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The war created special problems for women whose husbands had gone off to fight. Army pay was low and inconsistent, so these women had to support their families.
They also had to protect themselves and their children from enemy soldiers. Farm women had to learn how to do the men’s work of planting and harvesting. But they still had to run their households. Along with feeding their families, they had to grow enough food to supply the army. Nonfarming women sometimes took over their husbands’ businesses. Some were quite successful. Others eventually sold the businesses because they had no training to run them.
◀ In June 1779, British General Henry Clinton encouraged slaves owned by Patriots to escape. He promised that once they got behind British lines they would be free. In South Carolina and Georgia alone, 10,000 slaves followed his advice. Some did get their freedom after the war. But most of these men and women met a cruel fate. British officers sold some of them to work on sugar plantations in the West Indies. Others were returned to their masters.
◀ Colonial society considered it shameful for women to take public positions. But Esther Reed gathered the support of 36 leading Philadelphia women. They formed an association to raise money for Washington’s army. After raising nearly $300,000, the women made 2,200 linen shirts for the fighting men. Other Patriot women sewed regimental banners, knitted socks for soldiers, and wove cloth for uniforms.
When troops were in the area, women often had to let officers stay in their homes. They lost privacy. They had to share food, which was in short supply. They also had to do more household chores. Sometimes they faced abusive behavior and the destruction of property.
The story is that seamstress Betsy Ross made the first flag for the new country. But the first time her grandson told that story was almost 100 years after the Revolution began. Today, most historians question his story, since no written records support it. Still, Ross was a staunch Patriot. She lost two husbands to the cause. That left her with two small children to support. ▶
Many Loyalist women fled to British-held areas. They often came to refugee camps without a penny. Near the end of 1781, there was a camp at Charleston, South Carolina. More than 200 Loyalist refugee women and children died there every day from disease or exhaustion.
Colonial women were expected to do housework. Politics and business were men’s work. But many women put their anti-British opinions in writing. Mercy Otis Warren (right) published plays that made fun of Loyalists. Phillis Wheatley, a slave of Loyalists, wrote poems supporting the Patriot cause. Many people spread false rumors, but publisher Mary Katherine Goddard was known for printing the truth in her Baltimore newspaper. That’s why the Second Continental Congress chose her to publish the copies of the Declaration of Independence that were distributed to the states. ▶
