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1 social change, crime, and the law The women who were transported to Maryland between 1718 and 1783 were the products of a society in a state of greater than usual flux.1 in fact, for the (nearly) sixty years of the transportation period, the world the women inhabited before their deportation was undergoing major cultural, demographic, economic, and social changes.2 These changes, particularly those affecting agriculture and homebased industrial production, had a significant impact on the lives of women. The changes helped to create the conditions for rising crime in England, ireland, and Wales and (to a lesser extent) in scotland. Though women were less likely than men to face prosecution in the courts, they were significant contributors to the increased incidence of crime—particularly theft. in 1718 britain was still primarily rural and, although towns of size and substance were beginning to develop in lancashire, the West riding of yorkshire, and the West Midlands, the majority of the population was still located in the south of England. by midcentury this had started to change. Aided by an ongoing and accelerating rural exodus and (in the northwest) by an influx of irish immigrants, bristol, Manchester, liverpool, sheffield, leeds, halifax, birmingham, and coventry all ceased to be sprawling villages and expanded into major towns. by 1781 the population of England and Wales had grown to approximately seven million (up by 40 percent since 1700) and, despite emigration and a devastating midcentury famine, the population of ireland had reached approximately four million.3 This increase in population had a marked effect on the british economy. it enlarged both the labor supply and the home market for goods and services. it also helped to enable the start of the industrial revolution, which, over time, would see many of the institutions and practices of a traditional rural society disturbed, eroded, or replaced by those more suited to urban capitalism and a developing consumer economy.4 From about the middle of the century, innovations in iron production, as well as water and steam power, contributed to the early stages of what was actually not so much a revolution as an ongoing, though quickening, process of technological innovation applied to manufacturing. Multiple innovations started putting at risk 12 / Chapter 1 the artisan-based fabrication of textiles. spinning and weaving gradually moved from the cottage to the manufacturing mill and from the country to the town.5 As towns and commercial service hubs grew rapidly, these provided new opportunities for middle-class enterprise and advancement but they also increased the circulation of money and acted as magnets for a range of criminal activity. Adding to the societal turbulence was the incidence of periodic large-scale unemployment . between 1701 and 1763 britain was involved in four major European wars, and those whose war-based employment ended with the cessation of hostilities (chiefly men) sometimes turned to crime as a means of economic survival for themselves and their families. There was certainly a noticeable spike in the crime rate at the end of each of these wars.6 others who turned to crime included displaced agricultural workers. Although the enclosure of fields and common grazing land had been going on for centuries, in the fifty years between 1720 and 1770, Parliament passed no fewer than 686 enclosure acts, and these significantly eroded the access rights of local people to land on which they had (for example) previously grazed sheep or cows or grown crops. Moreover, enclosures often led to the destruction of the cottages in which agricultural workers lived. Thesupersessionof openbyenclosedfieldsandof collectivebyindividualownership meant that enterprising farmers could undertake improvements in crop selection and animal breeding and could experiment with other agricultural innovations without worrying too much that their efforts would be wasted. it also meant, however, that yeomen producers who were neither sufficiently ambitious to apply new knowledge nor in possession of the requisite capital to invest in new or improved technologies lost out in the agricultural revolution. single women were particularly hard hit by the enclosure of commons and were left with few remaining options to earn a livelihood other than casual field labor or odd jobs in their village. landless farmers, farm laborers, and their wives were others who often had to become wage laborers in towns or in the multiplying mills, where they worked long hours for minimal pay.7 in order for the displaced to survive in this unfamiliar and arduous environment ,theyneededtobecomeattunedtohierarchy,obedienttodirection,andwilling to comply with a fixed routine.8 to...

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