Feminism In The 1770s

While I was writing another post I came across this... 

Sarah Kemble Knight’s Journey through Colonial Connecticut

Connecticut History

By Richard DeLuca

March 3, 2021

One of the duties of the colonial post rider was to act as a guide for travelers he might encounter along his route. At the start of the 18th century such travelers were rare, and travel time slow due to the difficulty of the crude and unmarked paths that passed for roads. Nonetheless, a Boston woman named Sarah Kemble Knight made just such a journey in 1704 from Boston to New York over the lower post road.

Madam Knight was a 38-year-old married woman and keeper of a boarding house in Boston with some experience as a copier of legal documents. She was on her way to New Haven (and later to New York City) to act on behalf of a friend in the settlement of her deceased husband’s estate. Fortunately, Knight kept a journal of her trip, and it provides us with one of the few first-hand-accounts of travel conditions in Connecticut during colonial times.

“we mett with great difficulty”

Knight chose to travel with a post rider or other reliable guide, so she was never alone on the road. Still, the difficulties she encountered speak volumes about the physical dangers of long-distance travel by horseback in that era. In crossing the Thames River in a ferry boat that carried both passengers and their horses, she wrote in an entry dated “Thirsday, Octobr ye 5th”: “Here, by reason of a very high wind, we mett with great difficulty in getting over—the Boat tos’t exceedingly, and our horses capper’d at a very surprizing Rate, and set us all in a fright.”

It is a great story of her travels as a single woman something that wasn't done in those times. While we hear of all the battles and heroism of the men little is said about the women on the time... and that is why we drink coffee and not tea.

The Daughters of Liberty

“Daughters of Liberty, young ladies of good reputation, assembled at the house of Doctor Ephraim Bowen, in this town…There they exhibited a fine example of industry, by spinning from sunrise until dark, and displayed a spirit for saving their sinking country rarely to be found among persons of more age and experience.”

American Battlefield Trust

By Kate Egner

January 28, 2025

The eve of the American Revolution gave some women an opportunity to enter the political sphere. While women still were not permitted to serve as elected officials in governing bodies such as colonial general assemblies or the growing number of extra-legal committees dedicated to organizing a patriot resistance to British policy, women could voice their political opinions and demonstrate their patriotic sentiments by signing petitions, participating in nonimportation movements, and using their voice.

Women formed the Daughters of Liberty in 1766 to formalize their political agency during the Stamp Act crisis. They often provided support to the Sons of Liberty founded by politically active men in and around Boston, Massachusetts that same year. Sam Adams, a prominent founding member of the Sons of Liberty, was vocal about the importance of women to the patriot cause, reportedly stating, “With ladies on our side, we can make every Tory tremble.” One of the women credited with founding the Daughters of Liberty is Sarah Bradlee Fulton. Sarah is sometimes referred to as “The Mother of Boston Tea Party,” because she helped to organize that protest against the Tea Act in Boston Harbor in 1773. By then, though, chapters of the Daughters of Liberty were active far outside Boston and had mobilized critical social and economic support for the patriotic cause. It is still unclear how formally the Daughters of Liberty were organized, or whether the term became more broadly applied to many politically-active women and their gatherings in New England and beyond.

So how many of you know this? I didn't! On the History of Massachusetts Blog they write,

In 1777, these women even had their own version of the Boston Tea Party, later dubbed the “Coffee Party,” during which they confronted and assaulted a local merchant who was hoarding coffee in his warehouse. Abigail Adams described the incident in a letter, dated July 31, 1777, to her husband, John Adams:

“You must know that there is a great scarcity of sugar and coffee, articles which the female part of the state are very loathe to give up, especially whilst they consider the scarcity occasioned by the merchants having secreted a large quantity. There has been much rout and noise in the town for several weeks. Some stores had been opened by a number of people and the coffee and sugar carried into the market and dealt out by pounds. It was rumoured that an eminent, wealthy, stingy merchant (who is a bachelor) had a hogshead of coffee in his store which he refused to sell to the committee under 6 shillings per pound. A number of females some say a hundred, some say more assembled with a cart and trucks, marched down to the warehouse and demanded the keys, which he refused to deliver, upon which one of them seized him by his neck and tossed him into the cart. Upon his finding no quarter he delivered the keys, when they tipped up the cart and discharged him, then opened the warehouse, hoisted out the coffee themselves, put it into the trucks and drove off. It was reported that he had a spanking among them, but this I believe was not true. A large concourse of men stood amazed silent spectators of the whole transaction.”

So as you sit down this morning to drink your cup of coffee you can thank Daughter of Liberty that you are not drinking tea.

You can find more on women in history back then here

This all started when I was searching on ChatGPT for Nathan Hale who was hanged back in 1776 the other day. I wondered if those were his actual words (Turns out he never said "I have but one life to live for my country" it was just some good PR work back then,) and I found out about her ride.