Feminists, Native American Women

Cherokee Women’s Rights

• Maggie

Women’s Rights in Cherokee Society Image: Loving Sun Marianne Caroselli, Artist (I know the Cherokee did not live in teepees; I just love this painting.) In the early 18th century, the Cherokee existence was one marked by balance guided by oral tradition. Their belief in balance in all aspects of life didn’t leave room for a system of hierarchy that oppressed women. Men primarily assumed the roles of hunters, while women took responsibility for agriculture and gathering. At the time of European contact, the Cherokee controlled a large area of what is now the southeastern United States. Of the southeastern Indian confederacies of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw), the Cherokee were one of the most…

Read Article
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Kate Hewitt

• Maggie

Fiancee of General John Reynolds Catherine Mary Hewitt became engaged to future Union General John Reynolds in California in the late 1850s. Since they were from different religious denominations – Reynolds was a Protestant, Hewitt a Catholic – she kept their engagement a secret, even from her parents. Kate and Reynolds had decided that if he were killed during the war and they could not marry, she would join a convent. Born in Stillwater, Saratoga County, New York, there is some dispute about the year of Kate Hewitt’s birth but 1836, despite the date on her grave marker, appears to be the most consistent and logical year. Her life from the beginning was tragic and tumultuous as she lost her…

Read Article
Women in Religion

Ann Lee

• Maggie

Women in Religion: Leader of the Shakers Image: Mother Ann Lee The second of eight children, Ann Lee was born on February 29, 1736, in a poor district of Manchester, England, known as Toad Lane. Her father John Lee was a blacksmith whose meager income barely fed his family. Except for a parish church record of her baptism in 1742, very little is known of Ann Lee’s childhood. Since education for a girl of Lee’s station was out of the question, she was illiterate and found employment in the textile mills of Manchester. By her twenties, she was serving as a cook in the public infirmary and madhouse. Lee exhibited a religious bent early in life, found living in the…

Read Article
Famous Children, Women in the American Revolution

Sarah Franklin Bache

• Maggie

American Patriot and Daughter of Benjamin Franklin Image: Sarah Franklin Bache John Hoppner, Artist Sarah Franklin was born to Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read Franklin at Philadelphia on the eleventh day of September, 1744. Sarah, known as Sally throughout her life, had a typical education for a girl of her status in eighteenth-century Philadelphia. She had a great love of reading and music and was considered a skilled harpsichordist. In 1764, Sally had to part with her father when he was sent to Europe for the first time as a representative of the Colony. The people of Pennsylvania were at that time divided into two parties – the supporters and the opponents of the proprietors, the managers of the colony….

Read Article
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Lizinka Campbell Brown Ewell

• Maggie

Wife of Confederate General Richard Ewell Lizinka Campbell was the daughter of a Tennessee State senator, who was also Minister to Russia under President James Monroe. She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1820, and was named for the Russian Czarina who had become her mother’s close friend. She grew up to be a beautiful young lady. Image: General Richard Ewell Somewhere along the way, Lizinka’s first cousin, Richard Stoddert Ewell, developed a great love for her. He was born in the District of Columbia and raised in Virginia. Though he sought Lizinka’s hand, she married another man. On April 25, 1839, Lizinka married James Percy Brown, a lawyer who owned plantations in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. When he…

Read Article
Indian Captives

Mary Jemison

• Maggie

Indian Captivity Narrative The Taking of Mary Jemison By historical artist Robert Griffing Mary Jemison was born in 1743 aboard the ship William and Mary in the fall of 1743 while en route from Northern Ireland to America. Upon their arrival in America, the couple and their new child joined other Scots-Irish immigrants and headed west from Philadelphia to what was then the western frontier (now central Pennsylvania). The Jemisons squatted on territory that was under the authority of the Iroquois Confederacy, and Mary grew up on that farm, 10 miles west of present-day Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Although life was hard on the western edge of the colony of Pennsylvania, Mary fondly recalled these “childish, happy days” full of hard work…

Read Article
Women in the American Revolution

Hannah Winthrop

• Maggie

American Patriot Image: Hannah Winthrop by John Singleton Copley, 1773 Copley was America’s foremost painter of the 18th century. This portrait represents Copley at the height of his power and exhibits the intensive realism that was the principal characteristic of his work at that time. Copley rendered the varying textures of her muslin cap, silk dress and lace cuffs with remarkable precision. In painting the beautifully reflective tabletop upon which she rests her hands, he demonstrated a degree of technical competence equaled by few of his contemporaries. Hannah Fayerweather was the daughter of Thomas and Hannah Waldo Fayerweather, whose descendants came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Although her exact birth date is not known, she was baptized at…

Read Article
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Ellen Ewing Sherman

• Maggie

Wife of General William Tecumseh Sherman Ellen Ewing was a beautiful young woman who played the harp and the piano. After their marriage, the Shermans moved frequently and suffered many long separations as they followed the fortunes of William’s military and business careers. Then the Civil War completely disrupted their lives. Eleanor “Ellen” Boyle Ewing, the eldest daughter of Thomas Ewing and Maria Wills Boyle Ewing, was born October 4, 1824, and grew up in Lancaster, Ohio. Thomas Ewing’s close friend Charles R. Sherman, a judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, died suddenly in 1829, leaving his widow with a family of young children. Thomas Ewing adopted William Tecumseh Sherman. Over the years, as Ellen and William grew up…

Read Article
Slavery in America

New York Conspiracy of 1741

• Maggie

The Slave Insurrection of New York City Image: John Hughson’s Tavern The tavern was on the waterfront in 1741 and its doors were open to blacks and poor whites, and it had a bad reputation among the respectable citizens of New York City. Thirteen black men burned to death at the stake. Seventeen black men hanged. Two white men and two white women also hanged. All thirty-four were executed in New York City between May 11 and August 29, 1741, as part of the episode early New Yorkers called the “Great Negro Plot” or the “New York Conspiracy.” ~Thomas J. Davis, A Rumor of Revolt
Slavery in America

Fort Mose

• Maggie

First Free Black Settlement in North America Image: Artist’s rendering of Fort Mose Exploiting its proximity to plantations in the British colonies in North America and the West Indies, King Charles II of Spain issued the Edict of 1693, which stated that any male slave on an English plantation who escaped to Spanish Florida would be granted freedom provided he joined the Militia and became a Catholic. This edict became one of the New World’s earliest emancipation proclamations. Spanish rules about slavery were very different from those of the English. Spanish slaves could own property, could buy their freedom, could sue their owners and separating families was prohibited. Word of the Spanish policy of giving sanctuary to escaped slaves spread…

Read Article