking fellow with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave driver of the ship, and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them and seemed eager to exercise it. I was quite pleased to take this hateful badge out of his hand, and I have kept it ever since as a horrid memorial of reality, should I ever be disposed to forget the scene I witnessed.
As soon as the poor creatures saw us looking down at them, their dark and melancholy visages brightened up. They perceived some- thing of sympathy and kindness in our looks which they had not been accustomed to, and, feeling instinctively that we were friends, they immediately began to shout and clap their hands. One or two had picked up a few Portuguese words, and cried out, "Viva! Viva!" The women were particularly excited. They all held up their arms, and when we bent down and shook hands with them, they could not contain their delight; they endeavored to scramble up on their knees, stretching up to kiss our hands, and we understood that they knew we were come to liberate them. Some, however, hung down their heads in apparently hopeless dejection; some were greatly emaciated, and some, particularly children, seemed dying.
But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly was how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram, in low cells three feet high, the greater part of which, except that immediately under the grated hatchways, was shut out from light or air, and this when the thermometer, exposed to the open sky, was standing in the shade, on our deck, at 89'. The space between decks was divided into two compartments 3 feet 3 inches high; the size of one was 16 feet by 18 and of the other 40 by 21; into the first were crammed the women and girls, into the second the men and boys: 226 fellow creatures were thus thrust into one space 288 feet square and 336 into another space 800 feet square, giving to the whole an average Of 23 inches and to each of the women not more than 13 inches. We also found manacles and fetters of different kinds, but it appears that they had all been taken off before we boarded.
The heat of these horrid places was so great and the odor so offensive that it was quite impossible to enter them, even had there been room. They were measured as above when the slaves had left them. The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water. This was opposed by the mate of the slaver, who, from a feeling that they deserved it, declared they would murder them all. The officers, however, persisted, and the poor beings were all turned up together. It is impossible to conceive the effect of this eruption - 517 fellow creatures of all ages and sexes, some children, some adults, some old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling out together to taste the luxury of a little fresh air and water. They came swarming up like bees from the aperture of a hive till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation front stem to stern, so that it was impossible to imagine where they could all have come from or how they could have been stowed away. On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were lying nearly in a torpid state after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death, and when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand.
After enjoying for a short time the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs towards it. No entreaties or threats or blows could restrain them; they shrieked and struggled and fought with one another for a drop of this precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it.
It was not surprising that they should have endured much sickness and loss of life in their short passage. They had sailed from the coast of Africa on the 7th of May and had been out but seventeen days, and they had thrown overboard no less than fifty-five, who had died of dysentery and other complaints in that space of time, though they had left the coast in good health. Indeed, many of the survivors were seen lying about the decks in the last stage of emaciation and in a state of filth and misery not to be looked at. Even-handed justice had visited the effects of this unholy traffic on the crew who were engaged in it. Eight or nine had died, and at that moment six were in hammocks on board, in different stages of fever. This mortality did not arise from want of medicine. There was a large stock ostentatiously displayed in the cabin, with a manuscript book containing directions as to the quantities; but the only medical man on board to prescribe it was a black, who was as ignorant as his patients.
While expressing my horror at what I saw and exclaiming against the state of this vessel for conveying human beings, I was informed by my friends, who had passed so long a time on the coast of Africa and visited so many ships, that this was one of the best they had seen. The height sometimes between decks was only eighteen inches, so that the unfortunate beings could not turn round or even on their sides, the elevation being less than the breadth of their shoulders; and here they are usually chained to the decks by the neck and legs. In such a place the sense of misery and suffocation is so great that the Negroes, like the English in the Black Hole at Calcutta, are driven to a frenzy. They had on one occasion taken a slave vessel in the river Bonny; the slaves were stowed in the narrow space between decks and chained together. They heard a horrible din and tumult among them and could not imagine from what cause it proceeded. They opened the hatches and turned them up on deck. They were manacled together in twos and threes. Their horror may be well conceived when they found a number of them in different stages of suffocation; many of them were foaming at the mouth and in the last agonies-many were dead. A living man was sometimes dragged up, and his companion was a dead body; sometimes of the three attached to the same chain, one was dying and another dead. The tumult they had heard was the frenzy of those suffocating wretches in the last stage of fury and desperation, struggling to extricate themselves. When they were all dragged up, nineteen were irrecoverably dead. Many destroyed one another in the hopes of procuring room to breathe; men strangled those next them, and women drove nails into each other's brains. Many unfortunate creatures on other occasions took the first opportunity of leaping overboard and getting rid, in this way, of an intolerable life."
References: Walsh, Robert, Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829 (1831).
To see this aricle:
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pfslaveship.htm
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