American womens participation in the Revolutionary War
In the period before the war, Great Britain established 13 colonies along North Americas eastern coast. The northern colonies included New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Among the southern colonies were Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and Maryland. The middle colonies on the other hand were New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Todd adds that British colonies population had grown enormously by the 1750s and colonists therefore were in great need of land for both farming and hunting. France on the other hand owned large piece of land which was located in the west of Appalachian Mountains. Some of the land in the west of the colony was also owned by various American Indian tribes. Great Britain in 1754 engaged France and other tribes of the American Indians in war over this land. This war was later come to be known as the French and Indian War which lasted for nine years between 1754 and 1763. In 1763, Great Britain emerged victor in the war and the colonists now were forced to start moving west. The American Indians on the other hand were afraid they would lose their land and they joined forces under Chief Pontiac to fight off the settlers in a war that was branded the name Pontiacs rebellion. On hearing about the war, King George III passed the 1763 proclamation. Under this law, all settlers were required to return to the 13 colonies, and no one was allowed to set up settlement in the west of Appalachian Mountains. Traders were not spared as well. They were all required to have permission from the king in order for them to enter the area. The kings decision however did not go well with a number of colonists.
The French and Indian war to Great Britain had proved quite expensive and it had been left with huge bills to pay for the used supplies that had been used during the war. British leaders consequently turned to these 13 colonies to help them foot these bills. To achieve this, British Parliament imposed taxes on some goods that were being shipped from Great Britain to the colonies. No consultation was made with the colonies before imposition of these taxes and this angered them. They felt the colonial lawmakers should go ahead and decide the taxes the colonists had to pay. This saw Parliament introduce the Stamp Act in 1765. Tax was hence imposed upon items like newspapers and legal papers. The colonialist however refused to pay tax and this saw Great Britain remove this tax as a result of the protests that were going on. Parliament in 1767 imposed tax on paper, tea, glass, and other every day items. These laws were later come to be called the Townshend Acts. Once again, the colonists refused to buy these taxed and items and boycotted the British goods. Because of these taxes, anger was now growing among these colonists. As a result, a group of colonists in Bolton started throwing stones and snow balls at British soldiers and the soldiers reiterated by shooting into the crowd. Five colonists were killed in an event that later came to be known as the Boston Massacre. As a result, the British government decided to remove all the taxes fro the colonies except that of tea.
Some colonists led by Samuel Adams felt that action should be taken and helped organize the tea merchants in 1773. Their intentions were to ensure tea being shipped by British ships was not at all unloaded. This way, the colonists would not have to pay for taxes on tea to Great Britain. A group of colonists from Bolton on December 16, 1773 climbed aboard a British ship that was carrying a large shipment of tea. Since the colonists were afraid to be identified, they disguised themselves as American Indians and went ahead to dump all the tea overboard. This particular protest was known as the Boston Tea Party. This angered the British government and in 1774 it went ahead and passed the Intolerable Acts. This law made it illegal for colonists to hold town meetings and also prevented all trade that was going on in the port of Bolton. In addition to this, the British government passed the Quartering Act in the same year, which forced colonists allow the British soldiers stay in their homes.
The colonists at some point however were getting divided, as they all had different opinions about the British. The loyalists, who accounted to about a quarter of them wanted to remain loyal to the government of the Great Britain. The patriots, who were a third of the colonists wanted to form an independent nation and did not want anything to do with paying taxes to Great Britain. Among the patriots was a small group that was known as Sons of Liberty who openly protested the rule of Great Britain over the colonies. The rest of the colonists who accounted to almost half of the total colonists did not want to take sides. They were looking to take a neutral stand in the conflict between the patriots and the British. But once the war begun, they had no choice but to ultimately take sides.
Two types of armies were involved in the revolutionary war the Continental army and the British army. The early Continental forces were comprised of state militia who were otherwise known as minutemen. The Continental army was formed in 1775 and was commanded by George Washington. Life in the camp for Continental soldiers was very difficult. The soldiers were often worn out from marching and battles and many survived without shoes or blankets, and did not have enough food and clothing either. According to Todd, the soldiers slept, cooked, and ate in the same tents in their temporary camps. Their food comprised of meat and flour and since water was unsafe to drink, they opted to drink tea, rum or beer instead. The soldiers build a bit more permanent camps to live during winter and they included a hospital, Soldiers living quarters, a camp where ammunition was kept and a food rations building. Women also played a key role as they were involved with many activities in the soldiers camps. For instance they ran slaughter houses where they slaughtered animals such as cows and later prepared meat for the soldiers. They also participated in cooking and laundry activities for the soldiers.
Neimeyer notes that those women not of the army directly played a different form of revolutionary role as price enforcers for recalcitrant storekeepers. More than one hundred women in Boston were said to march to a particular warehouse where one of the women had noted was a bachelor and noted he happened to have stored a large quantity of coffee. The women demanded the keys of from the merchant but he refused to give the keys to them upon which one of the women seized him by his neck and tossed him into a nearby cart. He quickly reconsidered and gave the women the warehouse keys where the women loaded the coffee in the cart and finally drove off. All merchants operating in Boston got the message. Another category of women who played a role in the war, even if not as recognized militia or soldiers were those women, who defended their isolated and scattered frontier settlements from attacks. The attacks mostly came from the Indians or the loyalist militia. The defensive stands women took in for their frontiers were not only numerous but were also legendary. In rural Georgia for example, Nancy Morgan Hart, a six-foot-tall warrior was known to capture dozens of Tories in the course of the war. One particular famous incident was when she crossed the Broad River and personally took three Tories prisoners. In fact in the 1820s, one congressman from Georgia wanted to immortalize her exploits when he proposed the commissioning a painting of Nancys capture of the three Tories which happened at the Broad River. Way later during the civil war, women from Georgia formed mutual protection societies they came to call the Nancy hearts. Nancy later came to die in the 1920s in Kentucky but the county of Hart in Georgia was named as a remembrance of her revolutionary exploits.
No one would ever know the exact number of women who served under the continental army. The not so strict rules regarding the varied roles women performed in the army makes it almost impossible to estimate. Even as much as that service was in the camp follower role, perhaps a dozen of them openly served as female warriors like the case of Nancy Hart. Their contribution to the war however, was undoubtedly not inconsequential.
There was another group of women that was frequently seen around and in the army, and that was the officers wives. The superiority of an officer determined the likelihood of him being visited by his wife and sometimes even the children in camp. Washingtons wife for instance, Martha, was known to make extended and frequent visits to the camp. These women were not treated the same way with the general class of followers of the camp they were instead treated as visitors and went ahead to socialize with each other depending on the hierarchy of the day.
Many other women served as nurses though it did not become prevalent till 1777. Able bodied men previously took the role of nurses but as the manpower crisis of the continental army deepened, less able bodied men were offered with these opportunities.
Instead, these opportunities increasingly fell to the female camp followers. Washington even went ahead and asked his commanding officers to help regimental surgeons procure many women of the army as possible so that they can serve as nurses to those who will be paid the usual price. Following the reorganization of the medical staff of the continental army in 1777, for every one hundred wounded and sick men, one matron and ten nurses were allocated. Nurses received 0.24 cents a day and a full food ration and the matrons due to their supervisory role got 0.50 cents a day and the full ration. But even after these inducements, not many women seemed willing or available to perform duties of the hospital. Perhaps this was understandable in the context that continental hospitals were known for their mortality for both admitted patients and caregivers as well. Not many women preferred to take their chances in such places.
Neimeyer adds that many more women were employed as washerwomen than as cooks or nurses. Officials were given the duty of certifying the official status of a particular woman as washerwomen before being allowed to draw a ration. The rule was that one woman washes for every ten soldiers or still about four to a company. Financially, these women did fairly well though men at times complained of price gouging.
Women performed quite a variety of functions, both logistical and support the army could do little about. Some women even went as far as masquerading as men just to participate in the war. Such was Deborah Simpson and historians believe Simpson case was just a tip of the ice bag and maybe dozens more served in the army with their masquerades and simply got away with it.
The British Empire was a growing collection of colonies in 1740, according to Gundersen. The colonies sprawled from Newfoundland all the way to the Caribbean. The British American colonies after two centuries of exploration and another century and a half for settlement were now not only mature societies but also societies being formed. All those living in the colons including native-born or immigrants, European, African, or American Indian, female or male, all experienced a world both new and old at the same time. The colonies differed in geography, climate, density of American Indian population, and the length experience within the empire. Each colony had its own unique mixture of religions and ethnic groups. Exploring the lives of women and their roles in those British colonies in the eighteenth century is thus exploring many stories.
Ellet and Diamant state that women have always had a part to play when it comes to war. But in the vital American Revolution, only a handful of them (800,000 approximately) were seen to at least contribute in one way or another towards the war. As the revolutionary struggle ensued, female traditional chores kept the American women busier than ever. American women at some point had to suppress any feeling whatsoever of inadequacy and wholeheartedly threw themselves in the military and political arena. That female energy and perseverance was important to the fulfillment of day to day duties and were not only to shape the destiny of the republic but also form the character of the destiny. It was now the duty of women to reclaim the laid waste ravaged by war and lay a foundation on which to build a nations true greatness. Therefore at a time of domestic crisis, the British North America revolutionary women met the challenge, displaying their heroic nature as well as their self sacrifice with hearts full of determination and willing to either die or be free. Mothers and wives captured the opportunity that would prepare them for greater individualism by asserting defiantly the American independence in the enemys face. Doing so gave the women a remarkable eight-year demonstration that when it comes to qualities like courage, fortitude, and self-reliance, men held no monopolies over them.
Ellet and Diamant go ahead to add that throughout the war, not every woman remained at home. Instead, most of them went ahead to join and live with their husbands in the armys encampments and under very harsh and primitive conditions. The women were not only the wives of important figures in the military but were also the wives and children of ordinary soldiers. Lucy Knox was one such woman and was married to the armys artillery general Henry Knox. She was saluted and at the same time loathed by many, especially the male counterparts, as she was known to be a truly independent woman. There were many like her, but some up to this day remain anonymous though their efforts live on. These women chose, of all things, to share the dangers the fields offered together with their men. George Washington for instance was fighting hard to keep the families of his soldiers from piling aboard the supply of the army and also the baggage wagons. Many of these families were fleeing areas ravaged by guerillas or those that were occupied by the British. Without protest, these women offered themselves to assist in the camps and took up essential duties like washing, cooking, sewing, caring for the wounded or sick, darning, rearing and bearing of children, among other distaff duties. The American general officers in the army however saw these hardworking women as an inevitable military burden. The numbers of these women in different camps varied with each campaign and also change in war fortunes. During the American Revolution, on both sides, women were numbering from five to ten per cent of the total population of a camp.
On the other side, the enemys camp too had its share of women and children as well. They had actually exceeded Lord William Howes regimental quotas he had stipulated that for a company consisting of thirty-eight men and nine officers, only six women could be allowed. The American Revolution was successfully won by a highly organized radical group comprising white male Protestants, as historians argue. However, this minority group, at home and also at camp, also comprised a good number of enthusiastic females. During the war, men not only held centre stage but also took control of almost all events. It was only in very rare occasions that a woman had the opportunity to fire a musket in anger. That is the reason why in a war that did not allow the women participate in impromptu heroics, Congress, as a gesture of appreciation not only honored but rewarded three particular indomitable women. They were Margaret Corbin alias Captain Molly, Mary Hays alias Molly Pitcher, and finally Deborah Sampson. These particular women were remarkable in their own different ways. The three got the opportunity to fire a cannon, or a musket and at the enemy The United States also went ahead and awarded the three a modest military pension, and in one husbands case, a veterans spousal benefit, which was also the first of its kind to be authorized. The man awarded this honor was Benjamin Gannett who after the war was over married one remarkable and no doubt fearless woman by the name Sampson. This woman had disguised herself as a man and had served for almost two years in the regular Massachusetts line of the Conventional army without the slightest suspicion. Sampsons patriotic masquerade only came to an end after an enforced hospitalization. As far as history is concerned, Miss Sampson was the only female to impersonate a man having been swept to the front line of fighting American men, by in no doubt what can only be described as revolutionary enthusiasm.
Female patriots nursed freedoms infancy. Their prayers and their counsel ultimately resulted to the nations affirmation of independence. They not only confirmed the self devotion but also animated the courage of those who were involved for the common cause. They boldly frowned against instances of backwardness and coldness and in dull times urged and cheered the desponding onward. They shared inevitable privations and dangers willingly, and without regret relinquished advantage prospects to them, and as difficult as it may seem parted with their loved ones, with no idea whether or not they shall ever return. The women patriots played an essential role to not only maintain the struggle but also in laying foundations on which majestic and mighty structures have risen. Some of the tributes by some of these women patriots were called forth by the so called voluntary exertions of American women. These sacrifices were made with enthusiasm that clearly showed the spirit ready on almost all occasions to appear in the acts of generosity. Some of these women went to the extent of giving their own property and moved from one house to another just to solicit contributions for the army. They even organized themselves and formed organizations renouncing the use of tea plus other imported luxury and engaged in weaving their own clothing.
According to Ellet and Diamant women were a great influence during that period of the war, and this was demonstrated in a letter by John Adams to his wife
I think I have sometimes observed to you in conversation, that upon examining the biographies of illustrious men, you will generally find some female about them, in the relation of wife, mother, or sister to whose instigation a great part of their merit is to be ascribed. An example is Aspasia, wife of Pericles. She taught him, it is said, his refined maxims of policy, his lofty imperial eloquence, nay, even composed the speeches on which so great a share of his reputation was founded. I wish some of our great men had such wives what a pity it is that our Generals in the Northern District had not Aspasias for their wives (p. 26)
I believe the two Howes have not very great women for wives if they had, we should suffer more from their exertions than we do. This is our good fortune a smart wife would have put Howe in possession of Philadelphia a long time ago.
Women sentiments towards the defenders of their native land were articulated in a female address that was at that time circulated widely and also read in Churches in Virginia.
We know that, at a distance from the theatre of war, if we enjoy any tranquility, it is the fruits of your watchings, your labors, and your dangers. Shall we hesitate to evince to you our gratitude Shall we hesitate to wear clothing more simple, and dress less elegant, while at the price of this small privation we shall deserve your benediction
Such strong expression of a womans passionate zeal thus rose from all portions of the country. The manly spirit that could on its own secure success could most likely have sunk, under accumulated evils, were it not for the intrepidity and firmness of the weaker sex who constantly supplied all necessary persuasion likely to secure fidelity and animate to perseverance.
Kleinberg and Ruz argue that the revolutionary rhetoric legacy casts long shadows regarding the roles played by both sides of the gender in the 1780s and beyond. Both sides of the conflict participants had their say about the roles played by women. In the late eighteenth century, the construction of gender gave women a private role rather than a public one when it came to their role in society. Women were highly valued for their family devotion and piety. Men on the other hand were considered actors when it came to the public sphere. War and politics was not the province of women. However, in one his books, David Ramsey praises Charlestons women with not only patriotism but also firmness in the British capture of the city in 1781. These guardian angels according to Ramsey kept their husbands from falling into temptation when convenience and interest almost got the better of patriotism and honor. The nations founding was not solely an accomplishment of the male. It highly depended on women accepting and welcoming the republican values that were usually reserved for men.
Women were also praised for their feminine fortitude which was a key ingredient in the success of war efforts. Women were faced with different forms of dangers including rape, as the American and British forces were in their quest to occupy countryside and towns. There is one particular instance which happened in 1779 in New Haven. Many women fell victim to Governor Tryons troops. Looking at both sides of the conflict, women suffered and sacrificed greatly for this particular cause of the war. Women from South Carolina for instance suffered hardships they did not see coming nor expect. They secretly wept for their countrys miseries and at the same time moaned for the separation from their loved ones. Kleinberg and Ruz add that the activities of American women were organized into three categories public action where women participated in boycotts and also in the signing of non-importation agreement acted as deputy husbands and war domestic production where these women engaged themselves in sewing and spinning of uniforms.
Cogliano states that the war had ambiguous consequences for American women. The brutal nature and duration of the war meant that the women irrespective of race, class, or religion endured a great deal of hardship. The war, to some women, provided an opportunity to exercise autonomy over their families as well as over their lives. The war experience also saw some women calling for one voice in the affairs of politics. By both custom and practice, American women were kept out from the political life, according to Cogliano. They were thus confined to the domestic sphere where they engaged themselves with activities such as child rearing, home making, and clothing and feeding their families. Domestic concerns were then seen to assume a political significance during the period before the war broke out between the British and its colonies. Though not among its political beneficiaries, the revolution went ahead to make demands upon the women. It is very unlikely the colonial boycott movement of the prewar period would have triumphed without womens support as both domestic producers and consumers. Furthermore, women participated in many crowd activities which were significant protest vehicles against parliamentary measures. A study of Boston women by Alfred F. Young revealed that the support from women in very many ways was crucial to the resistance movement. To begin with, women provided the necessary aid to the resistance by acting as spectators in the male demonstrations. They acted as mourners in political funerals, participated in popular protests and crowd actions, by encouraging the men to resist British encroachments, and finally by force of arms.
Boston was the centre of the revolutionary resistance and therefore the contributions by Boston women played a very crucial role. Women in other regions were also seen to provide such support to the resistance. One notable incident and which is viewed as one of the most important contributions by American Women was when they supported boycotts against British boycotts. Women were required to aid as both domestic manufacturers and consumers. Urban women were required to forgo imported goods for the boycott to succeed. Women were urged to protest against unfair taxes by not consuming items enumerated in the Townshend Duties in 1767. In 1768, one female patriot was noted to appeal to her fellow women
Let the Daughters of Liberty, nobly arise, And tho weve no Voice,
but a negative here,
The use of Taxables, let us forebear.
The woman realized that although women were denied a formal political voice, they could play an essential role in letting their disapproval of the taxes known. Towards the end of 1767, women in Boston vowed not to consume taxed items. In fact, several Boston women in the early 1770 declared their abstinence from tea protesting the Tea Act. In one of the most famous women protest dubbed The Tea Party, North Carolina women numbering to fifty one clearly declared their favor for the colonys provincial congress.
Again when the colonies boycotted imports, protestors had to forego luxurious items such as tea and also important consumer goods like clothing. Women, who were the domestic producers, were forced to increase their production so as to meet the rising demand which were being produced by the boycotts.
In as much as, for domestic purposes, spinning was widespread in the rural areas those women living in urban areas were forced to learn the new skill not only as a responsibility but also as a new skills. The war made unexpected demands for the American women. Even as Goodpaster (2007, x) noted, women were not allowed to serve in the military, Cogliano states that they provided essential labor as cleaners, cooks, nurses and laundresses. Most of those women who moved with their husbands in the camps were in most cases poor and had no place to go since they had no means of supporting themselves and their children. In fact to some extent, they realized their traditional domestic duties, only now in a different, military context.
Coglianoconcludes that without the support given by the American women, the independence of America could not have been won. Their contributions to independence partly got Americans, both female and male, reconsidering womens political roles. All Americans were the subjects of the British and their allegiance was owed to the crown. The system was characterized by the uneven relationship between those who were governed and those who wielded power. Women were seen as subordinates and did not exercise any political rights.
Literacy and education were considered the concern of the middle and upper-class women. At first glance, the revolutions immediate impact was negligible. Independence did not provide immediate benefits for them, even as the war made great demands upon them. Changes brought about by the revolution nonetheless had long term impacts on American women. For instance, the vital role played by women facilitated a change in the relationship between women and men.
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