Tea at Trianon: British Women in the 17th Century Chesapeake

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, December 8, 2014

British Women in the 17th Century Chesapeake

From It's About Time:

During the early colonial period, when manpower was scarce, most women worked in the fields during planting & harvest seasons, especially in Virginia & Maryland, where tobacco was money. As slave importation increased, fewer indentured women toiled in the earth. Although their chores were more home-based, they still worked from sunrise to sundown. Initially many Chesapeake women died of malaria, dysentery, & epidemics during their first 6 months of "seasoning." By mid-century, more servant girls were surviving their initial 7-year indenture agreements.

Once indenture contracts had been worked off, women usually married & worked on small plantations. In addition to their home-based chores, they now began to bear children. Wives were in great demand in the Chesapeake, where the ratio of men to women during most of the 17C was at least three to one. Because women usually could not marry during their indentures, generally Chesapeake brides were older than those in New England. More than one third of women were pregnant, before they married.

Often, a new bride would move into the house of her spouse which was usually about 25 by 18 feet with one open living space including some extra storage & sleeping space up under the eaves above. Child-bearing by Chesapeake wives did not begin to replace the population by natural increase until the 18C. Few portraits of women from the 17C Chesapeake exist. Most Southern colonials lived in remote areas in relative isolation on farms or plantations with their immediate families, extended relatives, friends, & slaves, & indentured servants. (Read more.)