Direct written expression by Virginia women was rare, but Anne Terrell left a striking example: a September 1776 letter published in the Virginia Gazette and addressed to Virginia women, declaring she was “almost ready to start up with sword in hand” while channeling her Patriotism into frugality, spinning, and boycotts of British goods—radical politics dressed in deliberately conventional, gendered language. Mary Willing Byrd’s story reveals the contradictions of women’s political standing: widowed in 1777 and left to manage Westover plantation alone, she was accused of Loyalism after Benedict Arnold’s troops camped on her property and was ordered to trial—though never tried. Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation was eventually extended to women and children. Enslaved women from George Washington’s properties were among those who escaped to British lines.
Interviewees
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Maggie Creech
- Director of Education, Virginia Museum of History and Culture
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James Herrera-Brookes
- Melanie Trent De Schutter Senior Director of Research & Publications, Virginia Museum of History and Culture
