The Politics of Gossip in Early Virginia
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"SEVERAL UNHANDSOME WORDS": THE POLITICS OF GOSSIP IN EARLY VIRGINIA Christine Eisel A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2012 Committee: Ruth Wallis Herndon, Advisor Timothy Messer-Kruse Graduate Faculty Representative Stephen Ortiz Terri Snyder Tiffany Trimmer © 2012 Christine Eisel All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Ruth Wallis Herndon, Advisor This dissertation demonstrates how women’s gossip in influenced colonial Virginia’s legal and political culture. The scandalous stories reported in women’s gossip form the foundation of this study that examines who gossiped, the content of their gossip, and how their gossip helped shape the colonial legal system. Focusing on the individuals involved and recreating their lives as completely as possible has enabled me to compare distinct county cultures. Reactionary in nature, Virginia lawmakers were influenced by both English cultural values and actual events within their immediate communities. The local county courts responded to women’s gossip in discretionary ways. The more intimate relations and immediate concerns within local communities could trump colonial-level interests. This examination of Accomack and York county court records from the 1630s through 1680, supported through an analysis of various colonial records, family histories, and popular culture, shows that gender and law intersected in the following ways. 1. Status was a central organizing force in the lives of early Virginians. Englishmen punished women who gossiped according to the status of their husbands and to the status of the objects of their gossip. 2. English women used their gossip as a substitute for a formal political voice. 3. Englishmen considered women’s gossip disorderly, even dangerous, because it threatened their efforts at maintaining order. At the same time, they treated gossips as useful tools for maintaining community control. This study helps us understand how gendered ideals were both enforced and challenged at the county and colony level. It joins with other studies of early Virginia in illustrating how iv women were critical to the transformation of Virginia from a trading outpost governed by martial law to a diverse, profitable, and ordered colony within the English empire. v For my dad, Howard Decker, and in memory of my mom, Elizabeth Decker vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The completion of the work that follows would not have been possible without the support of a community of scholars, friends, and family. I am extremely grateful for financial support through a Mellon Research Fellowship at the Virginia Historical Society and through a Phi Alpha Theta Doctoral Scholarship. My thanks also goes to the staff at the Eastern Shore Historical Society for giving me access to Susie Ames’ papers; to Minor Weisiger at the Library of Virginia for his assistance in locating deposition fees; to Brooks Miles Barnes at the Eastern Shore Public Library for sharing with me his vast knowledge of Eastern Shore historiography; to Juleigh Clark at the Rockefeller Library for her assistance with York County records; to E. Lee Sheppard at the Virginia Historical Society for steering me toward John Hemphill’s work; and to Brent Tarter at the Library of Virginia and Warren Billings for their timely and informative correspondence regarding Hemphill’s scholarship. Thanks, also, to Sandra Treadway and Abby M. Schrader, commentators at the Virginia Forum and The Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, respectively, for their insights that helped shape this project in its early stages. I owe many thanks, too, to DeeDee Wentland and Tina Amos at the BGSU history department for all of their support. They are the unsung heroes of the department. I am deeply grateful for the continued presence of the talented and generous colleagues that read and re-read many of the following chapters while participating in our “thesis/dissertation club,” especially Shirley Green, Kelly Watson, Eve Crandall, and Jim Schaefer, whom I am privileged to call not only colleagues, but friends. Also, to my dear friends Bruce Onweller and Fawn Nelson, and Billy, Luke, and Bryn for generously sharing their home with me during my research trips to Virginia. vii I am deeply indebted to the members of my dissertation committee, Stephen Ortiz, Terri Snyder, and Tiffany Trimmer, for their initial comments on my prospectus that helped to shape and focus my work, their continued support throughout the writing process, and their questions and comments on the final draft which will undoubtedly shape my future work. I have been truly fortunate to have had the guidance and support of Ruth Wallis Herndon, my advisor, mentor, and friend. She holds me to the highest standards in every idea I come up with and every word I put on paper. Completing this project would not have been possible without her generosity and expertise. Finally, I thank my family, especially my parents, Howard and Elizabeth Decker, who instilled in me a latent love of reading and history, and my husband Mark and our children, Brittany and Evan, for their unending patience and support. Success is neither possible nor fulfilling without you! viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 PROLOGUE…………………….. ........................................................................................ 35 PART ONE. CREATING AND RESISTING PATRIARCHAL ORDER Chapter One. The Threat of Disorderly Speech In Early Virginia Government ....................................................................... 37 Chapter Two. Gossip and Status in Accomack- Northampton County, 1632-1659 .................................................................. 56 Chapter Three. Gossip and Church Politics in York County, 1640s-1660.............................................................................. 84 PART TWO. MAINTAINING MASCULINE AUTHORITY IN VIRGINIA, 1660-1677 Chapter Four. Disorderly Speech and Gender In Early Virginia Lawmaking ........................................................................ 120 Chapter Five. Women’s Gossip and the Politics of Morality in Accomack County, 1660-1677............................................... 137 Chapter Six. The Danger of Women’s Gossip in York County, 1660-1680............................................................... 171 CONCLUSION. THE POWER OF THE COUNTY COURT CLERKS.............................. 200 REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................... 217 APPENDICES……… ........................................................................................................... 230 ix LIST OF FIGURES/TABLES Figures Page 1 Map of the Eastern Shore........................................................................................... 83 2 Map of York County Parishes.................................................................................... 119 3 Tobacco Producing Regions ...................................................................................... 134 Tables 1 Speech Crimes and Punishment under Martial Law.................................................. 42 2 Virginia Laws Governing Speech, 1650s-1670s ....................................................... 128 3 Accomack County Cases of Disorderly Speech, 1663-1675..................................... 170 4 York County Cases of Disorderly Speech, 1661-1676.............................................. 174 5 Sex of Individuals Appearing before the York County Court, 1762-1676................ 198 1 INTRODUCTION Francis Hathaway came to the September 1662 session of the York County court to publicly apologize for having spoken “several unhandsome words” he believed had “impair[ed] [James] Bray’s credit.” Hathaway explained to the court justices that his speech against Bray (most likely slanderous in nature) was instigated by the gossip of his wife, Elizabeth, upon her return from a previous court day. Feeling “heartily sorry…for the wrong done by me to him,” Hathaway offered to pay court costs after begging James Bray’s forgiveness.1 Francis Hathaway’s appearance at the September 1662 court session demonstrates the perceived danger of women’s gossip in the world of early Virginia. A cursory reading of this brief entry might lead one to believe that this episode was merely one among many mundane activities recorded by county court clerks throughout the seventeenth century and has little historical significance. Beverley Fleet, transcriber and abstracter of many of Virginia’s earliest records, called the clerks’ entries “cruel, vulgar, trivial, or merely comical.”2 But it is precisely these seemingly trivial entries that allow for a clearer understanding of daily life in what now seems a very foreign and distant world. Hathaway preempted James Bray from filing a slander suit against him. Bray, a “gentleman” who frequently appeared as an attorney before the York County court, would have been quick to file such a suit had word of Hathaway’s insult reached him. Hathaway readily admitted that any slanderous words from his tongue were a direct result of his wife’s gossip. Hoping to prove himself a good patriarch in the most public of early Virginia’s spaces, the county court, Francis Hathaway humbled himself. He declared that he had fallen victim to his wife’s gossip, a situation