Analytical Paper 1

If women who were captured by Indians sometimes chose to go back to their captors, my opinion is that this was most likely caused by the fact that in the British colonies, women were stuck in a world of subjugation. They may have found life in another culture such as the Native American tribes fairer, or at least more tolerable to live in, if they were accepted. I formed this idea from the evidence in the text in which I repeatedly found the female colonists were second-class as a usual practice in most colonies. Even the small amount ‘man’s work’ women were sometimes doing was limited to fieldwork, and only if labor was scarce.
As stated in First Generations: Women in Colonial America, women weren’t often allowed many rights that were given to men freely at the time. Women in colonial times in the Chesapeake, for example, were treated as second-class citizens, but mainly if they were married. The only time when these men seemed to accept a woman with freedom was if she was a widow. Men such as John Winthrop were outraged by ideas such as a woman educating a man on or coming to her own conclusions about scripture. This was presumably because it threatened the way of life in which men were in all but complete religious, political, and monetary control. Men in this period were known to listen to their wives’ advice on certain matters, but even their opinions then were little more than just that in the ears of colonial men. This is a slightly less subjugated example, however, than that of the New England woman; who, as Berkin states on page 27, “No position she held within the family was ever characterized by autonomy.” This particular line got my attention because of how blatant the statement is. In the middle colonies, however, women may have been considered to have more freedoms, at least when it came to the work force.

It is made clear that the women in Indian tribes were held in a better societal place, less one of being understated and quiet, more liberal.