Women in Religion

Mary Dyer

• Maggie

Defied Puritan Law Banning Quakers Image: Mary Dyer Memorial at the Boston State House Mary Barrett was born in 1610 in London, England. In St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on October 27, 1633, Mary married William Dyer, a milliner and a Puritan. Mary and William emigrated from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. They settled in Boston, and on December 13, 1635, they were admitted to the Boston church. They were numbered among the intelligent citizens, being above the average in education and culture. William became a freeman of the Colony in 1636, and he held many positions of public importance. Banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony The Dyers became early supporters of Anne Marbury Hutchinson. When Anne was excommunicated, Mary…

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Feminists, Women in Religion

Anne Hutchinson

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Women in Religion: Early American Religious Leader Image: Hutchinson On Trial Puritan leaders called Anne Hutchinson and her supporters Antinomians—individuals opposed to the rule of law. Puritans saw her as a challenge to their male-dominated society. Tried for sedition, she was also exiled as a danger to the colony. She lived in Rhode Island for a time and then moved to New Amsterdam, where she was killed in 1643 during a conflict between settlers and Native Americans. Anne Marbury was born in Alford England, in July 1591, the daughter of Francis Marbury, a deacon at Christ Church in Cambridge. Anne’s father believed that most of the ministers in the Church of England hadn’t received the proper training for their position,…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Women Artists

Edmonia Lewis

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Women in Art: 19th Century Sculptor Edmonia Lewis was an American sculptor who created beautiful art and received great acclaim. In a world which did not encourage women of color, through incredible determination and sense of purpose, Lewis became the first professional African American and Native American sculptor, and often depicted African and Native peoples in her work. Among her best-known sculptures are Minnehaha, Charles Sumner, Phillis Wheatley and Abraham Lincoln. Early Years Edmonia Lewis’ 1865 passport application states that she was born on July 4, 1844 in Greenbush, New York. Her father was a free black of West Indian lineage. Edmonia often said she was given the name Wild Fire by her mother, who was an excellent weaver and…

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Thirteen Colonies

Puritan Laws and Customs

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Puritans Lived Under Harsh Rules During the seventeenth century, the combined New England colonies formed a virtual Puritan commonwealth. They had separate governments, but their hopes, their laws and their past history were almost identical. The entire political and social system they established was built on the Puritan religion. As a whole, they professed to love liberty, but the individual Puritan was restrained by strict laws that governed every area of his life – even his family relations. A man could not kiss his wife in public. A Captain Kimble, upon his return from a three-year voyage, kissed his wife on his own doorstep, and he spent two hours in the pillory for his lewd and unseemly behavior.
African Americans, Civil War Women

Margaret Garner

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Runaway Slave from Kentucky Margaret Garner was a fugitive slave who became widely known when she and her family made a brave escape to freedom in the years before the Civil War. Garner killed her own daughter rather than allow the child to be returned to slavery. Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize winning novel Beloved (1988) is based on this story. Image: The Modern Medea By Thomas Satterwhite Noble Margaret Garner, an enslaved African American woman in pre-Civil War America, was born on June 4, 1834, at Maplewood plantation in Boone County, Kentucky, where her parents were also slaves. When she was old enough, Margaret became a household domestic, waiting on the family and performing household chores. On a bitter cold…

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Native American History

Native Americans and Massachusetts Bay Colony

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Puritans Have Landed By the time of early European colonization attempts, there were over 30,000 Native Americans in Massachusetts living amongst a variety of tribes belonging to the Algonquin language group. Some of the most well known tribes were the Wampanoag, Pequot, Nipmuck, and the Massachuset. They lived in small bands and had no supreme chief. Unfortunately, the Europeans would bring with them diseases that the Native Americans had no immunity against, resulting in large deadly epidemics. The Native population continued to suffer from disease and warfare throughout the remainder of the 17th century. Nearly ninety percent of the Native population were killed during that period.
Colonial Women, Thirteen Colonies

Puritan Women’s Rights

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Massachusetts Bay Colony was a man’s world. Women did not participate in town meetings and were excluded from decision making in the church. Puritan ministers furthered male supremacy in their writings and sermons. They preached that the soul had two parts, the immortal masculine half, and the mortal feminine half. Women and children were treated harshly in the Puritan commonwealth. Women were viewed as instruments of Satan. Children were regarded as the property of their parents. If any child was disobedient to his parents, any magistrate could punish him with a maximum of ten lashes for each offense.
African Americans, Civil War Women, Women in Religion

Julia Foote

• Maggie

Female Preacher in the Civil War Era Julia A. J. Foote’s autobiography, A Brand Plucked from the Fire (1879), is representative of a large number of similar texts published by women who believed that Christianity had made them the spiritual equals of men and hence equally authorized to lead the church. Although her autobiography attacks racism and other social abuses, it is the subordination of women and her desire to inspire faith in her Christian sisters that endow her story with its distinctive voice and intensity. Foote’s belief in the gender equality of the Christian spirit and her refusal to defer to husband or minister when her own intuitive sense of personal authority was at stake mark Foote’s autobiographical work…

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Colonial Women

Elizabeth Winthrop

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Wife of the Governor of Connecticut Elizabeth Reade was born in November 1614 in Wickford, Essex, England, the daughter of Edmund Reade. She was said to be calm, well-mannered, and an excellent housekeeper. She was well versed in the Scriptures, and a devout Puritan. She met John Winthrop, Jr. in 1634. John Winthrop Jr. was the eldest son of John Winthrop, Sr. and his first wife Mary Forth. His parents were wealthy, and in 1622, at age 16, young John was sent to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, for a general education. Two years later, he returned to England and studied law until 1627, when he went to sea, first to France as a secretary to a captain on a…

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Thirteen Colonies

Puritans of New England

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The Year: 1630 Early New England Fleeing England because of religious persecution, the Puritans were relatively well-off, and their faith gave them courage and discipline. Their aim was not to make a profit, like the Virginia colonists, but to create a City on a Hill—a god-fearing community. In 1630, a large contingent, led by John Winthrop and the Massachusetts Bay Company, and called the Great Migration, set up a republic at Boston. Their settlement expanded successfully throughout the 1640s. By 1660, with a population of 33,000, this was the most successful New England colony. Love and Marriage In Puritan society, the average age for marriage was higher than in any other group of immigrants—the average for men was 26, and…

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