Born for Liberty, Chapter 3

The bulk of the third chapter focuses on the role of women and womanhood during the American Revolution. Evans looks at the rhetoric of the revolution, the politicization of women's daily routines, and the idea of Republican motherhood. She also mentions the choices faced by female slaves and Native American women during the period.

"The very language of the Revolution reinforced the view that political activities and aims were male." (47) Britain and Europe were portrayed as corrupt and evil, and these things were associated with femininity in the Revolution's rhetoric. This association of femininity with evil had already been a common theme in Evangelic preaching. There was a contradictory current of rhetoric however which portrayed the positive aspirations of freedom and virtue as feminine. (46-8)

Women's initial participation in the Revolution involved mob action, such as when women seized food form merchants whom they deemed by charging unfair prices. (46) However, women's daily routines were quickly politicized. Women, charged with procuring goods from the marketplace and with production of goods at home, were forced to choose whether or not to participate in boycotts. Evans portrays women as willing participants, and many signed public pledges in groups. And she suggests that such political action was a significant stage in the development of women's political consciousness (as well as evidence of women's already-existing political awareness and significance). "That some enacted their intentions in more public and formal ways through meetings and petitions demonstrates not only the reality of their political commitments but also a new level of self-perception as political actors." (48-50; quote on page 50)

Women assumed many duties traditionally the responsibility of their absent husbands, and bore the brunt of military occupations, which involved quartering British soldiers, rape, and the confiscation of provisions. Yet others played active roles in the military itself. Soldiers' families served as cooks and launders. They constituted "an essential auxilliary." A few women, such as Deborah Sampson, disguised themselves as men and served as soldiers. (51-3; quotes on 51)

The revolution "politicized women and the domestic arena in ways popular rhetoric could not encompass." (48) It thus forced the question of women's relationship to the state. Political equality with men does not seem to have been widely contemplated, even among women. What developed was the concept of Republican Motherhood, which assigned to women the duty of raising virtuous sons. This "solved a riddle that plagued the founders"--the riddle of how to maintain the virtue of the citizenry--as well as "directed women's newfound political consciousness back into the home." (57) One consequence of the conception of mothers as responsible for effectively educating their sons was the acceptance of the desirability of educating mothers themselves, and so this period saw the establishment of "female academies, the first institutional settings in which young women could receive serious academic training." (57-8; quote on 58)

Women slaves with children rarely ran away from their masters and their servitude before the Revolutionary War and after it. However, during the war the British offered American slaves freedom in exchange for joining their forces. It appears that during the disruptions that this entailed for American slaveholders women slaves ran away with their children. (52-3)

Native Americans had the option of allying with the British. This however hardly proved advantageous in the long. Native Americans were to experience a constant losing struggle over territory for the next century and more. (53)