How Colonial Women Rose Up to Defend Independence They Were Denied
Women during the Revolutionary war were some of the greatest contributors to the war effort, yet the least likely to benefit from its outcome. In Carol Berkin’s book, Revolutionary Mothers, Berkin reminds us that this was in fact a bloody civil war with casualties not only on the battlefield, but among the women left behind to fend for themselves and their children. These women proved that not only were they competent enough to handle the day-to-day responsibilities that their husbands had managed, but they were also strong enough to do so while enduring the economic hardships that war brings with it.
Colonial women prior to the war were faced with limited opportunities for any type of life, liberty or property outside of what a man was willing to offer. Women of this era had been taught absolute dependence upon their husbands for survival. As Berkin explains, “a woman faced restrictions on her economic independence, her legal identity and her access to positions of formal authority. These restrictions nudged, or pushed, a woman into the narrow choice of marriage or spinsterhood.”
As a wife, a woman’s main role was that of a helpmate for her husband. Berkin writes, “Her natural inclination was to obedience, fidelity, industriousness, and frugality and her natural function was bearing and nurturing children.” When a wife was not busy fulfilling her practical function as helpmate, she was called upon to fulfill an ornamental purpose as “charming companion” for her husband in society. This combination of gentility and functionality set an impossible standard for women to aspire to prior to the war. Yet after the war began, these roles would no longer be practical in fulfilling the demands of war’s harsh reality.
Women who knew of no other life but dependence and servitude were now forced to not only perform their domestic duties as mothers and housekeepers, but were now called upon to be provider and protector of their children and property from the hands of the enemy. Berkin writes, “Many tasks were both formidable and unfamiliar: fences to mend, firewood to cut, tools to repair—all this while there were babies to feed, children to watch, meals to cook, gardens to weed and clothes to sew for many, the new duties brought a sense of pride in ownership that had never existed outside the home and garden.”
In addition to the normal daily management of household finances and expenses, women during the war had to contend with crippling inflation, food and supply shortages as well as the looming threat of rape and violence by the opposing voices. Women were forced to pull double duty by not only managing their households, but often having to defend their property from the enemy as armies confiscated their homes, crops and food supply. Most men under normal conditions in times of peace had never known such dire circumstances, yet these women were called on to endure such tribulation on their own.
One group of women that endured the brunt of this dismal way of life was the camp followers. Camp followers were viewed with disdain by the general public, but these women were as resourceful and pragmatic as any man on the battlefield. Many were forced to betray their own loyalties just to survive. Desperate for food and for some, relief from the loneliness of their husband’s departure, these lower-class women traveled with the troops, working as nurses, seamstresses, and even spies for both sides. The war gave women a chance to show their shrewdness and resourcefulness as women used thorns for pins and made tea from herbs and flowers. Berkin notes the simultaneous familiarity and stark contrasts of female roles during the war: “As cooks, seamstresses, washerwomen, and nurses, camp followers engaged in traditional female roles in an untraditional setting. But army life frequently required, or evoked, bravery and daring usually associated with men.” Though viewed as outcasts by society, these women really formed the backbone of the armies. It is unlikely that soldiers so used to a woman’s help for his most basic needs could have survived long without camp followers to provide these daily necessities.
If camp followers served the function of helpmate among soldiers, upper class women and general’s wives certainly played the role of “charming companion”, hosting dinner parties and balls during the war’s “off-seasons” in the winter. Even in the midst of the hell that is war, these women managed to maintain a sense of comfort and dignity unknown to the camp followers. Ironically, it was the wives of generals who gave the least sacrifice to the war effort, yet were highly esteemed as the most patriotic contributors. Although women’s responsibilities during conflict shifted dramatically, the effort that they displayed throughout was in keeping with their perceived gender role as a helpmate and charming companion to the men in their lives.
The war in relation to women of color presented an entirely new dynamic and conflict to consider. Indian women had to choose an alliance to either the mother country or the colonies, although they were merely third parties to the dispute. Much like colonial women, African Americans suffered a similar conflict of interest in that they were called upon to support a war effort that would benefit them so little. The freedom that American colonists sought for themselves did not translate into freedom for the slaves they owned. It seemed that supporting a war for the liberty of their own captors would act against their own self interest, yet many slaves maintained their undying loyalty to their masters. One notable example, a woman named Mammy Kate, would risk her life and freedom to infiltrate a British fort in Augusta by offering her services as a washerwoman in order to rescue her master, Stephen Heard, who would go onto become governor of Georgia. Such fierce loyalty, even in the face of blatant oppression, was one of many traits shared by both African American slaves and colonial women.
Finally, the Revolution would also blur gender lines and roles as women began flexing their political muscles. These women broke with tradition and societal standards by participating in daily activities that now included boycotts and fundraising for the war effort. In fact, women channeled activities like spinning wool into part of a larger movement that extended far beyond their own households. Because women were major consumers in the mid-eighteenth century, when they decided to boycott British goods in protests of the Stamp Act of 1765, Parliament could not ignore the impact of these women to influence policy through the only leverage they had—their money. Charity Clarke provided one such example of an unconventional colonial woman, not only by merely discussing politics, but also in demanding liberty and promoting self-sufficiency from England, challenging the “idea you have of female softness.”
As a woman, I can certainly identify with the plight of women who have unfair expectations and standards of conduct placed upon them. However, the unspeakable desperation and dire circumstances that these women endured on a daily basis, largely to no benefit of their own, is a foreign concept to any modern-day American woman. Today, we not only have the luxury of education and knowing our rights, we also have the freedom to demand them with little reservation or fear. Yet these women were willing to work and sacrifice for freedoms that they knew they would not be entitled to.
In conclusion, the outcome of the Revolutionary War provided property-owning men with liberty from the tyranny of British rule. For women and people of color, however, the war’s end brought little change to their everyday lives. The war had challenged the notion of women’s inferiority and dependence upon men to function in society. Colonial women not only proved their competence to run their households in the absence of their husbands, they also proved themselves to have resilience and bravery comparable to that of any man as they boldly faced the debilitating effects of war. Although women proved their intellect and fortitude during the war as well as any man, by the war’s end, they had been reduced to their former lives as nothing more than caregivers and housekeepers for their families.
Regardless of the patriot women’s seemingly independent status from Britain, their status within their own homes as servant and second-class citizen remained largely unchanged. However, while some women likely welcomed this return to normalcy, those who had experienced a taste of true freedom and dependence while their husbands were at war would not have their thirst so easily quenched. In fact, for many women, the Revolutionary War only proved to fan the flames within them for their own rights and equality. Unfortunately, it would be many decades later, beginning in Seneca Falls in 1848, before these women would even begin to have that hunger for liberty and independence satisfied.
Bibliography
Berkin, Carol. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence. New York: Random House, 2005.
