Webinar: Almost Inconceivable Foes: Anglo-American Women and Indian War

Late seventeenth-century New England was marked by ongoing warfare between Indigenous people and English colonists. Romeo discusses how the tragedies of the wars instilled doubt in the validity of colonial authority and caused some Anglo-American women to challenge the limits of appropriate behavior in their communities. No longer would some wives and mothers quietly “bear Adversity” or “suppress Resentments, under the greatest Provocations,” as Puritan divine Cotton Mather advised their sex. Romeo explores how women began attacking two almost inconceivable foes: colonial officials and native peoples. Constables, tax collectors, and tithingmen were the targets of female ire when women would no longer bear the personal and financial costs of the conflicts. Later, as raids continued in northern regions of the colony, including areas of Maine, stories emerged of Englishwomen attacking and defending themselves against Indians as the most obvious source of their suffering.

Emily C. K. Romeo is an Associate Professor of Early American History at Northern Michigan University. She began her research on the lives of women in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries while earning her Ph.D. at The University of Chicago. Her book, The Virtuous and Violent Women of Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts, was published in 2020, and her museum exhibition, Extraordinary Women of the Upper Peninsula, is currently traveling to museums and historical societies throughout Michigan. She has been a Mellon Foundation Fellow and has presented her work at numerous historical societies and conferences.