Arts and Social Sciences, Irving K. Barber Faculty of (Okanagan)
History and Sociology, Department of (Okanagan)
DSpace
Chapman, Sam J.
This thesis explores the evolving narratives of three non-elite women—Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, and Nancy Ward—who lived during and participated in the American Revolution, illustrating the impact of mythologization on historical memory and national identity. By comparing and contrasting the historical narratives of each woman using only the limited archival material available with authoritative secondary source accounts spanning the first two centuries after the Revolution, this study reveals how historians have altered, omitted, or exaggerated aspects of these women’s stories. These alterations can reveal much about what kind of female narratives were considered historically significant or socially useful at the time any particular account was written. The research examines the contrasting treatment of these three women’s stories by historians. Sampson, Freeman, and Ward emerge as exemplary figures of United States national identity in different ways, at different times, and for different reasons.
Ladies of Legend: Mythologization and Truth of Female Narratives from America’s Revolutionary Era By Sam J. Chapman Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Honours Program in History University of British Columbia, Okanagan (2024) Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Julien Vernet, Department of History Contents Acknowledgments II-III Abstract IV Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Primary Source Analysis 12 Chapter 3 Secondary Source Analysis 25 Conclusion 41 Bibliography 51 I Acknowledgements This honours thesis would not have been possible to complete without the help of a number of individuals to whom I would like to express my utmost gratitude. First, I could not have undertaken this journey without my supervisor, Dr. Julien Vernet, whose guidance, support, and expertise has encouraged and enabled me to pursue and complete this project. Dr. Vernet’s influence was instrumental in my decision to pursue a higher level of education in the field of history, and for that I am extremely thankful. This work would also not be possible without the History Honours Committee and History Honours Program Coordinator Dr. Tim Paulson. Dr. Paulson’s guidance and organization of honours student workshops has been extremely helpful both in the making of this project and in fostering a sense of community among the honours students. Words cannot express my gratitude to the anonymous donor who funded the Department of History and Sociology Undergraduate Research Awards, which aided this project by allowing me to purchase books, copies of archival materials, and to travel to present my research findings and receive valuable feedback at the Philosophy, History, and Politics Conference at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC. I am also thankful to Dr. Todd Campbell for taking the time to proofread my thesis and providing insightful and encouraging feedback. In addition, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the many scholarly professionals that aided my research by sending copies of archival materials and providing other advice or assistance related to this project via email correspondence. Special thanks to Scott Libson, Special Collections Librarian at Yale Divinity Library; Trish Norman, Assistant Curator at the Museum of the American Revolution; II Caitlin Ramos, Head of Reference at Massachusetts State Archives; Mutahara Mobashar, Reference Librarian, Manuscript Division at Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Jennifer Pino, Judicial Archivist at Archives of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts; and Joshua Hall, Assistant Curator and Genealogist at Stockbridge Library Museum and Archives. I’d like to acknowledge Arthur Schwartz, 6th generation descendant of Theodore Sedgwick and manager of the Sedgwick House in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, for his helpful insights about Elizabeth Freeman and various scholarly resources pertaining to her and the Sedgwick family. Finally, I would be remiss in not mentioning my family, significant other, and close friends for their continued support and shared enthusiasm for my academic journey, and for keeping my spirits up throughout this challenging yet immensely rewarding process: Rhonda Miller, Tyson Orser, Emma Chapman, Trystan Orser, Connor Hawes, and Zoey Dryden. III Abstract This thesis explores the evolving narratives of three non-elite women—Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, and Nancy Ward—who lived during and participated in the American Revolution, illustrating the impact of mythologization on historical memory and national identity. By comparing and contrasting the historical narratives of each woman using only the limited archival material available with authoritative secondary source accounts spanning the first two centuries after the Revolution, this study reveals how historians have altered, omitted, or exaggerated aspects of these women’s stories. These alterations can reveal much about what kind of female narratives were considered historically significant or socially useful at the time any particular account was written. The research examines the contrasting treatment of these three women’s stories by historians. Sampson, Freeman, and Ward emerge as exemplary figures of United States national identity in different ways, at different times, and for different reasons. IV 1 Chapter 1: Introduction According to Michael D. Hattem, historian of the American Revolution and historical memory, the first biographies of American revolutionary war heroes were published in the early nineteenth century, cementing those figures in history as models of revolutionary sacrifice and republican virtue.1 Both during and directly after the American Revolution, those who lived in the fledgling nation faced a need to build a common identity in the absence of a deep historical past. The development of a cast of clearly “American” and “Anti-American” characters would aid in the accomplishment of this task. From George Washington to King George III, the story of the birth of the United States through revolution and its ideologies could be effectively communicated through its actors. It wasn’t until 1848, however, that women’s contributions to the revolutionary effort were systematically documented for the first time in Elizabeth Ellet’s book Women of the American Revolution.2 With the emergence of first-wave feminism and a desire to make a space for women in the public sphere, efforts were made to demonstrate female participation in the revolutionary period in ways that exemplified new Republican ideals.3 As far as women were concerned, these Republican ideals translated to what became known as the Republican Mother, which centered female civic participation within the context of domesticity. Linda Kerber, scholar of the history of women in America, offers a description of “the model republican woman” as “self-reliant (within limits); literate, untempted by the frivolities of fashion. She had a responsibility to the political scene, though not to act on it…The Republican Mother’s life was dedicated to the service of civic virtue; she educated her sons for it; she condemned and corrected her husband’s lapses from it.”4 1 Michael D. Hattem, “Citizenship and the Memory of the American Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Political Culture,” New York History 101, no.1 (2020): 36. https://doi.org/10.1353/nyh.2020.0004. 2 Emily L. Butterfield, “‘Lie There My Darling, While I Avenge Ye!’: Anecdotes, Collective Memory, and the Legend of Molly Pitcher,” chapter in Remembering the Revolution: Memory, History, and Nation-Making from Independence to the Civil War, edited by Michael McDonnell, et al (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013), 203. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/27764. 3 Rachel A. Snell, “‘God, Home, and Country’: Women, Historical Memory, and National Identity in English Canada and the United States,” American Review of Canadian Studies 48, no. 2 (2018), 244. https://doi.org/10.1080/02722011.2018.1472946. 4 Linda Kerber, “The Republican Mother: Women and the Enlightenment—An American Perspective,” American Quarterly 28, no. 2 (1976): 202-203. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2712349. 2 This idea of woman’s inherent virtue and her responsibility to instil and protect this in society offered a foundation to argue for the importance of women in politics beyond the home. Particularly, as a direct response to the exclusion of women’s membership in the Sons of the American Revolution, the Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890. Their mission was (and remains) to both educate the public and spread awareness about female participation in the American revolution while promoting the patriotic ideals of the period.5 This push to include women in the narrative of the independence movement would help provide justification (or as Hattem calls it— “historical ammunition”) for a call to allow for increased female civic engagement in the United States.6 The ever-popular revolutionary hero biography and the movement to acknowledge women in the history of the nation led to the ascendance of various female figures who would become known as legendary characters of the American Revolution. In this process, however, aspects of their stories and character were sometimes changed, embellished, removed, or dramatized. This would have an impact on the way these women were studied by historians and popularized by the public throughout the centuries that followed. This study will investigate the implications of this process of mythologization as it applies to the narratives of three separate women of diverse backgrounds who participated in the American Revolutionary period in different ways. The three women chosen to serve as case studies for this project are Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, and Nancy Ward. Deborah Sampson is most commonly known as the woman who disguised herself in men’s clothing in order to enlist herself in the Continental Army as a soldier for the revolutionary cause in 1792. She signed up for a term of three years, and served at least one and a half years of that term from her time of enlistment until the conclusion of the revolutionary war. Her true identity was eventually discovered, and she received an honorary discharge. After her service and a lengthy petition process, she became one 5 The complete official mission statement of the Daughters of the American Revolution is available on their website: https://www.dar.org/national-society/about-dar/dar-history; additional information about the DAR can also be found in Snell, “‘God, Home, and Country’,” 2018: 249-253. 6 Hattem, “Citizenship and the Memory of the American Revolution,” 47. 3 of the first women in America to receive a full military pension—an important legacy that continues to aid the cause for female veteran pension benefits even today.7 Additionally, Deborah Sampson has served as a key figure in academic discussions about gender, sexuality, and republican ideals in eighteenth century America and onward. This was partly thanks to the gender-non-conforming act of crossdressing, and partly thanks to Herman Mann’s 1797 biography The Female Review and Sampson’s subsequent speaking tours— both of which helped to propel her into her status as an American folk hero. Herman Mann was intimately involved in the perpetuation of the Deborah Sampson narrative, having written the first biography about her life and penning the live talks that Sampson herself performed in-uniform in front of various audiences in 1802. Deborah Sampson as a folk hero has sometimes been framed as more of an invention of Herman Mann, separate from the real person.8 Elizabeth Freeman, formerly known as Bett or Mumbett, was one of the first people in America to successfully use the new republic’s justice system to sue for her freedom from slavery. According to legend, the illiterate Mumbett learned of revolutionaries’ demands for liberty by overhearing conversations amongst white people about freedom around town and within the house where she served as a slave.9 With the help of her lawyer, Theodore Sedgwick, she became a free woman in 1781. Her court case, Brom & Bett v. Ashley, has been placed alongside the Quock Walker freedom suit as one of the cases that aided in the eventual abolishment of slavery in Massachusetts. Freeman was personified in the work of Catherine Sedgwick, in her essay “Mumbet,” later called “Slavery in New England.” Elizabeth Freeman’s story is almost inseparably intertwined with the powerful Sedgwick family— they appear in almost every early account of her life in some way, particularly after her emancipation. Her story has been employed by historians and popular audiences alike to examine the early American justice system; to 7 In 2020, the U.S. Congress passed the Deborah Sampson Act, which significantly increased mental health, primary, and child care benefits for female veterans; United States: S. 514, Deborah Sampson Act. MENA Report, 2020. https://www.proquest.com/wire-feeds/united-states-s-514-deborah-sampson-act/docview/2463694203/se-2. 8 Judith Hiltner, “‘She Bled in Secret’: Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann and The Female Review,” Early American Literature 34, no.2 (1999): 190-220. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25057161. 9 Gloria Browne-Marshall, “1619 to 1819: Tell Them We Fought Back, A Socio-Legal Perspective,” Phylon 57, no.1 (2020): 48. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26924986. 4 provide “historical ammunition” for abolition and civil rights movements; and serves as an example of active self-emancipation by enslaved African Americans. Nancy Ward is a less known figure when compared to Deborah Sampson or Elizabeth Freeman. Ward was a Cherokee woman who had attained the status of Beloved Woman among her people, a position of considerable power in Cherokee society. This status granted her the opportunity to participate in Treaty talks with white settlers, and to advocate for the interests of the women of her nation as the head of the Women’s Council.10 Ward is the subject of many legends among the Cherokees, one in particular regarding her active participation in the place of her deceased husband at the battle at Taliwa in 1755.11 She is most widely known, however, as a peaceful diplomat between the Cherokees and the white settlers of the eighteenth century. She famously alerted a British settlement to an impending attack on them by her own people, sparing their lives and sabotaging the war plans of her Cherokee peers. She is also believed to have used her authority as the Beloved Woman to free a white woman, Lydia Bean, from being burned at the stake. Often, Ward is employed by historians as a vehicle to discuss the structure of Cherokee society and interactions/relations between the Cherokees and white settlers in general. It is less common to find literature that is about Ward entirely in her own right, separate from the larger narrative of Cherokee and Indigenous/settler history. She is often referred to as “the Pocahontas of her people,” and, interestingly, many aspects of her story are strangely familiar to the Pocahontas story.12 From her marriage to a white settler, using her powerful position within her community to spare the life of another, adopting a white name, and her role as a liaison between the indigenous and settler groups, she—like Pocahontas—has been framed as an exemplary figure of indigenous/settler relations and sometimes as a betrayer of her people. 10 Cynthia Cumfer, “Nan-ye-hi (Nancy Ward): Diplomatic Mother,” chapter in Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times, edited by Sarah W. Freeman (University of Georgia Press, 2009): 3. https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/book/11552. 11 Cumfer, “Nan-ye-hi,” 4. 12 A brief overview of the Pocahontas story is available in Stefan L. Brandt, “The American Revolution and Its Other: Indigenous Resistance Writing from William Apess to Sherman Alexie,” AAA: Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 42, no.1 (2017): 42. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26379457. 5 While it may seem as though these women have little in common other than the time period in which they lived, what they do share is that they did not produce their own written documents throughout their lives that have survived until now, other than a single brief tour diary written by Deborah Sampson. This leaves their stories particularly vulnerable to misinterpretation; their historical voices exist only through the words of others. Without their own written word, the narratives of these women become flexible and open for historians and general audiences throughout the years to read between the lines, implant their own narratives, and use these stories for various and sometimes contradictory purposes. Maria Diedrich, professor of American studies at the University of Munster and co-founder of the Collegium for African American Research, asks in her article “Silenced Black Narratives of the American Revolution,” “how can we return a voice, how can we represent the agency and subjecthood of [people] who, as a rule, left no written documentation whatsoever and who are beyond the reach of oral history?”13 To determine based on evidence what is truly knowable about these women in order to examine how their stories have been altered and employed by those who use them, it is necessary to examine the available primary source documents that exist for each of them in detail. The lack of personally produced documents leads us to turn instead to government documents, the journals and writings of those people close to them, letters of correspondence about them, newspaper reports, and any other proof of existence that is available for insight. It is important to acknowledge that the search for primary source data for these women is challenging and often less fruitful than expected, considering the legendary status that they are given. Snell reported that “at the turn of the twentieth century, as she toiled on a biography of Laura Secord, Emma Currie [historical author and founder of the Women’s Literary Club of St. Catharines] lamented the ‘scanty records’ available on her subject.”14 This very much rings true in the 13 Maria Diedrich, “From American Slaves to Hessian Subjects: Silenced Black Narratives of the American Revolution,” chapter in Germany and the Black Diaspora: Points of Contact, 1250-1914, edited by Mischa Honecker, Martin Klimke, and Anne Kuhlmann (Berghahn Books, 2013), 95-96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qcz8z. 14 Snell, “‘God, Home, and Country’,” 244. 6 investigation of Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, and Nancy Ward—although more true for some than others. The differences in available primary source material (and the nature of those materials) for each of the three women can also reveal much about the treatment of these narratives throughout history. A description of the process of mythologization will follow. Contemporary accounts of the women in question often inject their own narratives and agendas into an event or attribute them to the attitudes of the actual person involved through memoirs, early histories of the period, newspapers, or biographies. This process creates an ambiguity that allows multiple versions of these women to exist in historical memory. Once a base of fact is established through the investigation of primary sources, a historiography of secondary source materials can be constructed. Through this, we can determine how and for what purposes these women’s narratives have been used. For this section, a timeline will be employed that identifies the transformation of these narratives over generations. In his 2020 article “Citizenship and Memory of the American Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Political Culture,” Michael Hattem provides a timeline of historical uses of American revolutionary memory that will serve as a template to examine the evolution of historical writing about Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, and Nancy Ward. Beginning with what Hattem calls the “Cult of the Individual” in the first decades of the eighteenth century, we see a fascination with biographies of revolutionary characters that seek to exemplify a patriotic, republican nature. Within this period, a shift occurs from a focus on male elite military and political leaders to biographies of common people who participated in the movement.15 For example, anecdotal histories were popularized at this time, offering a consumable presentation of historical figures that “created openings in elite-dominated narratives of the Revolution, making places for local folk heroes and moments of unsung heroism.”16 Often in the case of female biographies written in this time, narratives persist that sought to bolster the position of women in society without threatening 15 Hattem, “Citizenship and Memory of the American Revolution,” 36-37. 16 Butterfield, “Anecdotes, Collective Memory, and the Legend of Molly Pitcher,” 200. 7 the position of men.17 Additionally, a number of memoirs were published at this time by people who were alive (although they may have been children) at the time of the American Revolution. These have important implications in the development of a historical memory because, while they are an invaluable source as first-hand accounts, they are often not written until years after the events occurred.18 In this way, the construction of historical memory is influenced by the actual (and sometimes unreliable) lived memory of those who were present at the time of the events. During the American civil war period, interpretations of the meaning and success of the American Revolution split from a general consensus of a shared republican identity. Appraisals of revolutionary themes and stories differed between North and South, particularly as the South saw a transformation of identity: “the transition from Southerners in the 1850s to Confederates in the 1860s […] required a significant shift in their memory of the Revolution.”19 Martyr narratives were very popular in this period, offering a redemptive tone to the memory of the American revolution. In Remembering the Revolution, Sarah Purcell explains that “the part of American national identity predicated on the sacrifice of Revolutionary heroes appealed to both Northerners and Southerners.”20 This period also saw an intensification of the abolition movement. Historians like William C Nell, a prominent abolitionist and community leader calling for black citizenship during the mid-nineteenth century, sought to bolster the movement by demonstrating African American participation in the American Revolution, much like the Daughters of the American Revolution with female narratives in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.21 The politicization of popularized figures and events of the American Revolution characterizes these years. 17 Snell, “‘God, Home, and Country’,” 245. 18 Elizabeth M. Williams, “Childhood, Memory, and the American Revolution,” chapter in Children and War, edited by James Marten and Robert Coles (New York: NYU Press, 2002), 15. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/7690. 19 Hattem, “Citizenship and Memory of the American Revolution,” 48. 20 Sarah J. Purcell, “Martyred Blood and Avenging Spirits: Revolutionary Martyrs and Heroes as Inspiration for the U.S. Civil War,” chapter in Remembering the Revolution: Memory, History, and Nation-Making from Independence to the Civil War, edited by Michael McDonnell, et al. (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013): 290. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/27764. 21 Hattem, “Citizenship and Memory of the American Revolution,” 46-47. 8 Interestingly, there appears to be a notable gap in literature about these women from the early- to mid-twentieth century that may be explained by the emergence of the Progressive and subsequent conservative Consensus schools of interpretation of the American Revolution. In the early twentieth century, Progressive historians focused on the socioeconomic causes of the American revolution. They highlighted the disunity of the American people as compared to that of the founding fathers through “the relations of social classes to each other, the institution of slavery, the system of land-holding, the course of business, [and] the forms and spirit of intellectual and religious life.”22 J Franklin Jameson, in his “epoch-marking” book The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement published originally in 1926, refers to the general American population during the Revolution as “provincial-minded, dubious in opinion, reluctant to make any sacrifices, half-hearted in the glorious cause.”23 This assumed inconsequential nature of the perspectives of everyday Americans by Progressive historians marked a return of focus toward elite figures to find meaning in the American revolution that carried through to the 1950’s conservative consensus era, even though the Progressive and Consensus movements are often considered direct antitheses of one another. Additionally, the Progressives were particularly interested in the dissemination of propaganda, resulting in the belief that “the revolution thus became a display of extraordinary skillfulness in the manipulation of public opinion.”24 This focus on elite narratives that informed a generally neutral and un politicized public left little room for the consideration of common people, particularly of women, such as the three that are of focus in this project. The Cold War era saw a return to perceptions of revolutionary ideological unity, typical of the consensus school of the 1950s and an emphasis on the unique “Americanness” of the American Revolution in the context of “celebratory conservatism.”25 This period features a revival of exemplary 22 J. Franklin Jameson, The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement, Introduction by Arthur M. Schlesinger (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961): 9. 23 Jameson, The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement: 6. 24 Gordon S. Wood, “Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution,” The William and Mary Quarterly 23, no.1 (1966): 9. http://www.jstor.com/stable/2936154. 25 Colin Gordon, “Crafting a Usable Past: Consensus, Ideology, and Historians of the American Revolution,” The William and Mary Quarterly 46, no. 4 (1989): 672. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1922779. 9 republican figures and “the revolution played a key role in defining Americanism as the alternative to Soviet communism.”26 In this time, it was important for Americans to locate within their legends of the Revolution a source of pride and patriotism. Thus, “the consensus—a creation of analytical fiat and conservative faith—becomes the litmus by which both individuals and events are judged.”27 Additionally, historians of this period were concerned with downplaying the radicalism of the revolution, and differentiating it from other revolutions, particularly those with a socialist tone.28 This required a focus on the concept of republican ideology, particularly those that excluded women and other minority groups. Lastly, although elite scholarship remained largely conservative in its interpretation of Revolutionary ideology, social movements of the 1960s and 70s brought a revitalized interest in “incorporating women, African Americans, and Native Americans into the history of the Revolution” that continues to the present.29 American national history in the perspective of previously overlooked populations and an acknowledgement of their participation in significant events came into focus for historians of this period. For example, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was established in 1968, and focused on the inclusion and recognition of Indigenous perspectives of American history. The misrepresentation of Indigenous people in both history and popular culture became a topic of particular interest at this time.30 Additionally, the historical narratives of African Americans who lived during the American Revolution were employed by leaders of the civil rights movement, very much reminiscent of the strategies used by abolitionists in the century before. Focus on women’s histories through revitalized feminist movements—generally referred to by the blanket term “second-wave feminism”— also became more prominent in scholarly literature from this period onward. Women’s studies sociologist and historian Benita Roth described these movements as multi-stranded—rather than being dominated by white middle class women such as those who led groups 26 Hattem, “Citizenship and Memory of the American Revolution,” 52. 27 Gordon, “Crafting a Usable Past, 682. 28 Wood, “Rhetoric and Reality,” 12. 29 Hattem, “Citizenship and Memory of the American Revolution,” 52. 30 Brandt, “The American Revolution and Its Other,” 52. 10 such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), more collective strands comprised of those from the Civil Rights and New Left movements, including black, white and mexican feminist movements such as Combahee River Collective emerged at this time.31 A pluralistic re-emergence of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s would contribute to a revived interest in women’s stories in American history in general (including the American Revolution), particularly those stories of women of colour. Civil Rights movements of the 1960s and 70s similarly pulled from the pool of revolutionary heroes to enforce the place of black Americans in the country’s history. Mitch Kachun, professor of African American history and the history of memory, explains that Martin Luther King himself criticized American school systems “that ignored black accomplishments and contributions to the nation’s past.”32 The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) founded in 1915 by Carter G. Woodson was particularly influential during the civil rights era in the United States. Now called the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the association pushed for the inclusion of black histories in classrooms, and to this day maintain the mission “to promote, research, preserve, interpret and disseminate information about Black life, history and culture to the global community.”33 Other groups were founded in the 1960s-70s whose missions were geared towards the inclusion of African American contributions in the history of the United States, including the the Negro History Associates (NHA).34 According to Kachun, the Daughters of the American Revolution had been criticized for their exclusionary and racist membership policies. In response, counter-movements such as the 1966 Society for Crispus Attucks Women to join the DAR (SCAWDAR) were established, who demanded the consideration of descendants of black revolutionary heroes—particularly those of Crispus Attucks in this case— as members of the DAR.35 31 Benita Roth, Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America’s Second Wave (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2-11. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815201. 32 Mitch Kachun, First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory, (Oxford University Press, 2017): 156. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199731619.003.0008. 33 Mission statement and other information about the history of ASALH can be found at their website: https://asalh.org/about-us/. 34 Kachun, First Martyr of Liberty: 159. 35 Kachun, First Martyr of Liberty: 163. 11 The historiographies of the three women featured in this study will be examined within each of the time periods mentioned above. By consulting the most well-known secondary sources of each time period, this work will investigate how the presentation of their stories have changed over time. Hattem’s framework of analysis challenges what he calls the “‘schoolbook narrative’” of the American Revolution—the traditionally accepted version of events that have come to be known as common knowledge.36 He demonstrates that the story of the Revolution itself has evolved over the generations since the event rather than remaining constant, and often the alteration of these narratives is done so for a purpose. Hattem frames the United States’s national perception of the American Revolution as not unitary or linear, but rather as “a story of construction, contest, and conflict composed of a continuous, many-sided struggle throughout American history between various groups to define the meaning and legacy of the American Revolution for their own political and cultural purposes.”37 This evolution, adjustment, and contest of Revolutionary narrative can be seen in the historical narratives of Sampson, Freeman, and Ward over two hundred years. Analyzing any inconsistencies that can be found between primary and secondary source accounts will allow us to investigate the transformation from person to myth as it is found in depictions of these women, and to analyze how they have been used to further various agendas throughout history. Changing perceptions and uses of history can reflect the attitudes and values of a generation. Rather than simply “debunking” popular or traditionally accepted narratives, it is the goal of this work to demonstrate their evolution through three case studies spanning a period of two centuries. As Hattem states, “historical memories are typically created to fill a need for the ‘shared sentiments, symbols, and social explanations necessary for an integrative national identity’ […] historical memories created to serve this purpose do not rely on accuracy for their legitimacy or usefulness.”38 36 Hattem, “Citizenship and Memory of the American Revolution,” 30. 37 Hattem, “Citizenship and Memory of the American Revolution,” 30-31. 38 Hattem, “Citizenship and Memory of the American Revolution,” 33. 12 Chapter 2: Primary Source Analysis The following examination of primary source evidence will establish a frame of reference through which later secondary source accounts published between 1790-1980 about Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, and Nancy Ward’s stories can be analyzed in order to determine what (if anything) was changed, embellished, or omitted over time. The three women are presented in the order of the quantity of primary sources that could be found about them, from most to least. Sampson, Freeman, and Ward will be presented in this order for the duration of this work. It is important to remember, however, that primary source materials for these women do not exist in large quantities, and those materials that can be found are generally produced by others. As these women for the most part are known specifically for a particular event in their lives, much of their histories outside of those events remain largely a mystery. The absence of direct narration from the women themselves makes the hunt for the truth of their histories all the more challenging. There are competing views among scholars about what kinds of materials qualify as being considered a primary source. For this project, what will be considered a primary source will be documents written by people who were directly involved with the events that they describe. Thus, any source which is any degree removed from the events they write about, even if it was produced in the same time period, will be considered a secondary source. With this definition in mind, an issue at hand when it comes to figures who lack personally produced content is that of the reliability of works written with the aid of oral testimony by those involved. Many early biographers and others wishing to document these women’s lives or simply to provide context for the events that made them famous depended on interviews with the women themselves or from those who knew them. Some biographers used direct quotes from the women themselves, but many did not, and no complete transcripts from interviews with these women or their relatives or friends have been recovered. In the case that they were, this would be extremely valuable as primary source material. Instead, biographers often used their interviewee’s words as a general blueprint for the construction of their own narratives. It is impossible in these sources to determine which aspects 13 come from the interviewees themselves and which come from the author, and therefore they are not used as primary source materials in this project, although they will still be discussed in later chapters. Most of the primary sources that can be found about the three women covered in this project are centered around the specific events that made them famous, beginning with Deborah Sampson, the famous female soldier of the American Revolution. Deborah Sampson was by far the easiest figure to locate in primary source materials thanks to her participation in various American institutions that document their members, such as the Third Baptist church of Middleborough and the Continental Army. Through her former membership in the army, Sampson was also in a position in which she was able to petition for a pension—an opportunity not afforded to many women of the time. This process was highly documented as well. Overall, the available documents span from her later teenage years until her death, making Deborah Sampson’s primary source history the most complete out of all three women. Up until 2019, the earliest reference of Deborah Sampson came from the Church Minutes of the Thirst Baptist Middleborough Church on September 3, 1782. From this source we not only learn that Sampson was a member of this church, but also that the church had resolved to “withdraw fellowship” from her shortly after she had tried (and failed) to enlist as a soldier “last spring”.39 Additionally, the church charges her with behaving “very loose and un-Christianlike” in the period before she disappeared from town.40 These records show that Deborah Sampson had attempted to enlist in the Continental army more than once, because she made one documented unsuccessful attempt prior to her official enlistment. Her cross-dressing, effort to enlist, and subsequent disappearance all provided reason for the church to disapprove of her actions.41 Another perspective on her failed enlistment and disguise appeared in the war 39 The Records of the Third Church of Christ of the Baptist Denomination in Middleborough, 1761-1857, Church Minute Book, Yale Divinity Library, New Haven, Connecticut: 90. Accessed via PDF file through email correspondence with Scott P. Libson, Special Collections Librarian. 40 The Records of the Third Church of Christ, 90. 41 The Records of the Third Church of Christ, 90. 14 journal of a citizen of Middleborough, Abner Weston, that was uncovered in 2019. In a passage dated January 23, 1782, Weston writes “their hapend a uncomon affair at this time for Deborah Samson [sic.] of this town. Dressed herself in mens cloths and hired her self…three years servis but being found out.”42 This gives credence to the church’s claims of Sampson’s botched enlistment in Middleborough in the spring of 1782. While she was not successful with her disguised enlistment in Middleborough, it appears that she was so in the town of Uxbridge on May 23 of that same year. On that date, the name Robert Shirtliff appears on record for the first time in the muster rolls of the Continental Army. There, disguised in a man’s clothing under an alias, Deborah Sampson received a sum of sixty pounds “as a bounty to serve in the continental army for the term of three years.”43 From here she disappears into the war as a common soldier until she was honourably discharged around a year and five months into her service. This honourable discharge is not confirmable through original documentation— senator William Ellis, in a letter addressed to Peter Force, American historian and politician, written in 1837 titled “Deborah Sampson” claims that these records, along with others regarding her early pension files and records of injuries sustained whilst on-duty, were burned in 1814 when the War Office in Washington was destroyed by the British.44 There do exist corroborative documents that attest to her being honourably discharged, such as from Henry Jackson in 1786, where he confirms that Robert Shirtliff “was a soldier on my regiment” and “had the confidence of his officers and did his duty as a faithful and good soldier and was honorably discharged [from] the army of the United States.”45 In his statement, though, he does not acknowledge the connection between the alias Robert Shirtliff and Deborah Sampson. The formal 42 Abner Weston, Abner Weston War Diary 1782, diary, from the Museum of the American Revolution. Accessed via PDF scan through email correspondence with Trish Norman, Assistant Curator. 43 SC1/series 57X. Muster rolls of the Revolutionary War, v. 64 p. 108, Massachusetts Archives. Accessed via PDF scan through email correspondence with Caitlin Ramos, Head of Reference. 44 William Ellias, “Deborah Sampson,” letter to John Adams Vinton, Peter Force Papers, box IV: 2, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. PDF scan provided by Mutahara Mobashar, Reference Librarian Manuscript Division. 45 SC1/series 228. Passed Resolves, Resolves of 1791 c. 23, Massachusetts Archives. Accessed via PDF scan through email correspondence with Caitlin Ramos, Head of Reference. 15 recognition of Deborah Sampson as Robert Shirtliff appears in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1792 when they considered her petition for a pension— “it appears to this court that the said Deborah Gannet inlisted, under the name of Robert Shirtliff.”46 Another interesting part of this document is the section where the House of Representatives provides their justification in granting pension to Sampson, in which they ensure to note not only that she performed her duties as a soldier, but also that she preserved “the virtue of chastity of her sex unsuspected and unblemished.”47 In 1818, Sampson herself testified for her application for a pension from the United States, however, there appear to be some inconsistencies between her own testimony and the information in official documents detailing her enlistment. She testifies that she enlisted in 1781 and served “upwards of two years.”48 This cannot be true, however, since the muster roll that records the enlistment of Robert Shurtliff in Uxbridge displays the year 1782. Additionally, Sampson declares that “during the time of her service she was at the capture of Lord Cornwallis.”49 Her presence at this particular event remains unconfirmed and highly unlikely seeing that Cornwallis was captured in 1781 and Sampson enlisted in 1782. Ultimately, in 1820, Sampson did receive a full military pension. Thankfully, in the context of Deborah Sampson’s pursuit of pension from the government, a letter was written by Paul Revere in 1804 that reads as a character reference. In his letter, he offers some valuable insight into Sampson’s life after her military service and her personality. Revere describes Sampson as “a woman of handsom talents, good morals, a dutifull wife and an affectionate parent” who “is now much out of health… they are really poor.”50 He also alludes to her intelligence, stating that her “education entitled her to a better situation in life.”51 Further, he describes her as “a small, effeminate, and 46 SC1/series 228. Passed Resolves, Resolves of 1791 c. 23 47 SC1/series 228. Passed Resolves, Resolves of 1791 c. 23 48 Testimony of Deborah Sampson Gannett, 1818, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application File S 32722. From Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Archives Building, Washington, DC. Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service. https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/testimony-deborah-sampson-gannett 49 Testimony of Deborah Sampson Gannett. 50 Paul Revere, Letter from Paul Revere to William Eustis, 20 February 1804. Manuscript correspondence. From Massachusetts Historical Society, Miscellaneous Bound Manuscripts. https://www.masshist.org/database/326 51 Revere, Letter from Paul Revere to William Eustis. 16 converseable woman,” allowing us a possible glimpse into her physicality as well.52 Revere also notes that Sampson was involved in “several engagements, and received two wounds.”53 This is the most detail that we receive from primary source evidence of her active participation in battle. In 1802 Deborah Sampson went on a speaking tour and visited many towns to deliver an address, which was later transcribed and printed. One might think that this is can be considered equivalent to her own spoken word such as one might find in a diary or book authored by her but, unfortunately, it is not. The original title page of the address bears no indication of who authored the work; below the title it discloses that it was “Printed and sold by H. Mann, for Mrs. Gannet.”54 By looking at the title page it is difficult to tell if it was written by Sampson herself or by Hermann Mann, the printer. Within its pages, though, the introduction reveals that Sampson “accordingly procured the following, which she remarkably soon committed, verbatim, to memory.”55 This statement suggests that she had not written her address but rather had someone else write it and that she delivered it. Thus we cannot be certain that the words contained within are ones that reflect Sampson’s true perceptions—even though she would have consented to the distribution of the material. It is interesting to note as well that the “H. Mann” that appears on the title page of the Address is the same Herman Mann that wrote the 1797 biography of Sampson’s life The Female Review. Instead of examining her Address as primary source material, it is more appropriate to consider it as an elaboration of the themes first introduced by Hermann Mann in the highly romanticized version of Deborah Sampson that is presented in Female Review. Although the Address cannot be used as a primary source about Sampson’s experiences during the American Revolution, we are still able to get some insight into Sampson’s speaking tour through a brief diary that she kept during her travels in 1802. This diary is the only surviving piece of writing 52 Revere, Letter from Paul Revere to William Eustis. 53 Revere, Letter from Paul Revere to William Eustis. 54 After she returned home from her military service, Deborah Sampson married a man named Benjamin Gannett. All documents referring to Sampson after her marriage in 1785 refer to her as Deborah Gannett, as per her husband’s last name; Deborah Sampson Gannett, and Eugene Tappan, An Address, delivered with applause, at the Federal-Street Theatre, Boston, four successive nights… beginning; and after, at other principal towns (Boston: Press of H.M. Hight, 1905). https://www.loc.gov/item/07023999/ 55 Gannett and Tappan, An Address, 3-4. 17 penned by Sampson herself, and it is the only self-authored work that was found from any of the three women discussed in this project. The diary itself is very descriptive in nature, and contains very little information or insight outside of the details of Sampson’s speaking tour. The diary does not indicate any negative reactions from audience members to her lectures, apart from perhaps a disbelief about Sampson being a woman. She recounts in the diary, “some of [the audience members] which I happened to overhear swore that I was a lad of not more than eighteen years of age.”56 It appears from the diary that Sampson was battling some illness during the first leg of her tour, and she was forced, with great disappointment, to return home for a time before continuing on her journey, only to fall ill once again.57 She appeared to have been battling various ailments for the majority of her tour.58 She noted the agricultural conditions of the areas in which she traveled as well, displaying a knowledge of farming in writing that “the land appeared very good and many farms under good cultervation [sic.].”59 The diary also includes lists of her various accommodations and expenses. In an entry titled August 21, Sampson discloses that she had sent a letter back home to Sharon, Massachusetts with one hundred dollars enclosed for her family.60 Throughout the diary, Sampson makes several comments about yearning for the company of her family back home, particularly her four children.61 In an entry titled Wedns. 8th, she proclaims, “O Dear, could I but once more see my… dear children!”62 Like Deborah Sampson who battled for her pension, Elizabeth Freeman also used the fledgling nation’s justice system to advocate for herself. For Freeman, however, the stakes were much higher—the 56 Deborah Sampson Gannett, Diary of Deborah Sampson Gannett in 1802, republished by Eugene Tappan (Sharon Public Library: 1901), 11 https://archive.org/details/diaryofdeborahsa00gann/page/11/mode/1up. 57 Gannett, Diary, 13-19. 58 It is not possible to tell from the contents of Sampson’s diary whether or not her frequent ailments had anything to do with injuries that she may have sustained while she was enlisted in the Continental army. She stated that the first illness she suffered which required her to return home was “Disentary,” which she saw a doctor for and was treated with some kind of pill and castor oil. Later, she complained of a tooth ache and elsewhere of being generally unwell or otherwise “indisposed.” Gannett, Diary, 12-19. 59 Gannett, Diary, 18-19. 60 Gannett, Diary, 29. 61 Gannett, Diary, 16, 21. Sampson also wrote the names of her children on the inside cover of her diary, according to Eugene Tappan. 62 Gannett, Diary, 16. 18 results of her trial would determine whether or not she would become a free woman. Officially, Elizabeth Freeman—or as she was also known, “Bett,” or “Mumbet”— enters recorded history in August of 1781 when she and a fellow slave, known in the record as “Brom,” sued for their freedom from servitude under John Ashley Esq..63 No official documentation has been uncovered that grants insight to her life prior to this, during her enslavement. The 1781 court documents do not contain testimony from Freeman herself nor from Brom, but they do outline the case, in which the two plaintiffs sued to be “replevied” from Ashley—meaning that the rights to themselves as property would be legally recognized as their own. Ashley attempted to make the case that “Brom and Bett ought not to have and maintain these suit aforesaid against him, but that the same ought to be abated… because he says that the said Brom and Bett are and were at the time of issuing the original writ, the legal negro servants of him John Ashley during their lives.”64 In other words, Ashley maintained that he held all rights to Brom and Bett as his personal property, and thus they had no legal standing to claim that he had been withholding their personal rights from them. Despite Ashely’s best efforts, the jury verdict read as follows: “In the case depending between Brom & Bett Plaintiffs against John Ashley Esq. Defendant the jury find that the said Brom & Bett are not and were not at the time of purchase of the original writ, the legal Negro servants of the said John Ashley during life.”65 The two plaintiffs were legally recognized as free people, and were additionally rewarded with thirty shillings in damages from Ashley, who was also held responsible to cover the costs of court. Along with outlining the facts of the legal case, the court documents also confirm that Freeman was represented by Theodore Sedgwick.66 This is the first record that displays her ties with the Sedgwick family, who, as a family of considerable power, privilege, and education, became a crucial source of information about her. 63 Brom and Bett V. Ashley, 1781, manuscript court documents, from the Archives of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Accessed via PDF scan received through email correspondence with Jennifer Pino, Judicial Archivist. 64 Brom and Bett V. Ashley, 1781. 65 Brom and Bett V. Ashley, 1781, Jury Verdict. 66 Brom and Bett V. Ashley, 1781. 19 The final primary source documentation regarding Elizabeth Freeman produced before her death was her last will and testament. This is the documentation that might best provide insight on her personal wishes, as it was likely produced in direct consultation with her. Although not written by her hand— all accounts describe Freeman as illiterate, and no evidence exists suggesting the contrary— it would be designed with her full consent. From this document we can determine that she intended to ensure the passage of her estate to her children and grandchildren. On the first page she bequeaths all of her “real estate” to Charles Sedgwick in trust “for the sole use & benefit of my daughter Elizabeth & her heirs,” along with various other entries that entitled members of her large family to many of her personal belongings.67 She does not directly leave any personal items to the members of the Sedgwick family, however her inclusion of Charles Sedgwick in trust of her land holdings suggests a level of trust and connection. Additionally, three members of the Sedgwick family— Catharine Sedgwick, Catharine Sedgwick Jr., and Frances Sedgwick—appear at the end of the document as witnesses.68 A land deed from 1839 also exists confirming the transfer of Freeman’s land to the possession of Charles Sedgwick.69 When she died in 1829, Freeman was buried in the Sedgwick family plot. This provides additional evidence of her connection to the Sedgwick family. The inscription on her gravestone was written by Charles Sedgwick: Elizabeth Freeman known by the name of Mumbet died Dec 28, 1829. Her supposed age was 85 years. She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior nor equal. She neither wasted time nor property. She never violated a trust, nor failed to perform a duty. In every situation of domestic trial, she was the most efficient helper, and the tenderest friend. Good Mother, farewell.70 67 “I Elizabeth Freeman of Stockbridge Massachusetts do make and publish this my last will and testament as follows-,“ Last Will and Testament of Elizabeth Freeman, 1829, from the Sheffield Historical Society, Family History Center, 1. 68 “I Elizabeth Freeman of Stockbridge Massachusetts…,” 3. 69 Land Deed for Charles Sedgwick, 1839, Stockbridge Library Museum and Archives, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Accessed via PDF scan received through email correspondence with Joshua Hall, Assistant Curator and Genealogist. 70 Charles Sedgwick, Elizabeth Freeman, 1829, gravestone epitaph inscription, located in the Sedgwick Pie, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Photos available from Jim Lawson and Kendra Baker at Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16476373/elizabeth-freeman 20 If it is accurate that Freeman was eighty five years old at the time of her death in 1829 (this cannot be confirmed as no birth certificate exists), then that would have made her around thirty seven years old at the time of her trial in 1781. This would mean that Freeman spent more of her life a free woman than a slave. The grave stone inscription offers insight on how members of the Sedgwick family felt about Freeman and hints towards her position within the Sedgwick family household as a mother figure. What the Sedgwick children have to say about Freeman is particularly of value as they likely spent the most time with her while she was living with the Sedgwick family as a servant after her emancipation. In 1831, one of the Sedgwick children wrote “Lecture on the Practicability of the Abolition of Slavery” in which he says that he knew Freeman “as familiarly as I knew either of my parents.”71 Two of the Sedgwick children wrote about Freeman and of her life before they knew her. What will be used for this chapter, however, are the accounts given by the children of their own first-hand experiences while living with her. One of those children was Catharine Sedgwick, who wrote extensively about her own life, in which Freeman— Mumbet, as Catharine calls her— is featured on multiple occasions. In 1853, Catharine wrote the manuscript titled “Mumbett”, which was a precursor to her essay “Slavery in Massachusetts.” Much of the work details events that Catharine would not have been present for—events about Freeman’s time as a slave and also an event during Shays’s rebellion in which she defends the Sedgwick house after the family had fled. These accounts will be considered in later chapters as secondary source material. The work also provides Catharine’s own character assessment of Freeman based on her own experiences living with her in the Sedgwick house. Sedgwick states that Freeman “was in truth a sort of nurse-governante in [Sedgwick’s] house.”72 She makes a point to explain Freeman’s position within the Sedgwick family. She was more than a servant— “her intelligence her integrity her resolute mind were apparent in her deportment, and gave her an unquestioned ascendancy over her 71 Henry D. Sedgwick, The Practicability of the abolition of slavery: A lecture delivered at the Lyceum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, February 1831 (New York: Printed by J. Seymour, 1831): 14. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=SABN&u=ubcolumbia&id=GALE%7CCY0108327938&v=2.1&it=r. 72 Catharine M. Sedgwick “Mumbett,” manuscript draft, from The Massachusetts Historical Society collections online, The Catherine Maria Sedgwick Papers: 21. https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=547. 21 companions in service.”73 In her “Recollections of Childhood,” also written in 1853, Catharine Sedgwick further elaborates on the role that Freeman played in her life as a mother figure, healer, and protector of the family. She was a stable figure in Sedgwick’s life even when her own parents were not: “Then come thronging recollections of my childhood, its joys and sorrows—‘Papa’s going away,’ and ‘Papa’s coming home;’ the dreadful clouds that came over our sunny home when mamma was sick—my love of Mumbet, that noble woman, the main pillar of our household.”74 Sedgwick explains in her “Recollections” that her father travelled a lot for his political career and that her mother suffered from some sort of cyclical mental illness. She writes that “Mumbet was the only person who could tranquilize my mother when her mind was disordered.”75 In terms of Freeman’s character traits, Sedgwick described her as having “a clear and nice perception of justice, and a stern love of it, and uncompromising honesty in word and deed, and conduct of high intelligence, that made her the unconscious moral teacher of the children she tenderly nursed.”76 Unlike Deborah Sampson and to a lesser extent Elizabeth Freeman, very little primary source material can be found containing information about Nancy Ward. As an Indigenous woman living amongst her people (outside of the white settler society of early America) through most of her life, the majority of her activities cannot be confirmed through written primary source documents. Before the documents regarding Ward can be addressed, it is important to note the issue of her name. All of the following documents were written in english by white settlers, and her anglicized name—Nancy Ward— is used. Additionally, some documents that have been attributed to her by historians do not mention her name at all, but instead refer to her title as Beloved Woman or War Woman. Thus, we cannot be certain 73 Sedgwick “Mumbett,” 34. 74 Mary Dewey, editor, Life and Letters of Catharine M. Sedgwick (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1872): 40. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ABK1698.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext. 75 Dewey, Life and Letters, 29. 76 Dewey, Life and Letters, 41. 22 that some of these documents are even truly about Ward, but because of the time and place, and her influential position among her people which is referenced in these documents, it is likely. The earliest document in which her actual name is mentioned was written in 1775 and is found in the John Haywood papers.77 The author of the folder in which it is contained is unknown. The anonymous author describes various events that occurred in Eastern Tennessee. In addition, the author makes note of the warning that Ward and Isaac Thomas sent to settlers about an impending attack by Cherokee warriors.78 This provides weight to her reputation of helping the white settlers in the area and preventing bloodshed. The majority of information about Ward’s activities during the American Revolution, particularly regarding her interactions with American soldiers, can be found in the fourth volume of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, a compilation of documents pertaining to Thomas Jefferson published in 1951. Within, Ward appears in brief glimpses through correspondence between Jefferson and Arthur Campbell. Dated January 15, 1781, Campbell reports to Jefferson that “the famous indian woman Nancy Ward came to camp, she gave us various intelligence, and made an overture in behalf of some Chiefs for Peace.”79 This gives creedence to Ward’s position as a diplomatic figure between the Americans and the Cherokees and as a prominent member of Cherokee society. Later in the letter, when communicating the number of Cherokee prisoners taken as a result of a conflict, Campbell includes that they also “brought in” Nancy Ward and her family, “who for their good offices, we considered in another light.”80 Ward does not appear to have been considered a prisoner to the Americans. Jefferson himself in a later correspondence advised 77 According to the Haywood, John Papers finding aid, “the John Haywood Papers are the notes collected by John Haywood (1762-1826) that he used to write The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee, published in 1823.” Haywood’s published work is discussed in the secondary source section of this project; Tennessee State Library and Archives, Haywood, John (1762-1826) Papers, 1768-1796: Accession No. 448 (Nashville, Tennessee: State of Tennessee Department of State, 1986), 1, https://sos-tn-gov-files.s3.amazonaws.com/forms/HAYWOOD_JOHN_PAPERS_1768-1796.pdf. 78 November, 1775, Haywood, John Papers 1768-1796, Folder 1: Text pages 59-61. From State of Tennessee Department of State Tennessee State Library and Archives. 79 Julian P. Boyd, editor, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: October 1780 to February 1781, vol. 4 (Princeton University Press: 1951): 361. 80 Boyd, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 362. 23 Campbell that “her inclination ought to be followed as to what is done with her.”81 These letters tell us much about Ward’s relationship with the Americans during the Revolution, yet provide no specific information about what her life beyond these interactions was like. In July-August 1781, Cherokee representatives met with the white settlers represented by William Christian, Evan Shelby, and Joseph Martin in order to establish terms of peace and the exchange of prisoners. The talks were recorded, however the original manuscripts are severely damaged. There is a section of the document that has been attributed to Ward, which is titled “The Tarsell then spoke as follows.”82 The speaker, allegedly Ward, appeals to previous “good talks” with the settlers that had been violated by them, and asks for their “pity,” as “we know the white people are more and stronger than us,” and asks “but will you take everything from us, and make us starve?”83 We can determine for certain that this speech is given by a woman. There is a section within it in which the speaker refers to themselves as “your Mothers.”84 This suggests both that the person speaking is a woman and that this person is representing a group of women— a role that Ward has certainly played in her history. Proof of Ward’s position as a representative of the Cherokee women can be found in the English transcript of a national council held in Amovey Tennessee on May 2nd, 1817. This document contains Nancy Ward’s name, so it is more certain that she contributed to these talks. Within the document, the women urge their people to “not part with any more of our lands.”85 There is a section at the end that is titled “Nancy Ward to the Children,” in which she asks for the “warriors to take pity and listen to the calls of you sisters.”86 She also mentions in this section that she was “very old.”87 It is interesting to note that there are thirty six years between the 1781 talks between the Cherokees and the white settlers discussed 81 Boyd, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 634. 82 “Cherokee Treaty, 1781,” Nathanael Greene Papers, 1775-1785, Reel 2: 17, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. https://lccn.loc.gov/mm75024026. 83 “Cherokee Treaty, 1781,” 17-18.. 84 “Cherokee Treaty, 1781,” 18. 85 Cherokee Indian Women, Cherokee Indian/Native American Women to National Council at Amohee, May 2, 1817, manuscripts, from Andrew Jackson Papers, 1775-1874, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. https://www.loc.gov/item/maj007262/ 86 Cherokee Indian Women, Cherokee Indian/Native American Women to National Council at Amohee. 87 Cherokee Indian Women, Cherokee Indian/Native American Women to National Council at Amohee. 24 above and this 1817 council, meaning that Ward would have held this prominent position for nearly four decades. It is believed that she lived a very long life, but no birth or death records were officially recorded. In conclusion, it is apparent from this primary source investigation that the narratives that can be drawn from engaging in these sources alone can be described as patchy and incomplete at best. In the cases of each of these three women, primary source evidence can grant us a look into very specific events in time, but not to their lives as a whole. Additionally, due to the almost complete lack of self-authored materials from these women, we are unable to determine what their thoughts, feelings, and motives were regarding the events that are recounted in the previously discussed documents. Keeping this in mind, we will turn now to an analysis of nearly two centuries worth of secondary source accounts about Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, and Nancy Ward. 25 Chapter 3: Secondary Source Analysis We begin this chapter with an exploration of secondary source material on Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, and Nancy Ward published between 1780-1850. Several of these sources were written by people who actually spoke with the women themselves, or to those close to them. For this reason, while some of these authors sometimes made it clear that they were not attempting to provide the entire “truth” of the stories of these women, they have been considered authorities on their histories over time. Interest in individual biographies of women who were not elites and who had participated in the Revolution increased during this period. Most of the accounts of these women were written to promote a new republican image of female civic duty and motherhood. Lessons of morality and virtue are deeply interwoven throughout these biographies. In Female Review, the first biographical work written about Deborah Sampson, biographer Herman Mann declares, “I have taken the liberty to intersperse, through the whole, a series of moral reflections.”88 During this same period Elizabeth Ellet’s Women of the American Revolution was published in 1848. This book was the first publication dedicated to women’s participation in American history, which indicated that an interest in building a collection of exemplary female republican figures existed. The Female Review turned out to be the most influential source of information about Sampson, and Mann is still cited as an authority on her to this day. Mann presents Sampson as a woman of humble origins but with a powerful lineage.89 He firmly establishes her Republican femininity early on, granting 88 Herman Mann, The Female Review: Or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady, Whose life and character are peculiarly distinguished, being a Continental soldier, for nearly three years, in the late American war: During which time she performed the duties of every department, into which she was called, with punctual exactness, fidelity and honor, and preserved her chastity inviolate by the most artful concealment of her sex (Dedham: Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton, 1797): 108. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=SABN&u=ubcolumbia&id=GALE%7CCY0100578992&v=2.1&it=r&aty=sso%3A+shibboleth. 89 She is noted by Mann to have been related to William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth; Mann, The Female Review, 17-18. 26 her the virtues of “a natural sweetness and pliability of temper— a ready wit… a ready conformity to a parent’s, or patroness’s injunctions—a native modesty and softness in expression and deportment, and passions naturally formed in philanthropy and commiseration.”90 Mann states for example that Sampson used her “female eloquence” to convince a number of fellow soldiers not to desert from their posts.91 Mann also emphasizes Sampson’s chastity throughout her service, despite being constantly surrounded by men.92 Mann depicts his Deborah Sampson as the ideal Republican and Revolutionary woman, forced by necessity and a sense of patriotic duty to engage in the non-conformist act of crossdressing and fighting in the Revolutionary War. In the lecture Address, performed by Sampson herself in 1802 yet ghost-written by Mann, her patriotic motive for her participation in the Revolutionary struggle is exaggerated. Mann (through Sampson’s own mouth), declares that “not merely for the sake of gratifying a facetious curiosity…did I throw off the soft habiliments of my sex, and assume those of a warrior.”93 Mann is careful not to encourage the emulation of Sampson’s behaviour by other women. In Female Review, he explicitly states, “I cannot desire you [females] to adopt the example of our Heroine, should the like occasion again offer.”94 Over fifty years after Female Review was published, Elizabeth Ellet echoed Mann’s interpretation of Sampson’s patriotic motives. She states that “there is no reason to believe that any consideration foreign to the purest patriotism, impelled her to the resolution of assuming male attire, and enlisting in the army.”95 Like Mann, Ellet makes certain that the reader understands that she does not condone Sampson’s departure from nineteenth-century expectations of female behaviour: “The career to 90 Mann, The Female Review, 27. 91 Mann, The Female Review, 159-160. 92 Mann, The Female Review, 59-60. 93 Deborah Sampson, Address, Delivered with Applause, At the Federal-Street Theatre, Boston, four successive nights of the different plays, beginning March 22, 1802; and after, at other principal towns, a number of nights successively at each place (Dedham: Printed and sold by H. Mann at the Minerva Office, 1802): 9-10. https://wwo-wwp-northeastern-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/WWO/search?browse-all=yes;brand=wwo#!/view/gannett.address.xml. 94 Mann, The Female Review, 116. 95 Ellet, The Women of the American Revolution, 126. 27 which her patriotism urged her, cannot be commended as an example; but her exemplary conduct after the first step will go far to plead her excuse.”96 While Sampson was included in Ellet’s The Women of the American Revolution, Elizabeth Freeman was not. The early accounts on Freeman between 1760 and 1850 were produced by the Sedgwick children, who can be considered reliable sources of information having grown up with her as a servant in their household. These stories, passed on to the Sedgwick children from Freeman herself, are the closest we are able to get to an understanding of her life before, during and after she managed to obtain her freedom through her famous court case in 1781. In 1831, Henry Sedgwick gave a lecture titled The Practicability of the Abolition of Slavery, in which he used Freeman as a counterexample to the common belief at the time that black people were of inferior character compared to white people—thus justifying the institution of African slavery.97 Henry’s sister Catharine Sedgwick, the famous author, also wrote about Freeman in her manuscript “Mumbet” and in her Recollections of Childhood in 1853. She is portrayed in these accounts as a stubborn protector of the Sedgwick family, a teacher, a nurse, and as possessing “the irrepressible longing for liberty,” all virtues which would have been associated with the Republican mother.98 Henry and Catharine Sedgwick both provide a story from her time as a slave, in which Freeman received a blow from a hot shovel that was intended for her sister.99 According to Henry Sedgwick, “she bore the honorable scar it left to the day of her death.”100 Her sacrificial act—punctuated by the scar left on her body—further illustrates Freeman’s virtue as a republican woman. The most notable difference between the Sedgwick children’s accounts was in their conclusions regarding the character of black Americans in general through their experiences growing up with Freeman. Henry Sedgwick regarded Freeman as an example of the potential of all black people in America: “having 96 Ellet, The Women of the American Revolution, 135. 97 Henry D. Sedgwick, The Practicability of the abolition of slavery: A lecture delivered at the Lyceum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, February 1831 (New York: Printed by J. Seymour, 1831): 14. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=SABN&u=ubcolumbia&id=GALE%7CCY0108327938&v=2.1&it=r. 98 Sedgwick, “Mumbett,” 19. 99 Sedgwick, “Mumbett,” 7; Sedgwick, Abolition of Slavery, 15. 100 Sedgwick, Abolition of Slavery, 15. 28 known this woman… I cannot believe in the moral or physical inferiority of the race to which she belonged.”101 Catharine Sedgwick, however, viewed Freeman as a uniquely exceptional black woman. According to her, “a gentle nature & an inferior condition is apparent in the subservient manner of the colored people in the United States… Mum-Bett was a striking exception to this truth.”102 While Elizabeth Freeman received little attention from scholars between 1760-1850, Nancy Ward received even less. No attempts were made to compile a complete biography of her life, and mention of her is limited to mere sentences in general regional histories, such as Thomas Nuttall’s A Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory published in 1821. Nuttall describes Ward as an influential woman who aided in modernizing Cherokee society through her title “‘the beloved’… her advice and council borders on supreme.”103 He cites conversation with “the brother of the late governor Lewis, now Cherokee agent” as his source of information on the matter.104 In 1853, Ward appears in J.G.M. Ramsey’s The Annals of Tennessee. His account does not stray far from the information provided in the correspondence found in the Thomas Jefferson Papers, except for a story about a captive woman, Mrs. Bean. The tale, first told by John Haywood in The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, 1823, was picked up by many historians. In the story a white woman—Mrs. Bean—is captured and condemned to death.105 Ward intervenes, using her authority as the Beloved Woman to set her free.106 This story cements Ward as a friend to the Americans while highlighting her influence among her own people. 101 Sedgwick, Abolition of Slavery, 18. 102 Sedgwick, “Mumbett,” 33-34. 103 Thomas Nuttall, A Journal of Travels into the Arkensa Territory, During the Year 1819: With Occasional Observations of the Manners of the Aborigines (Philadelphia: Printed by Thos. H. Palmer, 1821), 130. https://archive.org/details/journaloftravels00nutt/page/n8/mode/1up?q=Ward. 104 Nuttall, Arkansa Territory, 130. 105 John Haywood, The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, up to the first settlements therein by the white people, in the year 1768 (Nashville: Printed by George Wilson, 1823): 278. https://ia804705.us.archive.org/18/items/naturalaborigina00hayw/naturalaborigina00hayw.pdf. 106 Haywood, The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, 278; James G. M. Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising its Settlement, as the Watauga Association, from 1769 to 1777; A Part of North Carolina, From 1777 to 1784; The State of Franklin, From 1784 to 1788; A Part of North Carolina, From 1788 to 1790; The Territory of the U. States, South of the Ohio, From 1790 to 1796; The State of Tennessee, From 1796 to 1800 (Charleston: John Russel, 1853): 157. https://archive.org/details/annalstennessee00ramsgoog/page/n12/mode/1up?q=Nancy+Ward. 29 Lastly, Ramsey refers to Ward in his account as “another Pocahontas,” which set the tone for almost all future accounts about her.107 Once historians were a few generations removed from the American Revolution, we start to see an emphasis on genealogy and heritage in accounts about Sampson, Freeman, and Ward written between 1850 and 1900. This might be due to the establishment of two groups, the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, during this period. Membership in both organizations is based on an ancestral connection to a recognized significant person from the Revolutionary period. Because the American Civil War and the centennial anniversary of the Revolution occurred during this period people reflected and reassessed, both critically and nostalgically, the events of a rebellion that ended with the establishment of an independent republic in North America. In the case of Deborah Sampson, in the period between 1850 and 1900, a genealogy of the Sampson family and a revised version of Female Review were published, both authored by John Adams Vinton. Vinton believed that it was important to write about people like Sampson because her story provides “to some extent, a picture of those times, and opens before us scenes of trial and hardship, of patriotism and fortitude, that enable us better to conceive of that great conflict.”108 Vinton criticized the first edition of Female Review for being “pompous and affected,” and claimed that his goal for the new edition was to “disentangle the facts from the fancies with which they have been mingled.”109 Vinton goes to great lengths to confirm specific details of the story through close examination of primary source evidence such as muster rolls, correspondence, pension files, etc..110 Like historians before him, Vinton states that “her example in enlisting as a soldier is certainly not to be commended to the imitation of our 107 Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee, 144. 108 Herman Mann, and John Adams Vinton, The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, The Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution, with An Introduction and Notes (Boston: J. K. Wiggin & WM. Parsons Lunt, 1866): ix. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=SABN&u=ubcolumbia&id=GALE%7CCY0111006956&v=2.1&it=r. 109 Vinton, The Female Review, xii. 110 Vinton, The Female Review, xv-xxix. 30 fair countrywomen; but her inflexible resolution and firm self-control, after she enlisted, are deserving of high praise.”111 Sampson’s motives for joining the Continental army according to Vinton rested much more on an interest in travel and obtaining knowledge, rather than the patriotism proclaimed by previous authors of accounts about her.112 Vinton is the first to present the slightly-scandalous story of Sampson’s first attempt to enlist, introducing a less-than perfect version of the Sampson we saw in previous accounts. According to the tale, she steals a set of men’s attire, enlists as Timothy Thayer and collects the bounty. She ends up getting caught and is forced to return the money.113 Vinton does not attempt to justify her actions. The general traits associated with her are quite different from what was seen in the first time period, moving from more subservient traits to “courage, love of adventure, and perseverance under difficulties…bold, enterprising, and fearless; she had great self-control, and a firm, resolute will.”114 Unlike Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman was not the subject of genealogical studies or of in-depth fact analysis between 1850-1900 about the stories of her life. By the 1860s, however, the Brom & Bett v. Ashley case of 1781 had gained more recognition, likely due to the growing abolition movement followed by the official national abolishment of slavery in the United States in 1865. George Moore published Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts in 1866, in which Freeman makes an appearance. Moore acknowledged that her case “has been stated by some as the turning-point of legal decision” regarding slavery in Massachusetts.115 Despite this recognition, Freeman still received little attention in terms of biographical accounts about her. One author who did write about Freeman in a more intimate manner was Henry Field, who claimed that he was raised by Freeman.116 As someone who claimed to have known her personally, Field did not offer much new information. He simply repeated the stories that were originally provided by the Sedgwick children. Field described Freeman as having been “noted for her activity and 111 Vinton, Female Review, xxx. 112 Vinton, Female Review, 111. 113 Vinton, Female Review, 124-125. 114 Vinton, Female Review, 228. 115 George H. Moore, Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1866): 210. https://ia904509.us.archive.org/27/items/notesonhistory00moorrich/notesonhistory00moorrich.pdf. 116 Henry M. Field, Bright Skies and Dark Shadows (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1890): 134. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdcmassbookdig/brightskiesdarks00fiel/brightskiesdarks00fiel.pdf. 31 courage, and her high spirit, as if the blood of old African kings was flowing in her veins... she was ready to do any amount of hard work, but would not submit to cruelty.”117 This reference to “the blood of old African kings” attests to the emphasis placed on lineage that was prominent during this period. He takes a similar stance to Catharine Sedgwick in terms of Freeman’s relation to other black Americans, however. He claims that “though her skin was black, her heart was white,” suggesting that her good qualities were unusual for her own race.118 It appears that authors were even less concerned about accuracies in portraying Nancy Ward from 1850-1900 than they were in historical depictions of Freeman. The first biographical work about Nancy Ward was published in 1895, but it is classified as historical fiction. Despite this, The Wild Rose of Cherokee further perpetuated the Pocahontas narrative within later historical scholarship. The novel transformed what little insight about Ward that could be gleaned from primary source and early accounts into a cohesive fictional story about her life. It is beyond doubt that this story had an influence on later historians. For example, only after the publication of this book is the Cherokee Rose said to symbolize Nancy Ward.119 Other than this book, Ward is still seldom featured in scholarly work in this period apart from brief mentions within publications dedicated to compiling reproduced documents from the Revolution. These works, such as Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts from 1875, were produced around the centennial anniversary of the American Revolution.120 In the period between 1900-1940, historians focused on Revolutionary ideology and politics rather than individuals such as Sampson, Freeman, and Ward. It is surprising that someone such as 117 Field, Bright Skies, 133. 118 Field, Bright Skies, 138. 119 Ben Harris McClary, “Nancy Ward, The Last Beloved Woman of the Cherokees.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 21, no. 4 (1962): 353. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42621596. 120 W.M.P Palmer, editor, Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts, 1652-1781, vol. I (Richmond: R.F. Walker, 1875). https://archive.org/details/calendarvirgini12palmgoog/page/n6/mode/1up?q=Nancy+ward. 32 Deborah Sampson did not receive more attention for her service as a soldier since World War I occurred during this period. Only one secondary source document produced in this period about Deborah Sampson could be found, and this document was made in an effort to recognize Deborah Sampson for something other than her service as a soldier. In 1902, historian Eugene Tappan organized a dinner in the Town Hall of Sharon, Massachusetts to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Deborah Sampson’s speaking tour. In the introduction to the manuscript, Tappan acknowledges that “the mention of Deborah Sampson has usually recalled only her patriotic service as a Continental soldier of the Revolutionary army. The special purpose of the dinner, however, was to bring more attention to the fact that Mrs. Gannett was an early woman lecturer.”121 While this focus away from military contributions may seem unexpected during times of war, if one considers that historians were focused on the use of propaganda and the power of ideology in the Revolutionary War during this time, then putting effort into recognizing Sampson for her part in the dissemination of public information does fit. Tappan credits Sampson for being “among the first of her sex in the field and on the platform.”122 Like Sampson, Freeman also suffered from a decline in scholarly interest in her biographical details in this time period. After the Sedgwick children and all those claiming to have known her personally passed away, Freeman existed only in the context of the Brom & Bett v. Ashley case for a number of years. This makes sense if we understand the 1900-1940 period to be one of a declining interest in biographies and an increasing interest in national politics. There would be room in such a climate to pay attention to the legal case that “was in reality the death blow to slavery in Massachusetts,” but the the individuals involved in the case, particularly the slaves, were not considered particularly important to the story.123 Legal historian James Rosenthal provides two brief statements about Freeman 121 Eugene Tappan, Deborah Sampson Gannett Dinner in the TownHall, Sharon, Massachusetts, April 3, 1902. (Sharon: Deborah Sampson Gannett Dinner Committee, 1902): 5-6. https://archive.org/details/deborahsampsonga00tapp/page/36/mode/1up. 122 Tappan, Deborah Sampson Gannett Dinner, 34. 123 John H. Lockwood, et al., editors, Western Massachusetts: A History 1636-1925, Vol. 1 (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company Inc., 1926): 449. https://archive.org/details/westernmassachus02lock/page/530/mode/1up. 33 outside of the court case in Free Soil in Berkshire County. He noted that “Bett intercepted a blow which was possibly meant for someone else, and vowed, as a consequence, that she would remain no longer in the Ashley service,” and that she “is often referred to with tenderness and respect by Theodore Sedgwick’s daughter, Catharine M. Sedgwick, the novelist.”124 In stark contrast to the waning attention granted toward both Sampson and Freeman, perhaps the most surprising development that occurred in this period concerns the secondary source material on Nancy Ward. Between 1900 and 1940, there was an explosion of material produced about her and the Cherokee people in general. A number of biographical accounts of Ward were produced in a time where biographies were generally out of fashion. This sudden explosion of material (reflecting an explosion of interest) might be due to the settlement of the American West. After the settlement of the Western frontier, “the last wilderness…the last locus of freedom from social responsibility,” there arose a sense of nostalgia for what became known in the U.S. as the “Old West.”125 According to American historian Wyn Wachhorst, “the Western dates from the late nineteenth century, when a wave of escapist fantasy swept through popular culture in response to kaleidoscopic change—industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and revolutions in transportation and communication.”126 Part of this Western story of course included the Indigenous people—the “cowboys and Indians” trope was born in this era.127 Accompanying this nostalgia came the fascination with and fetishization of Indigenous cultures which led to a huge increase in scholarly research in the field. Beginning with The Wild Rose of Cherokee, which could be described as a Western novel, Nancy Ward became a character fully cemented and actualized in historical writing. Within these years, large and well-known works such as James Mooney’s Myths of the Cherokee (1902), Emmet Starr’s History of the Cherokee Indians and their Legends and Folklore (1921), 124 James M. Rosenthal, “Free Soil in Berkshire County 1781,” The New England Quarterly 10, no. 4 (1937): 782-783. https://www.jstor.org/stable/359940. 125 Wyn Wachhorst, "Come Back, Shane! The National Nostalgia," Southwest Review 98, no. 1 (2013): 12. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A320072285/LitRC?u=ubcolumbia&sid=summon&xid=25080b36. 126 Wachhorst, "The National Nostalgia,” 13. 127 In his article, Wachhorst mentions “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West Show, which ran from the 1880s until at least the 1910s. Wachhorst, “National Nostalgia,” 13. 34 and W.R.L Smith’s Story of the Cherokees (1928) were published, and Ward is featured at length in all of them. Oliver Taylor explains that her “acts of friendly mediation, and humane treatment of captives, endeared her to the whites in such a way that she is known as Tennessee’s Pocahontas.”128 At the turn of the century, authors stated that she was a “halfbreed,” with a Cherokee mother and a British father of the surname Ward.129 By the 1920s and evermore, however, she is consistently “known” to be a full-blood Cherokee of powerful lineage, who marries a white settler.130 At this point we also start to see historians speculate about her Indigenous name. Emmet Starr, a historian of mixed Cherokee and white heritage, believed that it may have been na-ni.131 Between 1940 and 1960 women’s history appeared to fade even more from the interests of scholars. In fact, it appears from the tone of some of the sources from this period that there were efforts put forward by authors to minimize the participation of women in American history. The Consensus School interpretation of American history called for a conservative return to over-simplified narratives of the American Revolution and the exclusion in many cases of non-conformist individuals, such as Sampson, Freeman, and Ward. By the close of World War II in the late 1940s and through the following decade, Deborah Sampson was singled out as “America’s one female soldier.”132 Accounts of her life seem to highlight 128 Oliver Taylor, Historic Sullivan: A History of Sullivan County, Tennessee with brief Biographies of the Makers of History (Bristol: The King Printing Co., 1909): 57.https://archive.org/details/historicsullivan00tayl/page/n9/mode/1up. 129 James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee: Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902): 203. https://ia800308.us.archive.org/10/items/cu31924104080076/cu31924104080076.pdf; Taylor, Historic Sullivan, 57. 130 Emmet Starr, History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folk Lore (Oklahoma City: The Warden Company, 1921; New York, Kraus Reprint): 468. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.amindian/hcherfol0001&collection=amindian&id=17&startid=&endid=30. 131 Starr, History of the Cherokee Indians, 468. 132 Stewart H. Holbrook, Lost Men of American History (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948): 55. https://archive.org/details/lostmenofamerica000493mbp/page/n6/mode/1up 35 events or actions that would have been considered at the time to be uncouth or controversial. Holbrook in Lost Men of American History particularly seems to hold a patronizing tone in the retelling of the Sampson narrative. When he reaches the part of the story in which Sampson is discovered to be a female, he strangely adds that “she was permitted to don female garb and to parade down the ranks of her former comrades in arm, the soon-to-be-sheepish men.”133 In mentioning the diary she kept during her speaking tour, Holbrook remarks “soldier or no, she was still a woman; one item in her Albany expenses was $1 for Dressing my Hair’.”134 Elizabeth Cometti also mentions Sampson’s speaking tour, “where she sometimes appeared in uniform to apologize for and to exult over her youthful adventure.”135 By the end of the period, Frederick Norwood published an essay in 1957 outlining Sampson’s exploits as a soldier that presents her as a hybrid of Mann and Vinton’s versions of Female Review. Interestingly, he finishes off his work by stating “that she came to her decision and carried it out in spite of strong contrary indications make her story medically and psychiatrically interesting.”136 In an era (the 1950s-60s) that was seeing a sort of “revolution” in the field of Psychology which began a transition away from Freudian psychoanalysis and behaviourism and towards cognitive psychology, this “psychiatrically interesting” comment is intriguing. From the 1940s onward, the quantity of secondary source material about Elizabeth Freeman steadily increases. Her personal story is increasingly often told in works that include reference to the Brom & Bett v. Ashley case. We see in this period a reintroduction (and reinterpretation) of the stories about Freeman that were told by the Sedgwick children. In the newer accounts, authors often introduced to their versions the use of racial slurs within Freeman’s interactions with people, and Freeman behaving 133 Holbrook, Lost Men of American History, 59. 134 Holbrook, Lost Men of American History, 60. 135 Elizabeth Cometti, “Women in the American Revolution,” The New England Quarterly 20, no. 3 (1947): 345, https://www.jstor.org/stable/361443. 136 Frederick Norwood, “Deborah Sampson, Alias Robert Shirtliff, Fighting Female of the Continental Line,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 31 (1957): 161. https://www.proquest.com/docview/1296294691?accountid=14656&pq-origsite=summon&imgSeq=1. 36 and speaking in a racially-stereotyped manner.137 In 1946, however, Chad Smith attributes emancipation in Massachusetts to the “genius” of Elizabeth Freeman.138 He rather informally only refers to her as Bett. A testament to the period he was writing in, Smith describes the Brom & Bett v. Ashley case as “a test case involving, on one side, the actual application of one of the leading principles for which the Revolution was fought and, on the other side, over a million dollars’ worth of property.”139 That leading principle being that of liberty, and in the context of a post-world war II and the rise of the civil rights movement, that principle as it related to black Americans and the equal application of liberty across Americans. Smith exaggerates the reward that was granted to the newly emancipated slaves. After a brief dip in scholarly interest in Nancy Ward the 1940s, the flow of scholarly interest in her resumed in the 1950s. In 1954, she was featured in the Cherokee chapter of Carolyn Foreman’s Indian Women Chiefs.140 At the beginning of the section about Ward, the author states that “her Indian [sic.] name was Ghigua.”141 Later on, however, she says that “according to a recent writer Nancy Ward’s given name was the Anglicized form of her Cherokee name Nanye’hi, which ‘was an old personal name among the Cherokees, signifying ‘One who goes about’.”142 Foreman describes Ward as “daring, fascinating, influential and beloved by all.”143 In 1957, Annie Burns, a possible relative of Ward, prepared a massive 300-page compilation of excerpts from many publications that feature Nancy Ward, titled Military and Genealogical Records of the Famous Indian Woman: Nancy Ward. She states that “I feel it my duty to write about Nancy Ward,” and that the work was completed “to also honor my father James Abraham 137 Racial slurs are used when recounting one of the Sedgwick tales in Chad P. Smith, The Housatonic Puritan River (New York: Rinehart & Company Incorporated, 1946): 200. https://archive.org/details/housatonicpurita017955mbp/page/n8/mode/1up?q=Bett. 138 Smith, The Housatonic Puritan River, 181. 139 Smith, The Housatonic Puritan River, 184. 140 Carolyn Thomas Foreman, Indian Women Chiefs, (Muskogee: Hoffman Print. Co., 1954. Reprint by Zenger Publishing Co., Inc., 1976): 72-84. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?collection=peggy&handle=hein.amindian/indwmenf0001&id=4&men_tab=srchresults. 141 Foreman, Indian Women Chiefs, 73. 142 Foreman, Indian Women Chiefs, 76. 143 Foreman, Indian Women Chiefs, 83. 37 Walker, who carved the statue of her.”144 The work was considered to be the “best biographical sketch now available” in the 1960s, despite the fact that Burns did little to synthesize the many excerpts she compiled. The period between 1960 and 1980 saw a revitalized interest in women’s, black, and indigenous histories through the rise of a number of social movements such as second wave feminism, civil rights, and new left movements. In 1971, a three-volume biographical dictionary dedicated specifically to women’s history called Notable American Women by editors James Edward, Janet Wilson, and Paul Boyer was published. Both Sampson and Ward were included in this book, but Freeman was overlooked. This was not because the author knew nothing of Freeman, since she is mentioned in Volume III in one sentence in the section about Catharine Sedgwick, as “a trusted Negro servant, Mumbet.”145 One strength of Notable American Women, however, is the account of Deborah Sampson’s complicated and difficult efforts to secure a military pension for herself.146 This aspect of her story was not granted a great deal of attention in the majority of accounts up until this period. In addition to this newfound appreciation for the complexities of her pension journey, scholars writing about Sampson in this time period also worked to reverse the exclusion of accounts of female Revolutionary soldiers seen in the 1940s through to the 1960s. Directly challenging the assertion that Deborah Sampson was the only true female soldier of the American Revolution, Linda De Pauw declares that “although she is the best known, Deborah Sampson was not the only female soldier successfully to pass as a male.”147 The author then mentions other women who were discovered to have disguised themselves as men on the 144 Annie Walker Burns, Military and Genealogical Records of the Famous Indian Woman: Nancy Ward (Washington: A.W. Burns, 1957): aa. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89062495239&seq=1. 145 James T. Edward, Janet Wilson, and Paul S. Boyer, editors, Notable American Women, 1607-1950; A Biographical Dictionary, vol. III (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971): 256. https://archive.org/details/notableamericanw00jame/page/3/mode/1up. 146 Edward, Wilson, and Boyer, Notable American Women, 227-228. 147 Linda Grant De Pauw, “Women in Combat: The Revolutionary War Experience,” Armed Forces & Society 7, no. 2 (1981): 218. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45346224. 38 battlegrounds of the Revolutionary war.148 Here, Sampson is not only celebrated for her participation in history, she is also used as a springboard to learn about other notable women who behaved in similar ways—which is a departure from the accounts of earlier historians who did not bother to investigate possible additional cases or who dared not encourage her behaviour as an example to other women. Despite her conspicuous and confusing absence in Notable American Women, there is no shortage of scholarly accounts written about Elizabeth Freeman between 1960 and 1980. The first book-length biography about Freeman, Mumbet: The Story of Elizabeth Freeman was finally published in 1970. It is similar to Female Review, in that it is a highly romanticized work heavily guided by historical facts. The narrative weaves together the accounts provided to us originally by the Sedgwick children in a cohesive manner, centered around the Brom & Bett v. Ashley case as the major plot. In the book, Freeman is presented as being wholly devoted to her emancipation through her own understanding of the Massachusetts constitution, and is even at one point depicted as giving Theodore Sedgwick legal counsel when he appears doubtful during her trial.149 In the book, she applies a very literal interpretation of the constitution, particularly that section which delcared “‘mankind in a State of Nature are equal, free and independent of each other’.”150 She declares to Theodore Sedgwick in the narrative that “the constitution ought to mean what it says.”151 In the late sixties and early seventies, historian Arthur Zilversmit became the authoritative voice on Freeman. He published an article in 1971 titled “Mumbet: Folklore and Fact,” and took an approach to her history that was surprising considering this title. Taking a post-structuralist stance relevant for the times, Zilversmit embraced the folklore that surrounded Freeman’s life and her legal case. Zilversmit tells Freeman’s story, including the tales delivered long ago by the Sedgwick children, with the legal case at its centre. Zilversmit does not, however, engage in a deep dive into the stories to determine their factual weight. He explains that folklore enhances historical memorability and 148 De Pauw, “Women in Combat,” 218. 149 Harold Felton, Mumbet: The Story of Elizabeth Freeman (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1970): 40. https://archive.org/details/mumbetstoryofeli00felt/page/n6/mode/1up. 150 Felton, Mumbet, 16. 151 Felton, Mumbet, 27. 39 longevity by making stories more easily transmittable, and that in the context of the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, “an impersonal account of several slave cases in the in the spring and summer of 1781 would have been forgotten, but the stories of Mumbet… were preserved.”152 Without the folkloric aspects of the case and a focus on only the primary source material available, Elizabeth Freeman the person likely would have been lost within the impersonal legal history of Massachusetts, and only her name would remain, in the court case title Brom & Bett v. Ashley. We saw this process occur in the late nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries, when scholarly writing about Freeman the person gave way to an intense focus on her legal case, leading to a near-exclusion of biographical accounts about her in historical writing. By the 1960s, however, interest in Freeman as an individual in historical research skyrocketed, and she appeared in a great number of works, including Sidney Kaplan’s 1973 book The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution.153 In 1962, Ben McClary released his article “Nancy Ward: The Last Beloved Woman of the Cherokees,” in which he attempts to offer a “true” account of Ward’s life. Contrasting heavily with Zilversmit’s sentiments, it was of McClary’s belief that “one must push aside the work of folklorists and the more saccharine historians of the past century to get an accurate picture.”154 This in-depth pursuit of the “true facts” of Ward’s story likely occurred during this time period due to the delayed consideration of her as a significant woman from the Revolutionary period. While this process for the other three women occurred either before or immediately after their death, the folklore that came to surround Ward did not appear until the late nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries. From his analysis, Ben McClary concludes that Ward was “the last ‘Beloved Woman’ of the Cherokees, who in a transitional period of her tribe’s history never stopped working to help her people.”155 He also determined (as had become commonly 152 Arthur Zilversmit, “Mumbet: Folklore and Fact,” Berkshire History 1, no. 1 (1971): 1-11. https://berkshirehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Mumbet-Folklore-and-Fact-by-Arthur-Zilversmit-1971.pdf. 153 Sidney Kaplan, The Black Presence In the Era of the American Revolution (Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, 1973). 154 McClary, “Nancy Ward,” 352. 155 McClary, “Nancy Ward,” 352. 40 accepted) that her Indigenous name had been Nanye’hi, and that “because of the texture of her skin, so like that of a rose petal, she was given the nickname of Tsistuna-gis-ka (Cherokee or Wild Rose).”156 Recall that this comparison between Nancy Ward and the Cherokee Rose first appeared in Sterling King’s historical novel published in 1895, The Wild Rose of Cherokee. McClary places Ward as the female speaker at the negotiations for the treaties of Holston and Hopewell, in 1781 and 1785, respectively.157 This association of Ward with those speeches became the commonly accepted narrative, even though it is not certain that this woman was, in fact, Nancy Ward herself. Both McClary in his article and James Edward in Notable American Women attempt to speculate Nancy Ward’s motives for aiding the white settlers. By both, she is painted as something of a utilitarian, Edward concluding that “she presumably acted on the conviction that the effort to drive out the white man altogether was futile, and that the Cherokees’ best hope lay in winning his good will.”158 156 McClary, “Nancy Ward,” 353. 157 McClary, “Nancy Ward,” 359-360. 158 Edward, Wilson, and Boyer, Notable American Women, 542. 41 Conclusion: Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, and Nancy Ward were made famous as legendary women of American history for different reasons and at different times, yet they all participated to some degree in the same historical event: The American Revolution. The purpose of this project was to investigate how the presentation of these three women has evolved over time, based on the idea that the narratives about them were used beyond the re-telling of strictly historical fact, but also in order to perpetuate and consolidate ideas about republican ideals and, specifically, the position of women and other minority groups within the social fabric of the United States. Revision to the narratives of these women over approximately two hundred years can be partially explained by the political and scholarly climate in which the specific account was written and that versions of these narratives published between 1780 and 1980 can offer some insight into what was considered historically significant about these women’s stories at different periods of time. In order to determine what aspects of accounts of Sampson, Freeman, and Ward were later revised by historians and other authors, it was important to conduct an analysis of the primary source material on each woman. It was discovered that there is very little primary source evidence to be found documenting the lives of these women. There are a few factors that may help to explain this fact. First, Sampson, Freeman, and Ward were not members of what can be described as the Revolutionary elite; that is, those women of the upper class, who generally had access to education and literacy, and many who wrote books, memoirs, and kept extensive diaries through which their internal voices can be accessed. Specific examples of these women are Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and Catharine Sedgwick. These women not only had the tools to write their own accounts about their lives, they were also granted a platform to publish such accounts as women of status. On the contrary, the three women discussed in this 42 project all existed outside of this elite class. Deborah Sampson was effectively an orphan, and spent the majority of her childhood and early adulthood in the care of various households where she was provided with minimal opportunities for education and social mobility.159 She was reported by biographer Herman Mann to have stated that she was “born to be unfortunate.”160 Elizabeth Freeman was a slave for her entire life prior to her emancipation in 1781, and reportedly never learned how to read or write. Lastly, Nancy Ward, although she held a powerful position amongst the Cherokee people as Beloved Woman, she was an Indigenous person at a time when Indigenous people were not considered members of American society, but rather as existing on the outside of it. Thus, these women were neither in positions to write about their own lives nor did they initially interest many scholars. The lack of primary source evidence is a crucial factor when considering the variability of secondary source accounts on these women. If an author were to create an account based on primary source materials alone, the story one could write would be patchy, incomplete, and difficult to read. In order to offer a cohesive narrative about these women, historians filled in the many blanks in their stories, which created many opportunities for authors to inject their own values and beliefs. As a result of a lack of ample primary source materials such as autobiographies, diaries, or other forms of correspondence that would allow for the historians to have a sense of their character and beliefs, these women became more or less blank slates for historians to impose their own ideas and biases in their accounts about what a woman should be thinking and doing in situations like the ones Sampson, Freeman, and Ward faced. Through a dive into secondary source accounts from five time periods between 1780-1980, we discovered that the attention given to these three particular women waxed and waned depending on the 159 Mann, Female Review, 24-31. 160 Mann, Female Review, 25. 43 extent to which their stories could effectively fit into the period’s grand narrative of the national identity of the United States and ideas about what women’s appropriate role should be within it. Deborah Sampson became famous while she was still alive. Her exploits as a woman in the military during the American Revolution attracted the attention of scholars and she was hailed as a symbol of patriotism and republican virtue. Her departure from the gendered expectations of women’s place in society, however, ensured that historians who wrote about her would firmly communicate that she was not to be held up as an example to other women, but rather as an extraordinary soldier to be celebrated along with the victory of the Revolution. Her presence in scholarship declined as historians’ focus returned towards politics and ideology rather than biographies—especially those about women and non-elites— and by the early- to mid-1900s she was the subject of very few accounts. In the one account that was found from that period, her military service was not the subject of interest but rather her lecture tour from 1802. This could have been due to the expectation for women at this time to enter the work force while men were off fighting overseas, and then the subsequent expectation for them to return to the domestic sphere to make room for the men coming home. Sampson’s rebellious act of crossdressing and joining the military was likely not a narrative that would have been encouraged in this period, when the country was in need of a cooperative, dependable, and temporary female workforce. After this period, her appearance in secondary sources increased, but did not reach the extent to which they were found in the 19th century. During the 1940s and 50s, when women were barred from serving in combat during World War II, her story was told in a way which minimized and patronized both her and other female soldiers’ roles in the battlefields of the American Revolution. Finally, by the end of the timeline covered in this project, 1960 through 1980, in the height of the second-wave feminist movement, Sampson was once again celebrated as an example of female participation in American history. Elizabeth Freeman’s path through history proved very different from Sampson’s. Freeman was initially not well known except by those who knew her personally. She saw no great fame or fortune during her lifetime apart from her own personal freedom from slavery for her contributions in 44 Revolutionary America. Tales from her life were provided through the memoirs and personal anecdotes of those who were raised by her. Soon after, she disappeared into the impersonal legal history of Massachusetts as one of two shortened names on the title of a significant court case: Brom & Bett v. Ashley. Freeman’s personal biography was not brought back to the attention of scholars until the mid-twentieth century, at the intersection between the Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras of the United States. Her reintroduction to the world in the 1940s was highly racially stereotyped, and accounts about her contained the use of racial slurs and racially stereotyped behaviour was attributed to her. She was considered important to the history of slavery and abolition in Massachusetts, yet a standalone book-length biography about Freeman was not published until the 1970s, in the wake of the civil rights movement. Unlike both Sampson and Freeman, Nancy Ward existed in relative obscurity during her lifetime and for the majority of the nineteenth century. Records of her existence are scarce, but she was included briefly in regional histories due to her friendly relations with American settlers during the American Revolution, having earned herself the title of “another Pocahontas.”161 Beyond this she remained relatively unknown, that is, until the first book-length biographical work was published about her in 1895. Unlike the other two women, the first standalone Ward biography was, in fact, a historical fiction. The author, Sterling King, wrote a full novel about a woman whose existence was nominally recognized by earlier American historians. This romance-history novel, published in a period of twentieth-century nostalgia for the “Old West,” led to the explosion of secondary source accounts about Ward. Unlike the other two women, Ward’s popularity was drawn from a highly fictionalized and stereotyped version of her. Thus, scholarly efforts to untangle the reality of her life from fiction took much longer because so many different versions of Ward appeared in later accounts about her life. It is the reality of the situation that much of what has been written about Ward can never be truly confirmed, including her Indigenous 161 Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee, 144. 45 name. This, however, did not stop historians from the 1970s from defining her as a Notable American Wom[a]n.162 The matter of who was writing about these women played an important part in the preservation of Sampson, Freeman, and Ward’s stories over the years. It is important to acknowledge that in many cases, these stories were written by people who were either related to these women, were contracted by someone related to them, or were related to someone who spent a great deal of time studying them. Herman Mann’s work was picked up by his son after he died, which was later picked up by James Adams Vinton, who was originally introduced to Deborah Sampson’s case when he was contracted by the Sampson family to compile a genealogy to trace their lineage. Many of those who attended the Deborah Sampson Gannett Dinner in 1902 were descendants of Sampson. Close personal connections also played an important role in the dissemination of Elizabeth Freeman’s story. The Sedgwick children who grew up with Freeman as the servant to their household were the ones who ensured that her story was delivered to the world, whether it be as a side character to their own memoirs or a political tool as an example of black excellence in the struggle for emancipation. Once all living connections to Freeman passed away, her personal biography faded significantly from interest and her story was nearly lost under the legal shadow of her emancipation case. It was not until the 1960s-70s, when examples of black civic participation in American history became important to the civil rights movement of the time, that her personal story was rediscovered and reinvigorated. It is more difficult to trace the history of Nancy Ward’s descendants, but we see a similar phenomenon with authors of her story, as well. Sterling King, in the prologue of Wild Rose of the Cherokee, claimed to have learned the story of Ward through conversation with the one hundred year old granddaughter of the Beloved Woman herself.163 Additionally, the author of what came to be considered the most authoritative work about Nancy Ward, Military and Genealogical Records of 162 Edward, Wilson, and Boyer, Notable American Women, 541-542. 163 King, Wild Rose of the Cherokee, vii. 46 the Famous Indian Woman: Nancy Ward, Annie Burns, believed herself to have been distantly related to the famous Cherokee woman. At the very least, she had a strong connection with Ward through the work of her father, James Abraham Walker, who carved a statue of her likeness in the early twentieth century. As we can see from considering the backgrounds of those interested in writing about Sampson, Freeman, and Ward, the process of memory-making in these cases was a matter of familial connection as well. It makes sense from this stand-point why the majority of secondary source material about these women are overwhelmingly positive in tone. One can understand an interest in painting descendants on a family tree in a celebratory light. While this project investigated the evolution of Sampson, Freeman, and Ward over two centuries of historical writing, it is important to acknowledge that the story does not end there. Starting in the 1990s into the early twenty-first century, scholarly research about all three of these women skyrocketed. Sampson became a feature in queer history and in conversations about gender and sexuality;164 Freeman’s upward trajectory since the 1970s continued as she became a critical example of the autonomy and strong will of enslaved people and their active participation toward their own emancipation from bondage;165 and Ward’s alleged close relationship with white settlers (at times at the expense of her own people) came into question, and elsewhere she was hailed as a symbol of Indigenous female diplomacy.166 Arguably, the 164 For further reading: Bennett Kravitz, “A Certain Doubt: The Lost Voice of Deborah Samson in Revolutionary America,” Studies in Popular Culture 22, no. 2 (1999): 47-60, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41970372; Greta L. Lafleur, “Precipitous Sensations: Herman Mann’s ‘The Female Review’ (1797), Botanical Sexuality, and the Challenge of Queer Historiography,” Early American Literature 48, no. 1 (2013): 93-123, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24476307; Greta Lafleur, “Sex and ‘Unsex’: Histories of Gender Trouble in Eighteenth-Century North America,” Early American Studies 12, no. 3 (2014): 469-499, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24474867. 165 For further reading: Mary Wilds, Mumbet: The Life and Times of Elizabeth Freeman: The True Story of a Slave (Greensboro: Avisson Press, 1999); Douglas R. Egerton, Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America (Cary: Oxford University Press, 2009): 169-193, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ubc/reader.action?docID=415227&ppg=180; Karen C. Bell, Running From Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America (Cambridge University Press, 2021): 106-136, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108917551.005; 166 For further reading: Clara Kidwell, “Indian Women as Cultural Mediators,” Ethnohistory 39, no. 2 (1992): 97-107, https://www.jstor.org/stable/482389; Cynthia Cumfer, “Nan-ye-hi (Nancy Ward): Diplomatic Mother,” chapter in Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times, Sarah Wilkerson Freeman, editor (University of 47 stories of these women get even more interesting with time. Tracing the evolution of accounts about Sampson, Freeman, and Ward over the first two centuries following the American Revolution, however, provides the historiographical context necessary for further analysis of later works on these historically significant women. While it was determined that two centuries would be the limit of time that could be effectively analyzed in this work, this vast time period covered was not done without its own limitations. The list of secondary sources that were used for this project is by no means a complete one. It was the goal of this project to find what was considered to be the most authoritative voices on these women within each time period covered, and this value judgement was informed by how often each of the sources were cited by others. The sources included in this project were those that were cited the most often by historians of later periods. In closing, even with the increased attention that these women have received in more recent years, women such as Sampson, Freeman, and Ward deserve more representation in historical research, particularly in analyses about how women such as these, who are documented relatively little by primary source data and who belong to non-elite social classes, have been presented over spans of time and why. Rather than being seen as inherently valuable to the pursuit of reconstructing the events of the American Revolution, these women have instead been used as examples to further political or social agendas regarding the role of women and other marginalized groups in society throughout the two centuries explored in this project. One of the most important things that we can learn from the findings of this project is that they successfully demonstrate the extent to which American history in these first two centuries after the American Revolution has been told largely by white scholars for white audiences. This Georgia Press, 2009): 1-22, https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/pub/164/monograph/chapter/330846; Michelene E. Pesantubbee, “Nancy Ward: American Patriot or Cherokee Nationalist?” The American Indian Quarterly 38, no. 2 (2014): 177-206, https://doi.org/10.1353/aiq.2014.0024. 48 historical gatekeeping is clear when comparing the paths that these women’s stories took, particularly by who and for what reasons each of these women became famous as revolutionary figures. For this reason, the overall findings from this research can strongly benefit from an intersectional analysis, which, as leading scholar of critical race theory and intersectionality Kimberlé Crenshaw stated, “highlights the need to account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social” and in this case, historical, ”world is constructed.”167 The fact that these three women were treated so differently both from each other and from mainstream revolutionary heroines, indicates the importance of investigating the “intersections of racism and patriarchy” in historians’ accounts of famous women published over hundreds of years.168 It was not only because they were women that their narratives were treated the way they were. It was the intersection of their race, class, and gender, which contributed to historians’ decisions about how to frame narratives about Freeman, Sampson and Ward at different periods in time. Sampson, as a white woman who fought in the Revolution on the side of the patriots, was celebrated. She was immediately recognized as an important figure in the story of the American Revolution. However, scholars still had to grapple with her gender non-conformity and thus they downplayed it and exaggerated her femininity in order to make her into a female figure worthy of celebrating. This immediate glory given to Sampson was not the case for Freeman or for Ward. It took time for their biographies to be interpreted as valuable to the history of the Revolution and to the nation itself. If not for the children of a powerful white family, the Sedgwicks, placing value in writing about the woman who helped raise them, Elizabeth Freeman likely would have faded into complete obscurity along with “Brom,” the other slave involved in her emancipation case. Other than the fact that he was a male slave to the same master as Freeman, history has effectively forgotten about Brom. Nancy Ward’s story was not considered interesting or valuable outside of her favourable interactions with the Americans during the Revolution until the rise of interest in Indigenous cultures through romanticized accounts of an 167 Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” Kvinder, Køn & Forskning no. 2-3 (2006): 8. https://doi.org/10.7146/kkf.v0i2-3.28090. 168 Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins,” 8. 49 artificial and nostalgic “Old West.” Only then were Indigenous Americans considered to be a part of the fabric of the United States. Even so, Ward’s story became highly stereotyped and reminiscent of typical Pocahontas narratives. As American Indigenous scholar Kathryn Shantley makes clear in her chapter of Is Academic Feminism Dead, “misinformation and mythologies about native women’s lives and experiences prevail in such abundance,” and continue to impede reconciliation efforts due to the lack of an accurate historical understanding about Indigenous women specifically.169 It was crucial in the body of this project to attempt to present the work of the historians discussed without projecting contemporary theory onto them in order to build an accurate picture of the evolution of narrative. In the spirit of this project and in light of the conclusions made in this final chapter, however, it is important to recognize the intellectual environment in which this work was written. As of 2024, the field of history in general and American history in particular have moved into an emphasis on post-colonial and intersectional interpretations of history. The choice of these three particular women and conclusions drawn from this research have been shaped by these influences with its “adoption of an intersectional way of thinking about the problem of sameness and difference in its relation to power,” as defined by Sumi Cho, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall.170 Additionally, the newer field of emotions history has begun to make an impression on contemporary historians for its potential to further explain human motivation.171 As far as the American Revolution is concerned, American historian Nicole Eustace suggested that “emotion served as a source of political motivation in the early United States, as a spur to collective action.”172 There is potential here to examine the historiographical evolution of these 169 Kathryn Shanley, “Blood Ties and Blasphemy: American Indian Women and the Problem of History,” chapter in Is Academic Feminism Dead? Theory in Practice, edited by The Social Justice Group (New York: NYU Press, 2000): 205-224. https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/pub/193/monograph/chapter/170740. 170 Sumi Cho, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall, “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis,” Signs 38, no. 4 (2013): 795. http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.1086/669608. 171 Susan J. Matt and Peter N. Stearns, “Introduction,” chapter in Doing Emotions History, edited by Susan Matt and Peter Stearns (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013): 2. https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/book/27647/. 172 Nicole Eustace, “Emotion and Political Change,” chapter in Doing Emotions History, edited by Susan Matt and Peter Stearns (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013): 177. https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/book/27647/. 50 women’s narratives through the lens of emotions history. The strong language and nature of many biographical accounts about these women certainly can be identified as appeals to emotion, which would be worth investigating. The purpose of this project was not solely to establish truth from fiction in historical writing, but rather to shed light on the processes and purposes of the mythologization of women who have been chosen to represent certain historical events. When it comes to the memory of the American Revolution, not only very few women are represented among those who participated in meaningful ways, but those women who are represented typically come from elite classes and are described as having contributed in very specific and gendered ways. The purpose of most female narratives that came from this period was not to represent the participation of women in a significant historical event, but to reinforce ideas about republican virtue and gender roles. It is true, however, that many women participated in all kinds of ways to the revolutionary effort, from the home, yes, but also from the battlefields to the courts and beyond. For these reasons, Sampson, Freeman, and Ward are certainly three among many women who deserve this kind of analysis. 51 Bibliography Introduction: Brandt, Stefan L. “The American Revolution and Its Other: Indigenous Resistance Writing from William Apess to Sherman Alexie.” AAA: Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 42, no.1 (2017). https://www.jstor.org/stable/26379457. Browne-Marshall, Gloria. “1619 to 1819: Tell Them We Fought Back, A Socio-Legal Perspective.” Phylon 57, no.1 (2020). https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26924986. Butterfield, Emily L. “‘Lie There My Darling, While I Avenge Ye!’: Anecdotes, Collective Memory, and the Legend of Molly Pitcher.” Chapter in Remembering the Revolution: Memory, History, and Nation-Making from Independence to the Civil War, edited by Michael McDonnell, et al.. 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The Female Review: Or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady, Whose Life and Character are Peculiarly Distinguished, Being a Continental Soldier, for Nearly Three Years, in the Late American War: During which time she performed the duties of every department, into which she was called, with punctual exactness, fidelity and honor, and preserved her chastity inviolate by the most artful concealment of her sex. Dedham: Nathaniel and Benjamin Heaton, 1797. 55 Https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=SABN&u=ubcolumbia&id=GALE%7CCY0100578992&v=2.1&it=r&aty=sso%3A+shibboleth. Mann, Herman, and John Adams Vinton. The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, The Female Soldier in the War of the Revolution, with An Introduction and Notes. Boston: J. K. Wiggin & WM. Parsons Lunt, 1866. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=SABN&u=ubcolumbia&id=GALE%7CCY0111006956&v=2.1&it=r. McClary, Ben Harris. “Nancy Ward, The Last Beloved Woman of the Cherokees.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 21, no. 4 (1962): 352-364. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42621596. Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokee: Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902. https://ia800308.us.archive.org/10/items/cu31924104080076/cu31924104080076.pdf. Moore, George H. Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1866. https://ia904509.us.archive.org/27/items/notesonhistory00moorrich/notesonhistory00moorrich.pdf. Norwood, Frederick. “Deborah Sampson, Alias Robert Shirtliff, Fighting Female of the Continental Line,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 31 (1957): 147-161. https://www.proquest.com/docview/1296294691?accountid=14656&pq-origsite=summon&imgSeq=1. Nuttall, Thomas. A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory, During the Year 1819: With Occasional Observations of the Manners of the Aborigines. Philadelphia: Printed by Thos. H. Palmer, 1821. https://archive.org/details/journaloftravels00nutt/page/n8/mode/1up?q=Ward. Palmer, W.M.P., editor. Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts, 1652-1781, vol. I. Richmond: R.F. Walker, 1875. https://archive.org/details/calendarvirgini12palmgoog/page/n6/mode/1up?q=Nancy+ward. Ramsey, James G.M. The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising its Settlement, as the Watauga Association, from 1769 to 1777; A Part of North Carolina, From 1777 to 1784; The State of Franklin, From 1784 to 1788; A Part of North Carolina, From 1788 to 1790; The Territory of the U. States, South of the Ohio, From 1790 to 1796; The State of Tennessee, From 1796 to 1800. Charleston: John Russel, 1853. https://archive.org/details/annalstennessee00ramsgoog/page/n12/mode/1up?q=Nancy+Ward. 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History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folk Lore. Oklahoma City: The Warden Company, 1921; New York, Kraus Reprint. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.amindian/hcherfol0001&collection=amindian&id=17&startid=&endid=30. Tappan, Eugene. Deborah Sampson Gannett Dinner in the Town Hall, Sharon, Massachusetts, April 3, 1902. Sharon: Deborah Sampson Gannett Dinner Committee, 1902. https://archive.org/details/deborahsampsonga00tapp/page/36/mode/1up. Taylor, Oliver. Historic Sullivan: A History of Sullivan County, Tennessee with brief Biographies of the Makers of History. Bristol: The King Printing Co., 1909. https://archive.org/details/historicsullivan00tayl/page/n9/mode/1up. Wachhorst, Wyn. "Come Back, Shane! The National Nostalgia." Southwest Review 98, no. 1 (2013): 12+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A320072285/LitRC?u=ubcolumbia&sid=summon&xid=25080b36. Zilversmit, Arthur. “Mumbet: Folklore and Fact.” Berkshire History 1, no. 1 (1971): 1-11. https://berkshirehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Mumbet-Folklore-and-Fact-by-Arthur-Zilversmit-1971.pdf. Conclusion: Cho, Sumi, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis.” Signs 38, no. 4 (2013): 785-810. http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.1086/669608. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” Kvinder, Køn & Forskning no. 2-3 (2006): 7-20. https://doi.org/10.7146/kkf.v0i2-3.28090. Eustace, Nicole. “Emotion and Political Change.” Chapter in Doing Emotions History. Edited by Susan Matt and Peter N. Stearns. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013: 163-183. https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/book/27647/. Matt, Susan J. and Peter N. Stearns. “Introduction.” Chapter in Doing Emotions History. Edited by Susan J. Matt and Peter N. Stearns. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013: 1-14. https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/book/27647/. Shanley, Kathryn. “Blood Ties and Blasphemy: American Indian Women and the Problem of History.” Chapter in Is Academic Feminism Dead? Theory in Practice. Edited by The Social Justice Group. New York: NYU Press, 2000: 204-232. https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/pub/193/monograph/chapter/170740.
Graduating Project
eng
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Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Undergraduate
University of British Columbia. HIST 499
Ladies of Legend : Mythologization and Truth of Female Narratives from America’s Revolutionary Era
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