Hadley Gilpatrick

Professor Ellisor

US History to 1865

28 September 2020

A Critical Analysis of “Abigail and John Adams Converse on Women’s Rights, 1776”

In 1776, just before the American Revolution, many in colonial society started to express

concern regarding all manner of social and societal inequality. This was the case for Abigail

Adams, wife of Continental Congress member John Adams, who discussed her many thoughts

regarding the revolution in a letter to him just a little over two months before the signing of the

Declaration of Independence. Her letter focused not only on her concerns for the revolution in

Virginia, but for the rights of women in American society moving forward.

Her first doubts written in the letter are expressed toward the colony of Virginia in being

able to adequately defend itself. She wonders what sort of defense Virginia and the rest of the

colonies will be able to bring together to fight the British rule, and describes the people as

“vassals,” landowners not unified with one another, but in their subordination to the ruling class.

She also expresses her discontent with the way revolutionary soldiers are acting, describing them

as “savage and bloodthirsty,” and hopes that they do not reflect colonial society as a whole. She

notes that she is “willing to allow the Colony great merrit for having produced a Washington but

they have been shamefully duped by a Dunmore.” While she appreciates the new form of

government and leadership, they also have not been able to overcome Lord Dunmore, a man

appointed by the King who issued a policy that granted freedom to “all indentured servants,

Negros, and others” (American Yawp, Ch. 5) if they agreed to fight for the British. Abigail also
faces trouble at home that could lead to problems in the revolution, describing sickness with

Canker Fever afflicting the town, killing children and spreading to other towns around her.

Further in her letter, Abigail asks for John to consider social equality for not just the

wealthy white man in America, but for women as well. Once independence had been achieved

for America, she understood a new code of laws had to be created. For the creation of these laws,

she urged John Adams to “Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them

than your ancestors.” She understood that her husband and his colleagues were working toward

liberty, but found it unfit that the concept of liberty was not built around the golden rule, doing

unto others what one would want unto them. Rather, it intended to grant liberty to landowning

white men. She argues that all men are tyrannical in nature, and that the revolution would fare

worse without the representation of women. She uses the term “vassals” again to describe

women under the patriarchal laws and customs of the time, and writes that if women are not

given representation or suffrage, they may form a rebellion of their own.

John Adams’ response to Abigail Adams’ letter was immediately dismissive of her

points, taking the mere thought of her request for liberty as a joke. He thinks the governmental

discord and the discontent that Abigail feels are an inherent result of the revolution, and that

societal groups everywhere in America are becoming more turbulent. Despite acknowledging the

fact that women were upset, in his letter John thought it best to not “repeal our Masculine

systems.” He explained that if women were to receive representation, the inherent power of their

womanhood would end up making men inferior, subjecting men to the “Despotism of the

petticoat.” This, in his eyes, would lead to revolutionaries being more unwilling to fight.

Abigail and John Adams’ letters to one another in March and April of 1776 are

enlightening windows into one of the first mentions of representation for women in colonial
society. It also is a glimpse at the deeply inherent contradictions of the American Revolution,

and American society as a whole even today. While revolutionaries in America were supposedly

fighting for the liberty of all, it was truly for a small portion of the American population that was

male and white, and completely excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved Africans.

While America has always theoretically stood for freedom as expressed in the Declaration of

Independence, it has taken years upon years of time for everyone in America to receive the basic

liberties preserved for white men at the very beginning.