Historic Women in the News

1607 - By 1607 Jamestown, Virginia has been settled and in 1608 Anne Burras becomes the first documented white English woman to marry in the “New World”. She arrived in the New World with a ship load of supplies in the employ as a maid to Mrs. Thomas Forrest. Within the year she married John Laydon and they had four daughters: Virginia, Alice, Katherine, and Margaret. Her daughter, Virginia Laydon is the first child born in the new English colony of Jamestown.

A statue of Anne Burras can be found at the Virginia Women’s Monument erected in 2018-2019 located at the Virginia State Capitol. The tribute also includes life size statues of Cockacoeske, Mary Draper Ingles, Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Todd Lincoln, Laura Copenhaver, Virginia Randolph and Adele Goodman Clark.

2. 1613 - Pocahontas, who had, by all accounts, been helping the Jamestown Colonist to secure much needed food and supplies and acting as liaison between the white colonist and the Indians was kidnapped by the colonist in 1613. They held her for ransom after what was considered a hostile event between Captain John Smith and her tribe. They baptized her, giving her the name Rebecca. Whether or not this was against her will is not known. What we do know is that in April of 1614 she married tobacco farmer John Rolfe. They had a son, Thomas in January of 1615.

3. In 1617, Pocahontas, her husband, John Rolfe, and their young son travelled to England with anticipation of meeting the Queen. The Queen consort of England at this time was Queen Anne of Denmark, married to King James I.

4. Pocahontas passed away in March of 1617 while still in England. She was buried at Gravesend, England where her grave remains today albeit lost after the nearby parish burned down. She was between 20 and 21 years of age at the time of her death. A statue of Pocahontas stands outside the St. George Church in Gravesend, Kent, England. In 1907 she will become the first Native American to be honored on a U.S. postage stamp.

Pocahontas. Oldest portrait hanging in the National Portrait Gallery.

Painted of Pocahontas during her trip to London in 1616.

5. 1619 - Back in Jamestown, Virginia, the first slave ship arrives on the shores of the New World in 1619, this, and the ships that follow for the next 241 years would culminate into approximately six million slaves in the United States. We can approximate that about half were women.

6. 1634 - Enter Anne Hutchinson. Remember that the whole purpose of the “New World” was to have religious freedom and yet when Anne Hutchinson showed up she challenged what the colonist’s true desire was for the New World. Anne hosted women at her home speaking the ‘Free Grace’ or Antinomians theology. The simplified version is that Anne Hutchinson preached a covenant of grace while the colony Puritans preached a covenant of works.

7. In 1637 - Hutchinson was arrested for her “unorthodox” teachings. She was convicted and banished from the colony. She, her eleven children and many of her followers established Portsmouth, Rhode Island. As threats loomed of Boston attacking Portsmouth, Anne and half of her children moved to Split Rock, now known as The Bronx, New York. This turned out to be a fatal error. At this time hostilities abounded with the nearby Siwanoy Indians and in August of 1643 Anne, and all but one of her children in Split Rock were killed during the Kieft’s War.

Susanna, her nine year old daughter was the lone survivor. Anne is remembered in Massachusetts for her courage to exercise her civil liberties in the face of those less tolerant. Did the English Colonists really flee England believing in an individual’s freedom of religion or did they come only to do exactly what England was doing to them; forcing one religion on everyone? Anne Hutchinson played an important role in our history being the first woman (person) to challenge the truth about what “freedom of religion” really means.

Anne’s daughter Susanna returned to the Boston area to live with her remaining siblings that didn’t go to Split Rock. She married when she was 18 and had a family. Her and her husband, John Cole had settled back in Rhode Island by 1663. Her husband passed away in 1707 and Susanna died on December 14, 1713 at age 80.

8. In 1647 Maryland, a 46 year old recent immigrant from England named Margaret Brent became the first female land owner in Maryland when her brother transferred 1000 acres of land to her on Kent Island, Maryland. Add to that the land her brother inherited by his marriage to Mary Kittamaquund who had inherited tribal lands when her father passed away.

9. During this time Margaret Brent had become close friends with the then Governor of Maryland, Leonard Calvert. When he died in June of 1647, Margaret was named executor of his estate. Margaret has long since been considered the FIRST SUFFRAGIST IN MARYLAND since demanding her right to vote before the Maryland Legislation as the executor of Leonard Calvert’s Estate. “I’ve come to seek a voice in this assembly. And yet because I am a woman, forsooth I must stand idly by and not even have a voice in the framing of your laws” Her request was denied.

This occurred during the English Civil War which, by now, had moved into Maryland. Gov. Calvert died before paying the soldiers that had protected his estate as well as the colony. Margaret fed, clothed and paid the soldiers, took in rents due the estate and paid the debts.

Margaret Brent never married. She died in 1671.

10. 1648 – “In 1648 Margaret Jones was indicted for being a witch, found guilty and executed. This was the first instance of capital punishment for witchcraft in New England.” ~ The Pittsfield Sun, Massachusetts, Oct 3, 1822

11. 1650 - According to the Poetry Foundation Anne Bradstreet was the first woman to have her poems published in the Americas. Her most celebrated volumes, “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America” was published in 1650. Born in England around 1612, she died in 1672 in Massachusetts.

This is an excerpt from the book, "Women's History: Trivia, Firsts, & Musings by Paula C. Henderson https://amzn.to/3C2WWN2