The Colonial Museum

Mika Foguel                    

In the Colonial ages women were looked at as weak and didn’t get high positions in the church. Men were in power in every aspect of religion while women were not. In the Colonial era women and men had different jobs and responsibilities, this was not viewed as  sexism, but as the natural and religious order. But when we look back at women in the Colonial era from today, we can see that women were discriminated  in all aspects of life including religion .

Day in the Life of Emmeline

Mika Foguel

Today I woke up later than usual. The sun was already brightly shining with yellow and orange colors. I got up from my bed and walked to the kitchen. My 8 year old daughter Aurinda was already in the kitchen making bread, which I taught her to make just a short while ago. I also saw my son Jared practicing writing on a board. I was happy that we were of the gentry class and I could make sure my son will learn how to read and write. I quickly passed my children and walked out heading to church. I opened the wooden door and stepped out to the cobble stone street, there were light green trees and dark green trees. The street was well kept and I could feel only a few patches of grass. However, the smell was an unpleasant a mixture of pollen and horses.

I soon was in front of our church. The church was white with a tall and sharp top. The church was a dark shade of white and looked as if it was falling apart. I slowly walked into the church and sat down at one of the many brown benches. The walls inside were yellow and white and the room was filled with candles. I took out my black bible and started to recite and pray. Then the priests called my name waiting for me to recite my prayers for my dead son Jonas.

‘Emmeline Brooks.”

Jonas had died at birth due to a witch that had cursed me when I passed by her on the street. Before my husband left to become a soldier, he told me that she was a witch and that she would kill my baby if I spoke to her and she didn’t like me. So I would not speak to her. I was scared she would put a curse on me when I was pregnant.

Then one day she screamed my name.

“Emmeline Brooks!”

I didn’t know how she knew my name or why she wanted to speak to me. I ran away as far as I could. After that I was scared and I knew something was wrong. Later late night, my stomach was in far worst pain that I had ever felt and my child died.

I now pray for the witch to stop killing innocent children that never got a chance to live. I also pray for my dead son, my living children, my husband and that I would go to heaven and we would all meet there.  

Name Atticus
blacksmith

Paraphrase

Africans have been working with metals for centuries

They work differently that European blacksmiths

They worked along side Europeans when enslaved by blacksmiths

The tools of the African Americans were differently but the same

axes would be shaped way different but were used in the same way

when blacksmith master died his African American slave would be free and run the shop himself -Kalman, Bobbie

My ideas
African American blacksmiths were treated like any other slave, but they would have a chance at running a shop and being free. They would work for hours, never get paid and were bought and traded, but they had experience about being blacksmith. Africans from Angola learned about working with metal. Before enslavement they would make tools like axes and scythes to help with their everyday work. The axes from Angola were shaped different than the axes from Europe. They were made from a stick and the metal was a thin strip of iron with a larger circular end. The metal on the ax was angled 45 degrees downwards; on a colonial European ax the metal is facing a 90 degree angle. This would make the Angolan ax much more effective than the European axes. I can infer that the African Americans had something more similar to an European ax and wanted to make it better and kept improving it. Then they were enslaved and had to adapt to the European tools . That made it even more difficult to do labor with less efficient tools. If they used their Angolan tools the European masters could have gotten more money, wood or other resources. This could have made all of their lives better. While other slave had to work alone the African American blacksmiths worked alongside European blacksmiths. I believe that African Americans and the Europeans worked together because the European blacksmith worked for a long time in apprenticeship and didn’t want their knowledge to go to waste. The European Blacksmith would teach his slaves as his apprentices and when he died he would trust his slave to run the shop and that would make the slave free. Most slaves doing other labor would work for the dead master’s wife or offspring rather than taking over. Since blacksmiths would rarely marry, they would not have anyone else to give their shop to but the slaves or his European apprentices. Blacksmiths had more opportunities to succeed in the shop that other slaves making them very lucky.

The smell of maple and grass surrounds me as I open the door. I take my daughter’s hand, Abigail, as we walk down the cobblestone steps of our home toward the Anglican Church. We pass the baker on the way, and I tell her she can pick one treat. Her little hand squirms out of mine and she sprints toward the bakery. I have a flashback of myself, as a little girl, when my mom took me to the small bakery in England and let me pick out any small treat. I see Abigail’s head pop out the door. She opens up her fingers and sitting there on the center of her palm is a small wafer. Her form of gold, when everyone else’s in Jamestown is tobacco. I don’t think God approves of this leaf. King James, the man who sent us to this New World, doesn’t like the product; he thinks it’s detrimental to your health. I tell her she can eat her wafer after church if she behaves.

We enter the church and take our seats next to all the women and children on the benches near the left side of the church. We slide in next to a very pale woman with hair as hay. She sits alone. A widow I guess, like me. I take off my petticoat and help Abigail untie her straw bonnet. The wooden benches are hard and make my bottom go limp.

After thanking the Lord for our food and shelter, Abigail taps my knee and asks, “Why do the men get to have so much space on the benches while we children and women are all cramped?” I look over to the right side where all the men sit. They have plenty of room. I look back at the women and children who are so close to one another that if one person got cholera, we would all have it by the end of church. I don’t know how to respond. Do I tell her that men are thought of as more important than women? I don’t even believe that myself, and I don’t want to get her thinking that. My husband, Clement, always treated me equally. He didn’t believe that women are less equal. Clement was a different man. Instead of lounging around all day with the nobles eating food and talking politics, he would take me with him to see the most extraordinary sites.

It was a chilly November morning in Jamestown but I was fast asleep, ignorant to the coldness. Clement taps my shoulder, which wakes me up. He says, “I’m taking you on an adventure, but you can’t tell anyone. Put on your boots because we are going outside.” I reach down and grab my deer hide boots and slip them on. I slowly get off my bed to make sure it doesn’t creek and follow him outside in my nightgown. When I step outside, sugar is flying everywhere. I open my mouth; it is chilly but slowly, as it sits on my tongue, it starts to lose its coldness. The sugar is flavorless. Clement takes my hand and starts walking; I follow. We near the edge of the fort and we’re soon next to the palisades. He says, “squeeze through the two palisades that are broken.” Of course I normally wouldn’t. It’s preposterous to leave the fort without a reason, especially if you are a woman. But Clement could get anyone to do anything, which at the time I loved. I squeeze through the two palisades as fast as I can and then see that my nightgown is ruined, covered in dirt from the wood. Clement then appears and I instantly forget about it. We run across the powdered forest. I soon see homes but they were unlike ours. Made out of straw instead of wood. I see a man who looks different than the English men. He is wearing a deer skin coat, which falls to his knees. He looks at Clement and nods his head. He rushes us into one of the straw homes and inside is a baby deer whose leg is missing. There are a couple of women who are bandaging the deer. “It’s a doe,” Clement says. I look at the baby. It’s eyes blank and heart crying. The men in Jamestown would have already killed it, but these people are saving it. Clement whispers to me, “I found the doe outside the fort with a musket ball in her leg. I knew that no one in Jamestown would care for this baby, so I brought it here. Everyone deserves a chance – deer or human, man or woman.” I look at Clement who is watching the deer. His eyes alert and empathetic.

“Mom, you haven’t answered my question,” Abigail says to me.

“You can go sit with the men, everyone is equal, man or woman.” Human or deer I think to myself, as Abigail gets up and slowly walks toward the men’s bench not knowing what is about to happen.

Oct, 2015

Miss Jackie, Tour Guide in Jamestown Recreation. Interview. Jamestown Settlement: n.p., 2015. Print.

“Burns were often injuries for blacksmiths. They also got Black Lung from the coal, but know one knew that, so they might have called it consumption.”

“Healers kept recipes a secret, so know one really knows what was used in potions.” 

Oct 22, 2015

Colonial Williamsburg

“One of the main reasons the surgery wasn’t advanced back then, was because of religion. Autopsies were what would make the surgeon have more of an understanding on what they are cutting up. The church, said that performing an autopsy would make the persons soul pretty much be destroyed.” (Colonial Surgeon, Mr. John) 

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