Throughout our entire study of colonial woman we have seen many bits of record that hint or even plainly prove that the feminine nature was no more willing in the old days constantly to play second fiddle than in our own day. Anne Hutchinson and her kind had brains, knew it, and were disposed to use their intellect. Perceiving injustice in the prevailing order of affairs, such women protested against it, and, when forced to do so, undertook those tasks and battles which are popularly supposed to be outside woman's sphere. Of Anne Hutchinson it has been truthfully said: "The Massachusetts records say that Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was banished on account of her revelations and excommunicated for a lie. They do not say that she was too brilliant, too ambitious, and too progressive for the ministers and magistrates of the colony, ... And while it is only fair to the rulers of the colony to admit that any element of disturbance or sedition, at that time, was a menace to the welfare of the colony, and that ... her voluble tongue was a dangerous one, it is certain that the ministers were jealous of her power and feared her leadership."[297]
One of the earliest examples in colonial times of woman's ignoring traditions and taking the initiative in dangerous work may be found in the daring invasion of Massachusetts by Quaker women to preach their belief. Sewall makes mention of seeing such strange missionaries in the land of the saints: "July 8, 1677. New Meeting House (the third, or South) Mane: In Sermon time there came in a female Quaker, in a Canvas Frock, her hair disshevelled and loose like a Periwigg, her face as black as ink, led by two other Quakers, and two others followed. It occasioned the greatest and most amazing uproar that I ever saw."[298] No doubt some of these female exhorters acted outlandishly and caused genuine fear among the good Puritan elders for the safety of the colonies and the morals of the inhabitants.
Those were troubled times. Indeed, between Anne Hutchinson and the Quakers, the Puritans of the day were harassed to distraction. Mary Dyer, for example, one of the followers of Anne Hutchinson, repeatedly driven from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, returned just as often, even after being warned that if she came back she would be executed. Once she was sentenced to death and was saved only by the intercession of her husband; but, having returned, she was again sentenced, and this time put to death. The Quakers were whipped, disfigured by having their ears and nose cut off, banished, or even put to death; but fresh recruits, especially women, adorned in "sack cloth and ashes" and doing "unseemly" things, constantly took the place of those who were maimed or killed. Why they should so persistently have invaded the Puritan territory has been a source of considerable questioning; but probably Fiske is correct when he says: "The reasons for the persistent idea of the Quakers that they must live in Massachusetts was largely because, though tolerant of differences in doctrine, yet Quakerism had freed itself from Judaism as far as possible, while Puritanism was steeped in Judaism. The former attempted to separate church and state, while under the latter belief the two were synonymous. Therefore, the Quaker considered it his mission to overthrow the Puritan theocracy, and thus we find them insisting on returning, though it meant death. It was a sacred duty, and it is to the glory of religious liberty that they succeeded."[299]
II. Commercial Initiative
More might be said of the initiative spirit in religion, of at least a percentage of the colonial women, but the statements above should be sufficient to prove that religious affairs were not wholly left to the guidance of men. And what of women's originality and daring in other fields of activity? The indications are that they even ventured, and that successfully, to dabble in the affairs of state. Sewall mentions that the women were even urged by the men to expostulate with the governor about his plans for attending a certain meeting house at certain hours, and that after the good sisters had thus paved the way a delegation of men went to his Excellency, and obtained a change in his plan. Thus, the women did the work, and the men usurped the praise. Again, Lady Phips, wife of the governor, had the bravery to assume the responsibility of signing a warrant liberating a prisoner accused of witchcraft, and, though the jailer lost his position for obeying, the prisoner's life was thus saved by the initiative of a woman.
That colonial women frequently attempted to make a livelihood by methods other than keeping a dame school, is shown in numerous diaries and records. Sewall records the failure of one of these attempts: "April 4, 1690.... This day Mrs. Avery's Shop ... shut by reason of Goods in them attached."[300] Women kept ordinaries and taverns, especially in New England, and after 1760 a large number of the retail dry goods stores of Baltimore were owned and managed by women. We have noticed elsewhere Franklin's complimentary statement about the Philadelphia woman who conducted her husband's printing business after his death; and again in a letter to his wife, May 27, 1757, just before a trip to Europe, he writes: "Mr. Golden could not spare his Daughter, as she helps him in the Postoffice, he having no Clerk."[301] Mrs. Franklin, herself, was a woman of considerable business ability, and successfully ran her husband's printing and trading affairs during his prolonged absences. He sometimes mentions in his letters her transactions amounting at various times to as much as £500.
The pay given to teachers of dame schools was so miserably low that it is a marvel that the widows and elderly spinsters who maintained these institutions could keep body and soul together on such fees. We know that Boston women sometimes taught for less than a shilling per day, while even those ladies who took children from the South and the West Indies into their homes and both boarded and trained them dared not charge much above the actual living expenses. Had not public sentiment been against it, doubtless many of these teachers would have engaged in the more lucrative work of keeping shops or inns.
In the South it seems to have been no uncommon thing for women to manage large plantations and direct the labor of scores of negroes and white workers. We have seen how Eliza Pinckney found a real interest in such work, and cared most successfully for her father's thousands of acres. A woman of remarkable personality, executive ability, and mental capacity, she not only produced and traded according to the usual methods of planters, but experimented in intensive farming, grafting, and improvement of stock and seed with such success that her plantations were models for the neighboring planters to admire and imitate.
When she was left in charge of the estate while her father went about his army duties, she was but sixteen years old, and yet her letters to him show not only her interest, but a remarkable grasp of both the theoretical and the practical phases of agriculture.
"I wrote my father a very long letter ... on the pains I had taken to bring the Indigo, Ginger, Cotton, Lucern, and Cassada to perfection, and had greater hopes from the Indigo...."