|
Remembering
the Ladies
In
1776, Abigail Adams penned a letter to her
husband, congressman John Adams, asking
him to please �remember the ladies� in the
�new code of laws.� She wrote, �I desire
you would Remember the Ladies, and be more
generous and favourable to them than your
ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power
into the hands of the Husbands. Remember
all Men would be tyrants if they could.�
John Adams� answer was that he could not
help but laugh at her �saucy� letter.. (i)
What he did not realize was that his wife
had become the first in a long line of American
women to assert her desire for women�s rights.
The words of Abigail Adams would echo through
American history, a rallying cry for other
activists who believed in the equality of
the sexes.
Abigail Adams� words came at the birth of
America. Political turmoil swept over women
as well as men, and rhetoric proclaiming
liberty, freedom, and equality formed the
foundation for the new nation. Yet, these
great virtues did not extend to all of America�s
residents, and the hypocrisy was felt acutely
in the hearts and minds of many women.
For
Abigail Adams, familiarity with the language
of freedom was a luxury given to her by
her station as a middle to upper class,
white woman. Other women in her position
expressed similar sentiments through poems,
essays, letters, and journal entries. Their
education, a privilege known to few lower-class
women, allowed them to declare their loyalty
in literary forms.
However,
eloquence in words is not the only way women
expressed their patriotism. To show their
loyalty to the revolution, American women
participated in boycotts and even rioted
in protest of unfair British rule. Many
notable groups of women organized their
patriotism, sometimes calling themselves
the Daughters of Liberty. These women held
meetings, spun cloth to aid a boycott of
British material, and made a public showing
of eating only American food and drinking
American herbal tea. The importance of these
meetings lay not in the amount of cloth
they produced or the amount of foodstuffs
they consumed, but in the message they sent
to other patriots. American women had a
valuable contribution to give to their nation,
and they would fight just as hard as American
men for freedom. Even class issues were
temporarily thrown aside, as the Daughters
of Liberty made it possible for a wealthy
woman to spin her own cloth without disgrace..
(ii)
Though
less visible, many other women demonstrated
the strength of their convictions from their
homes. With their husbands serving in a
militia or the Continental Army, wives took
over the responsibilities of running the
family farm or business. Letters written
by these women demonstrate a telling phenomenon:
though reluctant at first, by the end of
the war the women found themselves able
and sometimes even enthusiastic about their
new �masculine� duties.. (iii)
A
smaller number of women aided the military
directly, serving as army cooks, nurses,
and laundresses. Their help was often unappreciated,
but they served their country as best they
could. One particularly dedicated woman,
Deborah Sampson, even disguised herself
as a man in order to enlist in the army.
Under the guise of Private Robert Shurtleff,
Sampson fought, slept, and ate side by side
with other male soldiers, until an Army
physician uncovered her startling secret.
Though prohibited from fighting, Sampson
received the distinction of an honorable
discharge from General George Washington..
(iv)
While
Sampson and Adams defended the new nation,
other women had a very different perspective
on the war and America. For slave women,
the revolution meant, at best, an increased
possibility of freedom. The number of runaway
slaves increased dramatically during the
war years, do in part to the British promise
of freedom to all who fled to aid their
army. Yet, the elusive prize would remain
out of reach for most African Americans;
the majority of slaves who ran away during
the war were eventually returned to bondage.
(v)
Native American women, also, found little
hope in the revolution. Rhetoric proclaiming
the equality of men did not help these women
and their communities. Though individual
tribes split over which side of the war
to support, their decisions made little
difference in the end. The Treaty of Paris
in 1783 granted the United States government
full control over Indian lands, aiding the
Americans in their determination to force
the Native Americans westward. (vi)
What, then, is the significance of Abigail
Adams� words? The American Revolution did
not free slave women, or secure Native American
women�s homes. The war did not even guarantee
white women equality with their male counterparts.
Adams� words did not have a great impact
on America in the late eighteenth century.
Her letters did not change her husband�s
views on the proper place of women in society,
and they did not change the literal meaning
of the words �all men are created equal.�
The
importance of Abigail Adams� letters is
clear only when we view the larger scope
of American history. Although she was, in
comparison with other women, in a very privileged
position, Abigail Adams had the courage
to challenge the society that surrounded
her. Furthermore, she challenged the male-dominated
world as both a woman and an equal. Though
she wrote to her husband as his wife, she
also confronted him with his own language,
the language of liberty. After receiving
John Adams� mocking reply to her plea for
American women, Abigail Adams wrote the
following words to her husband, predicting
the course of history:
�But
you must remember that Arbitrary power is
like most other things which are very hard,
very liable to be broken � and notwithstanding
all your wise Laws and Maxims we have it
in our power not only to free our selves
but to subdue our Masters, and without violence
throw both your natural and legal authority
at our feet.�(vi)
Endnotes
i. Mary Beth Norton and Ruth M. Alexander,
eds. Major Problems in American Women�s
History. (D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington,
MA, 1996). p.77.
ii. Mary Beth Norton, �The Positive Impact
of the American Revolution on White Women,�
in Norton and Alexander. p.96-98.
iii. ibid. p.99-103.
iv. Wilma L. Vaught, �In Defense of America:
Women who Serve,� USA Today (March,
1994) pp.87-88.
v. Sara M. Evans Born for Liberty, A History
of Women in America. (New York: Free Press
Paperbacks, 1997) pp.52-53.
vi. ibid. p.53.
vii. Norton and Alexander. p.78.
Sources
1. Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty, A
History of Women in America. New York:
Free Press Paperbacks, 1997.
2. Norton, Mary Beth and Ruth M. Alexander,
eds. Major Problems in American Women�s
History. D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington,
MA, 1996.
3. Vaught, Wilma L. �In Defense of America:
Women who Serve,� USA Today March,
1994.
Questions
about this column? Please e-mail me at [email protected].
|
