Volume 13, Number 1, 2014 2014 | -1-
CALENDAR OF
EVENTS
DECEMBER 2014 Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
December 6 , 7 & 12 Charles Dickens’ enduring Yuletide tale of hope and compassion comes to life with Ebenezer Scrooge as a sour-spirited Puritan who desperately needs the help of three redemptive ghosts. Audience members will enjoy a Christmas feast with Scrooge as he celebrates his newly-found holiday cheer. (This is a ticketed event that includes dinner.) Saturday and Sunday, December 6th and 7th, and Friday December 12th. Performance begins at 6:00 p.m. with dinner immediately following. th
th
th
webcast a 17th-century lifeway and encourage you to “try it at home.” Make fresh butter, create natural cleaning products, snag some expert advice on cooking over an open fire or celebrate midsummer in style. We’re bringing you 17th-century skills in a very 21st-century way!
Introduction to Hearth Cooking and Bread Baking
NEW IN 2015!
January 24th For those looking to get started with hearth cooking over an open fire and baking bread at home, this workshop is just what you are looking for. This special “dough”ble-feature workshop is sure to sell out!
Adult Education Series
Opening Day
Select Tuesdays beginning January 13th Learn something old everyday! If you have ever wanted to try your hand at a new skill, our Tuesday evening adult education series is for you. We’ll be spinning, weaving, gardening, beer brewing, baking and more.
History in Your Home
Monthly, beginning January 16th Join us online for an experience that puts the 17th century in your house! Each month we will
March 14th Gather the kindling and warm up by the fire! Winter may not yet be through, but Plimoth Plantation will be opening its barns, houses, and wetus on March 14th. Gather with friends old and new for pop-up lectures, Irish soda bread at Plimoth Bread Company and games for kids! Help us put things in their place by returning candlesticks, blankets and other home goods to the 17th-Century English Village after they have been stored for the winter.
When you are done, shake off the winter chill with hot soup by the fire in Gainsborough Hall.
Reenactor Weekend with Stuart Peachey
April 17th and 18th This weekend, Plimoth welcomes British historian Stuart Peachey, an expert on the lives of common people in Elizabethan and Stuart England. Attend lectures on 17th-century clothing, accessories and foodways, participate in character development exercises, view craft demonstrations and join in a century-spanning muster! Whether your kit is from the 1680s or the 1860s, the study of material culture is a great tool for reenacting in an authentic way. Space is limited. Registration begins January 1, 2015.
17th-Century Trimmings Conference
June 6th and 7th Dally in the details! Bobbin lace, hand-poured pewter buttons, luceting, embroidery and more. Join us for a weekend of the small things. Spaces are limited. Registration begins January 1, 2015. For updates, please visit www.plimoth.org/calendar Members of the Museum enjoy priority access, special pricing, members-only events and unlimited admission for a year. Become a member or renew your membership today! Go online at www.plimoth.org/please-support/members or call (508) 503-2676.
LETTER FROM THE Dear Members and Friends of Plimoth Plantation,
Ellie Donovan Executive Director Richard Pickering Deputy Executive Director Courtney Roy-Branigan Director of Development Kate LaPrad Director of Museum Affairs/Editor Jessica Rudden Director of Integrated Media Kristen Oney Designer/Photographer Hilary Goodnow Editorial Assistant Karin Goldstein Hilary Goodnow Nicole Perkins Richard Pickering Erika Prince Alex Sliwoski Contributors Plimoth Plantation is a private, nonprofit educational institution supported by admission fees, contributions, memberships, function sales and revenue from our dining programs/services and museum shops. The Museum receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, private foundations, corporations, local businesses and individual donors and members. This issue of Plimoth Life is funded in part by the Ida and William Rosenthal Foundation. For more information visit www.plimoth.org or call (508) 746-1622
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When we decided to publish an issue of Plimoth Life focusing on the women of the 17th century, we chose to highlight photographer Kristen Oney’s portraits of the women of Plimoth Plantation. Etched in their expressive faces, we see an evocation of the past as they artfully, feelingly re-create women’s traditional and historical roles as caregivers, community leaders, homemakers, healers and mothers. With this edition of Plimoth Life we are, in the words of the National Women’s History Project, “celebrating women of character, courage and commitment.” Much of American history was built upon the silent or unrecorded contributions of women. It is part of our mission, and indeed it is our privilege, to illuminate what is known of their personal histories and daily lives, but the historical record is frustratingly scant in many regards. Their lives are almost entirely obscured from our view. I am reminded of the poignant verses from Ecclesiasticus (44:7-9):
“Some of them have left behind a name, so that others declare their praise. But of others there is no memory; they have perished as though they had never existed; they have become as though they had never been born…”
Fortunately, we can glimpse some of these women in the margins of narratives; in ancient stories told by Native people; between the lines in court records and wills; and in the context of 17th-century politics, religion, law, world view, art, customs and traditions. With that information we are able to give some voice and form to the women who lived here long ago along these shores of change. With the women of Patuxet and Plymouth on our minds we’ve been reflecting on the Plimoth Plantation logo: two taciturn male figures — one Native, one English — back-to-back, looking in opposite directions. Historically speaking, does this image represent Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag homeland well? Women in Native society had more of a voice than their English counterparts. Two female sachems, Awashonks and Weetamoo, are somewhat well known to us, albeit through the voices of colonial writers Benjamin Church and Mary Rowlandson. And it is clear that women were an integral part of Plymouth Colony’s founding families. Are we revealing a truth about the 17th-century world in our logo or perpetuating an idea that is not historically accurate? The men in the
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR a spirit of interaction, learning and respect for different points of view be represented by two people so clearly opposed to one another? Picture the two people standing back-to-back in our logo as women. What message would you perceive from that image? Does gender itself and/or the traits we ascribe to men and women, make a difference in how we perceive what is represented? Whether inspiring or thought-provoking, challenging or transformative, it is the conversations that take place in museums (and on the way home following museum visits, and online) that have the power to connect us with each other and open our minds to ideas that might be wholly new to us. They have the potential to change us for the better, to promote understanding between people, to create civil discourse. These are vital conversations which might remind us that we can choose peace. Should we keep our logo or change it? I would love to hear from you. Please tell me what you think. Email me at comments@plimoth.org or write to me at PO Box 1620, Plymouth, Massachusetts 02362. Your feedback is always welcome and encouraged. It is only through the support and advice of our friends and members that we can continue in the important work of bringing 17th-century New England to life in a way that is relevant, engaging and meaningful to a modern audience. Gratefully,
Ellie Donovan Executive Director
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CONTENT i 02
Letter from the Executive Director Ordinary People Livelihood and community in 17th-Century Alehouses
03
A Sho(c)ke of Corn Fully Ripe Elizabeth Warren and Her World
07
“Your Loving Wife, Susanna” Uncover a story of Susanna White Winslow
09
Such Goods as God Hath Given, I Give Also Widow Mary Ring’s Estate
11
Meet Ramona Peters Biography and Interview
13
0
Awashonks
CAPTION?
Sachem of the Sakonnet
17
Stepfamilies in Colonial America Biography and Interview with Lisa Wilson
19
Crafting History SMALL TITLE HERE= KATE/RICHARD?
21
From The Record • Brewer Pot • Theodora Oxenbridge Sampler • Excerpt from A Voyage Made by Ten of our Men to the
Kingdom of Nauset, 1621
• Excerpt from A True History of the Captivity & Restoration
of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, 1682
• Indenture, Alice Grinder to Isaack Allerton,
17 Lisa Wilson Caption Here
29
November 24, 1633
Her Monthly Terms SMALL TITLE HERE- KATE/RICHARD?
ORDINARY
PEOPLE F
What’s in a Name? Ask a southeastern Massachusetts local, “What is an alewife?” and you will get a variety of answers. Bostonians might associate the word with Alewife Station, the final outbound stop of the subway’s Red Line. Fishermen will probably think of a small river herring resembling a shad. For Plimoth Plantation staff, an alewife is a 17thcentury woman who ran an alehouse. Often widows keeping their establishments alone, alewives were considered shrewd and formidable landladies. They were unwilling to be cheated and were not above using threats to secure payment. In the popular imagination, their reputation was not without blemish. Shakespeare’s tavern keeper Mistress Quickly is bawdy and raucous, and makes mischief in four of the Bard’s plays.
or hundreds of years, alehouses have been at the center of English life. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they provided food, drink and lodging to townsfolk, citydwellers and travelers. Housewives who did not brew purchased their family’s drink from an alehouse or market stall. A 1577 survey counted as many as 24,000 alehouse keepers across thirty English counties, and results revealed that the majority of keepers were women. Based on an estimated English population of 3.4 million in 1577, that means there was one alehouse for every 142 people. English authorities distributed alehouse licenses with the intent of guaranteeing income to the poor, elderly or widowed. Mayflower passengers brought their beer drinking culture across the Atlantic. In 1681, the Reverend John Cotton, Jr. said that he could stand at the Plymouth court house and see “at least four or five houses, where… strong drink is sold.” Following English practice, colonial authorities granted licenses to their towns’ most vulnerable residents. Women like Scituate’s Margaret Muffee received licenses to sell their home brewed beer to alehouses. Other women ran ordinaries — small alehouses, where for a set price, one could share the “ordinary” meal of the day. In 1658, the Plymouth court issued an ordinary license to sixty-one-year-old Giles Rickard (1597-1684). The business supplemented his income as a weaver and farmer. His wife Hannah (1623-1690) most likely kept the ordinary as an extension of her household, providing the means to support herself after Giles’ death in 1684. Two years later, in 1686, the sixty-three-year-old widow appealed for an “approbration to keep [an] ordinary for this present year,” which she kept until her death in 1690. For many women, especially widows, the alehouse offered financial stability and a way to maintain standing in their communities.
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A SHO(C)KE OF CORN FULLY RIPE THE STORY OF ELIZABETH WARREN AND HER WORLD
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When Elizabeth Warren died in October 1673, the Plymouth town records noted that she was a “widdow, aged above 90 yeares… whoe, haveing lived a godly life, came to her grave as a shoke of corn fully ripe.” This is a reference to Job 5:26: “Thou shalt go to thy grave in a ful age, as a ricke of corne cometh in due season into the barne.” The 1560 Geneva translation of the Bible was famous for its Calvinist annotations, and the editors said of this passage, “Though the children of God have not alwaies this promes performed, yet God doeth recompence it other wise to their advantage.” The advantage was eternal life. Earthly longevity was not the only remarkable thing about Elizabeth Warren. She followed her husband across the Atlantic, raised their seven children after his
1628. This year died Mr. Richard Warren... and during his life bore a deep share in the difficulties and troubles of the first settlement of the plantation of New Plimouth.
- Nathaniel Morton, New Englands Memoriall, 1669
death and oversaw the growth and consolidation of her family’s vast landholdings – at times irritating her adult children who bridled at her enduring control. Elizabeth Warren was one of three or four daughters of Augustine Walker. The identity of her mother is unknown. She was baptized at Baldock, Hertfordshire, England in September 1583. Baldock is a medieval market town thirty-three miles north of London and situated at the crossing of two major historic thoroughfares, the Great North Road connecting London and Edinburgh and the ancient Icknield Way connecting Norfolk and Wiltshire. The family left Baldock soon after Elizabeth’s birth and relocated to Great Amwell, Hertfordshire, a town about twenty miles north of London also on the Great North Road. Elizabeth Walker married Richard Warren on April 14, 1610 at the parish church of St. John the Baptist, Great Amwell. His birthplace, parentage and profession are unknown. At the time of her marriage, Elizabeth was twenty-seven, an age slightly older than the statistical average for women of her class in early modern England. For men and women of the “middling sort,” as contemporary authors referred to farmers, craftsmen and shopkeepers, first marriages took place later in life than the youthful weddings of the affluent classes. On average, women of the “middling sort” married at age 23½ and men at 26½. Three children quickly followed. In her father’s will dated just three years after their marriage, three daughters are mentioned: “I give & bequeath unto my daughter Elizabeth Warren wife of Richard Warren Sixteene pounds of lawefull money of England, and unto her three Children Marey, Ann and Sarey Warren Fower pounds.” (In 1600, a London schoolmaster might make sixteen pounds in a year.) This will, discovered little more than a decade ago, also provides tantalizing clues to Augustine Walker’s religious life, because in addition to the “Burial of the Dead” ritual required by the Church of England, he allotted ten shillings for a sermon to be preached at his funeral. In augmenting the services of the Book of Common Prayer, this sermon might suggest Puritan sympathies, a display of economic status or possibly both. The parish records are silent, reporting only that Augustine Walker was buried at Great Amwell in August 1614.
PLIMOTH LIFE 2014 | -4-
Two more Warren daughters, Elizabeth and Abigail, were born between 1614 and Richard Warren’s departure for America aboard Mayflower in 1620. Elizabeth and their five daughters followed three years later, arriving on the ship Anne in July 1623. It is possible that the entire family intended to travel together in 1620, but they were forced to separate when Mayflower’s companion vessel, Speedwell, proved unseaworthy. Richard Warren died in 1628, leaving his wife with seven children. Sons Nathaniel and Joseph were born in Plymouth possibly in 1624 and 1626. Alone at forty-five, Elizabeth Warren never remarried. By remaining “widow Warren” for the next forty-five years, she retained total control of her husband’s estate and could engage in business enterprises without being criticized for stepping out of a woman’s proper sphere. Warren proved adept at managing property. In 1633, the widowed mother of seven was listed in the second of nine tax brackets paying twelve shillings for the year, ranking above forty-four of the eighty-seven head of households listed. In 1635, Elizabeth Warren appeared in court twice. She is one of the few women directly quoted in
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Plymouth records. At the summer court session, her servant Thomas Williams was charged with speaking “prophane & blasphemous speeches against ye majestie of God… ther being some discention between him & his dame, she… exhorted him to fear God & doe his duty; he answered, he neither feared God, nor the divell.” Williams acknowledged and apologized for his behavior. The court ruled that his words had been spoken in the heat of the moment, and he escaped further punishment. Later that year, Elizabeth’s neighbor Thomas Clarke sued her after a boat she borrowed for a fee of thirty shillings was destroyed in a powerful storm. She was acquitted when the court ruled that the location where she left the boat was usually safe. Unfortunately, the record does not report what Elizabeth Warren was transporting in Clarke’s boat. Was she part of the cattle boom of the 1630s when Plymouth farmers prospered from selling livestock to Massachusetts Bay Colony? In March 1637, the court recognized Elizabeth as the only female Purchaser, or shareholder in Plymouth Colony “instead of her said husband… he dying before he had performed the said bargaine… the said Elizabeth performed the same after his decease.” This status gave
her an advantage in obtaining new land as Plymouth Colony expanded. Elizabeth’s new position also gave her official control of the family’s land which covered areas from Hob’s Hole south to the Eel River. (This is a milelong span of waterfront Plymouth property including the current location of Plimoth Plantation.) Though Elizabeth gave land to her daughters when they married, she was not generous, and she and her children were involved in several conflicts. Repeatedly, the Plymouth courts supported Elizabeth Warren, probably much to the surprise of her sons and sons-in-law, who might have expected the sympathies of male power. Both Nathaniel and Joseph Warren were guaranteed portions of their father’s estate in his will. However, Nathaniel and his wife believed they had not received all they were due, and Elizabeth was unwilling to concede the contested property. The dispute was so lengthy and such a nuisance that in June 1653, the two parties were ordered into arbitration. Elizabeth chose Governor William Bradford and Thomas Willett as her advocates, while Thomas Prence and Myles Standish represented her son. Elizabeth was ordered to cede six acres, two-thirds of the disputed land, to Nathaniel,
but she retained the rights to all other properties in her possession, and most importantly, the court upheld all of her prior gifts and sales. At the time of her death, Elizabeth Warren held property as far west as the Plymouth Colony border with Rhode Island. The last two decades of Elizabeth Warren’s life passed without public controversy, although there is historical controversy regarding the dates of her death and burial. In the same brief entry and in the same clerk’s hand, the Plymouth town records report her death on October 2, 1673 and her burial more than three weeks later on October 24. Was it the slip of a clerk’s pen? Could she have been buried on October 4 and the 2 in 24 is a mistake harkening back to her death date? There is an emendation to the original document with the clerk inserting the word honorably above the phrase, “She was honorably buried on the 24th of October aforsaid.” And thus, a woman who had outlived her partner by fortyfive years, she came to her grave as truly “a shoke of corn fully ripe.”
PLIMOTH LIFE 2014 | -6-
“Your Loving Wife, Susanna "” Susanna White sailed on Mayflower with her
husband William and their five-year-old son Resolved. One of three pregnant women aboard ship, Susanna gave birth after Mayflower arrived off Cape Cod. A colonist reported that “it pleased God that Mistress White was brought a-bed of a son, which was called Peregrine.” A 1655 land grant noted that Peregrine was “the first of the English that was born in these parts.” William White died on February 21, 1621. Ten weeks later, Susanna married widower Edward Winslow in a ceremony that William Bradford described as, “the first marriage in this place which, according to the laudable custom of the Low Countries… (was) performed by a magistrate as being a civil thing…” The couple had five children of their own. Only two, Josiah and Elizabeth, reached adulthood. Edward and Susanna Winslow spent almost half of their married life apart. In addition to serving several terms as governor, Winslow acted as diplomat and business agent for Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies on at least four extended trips to England. With the help of an agent and several servants, Susanna managed Careswell, the family’s large estate in Marshfield. Leaving Plymouth Colony in 1646, Edward Winslow was in England for the last nine years of their marriage. Nonetheless, sustained ties of affection are evident. In 1651, Winslow had his portrait painted in London. He is shown holding a letter. While the text is illegible, the signature is clear -- “Your loving wife Susanna.” Edward Winslow died at sea on May 8, 1655, near Hispaniola in the West Indies. Susanna Winslow died between 1654 and 1675.
Such Goods as God Hath Given
I GIVE ALSO
Mary Ring (c. 1589 -1631) was a member of John Robinson’s Leiden congregation. She was the widow of William Ring, a serge weaver who died in Holland between 1620 and 1629. William Ring disappears from the historical record after 1620, but it is known that he was aboard the unseaworthy Speedwell and was one of roughly twenty passengers left behind in England when Mayflower sailed on alone. Widow Ring arrived in Plymouth Colony in 1629 or 1630 with her three children Elizabeth, Susanna and Andrew. The objects in her probate inventory shed light on her life.
A
ccording to the preamble of her will, Mary Ring died in Plymouth on the fifteenth or nineteenth of July 1631. Her will and probate inventory were proven by the General Court two years later in October 1633. Mary Ring had some education, because she signed her will. Unlike today, with reading and writing taught simultaneously, in the 17th century the two were separate skills and often taught by different teachers. Reading printed sources was taught first. The child could stop at that point or go on to learn to write. Gloria L.. Main, Professor of History from the University of Colorado, has said, “Historians have tended to treat female literacy as a minor postscript to the larger tale of literacy’s spread, but the story for women has important dimensions of its own.” The fragmentary nature of the colonial record makes it difficult to say with certainty how many women could read or write in early Plymouth or even suggest a plausible percentage. Widow Ring’s estate contained eight books including a Bible, a book of Psalms, A Garland of Virtuous Dames, Arthur Dent’s anti-Catholic The Ruin of Rome,
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and “1 dod” possibly a reference to A Plain & Familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandments by John Dod and Robert Cleaver, a catechism that went through many editions. Could Mary Ring’s copy have been the Dutch translation of Dod and Cleaver that William Brewster published in 1617? The two remaining books raise questions about Mary Ring’s history prior to her first appearance in the Leiden records and suggest a track for research in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, these two titles are listed in her inventory in a fragmentary way as “ 1 plea for Infants” and “1 Troubler of the Church of Amsterdam.” The first might be Richard Clyfton’s The plea for infants and elder people (1610), a book addressing baptismal controversies between the English-speaking churches in Amsterdam, and the second is possibly George Johnson’s A discourse of some troubles and excommunications in the banished English church at Amsterdam (1603). Richard Clyfton was the pastor of the Scrooby congregation, and John
Robinson served as his Teaching Elder. Robinson succeeded Clyfton as pastor when the exiled Scrooby church moved from Amsterdam to Leiden in order to escape the turmoil in Johnson’s congregation. Were the Rings there? Did they leave with Robinson’s party? At the time of her death, Mary Ring’s two daughters were married and her son Andrew was twelve or thirteen years old. Her will attempts to establish a financiallysecure estate for her son and assigns Andrew’s care to her son-in-law Stephen Deane. She urges Deane “to help him forward in the knowledge and fear of God, not to oppress him by any burdens but to tender him as he will answer to God.” She says, “All the rest of my things not mentioned I give unto my daughters to be equally divided between them… The goods
I give my two daughters are all my wearing clothes, all my wearing linen.” Ring also makes a gift to a widowed neighbor, “Item I give unto Mrs. Warren one wooden cup with a foote as a token of my love.”
THE GOODS I GIVE MY TWO DAUGHTERS ARE ALL MY WEARING CLOTHES, ALL MY WEARING LINEN Elizabeth Warren and Mary Ring would have known each other for just two years at the time of Ring’s death. In conversation with Museum researchers, Lisa Wilson, Professor of History at Connecticut College, commented that it was not unusual
for there to be strong, supportive relationships between widows in colonial communities. Widow Ring named Samuel Fuller and Thomas Blossom as overseers of her will. Both men were longtime friends from Leiden. Sadly, both died in the 1633 “infectious fever” epidemic, and at Samuel Fuller’s request Thomas Prence performed “his charge & trust committed in behalf of the said Andrew & the said Thomas acknowledgeth to accept in public court the overseers of the will being both deceased & the child young.” As you see from the thee images below, Mary Ring’s will and inventory also provide modern researchers with a wonderful list of textiles available at the time.
Wrought or embroidered coifs could be worked simply in one color, as this “blackwork” coif, or in a multiple of colors, elaborately depicting natural motifs. Worn on the head by women in the 17th century, they were usually tucked under a wool felt hat with a brim.
Falling bands and ruffs were a basic part of the male and female wardrobe in the 17th century. As a separate collar, these bands were pinned to a shirt or smock and usually made of finer, more expensive linen than the shirt itself.
A waistcoat was a lined jacket women wore as an outer garment. This “violett” colored waistcoat, as listed in Mary Ring’s inventory of 1631, could have been dyed with logwood or a combination of woad and madder.
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WRITTEN BY JOHN DOE
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“WE HAD THAT KIND OF POWER TOO, AS A PEOPLE, AS A WHOLE. WE COULD PHYSICALLY STAND IN FRONT OF ONE OF THESE LEADERS, AND TURN OUR BACKS ON THEM AND THAT WOULD SAY, ‘YOU’RE DONE.’ ”
MEET RAMONA PETERS R amona Peters (Nosapocket)
exhibit Mashpee Indian Whalers
In the time of the ancestors,
is an artist, historian, teacher,
at the Mashpee Wampanoag
clan mothers were in charge of
writer, cultural consultant, curator
Tribal Museum located on Main
all the land that we occupied.
and activist. She is the Tribal
Street (Route 130) in Mashpee,
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Historic Preservation Officer and
Massachusetts.
and distributed the resources.
Director of the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
for
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migratory birds, animals or fish.
that Ramona recorded with
visual historian of Wampanoag
authority to take a chief out of
All to take care of their extended
Plimoth Life. It was a lively
culture. In 2010, she received
power?
families. If the chief or leader was
conversation that explored many
from the mother’s clan, and she
aspects of her work and artistry.
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saw that he or she was not living
Access the complete podcast at www.plimoth.org
the prestigious First People’s Fund Community Spirit Award for her artistry and vision reviving
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clan. My mother was Bear
up to expectations, then the clan
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mothers could remove them. We
technique for creating ceramic
matrilineal. My older sister is a
had that kind of power, too, as
vessels. Ramona said that it was
Bear clan mother. Each clan has
a people, as a whole. We could
like “bringing a long lost relative
its own personality. Each has
physically stand in front of one of
back home.” Her work is held in
its traits and gifts, and those
these leaders, and turn our backs
museum and private collections.
qualities define the clan’s unique
on them, and that would say,
Ramona recently curated the
contribution to the community.
“You’re done.”
Wampanoag pottery, an ancient
PLIMOTH LIFE 2014 | -12-
Sachem of the Sako
This is the story of Awashonks, a female sachem (leader) of the Sakonnet, a Native People who lived on the east side of the Sakonnet river in the area of modern-day Little Compton, Rhode Island. She has many descendants living today. It was not unusual for Native People to be led by a woman. Besides Awashonks, there were at least two other female sachems in southern New England. Earlier in the 17th century, the Massachusetts had been led by a woman. Her name is unknown. Weetamoo, a contemporary and near neighbor of Awashonks, was a sachem of the Pocasset. Little is known of Awashonks before the 1670s. Early in the decade, the Plymouth General Court threatened her with war if the Sakonnet did not relinquish their firearms to the English. No action was taken against Awashonks because she promised peace. During 1672, Philip, the influential Pokanoket sachem, was concerned
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that the Sakonnet were selling too much land to the colonists and asked Governor Thomas Prence to prevent further sales. Awashonks complained that lands were sold without her authority by rival Sakonnet sachems. By the start of King Philip’s War, Awashonks’ lands had been reduced to three-quarters of a square mile. In June 1675, Philip sent six messengers to the Sakonnet to persuade them to side with him in a war against Plymouth Colony. Awashonks invited English Captain Benjamin Church to attend the council with the messengers. Church, who had recently started a plantation near Sakonnet, advised Awashonks to notify the Plymouth government of her intentions to
onnet N; A M O W E L B , FEE K A E W A F O G” N I K A F O H “THE BODY C MA O T S D N A T R A BUT...THE HE Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) shattered men’s expectations of women by acting well beyond the traditional roles of deputy husband, household manager and mother. When the twenty-five year old queen refused to marry, which would have put England’s interests second to those of a foreign power, she became a national icon. Despite contemporaries’ reservations about an unmarried female leader, her political, military, and religious successes — including the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, sponsorship of several voyages of discovery, and securing compromises within the Church of England — ushered in a Golden Era, considered one of the most glorious in English history. Elizabeth I, Engraving c. 1570 Plimoth Plantation Collections
PLIMOTH LIFE 2014 | -14-
remain neutral. War broke out before Plymouth could communicate with Awashonks, causing the Sakonnet to abandon their country. A number of the Sakonnet sympathized with Philip and probably joined forces with him. Awashonks and her faction took shelter at Narragansett, but after the Narragansett were attacked in December 1675, there were all forced to flee and join the Nipmuck, who had sided with Philip. By the spring of 1676, the Sakonnet had defected from Philip’s forces and returned to their own territory. In June of that year, after meeting with Benjamin Church at Sakonnet, Awashonks allied herself with Plymouth. Peter, Awashonks’ son, led a delegation to Plymouth to offer their submission and cooperation. In return, they were to be allowed to live in peace on their own lands and not be sold out of the country as slaves. Peter told Benjamin Church, “Sir, if you will please to accept of me and my men, and will head us, we will fight for you and help you to Philip’s head before the Indian corn be ripe.” Church led a band of colonial and Native fighters into Philip’s territory, where they ambushed him in a swamp. On August 12, 1676, Philip was shot and killed by Alderman, a Pocasset Native. In 1682, the Sakonnet came under the jurisdiction of the new Plymouth Colony town of Little Compton. About this time, a Sakonnet woman accused Awashonks’ daughter Bettey of being pregnant out of wedlock. Bettey had her defenders. Two women claimed that she was not pregnant. The accuser was whipped. Bettey was pregnant, however, and when the child was stillborn, the colonists suspected the baby had been murdered to conceal Bettey’s shame. Awashonks, Bettey and Peter were arrested in July 1683 and accused of murder. They were all released when the murder could not be proven, but the court informed Awashonks that their investigation would continue. Awashonks, Bettey and Peter were forced to pay their jail costs and to compensate Bettey’s original accuser. Bettey was whipped for fornication. It seems probable that Awashonks died by 1685, because her name does not appear in colonial records after 1684. The Sakonnet adopted a colonial-imposed system of magistrates and constables. From 1689 to 1709, Sakonnet men enlisted under Benjamin Church in his military expeditions against the Eastern Abenaki and the French in Maine and Canada. In 1709, Church gave land near Fall River as a reservation for some Sakonnet and others who had assisted in the wars. As late as 1763, the great-grandchildren of Awashonks were still living on this reservation.
Stepfamilies
inCOLONIAL
AMERICA
Lisa Wilson is the MacCurdy Professor of American History at Connecticut College. A featured commentator in the History Channel documentary Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower, she regularly brings students in her Puritan New England seminar to Plimoth Plantation for an overnight experience in 17th-century Pilgrim living. Professor Wilson’s new book, A History of Stepfamilies in Early America, is being published by University of North Carolina Press. It was written with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and fellowships at the Massachusetts Historical Society and American Antiquarian Society. In her book, Dr. Wilson challenges the modern notion that the joys and challenges presented by stepfamilies are unique to the present. In the process, she uncovers new and exciting research about women’s lives.
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Did marriage patterns emerge as you researched the book? Men tended to remarry quickly. They depended on their partners much more than women did. The death of a woman was almost like the collapse of a household. Men didn’t want to rely on their children or servants for help. Widowers wanted a permanent solution to their household problems and that meant marriage. Child care was their chief concern. One colonial widower said that he didn’t want to remarry because his children could take care of themselves. They were five and eight! There might also be emotional reasons preventing a man remarrying. Joshua Hempstead from New London, Connecticut remained a widower for fifty years. He never remarried. A recent study conjectures that it was because of Hempstead’s regard for his late wife that he could never
again make that emotional leap - never be exposed again. I saw that in some of the widowers that I researched. The issues were different for women. They were comfortable accepting help from their adult children, because they knew remarriage had its financial and domestic dangers. If they could afford not to remarry, many women chose widowhood. Late in the colonial period and during the Federal Era, in some urban centers like Philadelphia, you find neighborhoods where widows were the heads of households. They were informal associations, but it is almost like they clustered for mutual support. How did women prepare for a second marriage? Forty percent of colonial marriages were remarriages — just like today, except the 21stcentury reason for remarriage
THERE WERE ALWAYS WORRIES ABOUT HUSBAND NUMBER TWO. Would he squander the first husband’s estate? Would spendthrift ways or careless management of accounts, goods and properties destroy his stepchildren’s financial future?
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is predominantly divorce not death. Organization was key to making sure that remarriages went smoothly. Many colonial widows wrote prenuptial agreements in order to protect themselves from losing control of their late husband’s money and to protect their children’s interests. There were always worries about husband number two. Would he squander the first husband’s estate? Would spendthrift ways or careless management of accounts, goods and properties destroy his stepchildren’s financial future? What surprised you about relationships between natural siblings and step-siblings? Stepchildren and stepparents? I found an example of a group of siblings -- full siblings, halfsiblings and step-siblings -- all of them bonding over one of the brothers, “What are we going to do with Henry?” It had nothing to do with blood connection. They were all concerned about Henry. Regarding stepparents and children, there was a family in Holyoke, Massachusetts where the stepdaughter left everything to her stepmother. She begged the forgiveness of her brother and stepbrother, but said that that she was worried her father’s material assets as a minister were insufficient for caring for her stepmother and siblings.
Connections and attachments persisted. One man introduced his former father-in-law as, “the father of the wife of my youth.” Here is one of my favorite stories. At the funeral of a man’s second wife, he tearfully tells his first wife’s parents, “I know that my wife is now in heaven with my first wife, and your daughter is thanking her for all the good that she did for our children.”
the New England records are unsurpassed. The New England Historic Genealogical Society’s database was everything to me. You can’t just click an index and find stepfamilies. You have to find them by digging through genealogies and going sideways. It’s like trying to get in the records by the backdoor.
In stepfamilies, did death sever relationships among survivors?
Why did you choose to focus on New England stepfamilies as opposed to Chesapeake families?
No, for the most part, they remained absolutely intact. One of the farmers that I studied lost his wife and gave his child to his in-laws, and when he was ready to remarry, he brought his intended to meet his first wife’s family.
New England is much more like modern America. The percentage of remarriages to marriages is almost the same. The death rates are not the terrible death rates of Virginia and Maryland. I wanted a less crisis-driven situation. Also,
Stepfamilies aren’t new. I hope that modern stepfamilies will read this and that they won’t feel alone. I want to say, “You’re not a pathological family.” That is what people say; it is the psychology of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Available November 2014
What was your motivation in writing this book?
istory of a h
Stepfamilies in Early America Lisa WiLson
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CRAFTING HISTORY
AT PLIMOTH PLANTATION, YOU CAN HOLD HISTORY IN YOUR HAND. THANKS TO THE NEW PLIMOTH BREAD COMPANY, YOU CAN EVEN SPREAD BUTTER ON IT.
At Plimoth Plantation, historic technologies and craft provide access to Pilgrim and Native lives in ways that the written word never recaptures. The rush of a blacksmith’s sparks, the smell of warm bread, the lace makers gold threads catching the light, crackling fire in a mishoon, heirloom plants grown and cooked in period ways — all these experiences provide 17thcentury sensory moments that are impossible on the page. The opening of the newly renovated Craft Center is a landmark in the Museum’s investment in both groundbreaking hands-on historical inquiry and entertaining programs
MEET
Tani Mauriello
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for guests of all ages. The building features expanded exhibit space for staff and guest artisans, enhanced visitor amenities, a hands-on learning pavilion and a new woodfired bakery called the Plimoth Bread Company.
The Craft Center is a place where you will meet artisans like weaver Leah Roberts and baker Tani Mauriello. Craft techniques are passed down in Wampanoag families. Leah Roberts is Aquinnah Wampanoag. She is a Museum interpreter and an artisan. More than twenty years ago, she learned to make traditional Wampanoag woven baskets from her mother. As her mother learned weaving at Plimoth Plantation, she taught Leah. Now, Leah’s eight-yearold daughter has started her first basket. Basket making was one among many duties for Native women in the 17th century. For Eastern Woodlands Native people, the word basket describes any type of woven container, whether rigid or soft, made from milkweed cordage, false nettle, bulrush, dogbane, corn husk, inner layers of tree bark or wool fibers. These baskets held personal belongings and food stores. One of the bags that Leah is working on today will be able to hold five bushels of Indian corn. As an artist, Leah finds new, contemporary uses for her baskets. Her husband is a musician. Leah adapted the shape of a traditional Wampanoag quiver to make a case for his drumsticks. “The completion of a bag is really rewarding,” she
says. “They are usually gifts and that makes it easier to spend the time weaving them.” In the early years of Plymouth Colony, few objects were made by the colonists. Most furniture, tools and some foodstuffs were imported from England. Baking, however, was something every Plymouth housewife needed to know. If she had lived in an English city or in Holland, she might have purchased bread from a professional (read: male) baker. In Plymouth, she was on her own and working with an unfamiliar American grain, Indian corn. Food historian and Artisan Baker Tani Mauriello joined the Museum staff in May. She holds a DPhil. in British History from Oxford University. While studying in Britain, she was exposed to traditional English bread and pastry recipes. “Plimoth Plantation is the only place I could combine my culinary and academic interests,” says Tani. “I always thought I would do history, but I never thought I could do history and food.” As she began developing the interpretive plan and menu for the Plimoth Bread Company, Tani realized that baking, more so than even cooking, emphasizes the burden of colonial women’s work. So often, she believes, we think of women’s household work as somehow lighter than men’s labor in
farming or in a trade. But it wasn’t. “When people watch me baking,” she says, “I hope they see how hard women worked — the muscles they used — to keep their families fed and healthy.” And Tani will need muscles. Like its 17th-century English predecessors, the Plimoth Bread Company will bake breads from historical recipes in a clay, woodfired oven – without using an electric mixer. All mixing and kneading will be done by hand. Rising will take eight-twelve hours, followed by a technique called stretch and fold. The bread will then bake for about forty-five minutes. Tani plans to bake Signature Breads, including Thirded Breads of mixed corn, wheat and rye flours; and Brewers Bread, a loaf that uses the spent yeast from beer brewing. She believes these will be the closest to the tastes of 17th-century English breads. And taste connects us to the people of the past in ways that no other sense can. Taste needs no translation. “Taste is also an important part of our memory,” she says. “I’m interested in collecting regional recipes that might restore cherished baked goods once made by southern New England’s commercial bakeries or bakers at home. These could be fond memories for our members and guests. They are the tastes of our shared heritage as Americans.”
MEET
Leah Roberts PLIMOTH LIFE 2014 | -20-
FROM THE
RECORD Seventeenth-century women rarely appear as the authors of books or diaries or even letters. But if we look closely, we can find their voices in the objects they made, the wills they dictated and the few surviving examples of their courtroom testimony. Read on to learn more about Native and Colonial women from a varied record that includes cloth and clay as well as the written word.
RECORD:
Brewer Pot Five hundred years ago, a Manomet-Wampanoag woman prepared to make a large clay pot. She scooped the wet matter from the river, and worked the long coils of clay to give the pot its traditional round base. She scalloped the rim with four points, paying homage to the four cardinal directions: she then covered the wet clay in beautiful geometric patterns and molded corn shapes on the rim’s points. After firing the pot, the woman put it to good use and set about preparing a meal for her family.
Today, working with clay still serves as a highly physical connection between Wampanoag women, their ancestors, and Mother Earth. It is a cultural tradition unbroken by time or space, and these vessels and their patterning symbolize more than an individual woman’s creativity. They echo women’s roles as life givers and nurturers in their communities and represent an unwavering connection to the Creator. Amateur archaeologist Jesse Brewer — mentor to Plimoth Plantation’s founder, Henry Hornblower, and gardener for the Hornblowers’ Plymouth estate— excavated this unique piece from the Cape Cod Canal in 1942 . He donated it to Plimoth Plantation in 1980. This fully-restored ceramic vessel now has a permanent home in the Museum’s collection, exemplifying generations of Wampanoag women’s artistic spirit. -21- | PLIMOTH PLANTATION
RECORD: In the 17th century, English women and girls embroidered elaborate samplers to illustrate their literacy and demonstrate their skill at the “needle arts.” Theodora Oxenbridge (1659-1697) was the daughter of a prominent Boston minister who had also served Puritan congregations in the Caribbean. Theodora’s mother died shortly after giving birth. It is not known who taught Theodora her needlework, or whether the sampler was stitched in England, Surinam or Boston. At the age of eighteen, she married Reverend Peter Thatcher. The couple lived in Milton, Massachusetts and had nine children. Sadly, Theodora died at the age of thirty-seven. The techniques and motifs of the Oxenbridge sampler are typical
Theodora Oxenbridge, Embroidered Sampler
of English band samplers stitched in the third quarter of the 17th century. Measuring 28” by 8.5”, it is worked in silk on linen with a thread count of 46-48 warp and 38-40 weft. The featured verse “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” comes from Proverbs 1:7. The sampler descended through the line of her eldest daughter, another Theodora, who married Jonathan Gulliver in 1704. Her thirteenth generation grandson donated it to Plimoth Plantation in 2003, in memory of his mother, Theodora Hallett Adams.
FROM THE RECORD
RECORD:
Excerpt from “A Voyage Made by Ten of our Men to the K
There was an old woman, whom we judged to be no less than a hundred years old, which came to see us because she never saw English, yet could not behold us without breaking forth into great passion, weeping and crying excessively. We demanding the reason of it, they told us, she had three sons, who when Master Hunt was in these parts went aboard his ship to trade with him, and he carried them captives into Spain (for Tisquantum at that time was carried away also) by which means she was deprived of the comfort of her children in her old age. We told them we were sorry that, any Englishman should give them that offense, that Hunt was a bad man, and that all the English that heard of it condemned him for the same: but for us we would not offer them any such injury, though it would gain us all the skins in the country. So we gave her some small trifles, which somewhat appeased her. pp. 495-6, “A Voyage Made by Ten of Our Men to the Kingdom of Nauset” from Mourt’s Relation (1622) anthologized in Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Caleb Johnson (Xlibris, 2006)
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English ideas about age and life expectancy came from the Bible. From Psalm 90:10: “The time of our life is threescore years and ten, and if they be of strength, fourscore years: yet their strength is but labor and sorrow: for it is cut off quickly and we flee away.” A score is twenty years.
Thomas Hunt served as John Smith’s lieutenant during his 1614 exploration of New England. According to Smith’s account, Hunt and a company of men left Monhegan Island (Maine) and sailed south to Cape Cod where they sought to “enjoy wholly the benefit of the Trade and profit of this country” by kidnapping twentyseven Native men and selling them into slavery in Malaga, Spain.
Kingdom of Nauset,” published in Mourt’s Relation, 1622
Courtesy of Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts
Of Hunt’s twenty-seven captives, only one young man from Patuxet — Tisquantum — made it back to New England. After living with friars in Malaga, Spain, he made passage to England, where he lived for some time with John Slaney in the Cornhill section of London. He eventually returned to his home in 1619 on a ship captained by Thomas Dermer.
Native people traded beaver, lynx, fox and marten fur to the colonists in exchange for iron tools, Venetian or Dutch glass beads, fabrics, bells and other metal objects such as brass and copper kettles which they reworked into objects familiar to their own culture. Certainly the English colonists would have come prepared with goods to trade; the “small trifles” might have included bells, beads and fabric.
FROM THE RECORD
RECORD: Excerpt from Mary Rowlandson, A True History of the Captivity & Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson..., 1682 In the Algonquin language family, of which Wampanoag is a part, “squaw” simply means “woman.” It is only in the last century or so that this term has taken on a derogatory meaning.
“My master had three squaws, living sometimes with one and sometimes with another one...Another was Wettimore [Weetamoo], with whom I had lived and served all this while. A severe and proud dame she was, bestowing every day in dressing herself neat as much time as any of the gentry of the land, powdering her hair and painting her face, going with necklaces, with jewels in her ears, and bracelets upon her hands. When she had dressed herself, her work was to make girdles of wampum. ... I understood that Wettimore thought...she would be in danger to lose not only my service, but the redemption pay also. And I was not a little glad to hear this, being by it raised my hopes that in God’s due time there would be an end of this sorrowful hour. Then came an Indian and asked me to knit him three pair of stockings, for which I had a hat and a silk handkerchief. Then another asked me to make her a shift, for which she gave me an apron.” pg. 61, Mary Rowlandson, “The Sovereignty and Goodness of God,” published in Puritans Among the Indians: Accounts of Captivity and Redemption, 1676-1724, ed. by Alden T. Vaughan and Edward W. Clark (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981)
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Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library/Rare Books
English clothes first appeared in Wampanoag culture when they were given as personal or diplomatic gifts. Rather than everyday clothing, recipients regarded these shirts, shifts, shoes, or stockings as highly valuable luxury items and often displayed them to indicate status within the Native community.
Wampanoag people made traditional jewelry from bone, stone, shells, wood, and even antlers or claws. After Europeans arrived to fish and trade in the area, many Native people incorporated metals, glass beads, bells, finger rings and earrings into their established style. They also painted their faces and bodies with red or yellow ocher, black from charcoal and graphite, or white from clay.
Wampum was made from the quahog (clam) shell. While often used to make necklaces, earrings and bracelets for adornment, it was also woven into belts in patterns that recorded treaties and other agreements. Dutch traders, realizing how highly Natives valued wampum, began manufacturing it and using it as a type of currency. Different colored beads had different values — purple was the most valuable.
FROM THE RECORD
RECORD:
Indenture, Alice Grinder to Isaack Allerton, November 24, 1633
In the 17th century, family meant all members of a household under the master, including wife, children, servants and apprentices. Through servitude, families created a work force to match their needs. Children who could not be supported at home were sent out to work, and other individuals hired to fulfill the tasks at hand. By working away from home, English children learned trades, formed useful contacts, earned the money necessary for establishing their future home and relieved their families of financial support. Sixty percent of all English between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four spent time in service. By 1640, indentured servants made up 2/3 of the English emigrants to the Americas (including the West Indies).
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Alice sailed to New England on the ship James in 1633.
In England, masters often agreed to give their servants clothes or land at the end of their contract. Plymouth passed no laws requiring such “freedom dues,” but gifts of clothing were common. Clothing held considerable value in the 17th century: in a 1633 probate inventory, a waistcoat and petticoat were worth six English shillings. What was six shillings worth? It would buy 1,000 great farthingale pins or pay a wet-nurse for one month’s service.
Going into service required a written agreement signed by both the servant and the master. The contract or “indenture” included the terms and conditions of service, length of service, and payment. Most indentures in Plymouth lasted five to seven years.
“Alice Grinder acknowledgeth herself to be the servant of Mr. Isaack Allerton for five yeares next ensuing during which terme the said Isaack to maintaine the said Alice foode and raymt competent for a servant, and at the end thereof the said Isaack to give her two sutes of appell.” pg. 20, Plymouth Colony Records, 1:20
Photograph by Kristen Oney. Courtesy of Plymouth County Commissioners Office
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HER MONTHLY TERMS
MENSTRUATION IN EARLY NEW ENGLAND
It was the custom of many Eastern Woodland communities for Native women to live apart from the rest of the people during menstruation. In southern New England, a Native woman stayed in a small house reserved for that purpose. Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow recorded the custom for the Wampanoag, saying: “When a woman hath her monthly terms, she separateth herself from all other company, and liveth certain days in a house alone; after which, she washeth herself, and all that she hath touched or used, and is again received to her husband’s bed and family.” Seclusion could last four to six days. Roger Williams wrote of similar practices among the Narragansett, saying, “They have often asked me if it be so with women of other Nations...and for their practice they plead Nature and Tradition.” Since ancient times, many Native peoples have believed that male and female powers were complementary in their normal states. A woman was viewed as a producer of life, which was a powerful force. But during menstruation, the female reproductive system is purifying itself, and contact with
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such a woman would result in the weakening of male power. For the health of the family, particularly the men, a menstruating woman would absent herself from normal contact with others. Certain taboos were observed by the woman in seclusion. Family members brought food to the secluded woman, and after her cycle was over, she washed herself before returning to the household. Very little is known about English menstrual practice. There was no social isolation, although intercourse was avoided, because it was believed that children conceived during menstruation might be monstrous births. As far as hygienic practice, one historian has suggested a linen pad was used. In the Pilgrim period, “menstruous cloth” and “menstruous rag” were also used in general parlance as synonyms of “filth.” Both the Geneva Bible (1560) and the King James Bible (1611) render Isaiah 30:22 in the same language: “And ye shal pollute the covering of the images of silver, and the rich ornament of thine images of golde & cast them away as a menstruous cloth, and thou shalt say unto it, ‘Get thee hence.’”
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