“Never in my life did I live as free as now”: Unbalanced Sex Ratio and Temporary Female Empowerment. A comparative study of the seventeenth-century Chesapeake and Gold Rush California Camille Marion To cite this version: Camille Marion. “Never in my life did I live as free as now”: Unbalanced Sex Ratio and Temporary Female Empowerment. A comparative study of the seventeenth-century Chesapeake and Gold Rush California. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2019. dumas-02135781 HAL Id: dumas-02135781 https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-02135781 Submitted on 21 May 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. “Never in my life did I live as free as now”: Unbalanced Sex Ratio and Temporary Female Empowerment A comparative study of the seventeenth-century Chesapeake and Gold Rush California MARION Camille Sous la direction de Susanne Berthier-Foglar UFR Langues Etrangères Département Langues, Littératures et Civilisations Etrangères et Régionales Mémoire de master 2 – mention LLCER – 30 crédits Parcours études anglophones Année universitaire 2018-2019 Remerciements Je voudrais remercier Susanne Berthier-Foglar pour son aide et ses encouragements, ainsi que pour tout le temps qu’elle a consacré à m’aider dans la rédaction de ce mémoire. Je remercie également Guillaume et Adeline pour leurs conseils et leur soutien. Summary REMERCIEMENTS ..........................................................................................2 SUMMARY ........................................................................................................3 INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................4 PART 1 LANDS OF OPPORTUNITIES AND INSTABILITY ..................... 13 CHAPTER 1 – LANDS OF OPPORTUNITIES ........................................................... 14 CHAPTER 2 – DANGEROUS ENDEAVORS ............................................................ 23 CHAPTER 3 – UNSETTLED SOCIETIES ................................................................ 36 PART 2 ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN ............................ 53 CHAPTER 4 – MIGRANT WOMEN ....................................................................... 54 CHAPTER 5 – OPPORTUNITIES LINKED TO MARRIAGE ........................................ 62 CHAPTER 6 – OPPORTUNITIES LINKED TO WORK ............................................... 76 PART 3 DIFFERENT STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR AND MORALITY .. 94 CHAPTER 7 – MORE FREEDOM IN WOMEN’S RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN ............. 95 CHAPTER 8 – MORE FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE IN DAILY LIFE ................... 109 CHAPTER 9 – TEMPORARY OPPORTUNITIES ..................................................... 119 CONCLUSION............................................................................................... 130 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 134 PRIMARY SOURCES ........................................................................................ 134 SECONDARY SOURCES ................................................................................... 140 TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................... 145 3 Introduction Soon after the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 by the Virginia Company of London, tobacco became the colony’s cash crop. The demand for tobacco was high in Europe, where smoking had become fashionable, and Virginia’s climate was suitable to its cultivation. After its creation in 1632, the Province of Maryland developed similarly to Virginia: like Virginia, Maryland made tobacco its cash crop, was settled by English immigrants whose great majority was young, male and came as indentured servants. The opportunities that these colonies offered were bright enough for people to leave England and risk their lives during a long and dangerous journey across the Atlantic. The Chesapeake colonies were described as lands of opportunities, where one could make fortunes by growing tobacco. The reality was more contrasted but it is true that migrating involved significant opportunities these immigrants never would have had access to if they had stayed home. They hoped to set up a plantation, and through hard work, to acquire wealth and upward social mobility. The economic potential of tobacco cultivation attracted tens of thousands of English immigrants who were hoping to make fortunes out of the tobacco trade. Approximately two centuries later, in 1848, James Marshall discovered gold flecks in Coloma, California. When the news spread about Marshall’s gold discovery, hundreds of thousands of men from all over the world left their homes and rushed to California, hoping to rise in society by making a fortune out of gold mining. Whether they moved to Virginia in the seventeenth century or to California in the mid-nineteenth century, migrants left everything behind to seize the opportunities that the land had to offer. Although two centuries apart, these two mass migrations have significant similarities, and were both marked by the creation of very unsettled societies. Both societies were confronted to political instability: California was in a process of transition from centuries of Spanish rule and decades of Mexican rule to the creation of a new American society while settling the Chesapeake involved the establishment of a new political system. Efficient political institutions could not be recreated overnight and thus these societies were in a process of transition toward political stability. In both cases, migrants were attracted by economic 4 opportunities which their homes could not offer them: a chance at quick wealth and social mobility. As a result, immigrants prioritized hard work and the acquisition of wealth over the creation and development of stable, permanent societies. Social mobility, upward or downward, was constant: immigrants’ economic situation was unstable and could change very rapidly. The prioritization of their economic objectives led immigrants to base their whole lives on their accomplishment, which delayed the establishment of societies as they had known in England or in the Eastern United States. They failed to develop strict religious practices, weakening the power of the church, as well long-lasting communities. Even the composition of the population had its part in unsettling Chesapeake and California societies. First, immigrants had to face an uncertainty of life: they put their lives at risk both during their migration and once in the receiving society. Moreover, these two societies were mostly growing through immigration: the Chesapeake remained a land of immigration throughout most of the seventeenth century, and California experienced a dramatic population growth in a short amount of time starting from Marshall’s discovery. Another factor of instability was the presence of very unbalanced sex ratios: the opportunities offered by the Chesapeake colonies and Gold Rush California were primarily attractive to men, resulting in an overwhelmingly male population, which actually threatened the survival of the Virginia colony. Although men represented the majority of the population, women migrated as well, whether they were following their husbands or going after opportunities for themselves. Their prospects differed from men’s but were attractive as well, and less of a gamble. Indeed, these areas offered men better chances at advancing in society than they had at home through growing tobacco and gold mining, but positive results were less than certain. However, the small number of women guaranteed a brighter future for the majority of them. The unbalanced sex ratio was at the source of the presence of opportunities for women and resulted in putting the women who migrated to these areas in a favorable position. These unstable contexts, associated with the scarcity of women, created ideal societies for an empowerment of the few women present, who gained more power and independence in marriage and courtship, in the family, their daily and professional lives. Instability and female empowerment were very tightly related 5 in both the seventeenth-century Chesapeake and Gold Rush California. Indeed, when these societies started to evolve into more settled environments, women’s advantages and opportunities gradually disappeared. During the transitory period from instability to stability occurred an interruption of traditional standards of behavior and morality which would reappear as soon as these societies gained in stability. It was during these transitory periods that women could access significant opportunities and enjoy much more freedom than they would have had if they had stayed home. The migration patterns of these two areas resulted in the development of temporarily abnormal societies in terms of sex ratio. It put women in a position of power, notably in the marriage market. Both in the Chesapeake and California, they were certain to marry quickly and were very likely to rise in society through marriage. Financially, getting married