Margaret MacGillivray

Grace Sherwood

Source:

Williamsburg, VA, Historical Interpreter. Interview. 21 Oct. 2016.

Paraphrase:

• Grace Sherwood, who was on trial for witchcraft, was very vocal about women’s rights – Colonial Williamsburg Tour Guide

 

• She fought for women’s rights to vote – Colonial Williamsburg Tour Guide

 

• She wanted women to be able to buy and purchase things such as land because when a women marries, everything goes to their husband – Colonial Williamsburg Tour Guide

 

• She wanted not only rights, but privileges – Colonial Williamsburg Tour Guide

 

• In order to vote, you needed to be a white man over the age of 21, owning at least 50 acres of land, Protestant and free – Colonial Williamsburg Tour Guide

 

• There was probably a connection between the fact that Grace Sherwood was vocal about women’s rights, and she was put on trial for being a witch – Colonial Williamsburg Tour Guide

My Ideas:

Women had lots of standards that they had to meet, and things they were supposed to do. First of all, it was looked down upon for a women to be vocal about anything. They were supposed to be more of a seen not heard figure. That’s why when Grace Sherwood was vocal about women’s rights, everyone thought that something was wrong. I think that since all of the other women tried so hard to be quiet and obedient, Grace Sherwood stood out. She fought for women’s right to vote, and women privileges. 

  I believe a woman’s say in society has something to do with class. Grace was a very poor women, so people thought that she shouldn’t have any power in society. There were other women who were wives and daughters of powerful men, and spoke up about women’s rights. Instead of being looked down upon, their ideas were heard. The women who had a higher class were also smarter. Rich men were married to very intelligent women, and in order to be intelligent, you need to have a higher class. You mostly needed to have a higher class because people care more about educating you if you’re rich, because they believe you will make a difference in society. If you’re a poor person without kids, people don’t care as much about educating you because your a women with no money. In my last note card, I mentioned that there was more of a push to educate mothers because they are the ones who teach their sons. Since Grace had kids, she still got a decent education, and was still very smart. .

  I think that’s one of the reasons why her ideas weren’t very heard. People thought that since she wasn’t rich, she wasn’t educated very much because no one felt there was a need to do so. Another reason why Grace’s ideas probably were not heard was because what she was fighting for was obscure in everyone’s minds. People thought women just weren’t supposed to have power in society, so why would they listen to her? It connects to when Nicholas Copernicus thought that we lived in a heliocentric universe instead of a geocentric one. No one believed him because it went against what the Pope said, and that it went against what everyone believed for many years. It is very similar to what happened with Grace Sherwood.  

  I think class has a lot to do with your power as a woman, which goes back to your ability to be a good lady. If you’re a good lady, you will get a good husband and be rich. This comes back to women relying on men. These rich women rely on their husbands for money, and for the way they’re perceived in society. Rich women needed to be perceived in society in a good way because a woman’s actions reflect a man’s wealth in a way, because the richest men have the women who are good in society.

  I think one of the reasons why the rich women had more say than Grace was because they were directly connected to very powerful men. One theory I have is that when these men heard their wives ideas, they thought about them and decided that these ideas may work. I also think these women were probably also very intelligent, and very good at all of the “important” skills that a lady must have such as sewing and manners. If these men declined their wives protests, their wives would not be happy, and may continue to protest, and question the man’s authority. Since good wives (which I’m assuming they were if they were married to rich men) are very hard to find, it was very important to keep that women as your spouse.

  I think witchcraft was just a way for men to overpower women. Women were usually the ones to be accused of witchcraft, and men were always the lawyers prosecuting the so called witches. It seems that witchcraft was a way to blame women for people’s problems. If something goes wrong, witches would be blamed. Who would you accuse of being a witch? The one who stands out the most. I believe the actual reason why Grace Sherwood was put on trial for witch was because men saw her as a threat. They saw that she fought for women’s rights, and thought that she challenged their authority. It sounds a little bit like an element of The Giver. The Elders, (The men) saw Jonas (Grace Sherwood) as a threat, therefore isolating him to the point where he couldn’t make a difference. It’s a little bit different, but the ideas are the same. 

  The tests for being a witch were also insane. They did useless tests, that did nothing but rely on God to prove that a women’s a witch. They also relied on God when Halley’s Comet was sighted, which wasn’t the best idea because it turned out Halley’s Comet didn’t signify bad things to come. Christianity was very pro men, so it doesn’t surprise me that The Bible stated witchcraft. I think one of the reasons why they relied on God was because they didn’t understand witches. They couldn’t understand why women spoke out, and relied on witchcraft and religious tests. One of the religious tests that was conducted was to throw a women in brackish water, and see if they would sink or float. If they floated, they were considered a witch. This test seems very crazy, since if water is very brackish, you will most definitely float. Overall, it was just a way the men made colonists believe that certain women were witches. Overall, the idea of witchcraft was a way the men isolated women who were threatening their power. 

History:

Created: 10/25/2016 10:40 AM

Jemma Fox

2016

Witches in Colonial America

Meltzer, Milton. Witches and Witch-hunts A History of Persecution. New York,
Blue Sky Press, 1999.

“At least 344 persons were accused of witchcraft in New England between 1620 and 1725. Nearly four out of five were female. The victims were women with freckles or a birthmark, old women, uppity women, women with property, women who were healers and who continued to pay tribute to mother earth and goddess religions, women who were “in league with the Devil,” women who today would be labled mentally ill, women who enjoyed sex, a woman who resisted some man’s sexual advances, and on and on and on… ”

Paraphrase:

• Lots of woman were convicted of being witches
• 4 out of 5 people convicted were woman
• if you had skin marks like freckles, or birthmarks you could be convicted
• old woman uppity women or woman with property were also convicted
• women who pursued a career in superstition would be convicted
• meantally ill woman and woman who enjoyed sex or resisted sex

My Ideas:

Woman would be wrongfully convicted in killed because of superstition. They would be killed for no good reason and more that 3/4’s of them were woman. If I was born with a mark on my skin I could die for it! People believed in witches and other people couldn’t believe in different forms of superstition like healing without being convicted. If I liked sex I could be  convicted and killed, if I didn’t like someone who a lot of people did I could loose my life for that too.

 

Alexa Moskowitz
2015

Colonial Women’s Roles
Source?

“When they arrived in the colonies men and women alike had opinions about the proper roles in family and society that people should fill according to their gender. Most accepted the prevailing view that women were inferior to men and should be meek and obedient. Male colonists enforced these views though both religion and law. Women in the colonial period did not have the same legal rights as men and, in fact, often lost rights as individuals when they married.”

Paraphrase:

• Men were treated with more respect than women
• They thought women were lower class than men
• Some women were treated as if they were invisible
• Some native american women were maids or cooks for their masters
• Some were servants
• The very lucky women would become famous from doing heroic things during the war

My Ideas: Women in the Colonial era were not treated with as much respect as the men were treated with. Women were treated sometimes as if they were invisible. They did not have as many rights or freedom as the men. Such as, they were thought of as the lower class, they weren’t allowed to fight in the war, and they had to stay home and do housework all day. From an English woman’s point of view life was not bad, but not as glamorous as the men’s life. To add on to them not having much freedom, when they married, which they had to, they lost a lot of the little freedom that they had to begin with. I don’t think that’s fair because women are just the same as men, girls are the same as boys, I think everyone should be equal. Although they didn’t have many rights some lucky women who wanted to be different would do something heroic and become very famous. For example, Nancy Hart became a famous war hero by capturing a group of British soldiers at gunpoint. She was treated with more respect after that. Yet still the women were not treated with respect. Why were women treated like this? What did/ people think men were capable of that they weren’t?

Name?
2015

Title of card?
Twist, Clint, ed. Colonial America. Connecticut: Sherman Turnpike, 1998. Print.
English Colonial Women #3, Woman Interpreter. “English Colonial Women.” Woman at Jamestown Site. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

“She’s Spending most of her time in the garden. And most of her time in the kitchen with her girls teaching them how to do the gardening. They have to know how to dry food.”

“Stews, pies, bread, soups are what they would like to cook because it was the most available on a regular basis”

“The farming was done by the boys mostly with the farmer”

“The lower class women did less housework and more slave like outside work. The women in the middle class had a surprising amount of social and economical freedom, more than the gentry and lower class. The middling class can pursue their own interests and marry for love, they have more of a say on what’s happening on a daily basis. The upper class women are removed from the world The upper class women’s jobs are more mental than the more practical work of the middling class.”

Paraphrase: (see quotes)

 My Ideas: People in the colonial times were split up into three main groups were: The Gentry class, which was the highest, The Middling sort, the middle class, and the meaner sort, the lowest class. Most people who haven’t done research think that they want to be in the upper class, but I figured out that being an upper class woman in the Colonial era was not as much fun as people thought. They were cut off from the world, sitting and sewing all day, they had no say whatsoever in anything that was happening around them, and they, for the most part, couldn’t marry for love. While yes, they were getting an education, it wasn’t an education to get them ready for when they married or what they were going to do, it was playing an instrument and learning how to speak with proper pronunciation, which really isn’t that helpful. Also, the work that they were doing was more mental than the middling and lower class whose work was more practical and quite frankly more crucial to a growing colony. The middling class women had a surprising amount of freedom, more than the upper class. They would do outside farm work, gardening, cooking, drying food for the winter, sewing, making clothing, raising animals and people. They also had a say in what they did on a regular basis and what was happening around them. For example, they didn’t really have arranged marriages so they could marry for love. The lowest class women would basically do the same work as the men, more slave like work, a lot of labor definitely. If I had to be a woman in Colonial America I would want to be in the middling class for sure.