How Did Abigail Adams Contribute To Women's Equality

After the Revolution, equality became a much stronger component. Abigail Adam’s became one of the revolutionary era’s most articulate and influential women. She married John Adams, a young lawyer about to emerge as a leading advocate of resistance to British taxation and, eventually, of American independence. Abigail kept her husband informed of events in Massachusetts and offered opinions on political matters. Later, when Adams served as president, he relied on her advice more than on members of his cabinet. Abigail did not believe in female equality in a modern sense. She accepted that a woman’s primary responsibility was to her family. She resented the “absolute power” husbands exercised over their wives. The Revolution unleashed public
States soon repealed their test oaths for voting & office holding. Loyalists who did not leave the country were quickly reintegrated into American society, although despite the promise of the Treaty of Paris, confiscated Loyalist property was not returned. The Indians were still forced off their lands and took over their property. Washington himself had acquired over 60,000 acres of land in western Pennsylvania after the Seven Years’ War by purchasing land vouchers from his men at discount rates. Some tribes such as the Stockbridge tribe in Massachusetts suffered heavy losses fighting the British. Many tribes tried to maintain neutrality, only to see them selves break into pro-American and pro-British factions. Slaves fought for American independence and many thereby gained their freedom. Yet far more slaves obtained liberty from the British. Nearly 100,000 slaves, including one-quarter of all slaves in South Carolina and one-third of those in Georgia, deserted their owners and fled to British lines. Gradual as it was, the abolition of slavery in the North drew a line across the new nation, creating the dangerous division between free and salve states. On the eve of independence, virtually every black person in America had been a slave. Now, free communities, with their own churches, schools, and leaders, came into existence. They formed a standing challenge to the logic of slavery, a haven for