![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Anne_Hutchinson_on_Trial.jpg/640px-Anne_Hutchinson_on_Trial.jpg&w=640&q=50)
Women in 17th-century New England
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The experience of women in early New England differed greatly and depended on one's social group acquired at birth. Puritans, Native Americans, and people coming from the Caribbean and across the Atlantic were the three largest groups in the region, the latter of these being smaller in proportion to the first two. Puritan communities were characteristically strict, religious, and in constant development. The separate colonies that formed around Massachusetts and Rhode Island began as centralized towns that expanded quickly during the seventeenth century.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Anne_Hutchinson_on_Trial.jpg/320px-Anne_Hutchinson_on_Trial.jpg)
![]() | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Prior to European contact, gender roles in native societies were divided based on class and gender, and tended to be more equitable than in Puritan society. Native women were able to adapt to the societal changes that followed the introduction of European social, legal, and religious beliefs, while still maintaining their identities within their indigenous tribes. However, historical accounts of women who arrived as slaves and free people from the Caribbean are scarce, as most written records of their lives were recorded from the viewpoint of white male elites and slave owners, who regarded the women and men they owned as property.