Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/53

30 Nation, and to accord full credit to individuals, as far as we possibly can, to those who have been instrumental in elevating women to the plane which is their rightful inheritance.

Jamestown was founded May 13, 1607, and the first woman of whom we have any mention in that settlement was Mistress Forest and her maid, Ann Burrs, and she is supposed to have been the first English woman married on American soil. The terrible sufferings of these settlers from starvation and want is a matter of history, and not more than sixty of the original five hundred souls remained after what is known as the "Starving Time," and it is a most remarkable fact that of these sixty survivors a large proportion were women. In 1621 it became evident that a new lot of settlers must be brought out to America if this new colony was to survive. Sir Edwin Sandys, at the head of the London Company, who had charge of the interests of the Virginia settlers, adopted the plan of sending out wives, respectable young women, to these planters, and in one year he sent over one thousand two hundred and sixty-one new settlers, and on one voyage ninety women were sent to become the wives of these hardy pioneers. Being of a thrifty turn this English company did not do this from a purely disinterested motive, as they required pay from each man who thus secured a wife, and the price fixed was one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco, about eighty dollars of our present money. The contract, however, was permitted to be a free one on the part of the woman, and she could not be forced into contracting a marriage objectionable to her, but history tells us that no maiden remained unmarried out of this first venture.

In November, 1620, the Pilgrim fathers landed from "The Mayflower" at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, and Mary