Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Wives for Sale: The Colonial Jamestown Story
59 Plays3 months ago
This week's episode explores the intricate cultural and social dynamics of early Jamestown. Delve into the lives of the Jamestown Brides, women who were hand picked to raise and fund the colony, and uncover how their presence shaped the colony's social fabric.
Sources: Jamestown Brides
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction: Jamestown Brides vs. Casket Girls
00:00:15
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Harlots and Hurses. I am your host, Grace Artis. And this week's episode, I decided that, you know, i hadn't had enough of James Brown and I just wanted to keep diving into it more specifically because I had remembered book I had read and the topic was already really interesting to me because it reminded me of the second episode of Harlots and hearsts that we did over um the casket girls and how they were brought over to New Orleans to colonize the colony of Louisiana.
Strategic Planning: Women as Wives for Settlers
00:00:55
Speaker
And so this is kind of in a similar tone of the colony of Jamestown and how women were brought over here.
00:01:04
Speaker
this kind of hitting off right where... and started up so this whole week's episode is going to be over the jamestown bride without further ado let's crock into it and get started so kind of hitting off right where we ended last week's episode off of. The colonists were kind of just coming off of the starving times.
00:01:29
Speaker
The women in this week's episode, they were by no means the first women in Jamestown. um Like i already talked about kind of in last week's, like there were already women established What set these women apart really and truly was that the specific reason why they were brought over. They weren't brought over for indentured servitude. They weren't brought over because they were already married to the men.
00:01:55
Speaker
They were brought over strictly kind like a population reason, as were the women in Louisiana, as were the casket brides. The, it was strategic planning, the reason that these women were chosen and why these women were sent over to Jamestown. That'll kind of
The Journey: Selected Women for Jamestown
00:02:14
Speaker
dive into. To really get this started, we're going to go back to like the late summer, early autumn period of 1621 and three ships.
00:02:22
Speaker
on board three ships It was the Marmaduke, the Warwick, and the Tiger. On those three ships, there were 56 young women of a certified good character and proven skill that were handpicked. That is really key. They were handpicked and selected by the Virginia Company to make wives to the planters and men.
00:02:47
Speaker
ah in the colony. So the oldest that we know, or that's what she claimed, she was 28 and the youngest was barely 16. six So all of them were apparently in good standing. They were young. They were come from a good background, which could have been verified by either members of the Virginia company, knowing their parents, knowing a family member, or as we'll see later on,
00:03:17
Speaker
knowing someone that they worked with. They come highly recommended.
Stabilization and Investment: Women's Role in the Colony
00:03:21
Speaker
The reason that these women were brought over was kind of twofold. The first was it was kind of hoping the colony would be kept afloat long term through helping the unruly men settlers like plant roots, grow a family, grow ties to the land in that way.
00:03:42
Speaker
And then the other reason, one of the main reasons is these women would become a money maker. Now, a huge, huge credit of why we know so much about these women, all 56 of them, is kind of in part due to Nicholas Ferrer and the register that he put with them. So kind of think of it like Gentleman's Jack's pimp list, except these women were by no means prostitutes or anything in that regard.
00:04:11
Speaker
Once again, very high standing. So it was kind of attended as a sales catalog for prospective husbands. So it came with their personal histories, their name, their age, their marital status, birthplace.
00:04:26
Speaker
their father's occupation, any domestic skills that they had, um and then testimonial from their elders or their betters. so for example, i will go in and dive into just a few so we can kind of like feel a little bit closer to these girls itself.
Diverse Backgrounds: Profiles of the Jamestown Brides
00:04:44
Speaker
So this one is kind of like the perfect example of giving all all three. So her name is Alice Burgess, age is 28. she was born at lytton in cambridgeshire her father and mother are dead her father was husbandman she has two brothers one husbandman dwelling at lytton the other soldier she had served three years being a servant with mr collinswood a silk weaver um right out against Chapel Church after she had served a goldsmith in Trinity Lane. She's very skillful in many country works. She can brew, bake, and make malt, which would all have been good things to help over at Jamestown.
00:05:24
Speaker
The next is Catherine Finch. Catherine Finch, age 23. She was born at Maiden's Parish in Herdfordshire. Her father and mother are dead. She was brought by her brother, Mr. Erasmus Finch, dwelling in the Strand, who is a King's crossbow maker, who she is with and in service. She also has two brothers, Edward Finch, locksmith, dwelling in St. Clement Parish in Temple Bar, and John Finch, a crossbow maker as well. And then Cicely Bray, age 25, born in Gloucester.
00:05:58
Speaker
her parents, gentlefolk of good esteem. She's kin of Sir Edwin Sandy, recommended by Mr. Hall. So that just shows kind of like the range that these women had. So you have two whose parents are dead, but they come highly recommended of good servitude.
00:06:13
Speaker
And then you have one who is a member of the gentry, just kind of showing the ranges of these women. Now, so out of the 56 women, to kind of break it down, so six were the daughters of gentry or claimed gentry relatives, while the rest presented a middling England kind of background with fathers, brothers, uncles working in respectable trades.
00:06:35
Speaker
And so this is where they come recommended by either members of the city of London or investors and employees. And their situation is really what set them apart and what made them really stand out. And like I said, they were not the first 56 women of Jamestown.
00:06:55
Speaker
The actual first credit to the first two women of Jamestown will actually go to Mistress Forrest, who accompanied her husband, Thomast, in 1609 and her maidservant Anne Burris, who had actually married three months later. Mistress Forrest, we don't know much about what happened to her after it's believed that she died. However, we do know that Anne would go on to live a very long time and it's actually Anne's success.
00:07:27
Speaker
that would prove that women were capable of surviving the harsh Virginia climate and kind of giving weight to the proverb that hogs and women thrive well in Virginia. Her story as well would also go on to give the governor at the time, Sir Francis Watt, kind of the fuel, if you will, to welcome the brides of Jamestown and to suggest the weaker sex, quote unquote, um were more suitable to survive Virginia's unhealthy climate than men.
00:08:02
Speaker
And so it was essentially from those two women on 1609 that the Virginia Company would actively encourage women as well as men to join in the colonial adventure, as they would describe it.
00:08:17
Speaker
So then we know coming before the starving period, so in that really harsh winter in 1609, there would be another influx of settlers.
00:08:27
Speaker
With that influx, we don't know the specific amount of women and that were included in that. And this is all kind of bringing up to the question, so where are the brides fitting in with this?
00:08:42
Speaker
If we are seeing a slow and steady influx of women coming to the colonies, why is the Virginia Company kind of having to step in and kind of act as you will as a matchmaker to try and get more women to like intervene.
Financial Challenges and Motivations for Male Settlers
00:09:00
Speaker
The first is that the Virginia company in Jamestown were really struggling finances for finances and for money.
00:09:11
Speaker
Virginia company stock, it was failing. it was going down and they were not getting and keeping enough men to maintain and grow the tobacco. And from what we know is that Jamestown, it needed two different types of women. One, honest wives to give male settlers a reason to put down roots in the colony and want to stay.
00:09:34
Speaker
Okay. The second were hardworking women who were willing to undertake the work it took to a and not only like the housewife duties of the time, but also the duties required to work in a tobacco field and all the labor that required. So from 1608,
00:09:58
Speaker
ah wait Yes, both sorts of women had been coming into the colony. However, it was not in large enough numbers. The male to a female ratio was still very heavily skewed with the numbers like rarely exceeding like one woman to every six men.
00:10:19
Speaker
Since there were so few colonists, men or women who were willing to like put themselves out there to put in the work because the men were kind of seeing this as like a temporary situation of like, why am I going to put in all of this work hard term if I'm like not going to stay here?
00:10:41
Speaker
it kind of forced the Virginia company to step in and try to take matters in at their own hands. So their first solution was, okay, we're just going to take the criminal route.
00:10:56
Speaker
So taking in all of the vagrants off of the streets of England, and that will help with the labor shortage. However, kind of like what you expect if people aren't willing to work in England and they're being unruly there. If you bring them to colony where there's less supervision and there's kind of less reward incentive, they're not going to want to work even more. So the unruly adults, if you will, the vagrants, are
00:11:31
Speaker
where they did not answer the Virginia company's prayers. And it was said that, for they will ever live like rogues and not fall to work, but be lazy and do mischief. And that's kind of just what they did. So they were still in a labor shortage. So...
00:11:48
Speaker
You got kind of like the adult situation's not working. So the next solution that the Virginia company came up with was like, okay, so adults aren't working.
00:11:58
Speaker
What if, what if we just get all the vagrant children and the youths that are just chilling on the streets of London? What if we just get them and ship them off to the colonies? And when I say children, I'm like meaning legit children, like under the ages of 12.
00:12:16
Speaker
And this was girls as well as boys because they thought, okay, since they're since they're literally children, they'll be more pliable. They'll be more like willing to work.
00:12:27
Speaker
So they gathered up a hundred of them, brought them up to Virginia, And kind of like told them, we'll teach you a trade. We'll kind of hover your expenses. You'll be like assigned a master, like an apprentice or in servitude. So as long as you can fulfill that, you'll be fine. The company was very grateful for it.
00:12:52
Speaker
But the thing was, what the company also ultimately decided was they didn't really need children. children are great, and the children proved to be really good servants, an indentured servitude, and and apprentices, which was good for work.
00:13:07
Speaker
And this is specifically because when the city, when Virginia Company asked for children again For the second time, they asked for 100 more. They're like, oh by the way, can we have 100 more kids?
00:13:25
Speaker
This time, they be actually over the age of 12? And 12 to upwards. London was like, yeah, we can do that.
00:13:36
Speaker
So where they kind of found the children now was more so like the prison systems. Specifically where they found the girls, eight of them were Bridewell. was And the Bridewell prison for women was specifically known for disorderly women, known of bad behavior. If these girls were prostitutes, we don't know.
00:14:03
Speaker
We can't say. all we know is that they came from the Bridewell, which is... a historically known prison for girls of a disorderly conduct.
00:14:15
Speaker
This would ultimately backfire because kind of the reputation that this lot got of children would get, specifically the women.
00:14:27
Speaker
It was relatively poorly well received. It wasn't well liked. And it was like self-defeating. And a lot of the colonists at the time complained about the girls' behavior and kind of made them very skeptical and made them very like hesitant to kind of like take on any other like female servants like that in the future.
00:14:56
Speaker
Now, we know And the Virginia Company, once again, really, really emphasized that the women settlers were needed more than their labor alone. They were needed to establish a family relations to kind of put down roots.
00:15:14
Speaker
So when ah Sir Edwin Sandys kind of took over running the reigns of Virginia Company in the spring of 1619, he was like, no no no, no, no. We have to get rid of this practice.
00:15:29
Speaker
It's not going to look good for us. It's not going to look good for anyone. We want the like creme de la creme. of the girls. So he decided, know, we can't just call for workers alone. Now we have to start calling for wives. And kind of, it was like in this period and in November, that he kind of started planting the seeds of now sending shiploads of young, marriageable women to the colonies.
Failed Systems: Lottery and Economic Plans
00:16:00
Speaker
Now in the early November 1619.
00:16:02
Speaker
sixty nineteen The colony's finances are looking decent. They're still not failing. They're holding up barely. One of the reasons for this was kind of in part due to the lottery system that the Virginia Company was relying heavily upon to keep funding the colony itself.
00:16:25
Speaker
So I'm part of this lottery system, which I could be wrong on this. I tried to research it heavily, but essentially it's a means of like raising money kind of in a way that we use the lottery system now. They would get suppliers and supporters to donate money um and the means of potentially winning prizes, whether it be land, um potential land in Virginia, other prizes are so-called. And so far it was working-ish.
00:16:54
Speaker
to still keep the company afloat. So because of that, Edward Sandys was like, okay, now is the time that we can send over a shipload of young marriageable woman to kind of carry over, essentially entame the tenants and settlers who were currently living in Jamestown at the time.
00:17:16
Speaker
So any of the men who were living there, if they saw interest in any of the wives, in any of the women who were shipped over by the Virginia Company, all they were asked to do in return was to just reimburse the cost of transportation. Now, with these women, they were shipped over in 1620.
00:17:36
Speaker
They still had the same guidelines and rulings as the ones who would be shipped over it later, and the three ships I talked about. So they still had to be young, uncorrupt to make the wives. This was, is one of the requirements that was listed.
00:17:52
Speaker
Maids young and uncorrupt to make wives to the inhabitants. And by that means to make the men there more settled and less movable, who by defect thereof, as is credibly reported, day there.
00:18:05
Speaker
and so with these sp brides who traveled the Jamestown in the 1620, we don't have a list of who survived. All we know, and one of the main reasons we think because of that is because there was really no profit to be made off of these women like the ones that would follow in 1621. But we do know that come February and March sixteen twenty a total of ninety women
00:18:38
Speaker
would be sent over to Jamestown to be made wives. However, and like I mentioned previously in last week's episode, when something goes really good for Jamestown, then something goes really bad. So the something good is They just sent all of these women over hoping that, you know, it's going to make a change. They're going to get all of these people married.
00:19:04
Speaker
They're going to get a settlement down. They're going to start raising roots and really set up a huge colony that they dreamed of so they can start making a profit, so they can start making money and start paying all their investors back.
00:19:17
Speaker
However, come November 1620, the Virginia Company Council actually admitted that the lottery system that they were using to really fund everything that they thought was working for them, yeah, it was now very much disgraced and they really did not have a reliable source of income anymore because while they were growing tobacco in the colony,
00:19:45
Speaker
and that would be their main cash crop. They just weren't growing it in the amounts needed who recoup their losses, essentially.
00:19:55
Speaker
When King James abruptly ordered the lottery system to be closed down in 1621, the company's finances were thrown in a complete disarray.
00:20:08
Speaker
And it's safe to say the Virginia company bankrupt. panicking on what they were going to do because if they couldn't figure out their finances, they were screwed. And if they're screwed, there would be no more for Virginia Company. Come the summer, there was this proposal on development that was a lot, lot more ambitious than anything they had ever set up before. And with this proposal is where we get the idea of now we're going to send over
00:20:41
Speaker
these women these maids of jamestown if you will and we're gonna have the colonists that are living in jamestown pay for it so it would set up what is called like a joint stock venture or a magazine each would solicit a subscription from an individual adventurer which is what they were calling the a colonist or a person in london who was willing to kind of foot the bill, if you will. And so essentially what they were asking is, hey, if you share the risk of the enterprise, so if you're willing to foot the bill, then if it all works out, then you can get the profits. So one of the magazines were to be a glass workshop for it to create beads.
00:21:28
Speaker
which were one of the main trading sources they had with the Native Americans at the time. The second would be the MAID system. So sending over eligible young women to be married. And then the third would be a fur trade. So the second trade would be sending 100 maids to be maid wives. So the maid subscription appealed to potential investors' Christian duties as well as commercial interests.
00:21:57
Speaker
In part, it dealt to their Christian interest of being like, hey, if you support this, you're also supporting essentially the sad men who are living in Virginia, who are single and who are feeling dejected. And, you know, their hearts, it's a quote here, their hearts inflamed with a desire to return to England only through the wants of the comforts of marriage, without which God saw the man could not live content, now not in paradise.
00:22:30
Speaker
So essentially being like, if you've If you support this, you can help the poor man living in Virginia who is not able to find a wife. So he may now find a wife and be able to live in paradise with her.
00:22:46
Speaker
So he does not stumble in his faith, essentially. And then you also get the economic sense of, hey, if you foot the bill for sending these women over, return, whoever...
00:23:01
Speaker
The women marries, they'll pay you 150 pounds of good tobacco, which essentially would reap them at a profit, it's estimated, after the time of 12 pounds, 10 to 12 pounds, which wasn't a bad return. So the way that the Virginia company was selling this, it's like,
00:23:25
Speaker
hey, this is a win-win for you. You're getting to spread the word of God. You're getting to send over, you know, these young, handsome, educated women, you know, to oh shape and help heal the hearts of these dejected men over there.
00:23:49
Speaker
um You know, how get to like create the bonds and ties of family. Also, if that doesn't appeal to your good Christian senses, you can make some good money doing this. And if that doesn't tie to you alone, we'll also throw in some land as well if you ever do want to make it over to Virginia.
00:24:11
Speaker
So like you really can't lose. On hearing this, the Virginia company did get at least $1,000. 44 subscribers all of which were men to come forward the list is complete but we know at least it was 44. so two-thirds 29 committed the lowest amount that you could give which was eight pounds at the time nine investors subscribed 16 pounds four men advanced 24 pounds and then the most generous was edwin sandys himself
00:24:49
Speaker
um at 40 pounds and the Earl of Southampton topped the list with 0.42 pounds. So in total, they were ended up just through that alone, ended up raising roughly 560 pounds at the time, which was a little short, but then as it remained open throughout the quarter, they were able to claim that 800 pounds had been raised.
00:25:21
Speaker
and making the women magazine. So the women subscription, which says sounds very weird, making it one of the most popular options of the subscription options.
Journey Conditions: Clothing and Provisions
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah, so not only and four weeks did they have to find the women, do all the planning, figure out the route, everything.
00:25:47
Speaker
They am now had to like furnish them with new clothes and provisions and kind of go through all of the trouble of getting... and storing the women as well in housing till they can get onto the boat and keeping track of all of the arrangements as well. So the clothes that all of the women were provided with were as such.
00:26:11
Speaker
So one petticoat, one waistcoat, two pairs of stockings, one pair of garners, two smocks, one apron, two pairs of shoes, one towel, two cuffs, one cross cloth, as well as worsted wool for darning and yarn for knitting socks.
00:26:28
Speaker
And these were all made of linen or wool. The only touches of luxury that the woman had were a white lamb glove, and this would be given if the woman were married. A few of the women took small chests or bundles with their own belongings, but that is really it.
00:26:44
Speaker
And aside from the clothes that they were wearing, the woman would have had with them at best a small bag of percival personal effects, leaving them without a proper change of clothes for the long voyage. So...
00:26:58
Speaker
From what we know, the Jamestown Brides above the Marmaduke ship were crammed with a total of 80 passengers and a crew between 14 18 officers ship that measured no more then ah hundred and sixteen feet from prowl to stern and nearly 25 feet wide.
00:27:21
Speaker
So it was not that big of a ship for that many people to be staying on. And the women were said to share a bed that was like a canvas type bed. So two each.
00:27:34
Speaker
So on the Marmaduke itself, there were 13 women. included So two of those women were London born and bred, but then most of them were living in London at the time they fell into the Virginics company net, either working in service with family members or respectable citizens who could vouch for their honesty and industry.
00:27:56
Speaker
A lot had lost either one or both parents, but socially these women were far from castoffs. As many as five of the original dozen were daughters of gentlemen or gentlefolks.
00:28:09
Speaker
And the other Marbonuke mates had fathers, brothers, uncles, or cousins who worked in respectable trades, like saddlers, husbandmen, soldiers, wire drawers, grocers, printers, or merchants, gardeners, or shoemakers.
00:28:25
Speaker
So in professions that were highly useful and would have been in contact with the Virginia company itself. The Virginia company and their listing with all of these women took pains to kind of like write about all their accomplishments like we saw earlier. So on the Warwick ship.
00:28:45
Speaker
So this one had the most of the Jamestown maids. So it was 36 maids and young women that were assembled by the Virginia company as part of the money-making plan. So the Warwick women were kind of less prestigious.
00:29:01
Speaker
If you will, then the Marmodic women, which is four out of the 36 claiming gentry status, but their fathers and family men as well could still claim that high worker status of being cloth workers, cutlers, drapers, bakers, tailors, and the such. 11 of the Warwick women were born in London. Middlesex are Westminster and then 17 came from elsewhere. and then the birthplaces of eight are unknowns.
00:29:33
Speaker
What's interesting about the Warwick women, however, less is placed upon their skill level and more so is placed on their background and standing in kind of um moral worth.
00:29:50
Speaker
So stock phrases like to be called honest and a faithful servant were honest and sober. Those are very popular phrases. And kind of like one of the theories that behind this is because these girls were coming from a more humble background and from more of like a working class. It was already kind of like assumed that they were hard workers.
00:30:12
Speaker
So their background and kind of moral worth needed to be emphasized more to show that they were up good standing. And kind of with the Warwick women, it shows more so like how the women themselves were recruited since less came from gentry and those known of like connections.
00:30:31
Speaker
So many of its women held a Virginia company recruited them. A lot came through word of mouth and like personal acquaintance. This just like one instance. So, Mistress Cuff, wife to company bookkeeper John Cuff, could vouch for Mistress Gilbert of Holborn, who in turn commended the young daughter of a hat maker, Jean Jones.
00:30:55
Speaker
And so... kind of one person recommended the other person, recommended the other person of all being in good standing. So that's one way. And then if they didn't personally know each other, um another way was coming through members of the city or guild itself.
00:31:12
Speaker
So officials of London's great library companies such as Mr. Holbsten, an official of the Draper's Company, vouched for the honest caribage of Parnell Trenton and praised Ellen Bourne as in born as a sober and industrious maid.
00:31:29
Speaker
So those are just kind of like the two routes that they took. Now, once the women... got to and keep in mind these women are still kind of being told the lie that when you get to virginia virginia is a great edenistic place it's a land flowing of milk and honey is you're gonna meet your husband there it's gonna be great you're gonna do great things
00:32:01
Speaker
You're going to have to work, but it's going to be great. And like we know with Jamestown, that's not the case. And that will kind of just be so relevant and prevalent.
00:32:13
Speaker
And that will be so prevalent once these women literally get to shore.
Reality vs. Promises: Conditions in Jamestown
00:32:17
Speaker
Once the women arrived, they were met and greeted by John Pountas, who was like the company's main agent.
00:32:24
Speaker
So his instructions to the maids were literally, that came directly from the Virginia company, were... were to take the woman into their care, to see that they were housed, lodged, and fed until they could be married and to do it fast.
00:32:41
Speaker
How he managed to do that was all up into him, but he had to do it. He had to do it fast. Once the women got there, they saw that everything was fashioned out of timber and muddy earth, essentially slapped together with wooden frames or crudely patched in a make-to-do sasha and And the reason behind this is, and one of the settlers is quoted by saying, like, we're just meant to live here. This is not made for ornamentation. Like, this is not made to look pretty. This is made to literally just house us so we can get everything done.
00:33:19
Speaker
And it's kind still going along with like that Jamestown like mentality of like Jamestown literally prior to when these women got there like they had had the church and the town built and it was going good and then one of the governors left and it fell into disarray.
00:33:35
Speaker
So they had to come back and build it up, and then it fell into disarray. And then one of the governors left, and then it fell into disarray. And so they had just built it back up, and this is kind of like what the women were walking into.
00:33:48
Speaker
And what the women noticed, too, is they were leaving a town of London that was hustling and bustling and had amenities like taverns and theaters.
00:33:59
Speaker
and bustling marketplaces and shops places of entertainment and now they're coming to a bare bones town literally made of mud and wood and the only and the only places there are church a whipping post and um a guard house and barely two dozen houses in all and then at some times 50 to 60 houses, just depending on the period. So it's really rough bones.
00:34:34
Speaker
And sometimes even the church wasn't as a right, so it's not great. So the women get there, they go to the church to give thanks, and then Countess is like, oh shit, I have 56 women and I don't have enough houses.
00:34:53
Speaker
and in places to store 56 women because there's no hotel, there's no inn, they don't have a guest house. They've been wanting to build a guest house, but ah the colonists of Jamestown are just literally so just trying to survive and build their own houses that they're not even focused on building a guest house for visitors.
00:35:14
Speaker
Kind of the next task set apart for good old for good old john p was oh shoot yeah i have to find chaperone accommodations for all you guys now and this is really hard too because there's not enough provisions for everyone and city of london and the virginia company didn't care some of the women could remain aboard the ship but that proved troublesome because the ship could only remain at the dock for a fortnight which is 14 days
00:35:50
Speaker
And then this also wasn't ideal because if they're on the ship, they're away from the main planters and men of the city that they're trying to like engage with.
00:36:02
Speaker
So some of the better born brides from the gentry may have been placed by Sir Francis Wyatt in the governor's small house inside the fort. And then some may have also been housed by the Reverend Wyatt, who was deemed as a good man. So some have been housed there, as well as with the Reverend Richard Buck.
00:36:28
Speaker
Now that's all good, but there's still more women to deal with. So then the solution was to be, let's just take you to they call them ancient planters and to just qualify as an ancient planter. You just had to be there since like,
00:36:48
Speaker
16, 15, 16, 16 and on. um And those were just homesteads that were just further down the river. but John P. didn't like that because he was like, the whole point of you guys being here is to be seen by these prospective men. And you can't do that if you're on a homestead miles up the river, like sanctioned off.
00:37:13
Speaker
But there's not much you can do. when you don't have sufficient housing. So they kind of made the best with what they did. Like I've been saying, and like the Virginia company has been saying, they wanted these marriages to happen fast. a it's to get their money back.
00:37:32
Speaker
Like, because these men have been, the Virginia company, the men behind it, the men who are supporting the magazine subscriptions, they've been fronting the whole bill for this.
00:37:43
Speaker
They've been supplying the voyages over. They paid for all of the women's goods, all the food up to this point. So now they're like, okay, we want our money back. So we're not just eating money. And then also another reason why they wanted to do these marriages fast because when the women arrived in December,
00:38:08
Speaker
And the period in which it was acceptable culturally to get married was very
Cultural Norms and Economic Disparities
00:38:16
Speaker
short. So apparently the period between Advent and Lent were traditionally forbidden for weddings in the Protestant Church of England.
00:38:26
Speaker
It was just very heavily frowned upon. Now, while some local clergy members often ignored the church's calendar, even some Puritan preachers still heavily avoided going against us, as there was like a saying that married and lent, you'll surely repent. And it was just a very, a very superstitious thing of not to do. Another thing was, like, the Virginia Company, while they insisted that these women could pick and had their choice of men, there were very much stipulations on who the women could pick.
00:39:06
Speaker
The women and the price is associated with them, like, it was not cheap. The price required to do the bride price or the dowry, if you will, to give was 150 pounds in weight of good tobacco, which was a lot tobacco. So it's said that depending on the person, if it's a master carpenter, bricklayer,
00:39:35
Speaker
artisan, they could come up with that sum in as quickly as 115 days or 150 days. However, in the colony's early days, you know, few artisans actually traveled independently to the colony. So most workmen came as, you know, indentured servants or company tenants.
00:39:57
Speaker
Essentially, they had to commit themselves to work between four to seven years. Once they paid that off, then they can start saving up tenants technically did fare better you know their contracts generally allowed them to keep half of their product as their labor and and then passing the rest of the product to the company to kind of pay off their debts but no matter like what it would be the arrangement that was put in place between the virginia company the brides john p and the governor to the match the planter to the brides it pretty much was established that it was going to keep the poor settlers away kind of only keep kind of like the creme de la crop which is fine but there were a lot of complaints from the poor settlers
00:40:47
Speaker
and complaining that like the men of the lower status, the lower tenants, the lower artisans, they really never stood a chance, which would ultimately end up kind of hurting to bite the Virginia company in the butt.
00:41:04
Speaker
and kind of end up hurting the brides later on. And realistically, it showed that only like settlers and established planters were likely to have sufficient capitals to secure the brides in the first place. However, while this is all good and dandy, you also have to think of it from this perspective.
00:41:26
Speaker
of that if you're coming from a man's perspective and you have money with the price it is to buy to buy a bride so 150 pounds of tobacco you can either buy a bride or you could buy two houses and six acres of land, which like, if you really think about it, having land is kind of worth more than having a wife, especially just because you have a wife that doesn't guarantee you land, especially if you view it as like this way, when you had a wife, when you
00:42:07
Speaker
paid the dowry, the bride price, it was like and very much stated that you could not treat your wife as a servant. Understandably so. You kind of had to treat her as an equal. However, working the land was a very labor intensive detail. So with that in mind, just because you bought a bride didn't mean you essentially entered a partnership with someone who was willing to work the land with you Also, from a purely commercial transaction, buying one of the brides was twice as expensive as buying an indentured maidservant, which would cost about £6 for crossing the Atlantic and £4 for like clothing and such. Now, if you married the maidservant who had not completed her servitude, you were expected to pay her master, but that was not always the case.
00:43:05
Speaker
So looking at it from purely like taking a step back and like a comparative analysis background, it kind of made more sense to not waste the money on a bride, but instead, hey, I'm going to take this money and invest it in land where I can get two houses and six acres of land and then maybe get myself a maidservant.
00:43:28
Speaker
where I have a chance of falling in love with her, just as much as I have a chance of falling in love with a random woman. I have the same odds. And at least with a maidservant, I can maybe get land additionally, and I'm still out the same amount as my name. And sadly going on to these women again, they did not arrive in the best of circumstances, like yeah at all. So these women, the 56 brides who followed, they followed the wake of the 90 women who came before. And we know with the women who came before, they came at a much cheaper price. Because remember, all the men had to do before it was just cover their transportation. Those men were actually able to claim land when they married the women, the 90 women.
00:44:18
Speaker
Whereas with these maids, the Jamestown maids, as I will refer them, the ones who came, 1621, anyone who married them weren't allowed to claim land due to the Virginia's company stipulation. And it seemed that the earlier brides as well were able to have much more success at securing husbands than the ones who came 1621.
00:44:43
Speaker
in sixteen twenty one Kind of what did happen aboard the to ah fifty six women who were aboarded the Marmaduke, the Warwick, and the Tiger.
00:44:55
Speaker
So what we know, some unmarriage deal was quickly brokered. We don't know the exact amount. We do know from a Virginia Company record, in a list of achievements for the year 1621,
00:45:09
Speaker
It was said that ah the Virginia Company recorded the arrivals of ships bringing new people to the colony. Among them young women sent to make wives for the planters, divers of which were well married before coming away of the ships.
00:45:23
Speaker
So divers is a slippery word that can mean a lot of things, anywhere between many and a few. But... Thanks to records and kind of incenses, we're able to at least know that at least seven maids, so seven of the 56, were able to find themselves husbands. Even if we don't specifically know when or where the marriages took place.
00:45:52
Speaker
Of the 13 women who arrived on the Marmaduke, we can reasonably say that two married ancient planters. So the 23-year-old Catherine Finch and the 19-year-old Audrey Hoare.
00:46:07
Speaker
And then we also know that one by the name of Elizabeth married John Downman, but we can't trace which of the Elizabeths married her. Then we know two settlers, Thomas Dowdy and Nicholas Bailey. They each married an Anne.
00:46:25
Speaker
We don't know which Anne. Then the question happens of, okay, what happens to the women who didn didn't marry because if only seven of the 56 that's still 49 that went unmarried which is still hot women who fail to find a husband immediately could really not remain in jamestown just because there was just no place for them. It was too small. And, you know, they arrived without any goods or anything like that. So John P. kind of had to find a way to, like, dispatch them to settlements and, like, plantations that were further along and down the river. Now, regardless,
00:47:11
Speaker
of whether or not you ended up married or not. You would have worked long and hard, whether you worked alongside in the fields or whether you were married or not. Idleness was like not an option.
00:47:23
Speaker
was it It was just not. You were expected to work from literally sunup to sundown. So much so that Virginia's like first general assembly insisted that like women should qualify for land shares as ancient planters alongside their menfolk because in a new plantation it's not known whether men or women be the most necessary just because of the amount of work that both genders are putting into the plantation itself in maintaining it.
00:47:52
Speaker
Women typically looked after the animals, tended gardens, fetched water, washed clothes, raised young children, cut the household decently, cleaned and prepared clued. It was women's work to butcher, preserve, and boil the homestead precious hogs and goats into domestic cattle that had arrived in the colony.
00:48:12
Speaker
And then anything linking to the dairy, the women were also expected to maintain. Also, when it was in tobacco season, the women were expected to also help with that as well. So it was literally all hands on deck. It did not matter. However, where things do get tricky for the women is specifically like the ties of kinship and community were kind of still very broken.
00:48:41
Speaker
and scattered, it was more like a restless and fractured society. And you see that with like, you have members of the gentry coming in with low borns and a working class, and they're all working together to try and just survive.
00:48:57
Speaker
So you see kind of like that that fracturedness going all together. And that's also taking place in the household as well. but And it really did not resemble a family-centered group of blood relations and the seasonal help that they had back home because that's gone. You're relying kind of on everyone.
00:49:20
Speaker
And specifically, like, with the women didn't find husbands, you're coming into these houses that already have, like, the women of the house, like, the mistress of the house, if they're there, the wife. And then you have the indentured servant, and then there's you.
00:49:37
Speaker
who is neither. So it's this really weird in-between phase that these women had to learn and navigate with each other and also with these men.
00:49:48
Speaker
Also, while still trying to like find a potential husband and suitor while being in these little communities. It was just a very like interesting like place to be. So while they were trying to like navigate all that, trying to navigate the rations and the food, which is something that they weren't used to, long gone were the grains and now they're trying and the beef and stuff they had back caught home. Now they're trying to get used to the corn, the grains and nuts and berries and natural stuff they have here.
00:50:24
Speaker
and the fish and wild game that is natural to the Jamestown area. Also, another thing that these colonists and women are trying to navigate is they don't have their alcohol anymore, which a lot of them actually complained about is because like, they don't have their beer, they don't have their wine, they try growing their beer and the kind of the ground is not suitable enough for it.
00:50:51
Speaker
They try distilling the corn to make corn beer and it's not going well. Several colonists had like wrote to their family members to like please pack some good hops and grains over carefully so they can last a long journey over because the colonists had resorted to drinking so much water.
00:51:13
Speaker
that in the water at the time, remember, is coming from like the river and wells, which is brackish, which is salty at times, which is not good for them. So comments are just not happening.
00:51:24
Speaker
They can't even really get drunk in the way they they want. Then comes March 22nd, 1622.
Crisis: Native American Attack and Aftermath
00:51:31
Speaker
where the women who have been there literally less than six months are now experiencing another hardship. They had just barely gotten their feet under them, and now they're experiencing a huge massacre and attack from the Native American population that is nearby. On one fateful morning, 347 men, women, and children were reportedly killed, which is reported to be a quarter and a third of the entire colony, most of them slain with their own weapons. And this was all apparently orchestrated.
00:52:11
Speaker
by OP, OP Can Cano. And it was essentially all done by a small band of unarmed Native Americans that appeared along the same hour at settlements up and down the James river at some times. And it was reported at some places that even sat down for breakfast with the colonists.
00:52:31
Speaker
Then immediately they started standing brazing with tools and weapons. and then that is when they started murdering the colonists men women and children um it did not matter whenever possible they set fire to the houses outhouses killing cattle stealing guns and returning afterwards to burn this uh the settlements Uh, from both an English and Native American point of view, it was truly a shocking about the day's events, mainly just because of the killing of women and children. That was kind of a thing that was really unprecedented. The killing of women and children kind of ran counter to the Native Americans in code of conduct, which dictated that, you know, typically they should have been taken captive rather than killed and put to work.
00:53:21
Speaker
which some women were taken captive that day ah however the the ferocity of opie cancanow really just showed that this was not just to avenge like many killings and atrocities that were committed by the settlers prior he wanted them gone period he was sending a message Now, Jamestown itself was spared, so any brides remaining there survived, but a good majority of the brides who were at other settlements did perish. So after the attack in April, Governor Wyatt kind of sat down to compose a letter to the Virginia Company in London to kind of describe, like,
00:54:06
Speaker
what had happened and outlining measures his counsel had taken to restore order. First, they had to find a defensible seat in Jamestown that they could easily defend. Then their next major concern was kind of how they were going to feed so many people. Two-thirds of the parties were women and children and inservable people, kind of people who were unable to mount and raise food. And then the next was to mount a constant armed guard to represent another drain on their limited manpower. And the fear and the threat that the ah Native Americans would also destroy any crops that they grew. So Governor Wyatt like begged the company to send sufficient
00:54:51
Speaker
corn over the Virginia company essentially like read that letter and was like, No, that's all your fault. This is all your fault that this all took place. Essentially, like told told Wyatt.
00:55:04
Speaker
Um, yeah, this is God punishing you for your transgressions who kind of need to figure this out yourself and you kind of need to like diversify your commodities other than tobacco and maybe we wouldn't have gotten yourself into this situation and the best we can actually do to help you out we can't send you any more corn that's for us we can maybe send you some like old Arms, like old some old guns and weapons that we had lying around in the Tower of London that like are unusable.
00:55:41
Speaker
That's the best we can do. Bye. So for the colonists back in Virginia, like hearing this and are like, what? And... It kind of did mark like a turning point because they're like, okay, well, we know the Virginia company doesn't like us and how they really view us.
00:55:58
Speaker
They took this as initiative to be like, to the Native Americans to be like, no more Mr. Nice Guy, even though they were never Mr. Nice Guy to the Native Americans to begin with, because we know that story. It's a tale as old as time. They treated the Native Americans like shit.
00:56:15
Speaker
And said they didn't, but we know they did. So now they were taking on a new mentality of kind of encouraging each other to root out so cursed nation, ungrateful to all the benefits, and incapable of all the goodness. Being like, yeah, now we're just going to wreak havoc on the indigenous population here because this is what they did to us when we were being good to them. So...
00:56:44
Speaker
They deserve it. For those who survived the attack, everything was essentially done in a single day. Their homes were destroyed, crops were destroyed, food storage was destroyed, livestock's killed, everything's done.
00:56:59
Speaker
The fear of the Native Americans coming back kind of made them not want to venture out to like replant anything. They have so many more people that they don't know how to feed or how they're going to feed.
00:57:12
Speaker
And so now all these people are trying to come back into the settlement of Jamestown itself. But what's happening to that is like, well now we can't all live in Jamestown because there's just not enough root. And kind of like what happened to the survivors among the Jamestown brides just kind of reflects the fortune of the colonies
Exploitation and Disorganization: Virginia Company's Failures
00:57:35
Speaker
hold. Because like While months after the attack were miserable for everyone, it was kind of even more so for the maids who had failed to find a husband. Because not only were they uprooted from England, they were lacking any kin or natural protectors in the colony.
00:57:54
Speaker
They were ripe from exploitation from those who wielded power. And the elite company officials especially who knew how to turn their private distress to like private profit. And like we see it with um one of the planters, Dr. John Potts, he was doing very well.
00:58:14
Speaker
And in his servitude, he had a woman living under him by the name of Jane. Jane was actually captured by the Native Americans and taken away and held captive. And to get her back, the colonists got together and ah essentially paid for her.
00:58:34
Speaker
with glass beads and she was later redeemed for glass beads supplied by friends of the prisoners and as one of these friends Dr. Pot who she had like lived with and like worked under he insisted that she work for him as a servant to repay the double debt and then a year went on and Dr. Pot would still not let her leave refusing to release her and threaten her to serve the utmost day unless she procure him a 150 pound weight in tobacco, which was the price for a woman's freedom.
00:59:11
Speaker
And so she actually, Jane, like submitted a humble petition to the governor asking to be released from her debt as she had already served pot for 10 months, which was certainly too much for two pounds of beads.
00:59:26
Speaker
So this woman, was like captured by the Native Americans in this attack. She was with them, believe, for a period of time.
00:59:38
Speaker
She comes back and this asshole of a man, Potts, is like, yeah, you're still gonna have to like serve under me to like pay it off. Also, once that year is up, I'm still gonna make you serve longer because it's not enough.
00:59:53
Speaker
And so like, that's just kind of the treatment that these women could be expected to live under. So and it also just showed to like another example of like why it probably did not work with the set of brides is like a young the single man with good prospects in the colony. His name was Edward Blaney. He could have taken his pick.
01:00:17
Speaker
of the Jamestown Brides. But rather than paying for a wife with hard-earned tobacco, he chose instead to marry a widow who could bring him the lands he needed to build a fortune.
01:00:29
Speaker
And I think that kind of just like perfectly like encapsulates the kind of and environment that these women were walking into. So it was kind of just one of organized just chaos, honestly, confusion and not tomfoolery if you will but of just blatant like lies by the virginia company to these women of like promising a better life promising a better situation and then just un delivering that promise over and over again after the attack the virginia company like limped on barely for another two years
01:01:12
Speaker
The king's response was to set up like a royal commission to investigate the company. And after like scrutinizing the company's affairs into 1623, essentially the commission concluded that the colony state was most weak and miserable.
Conclusion: Legacy and Further Reading
01:01:28
Speaker
The original administration sent over ah around 4,000 settlers to join the thousands or so people living in Virginia when Smith left office in 1619.
01:01:40
Speaker
Of the few of those remain, all of them were living in Great Blonde. It was not a good place to be. And so with that, it took a yeah legal year for the process to shut the Virginia company down.
01:01:53
Speaker
Did the individual shareholders who subscribed to the maids really ever receive the rich rewards they were expecting? and go or at least not much. Really, timing did no one any favors.
01:02:09
Speaker
So when the first ship, when the Warwick had arrived in December, most of the tobacco crop had already been carried away. So the potential husbands that were left over, they didn't have much tobacco to even kind of go with. And The men who were responsible for collecting the tobacco from the husbands never took that job seriously. And kind of just showed like at no point, like even after the attack, the Virginia company never inquired about the care or health of the woman.
01:02:44
Speaker
They never asked, are the women okay that we're investing in? Like they didn't even ask. So I think it just kind of like goes to show that the jamestown colony itself i will say was a hot mess express it was not great especially maybe if you were a man don't really recommend it if you were a woman i really don't These maids who were sent over to become potential brides, I feel like they were very much so kind of led astray.
01:03:19
Speaker
Could they have gone over for want of adventure themselves? Absolutely. Was that a potential cause and reason that some of them did? Yeah, who knows? We don't really know. There's not a lot of written word at the time. A lot of documentation is gone.
01:03:36
Speaker
All we really have that we know of these women comes from that John Farrar's lists that he wrote writing about all 56 in their backgrounds. And then from whatever remains of any like marriage or census records.
01:03:52
Speaker
And then a lot of them just fade to the background. which happens a lot with colonial women. All we can really say is that in Jamestown, these women kind of got the short end of the stick, which is a huge shame because they also got a fee when they were awarded the status of being able to inherit the planter land, which was unseen at the time.
01:04:17
Speaker
So it kind of is a give and take. And like that, that is just a story I wanted to share. If this topic is of interest to you, i did get most of this from the book Jamestown Brides by Jennifer Potter. She is pretty much the historian to go to about this topic.
01:04:35
Speaker
She does a lot of talks over it, a lot of chats, and pretty much she is the only historian to dive into this topic since like the 1950s so go her and she is someone who kind of does dive into like the whole history of this period like itself in a whole conclusive topic and book which is really refreshing But anyways, that is where I'm going to leave the episode.
01:05:03
Speaker
If you like it, give it a like, share, subscribe, comment, whatever you got to do. um it was great talking to you and hope to see you soon. Bye.