"Divers Debts": Women's Participation in the Local Economy, Albemarle, North Carolina, 1663-1729

The court records of Albemerle, North Carolina during the years of proprietorship from 1663-1729, reveal subtle examples of Carolina women participation in early ecolonial economic affairs. Debt suits and the accompanying surviving accounts show varied economic relationships forged by ordinary keeps and merchants wives in the community and speaks to the diversity of experience in colonial women's lives. The relatively strong presence of women in local economic affairs during the late seventeenth century reinforces the existence of a greater degree of fluidity in gender roles than generally attributed to colonial women in the eighteenth century and places women more centrally in the local economic, legal, and political affairs in the colonies.