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Women and the

 the American Revolution vs the Revolutionary War  the Enlightenment (late 1600s‒late 1700s) o John Locke (d. 1704) . tabula rasa = “blank slate” . social contract o compare: the novels of Samuel Richardson: Pamela (c.1740) and Clarissa (1748)

The Run-up to the Revolutionary War  the French and Indian War (1754‒63) → Treaty of Paris (1763)  revenue-raising measures tried by Parliament: o Sugar Act (1764) o Stamp Act (1765) [repealed 1766] . James Otis: “taxation without representation!” . virtual vs actual representation o Townshend Duties (1767) [all except the tax on tea repealed 1770] o Tea Act (1773)  Battlefields in the political struggles leading up to the Revolutionary War o 1. colonial assemblies vs royally-appointed governors o 2. propaganda . Mercy Otis Warren (1728‒1814)  The Group (1775): Gov. Hutchinson = Rapatio, Bashaw of Servia  History of the American Revolution (1805) . Hannah Grifitts: The Female Patriots, Address’d to the Daughters of Liberty in America (1768) o 3. economic battlefield: boycotts and nonconsumption campaigns . homespun . 1770: 300 women of Newport, RI: “to save their abused Country from ruin and Slavery” (and tea) . 1770: 9-year-old Susan Boudinot and Gov. William Franklin (and tea) . Daughters of Liberty . Edenton Resolves (1774) (and tea) o 4. street mobs

The Revolutionary War (1775‒83)  loyalists (aka Tories) o Grace Growden Galloway (d. 1781) of PA  patriots (aka rebels) o Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722‒1793) o Sally Franklin Bache and Esther De Berdt Reed and their gift of $300,000 to general George

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 deputy husbands / surrogate husbands  rapes on and NJ in 1776; Cavalry Commander Lord Rawdon  women and the military o camp-followers o “Molly Pitchers” . Mary Hays McCauley (1754‒1832), described by Joseph Plumb Martin in his account of the Courthouse in 1778:

…One little incident happened, during the heat of the cannonade, which I was eyewitness to, and which I think it would be unpardonable not to mention. A woman whose husband belonged to the artillery, and who was then attached to a piece in the engagement, attended with her husband at the piece the whole time. While in the act of reaching a cartridge and having one of her feet as far before the other as she could step, a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat. Looking at it with apparent unconcern, she observed that it was lucky it did not pass a little higher, for in that case it might have carried away something else, and continued her occupation.

o Deborah Sampson (1760‒1827) aka Robert Shurtleff o spies: the Culper Ring (est. 1778), NYC . prisoner #355 o Margaret Morris  Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (1775)

African American Women in the American Revolution Thomas Jefferson in the “Declaration of Independence” (1776): “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

 Mum Bett aka Elizabeth Freeman (c.1742‒1829) o Colonel John Ashley o Sued for her freedom in 1781; won it in 1783 → abolition of slavery in Massachusetts  Phillis Wheatley (c.1753‒1784) o the abolitionist Countess of Huntingdon o Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) o Letter to Rev. Samson Occom (1774)  1777: VT abolished slavery  1780: PA establishes gradual emancipation  1793: invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney

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