By Rosemary Johnson, B.A. in History and Museum Studies, Christopher Newport University (’26), and Sheri Shuck-Hall, PhD, Professor of History, Christopher Newport University
During the eighteenth century, American women faced severe social and legal restrictions that limited their ability to publicly participate in the resistance against British imperial rule. Discouraged by societal norms from voicing political opinions, women engineered alternative methods to support the revolutionary cause. While traditional military histories often overlook their contributions, female patriots actively sustained the domestic and economic fronts of the conflict.
By leading boycotts on British imports, mobilizing community fundraising campaigns, managing seditious printing presses, and manufacturing essential military supplies, diverse groups of women throughout the Atlantic World converted traditional domestic spaces into battlegrounds for political resistance. This exhibit examines how white, enslaved Black, and Indigenous women in Virginia navigated oppressive legal frameworks to assert political agency and reshape the trajectory of the American Revolution.
Working within an Oppressive System: Eighteenth-Century Womanhood
The legal and social status of women in the early American colonies remained rigidly restrictive. Primarily confined to the domestic sphere, women faced societal expectations to find fulfillment exclusively in marriage, motherhood, and household management. While specific experiences varied significantly across lines of socioeconomic class, age, region, and race, the overarching educational framework for young women focused heavily on preparing them for matrimony. Curricula emphasized domestic crafts such as embroidery, which functioned as a public display of refined education, patience, and skill tailored for potential marriage prospects. Educational norms also discouraged women from engaging in public affairs or discussing political philosophy.[1]
Furthermore, the survival of historical documentation and material artifacts concerning eighteenth-century women remains highly uneven due to long-standing historiographical biases regarding whose records merited preservation. Under the English common law doctrine of coverture, a married woman possessed no legal identity independent of her husband; she could not own property, execute contracts, or initiate divorce proceedings.[2]
For African American women in the American South, the vast majority of whom endured chattel slavery, racial oppression compounded gender barriers, stripping them of virtually all legal and bodily autonomy. Because surviving documentation predominantly reflects the perspectives of elite, literate white women, a comprehensive analysis of the revolutionary era requires historians to interrogate a broader, more diverse spectrum of female experiences.[3]
The Power of the Purse: Consumption as Political Protest
The imposition of British imperial taxation throughout the 1760s and 1770s generated widespread resistance across the American colonies. Parliament passed legislation such as the Sugar Act of 1764, which disrupted the colonial molasses trade, and the Stamp Act of 1765, which levied taxes on legal documents and paper products, igniting broad revolutionary sentiment. The subsequent Townshend Acts placed duties on essential imported goods, including glass, paint, paper, and tea.
While disenfranchised from petitioning Parliament or participating in official legislative assemblies, colonial women leveraged their roles as primary household consumers to launch powerful counter-protests. By organizing consumer boycotts of British imports, women redirected household expenditures toward the domestic economy and altered transatlantic trade patterns.[4]
This capacity for political mobilization manifested clearly in local media reports. On November 3, 1774, the Virginia Gazette, published by Clementina Rind, informed the public of an unprecedented political demonstration in North Carolina. At the Edenton Tea Party, a political assembly of fifty-one women publicly signed a declaration of a total boycott of British tea and manufactured cloth. Rind reprinted the group’s manifesto alongside the names of every female signatory. This public declaration directly defied contemporary gender conventions, representing an overt, organized entry of women into the formal political sphere.[5]
Threads for Freedom: Domestic Production as Economic Warfare
Before the imperial crisis, spinning thread symbolized quiet, domestic femininity in colonial households. However, the non-importation movements transformed this traditional craft into a visible tool of economic resistance. To counter British textile tariffs, women organized “spinning bees,” converting communal social gatherings into productive manufacturing hubs. The domestic production of textiles became so central to female identity that the term “spinster”—originally a job title for unmarried women specializing in yarn production—became deeply embedded in the era’s legal and social vocabulary.[6]
In the Southern colonies, the dynamics of the homespun movement were deeply shaped by the institution of race-based chattel slavery. While wealthy white women in Virginia embraced homespun garments as symbols of political patriotism, elite plantation mistresses generally managed and delegated the physical labor rather than executing it themselves. Instead, enslaved women performed the grueling tasks of carding, spinning, and weaving the raw fiber into utilitarian fabrics. Consequently, textile production in the revolutionary South highlighted the starkly divergent realities of race and class—serving as a political statement for white elites while multiplying the forced labor burdens of enslaved Black women.[7]
Despite these labor disparities, homespun clothing emerged as a potent cultural symbol of public virtue. The Virginia Gazette celebrated this political shift following a formal ball hosted by the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg. Rather than wearing fashionable European imports, nearly one hundred upper-class women attended the gala in locally produced attire. The publication lauded the display, noting:
“…Ladies on this occasion, who, to the number of near one hundred, appeared in homespun gowns; a lively and striking instance of their acquiescence; and concurrence in whatever may be the true and essential interest of their country. It were to be wished that all assemblies of American ladies would exhibit a like example of public virtue and private economy, so amiably united.” — Virginia Gazette, December 14, 1769 [8]
Promoting and Organizing Female Patriots
Eighteenth-century newspapers served as the primary vehicles for information, community organizing, and ideological alignment across the Atlantic World. Following her husband’s death in 1773, Clementina Rind assumed control of the Williamsburg printing press, navigating the challenges of being a widow, a single mother, and the colony’s official public printer. Eighteenth-century newspapers served as the primary vehicles for information, community organizing, and ideological alignment across the Atlantic World. Following her husband’s death in 1773, Clementina Rind assumed control of the Williamsburg printing press, navigating the challenges of being a widow, a single mother, and the colony’s official public printer.[9]
Voted by the Virginia House of Burgesses to retain her position as the colony’s official printer, Rind utilized the Virginia Gazette to cultivate public support for the patriot cause. She frequently criticized British imperial policies and used her front page to rally female readers to action. For instance, on September 15, 1774, Rind published a prominent letter urging Virginian women to completely renounce the consumption of imported tea, leveraging her editorial power to expand female political activism on the eve of independence.
Enslaved Black Women and the Dual Struggle for Liberty
While white colonists campaigned for political independence from Great Britain, enslaved Black women waged a continuous, parallel battle for basic human emancipation from chattel slavery. Operating under a legal code that classified them as property, enslaved women exploited wartime disruptions to secure freedom for themselves and their families through escape, manumission petitions, and freedom suits.
In 1797, an enslaved woman named Ann Williams successfully sued her enslaver, Dr. James Craik, arguing that he had violated Virginia law by failing to take a mandatory statutory oath regarding the origin of persons brought into the commonwealth.[10] Williams won her case, achieving full legal liberation.
Other women leveraged the military conflict by escaping directly to British lines following Dunmore’s Proclamation of 1775, which promised freedom to any enslaved individuals who defected from rebel masters to aid the Crown. Among these freedom seekers was Mary Perth, who escaped to the British military outpost at Mile’s End along with her three daughters. Despite facing subsequent re-enslavement risks and wartime deprivation, Perth survived the conflict and evacuated with British loyalists to Nova Scotia, eventually establishing herself as a prominent landowner and businesswoman in Sierra Leone.[11]
Fundraising for Liberty: The Ladies Association
Women also provided direct material and financial assistance to the Continental Army through organized civic fundraising. Spearheaded by Esther de Berdt Reed in Pennsylvania, the Ladies Association formed to secure emergency funding for a severely depleted and under-resourced American military. Martha Washington actively joined the initiative, contributing $20,000 in Continental currency of her own funds and recruiting prominent Southern women, including Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, to lead regional chapters.[12]
The association raised over $300,000 in paper currency. Although Reed originally intended to distribute the cash donations directly to the soldiers, General George Washington requested that the funds be used to manufacture clothing instead. The women purchased linen and organized large-scale sewing circles, ultimately manufacturing and delivering over 2,200 shirts to the Continental troops by December 1780. This collective mobilization established an organizational model for future female-led charitable and political associations in the United States.[13]
Matrilineal Authority: Nanyehi and Cherokee Diplomacy
In stark contrast to the restrictive legal frameworks governing Euro-American women, Cherokee society operated on a matrilineal system that granted women significant political, economic, and diplomatic authority. Born in the Cherokee capital of Chota, Nanyehi (known to Euro-Americans as Nancy Ward) held the prestigious title of Ghigau, or “Beloved Woman.” This office granted her an influential voice in tribal councils, leadership over the Women’s Council, and the authority to determine the fate of prisoners of war.[14]
During the Revolutionary War, as the Cherokee Nation faced displacement and scorched-earth campaigns executed by colonial militias, Nanyehi advocated for diplomatic peace. She frequently released or protected white captives, which prompted the Virginia militia to spare her home village during retaliatory raids in 1776.[15] Addressing the Virginia treaty commissioners, Nanyehi emphasized the shared humanity of mothers across battle lines, declaring:
“This peace must last forever. Let your women’s sons be ours; your sons be ours. Let your women hear our words.” — Nanyehi (Nancy Ward) to the Virginia Treaty Commissioners, 1777
As the United States pressured the Cherokee Nation to assimilate into Western cultural norms during the early national period, federal officials actively discouraged women’s political leadership. In a 1796 address, George Washington encouraged the Cherokee people to abandon their traditional gender roles and adopt Western customs, urging Cherokee women to restrict themselves to domestic spinning and weaving.[16] Nanyehi remained the last traditional Beloved Woman of the Cherokee, representing a powerful legacy of female governance that stood in direct opposition to the patriarchal norms of the new American Republic.[17]
Redefining Liberty
The historical records of the American Revolution demonstrate that the struggle for freedom was not fought exclusively on conventional battlefields by male soldiers. As the distinct experiences of political organizers, enslaved laborers, widowed printers, and Indigenous leaders demonstrate, eighteenth-century women actively drove the social and economic currents of the war. By reinterpreting these narratives through the lens of material culture and documentary evidence, this exhibit moves beyond traditional military histories to reveal a more complex, transnational revolution—one where diverse women continuously challenged, adapted, and redefined the boundaries of liberty.
Experience the History Firsthand: To explore these artifacts and preserved historic landscapes, visitors are encouraged to experience this history in person. The galleries, living history sites, and educational exhibitions are open to the public at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation museums in Williamsburg and Yorktown, Virginia. By engaging directly with the physical spaces and material culture of the period, modern audiences can better appreciate how these historic women challenged contemporary limitations to forge their own paths toward freedom.
About the Author
Rosemary Johnson received her B.A. in History with minors in Museum Studies and Art History in 2026. She completed this digital exhibition project during her undergraduate internship within the education department at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Following graduation, she plans to continue her work as a Learning Facilitator at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation while pursuing a career in museum education and public history.
Notes
[1] Lillian Faderman, Woman: The American History of an Idea (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022), 36-61.
[2] Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect & Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 7-15.
[3] Ibid., 22-32.
[4] Sudie Doggett Wike, Women in the American Revolution (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2018), 17-34; Kaylan M. Stevenson, “Until Liberty of Importation is Allowed: Milliners and Mantuamakers in the Chesapeake on the Eve of Revolution,” in Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World, ed. Barbara B. Oberg (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019), 39-41.
[5] “Edenton, North Carolina, October 25, 1774,” Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, VA), November 3, 1774; Inez Parker Cumming, “The Edenton Ladies’ Tea-Party,” The Georgia Review 8, no. 4 (1954): 389–95.
[6] Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth (New York: Random House, 2001), 116.
[7] Faderman, Woman: The American History of an Idea, 55; Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980), 162-69. (Year corrected from 1750 to 1980)
[8] Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, VA), December 14, 1769, 2.
[9] Martha J. King, “Widowed Printer of Williamsburg,” in Virginia Women: Their Lives and Times, vol. 1, ed. Cynthia A. Kierner and Sandra Gioia Treadway (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015), 74-84.
[10] Michael L. Nicholls, “Strangers Setting among Us: The Sources and Challenge of the Urban Free Black Population of Early Virginia,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 108, no. 2 (2000): 160-61.
[11] Cassandra Pybus, “’One Militant Saint’: The Much Traveled Life of Mary Perth,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 9, no. 3 (2008).
[12] Mary V. Thompson, “’As if I Had Benn a Very Great Somebody’, Trimmed,” in Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World, ed. Barbara B. Oberg (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019), 138-40.
[13] Kerber, Women of the Republic, 99-102.
[14] Ben Harris McClary, “Nancy Ward: The Last Beloved Woman of the Cherokees,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 21, no. 4 (1962): 352–64.
[15] General Nathanael Greene Papers, Library of Congress, quoted in Samuel Cole Williams, Tennessee During the Revolutionary War (Nashville: Tennessee Historical Commission, 1944), 201.
[16] George Washington, “To the Cherokee Nation,” September 29, 1796, quoted in Faderman, Woman: The American History of an Idea, 41.
[17] McClary, “Nancy Ward: The Last Beloved Woman of the Cherokees,” 352–64.