Deborah Sampson Gannet -- American

Deborah Sampson Gannet -- American feminist and patriot

Deborah Sampson Gannett is the first American woman known to have impersonated a man for the purpose of serving in the colonial army during the American Revolutionary War. The contributions of female figures such as Deborah Sampson Gannett have often remained ignored or unrecognized in contemporary accounts of colonial history, despite their major contributions to the early struggle for freedom, equality, and justice (Henrietta, 1997). Sampson did not lead soldiers to victory in a major battle like Joan of Arc. But feminists claim Sampson's life as important and worthy of study for what her example reveals about the age in which she lived, and because of her fearless determination.

Contrary to stereotypes, not all women mutely accepted male subjugation in colonial America. First as a soldier and then more prominently a speaker, Deborah Sampson Gannett also claimed a public presence for women on the battlefield and lecture stage. "Her long and ultimately successful public campaign for a Revolutionary War pension bridged differences of gender in asserting the sense of entitlement felt by all of the veterans who had fought for their country" (Henretta, 1997). Sampson demanded respect and financial remuneration for her sacrifice, in defiance of female decorum to the end.

Sampson resolved to fight for her nation in the same year as the founding of the ideals of the American nation. In 1776, Deborah Sampson was an impoverished sixteen-year-old indentured servant in Middleborough, Massachusetts. In her later career as a public speaker she asserted that "my mind became agitated with the enquiry -- why a nation, separated from us by an ocean... [should] enforce on us plans of subjugation," when she heard the words of the Declaration of Independence read in Massachusetts (Henretta, 1996). Much as women were subject to men, she believed the colonists were being subjugated by Britain and she wanted "to become one of the severest avengers of the wrongs" she had witnessed in Boston, home of the radical patriot Thomas Paine (Henretta, 1996).

Sampson had seen, in Massachusetts, the passage of the "Stamp Act" and the "Intolerable Acts," and she had seen the British attempt exercise their control over the colonies by closing the port of Boston and quartering troops in private homes against the colonist's will ("Deborah Sampson Gannett: American Patriot," American Revolution, 2007) When independence was declared: "She was not frightened by this, her only question was 'Why can I not fight for my country too'" ("Deborah Sampson Gannett: American Patriot," American Revolution, 2007). It was a privilege, she believed, to die for the new nation, not a burden. Thus it was not enough for Sampson to become merely a helpmeet to the colonial army and minutemen. She joined the army as a cross-dressing American soldier, prohibited by her gender from full participation in the struggle against the British.

Although oppressed because of her female status even under colonial policy, Sampson still felt strongly about the need to liberate America from British control, as well as her right and liberty to commit her life and strength to a cause she believed in. Sampson, like many women of the colonial era, was hardly a delicate weakling -- she had spent most of her life engaged in hard, physical labor and effort. "I burst the tyrant bands, which held my sex in awe," Sampson would proclaim in her public lectures in 1802, specifically analogizing the tyranny of gender of social expectations to that of the control over America by the English monarch (Henretta, 1996).

Colonial historian James Henretta has called Deborah Sampson a "disorderly woman" in the most positive fashion possible, a woman who challenged the order of governance and the order of social bonds, assumptions, and strictures regarding the supposedly weaker sex. Deborah Sampson did not eschew love and marriage, or relationships with men. "Returning to Massachusetts after the war, she married Benjamin Gannett, a poor farmer with whom she bore three children," having served her country (Henretta, 1996). However, she continued to take a public stand to defend her position in history and the fact that women deserved respect, just as much as their male counterparts. Even after fighting in the army, Deborah and her poor husband worked side-by-side as equals, toiling for long and backbreaking hours trying to make a living for their family on the farm.

In an era where women were supposed to turn away from the public podium and remain in the domestic sphere, perhaps writing letters or exerting their influence through their husband's political connections, like Abigail Adams, Sampson spoke out about her own, personal accomplishments to the world. She became a professional, paid lecturer, the first woman to do so, even after she became a loving wife and mother, defying the notion that women had to choose between a career and property and love (married women were legally prohibited from holding property in America, as they also were in England).

She would, during her lectures to "curious audiences attracted by her military exploits and cross-dressing," convey what historian Henretta calls "a mixed message," but her supposed confessions about her "error and presumption" in disobeying "the accustomed flowery path of female delicacy" seems more like lip-service to preconceived notions than her real feelings (Henretta, 1996). After all, the audience would never have paid so much to hear her speak if she had not thrown off "the soft habiliment of my sex" as she put it during her speeches (Henretta, 1996). Sometimes during her lectures she would perform a military drill wearing a masculine uniform, once again throwing off the "soft habiliment" show what life was like during the colonial era (Henretta, 1996). She said that her behavior during the American Revolution was "unnatural, unwise and indelicate" and performed with such indelicacy again and again for pay to packed houses, eager to hear her story (Henretta, 1996).

The idea that a woman's life -- any woman's life -- in colonial America was delicate and refined was a social fiction, not a reality, as Sampson's early life well attests. Sampson's early life was a harsh instruction in male unreliability and the virtues of female self-reliance. "Deborah was the eldest of three daughters and three brothers" (colonial families were often quite large) ("Deborah Sampson Gannett: American Patriot," American Revolution, 2007). When Deborah was about five years old, her father left to go to sea and was supposed to have died at sea. Later day research shows that he simply walked out on his family and created a new life in Maine. This left the Samson family with six mouths to feed and Mrs. Samson was in poor health. She fostered the children for a while, but at the tender age of 8 or 10 Deborah was placed in indentured servitude" ("Deborah Sampson Gannett: American Patriot," American Revolution, 2007).

Despite her condition of indentured service, working on a farm, Deborah taught herself to read, as she was forced to care for the young children of the family to whom she was indentured. This included reading to them at nights -- as she taught the family sons, she taught herself. Her diligence enabled her to eventually secure a position as a school teacher upon her legal release from servitude. "She made herself economically independent, teaching herself to be a teacher and a weaver" (Saxon, 2004) Although Deborah later described her indentured servitude as relatively mild, being bound into another person's service as a young adult was still effectively a kind of slavery (with a predetermined end date, albeit) and it may have sharpened her belief and zest in the value of personal liberty and self-determination.

One common, understandable question about Sampson's military career, of course is -- how did she do it, namely how did she keep up a ruse for so long? First of all, physical examinations were not part of the enlistment process of the colonial army; it should be noted, at the time. But there is also evidence to suggest that her practice was not entirely a subterfuge. She was already known for dressing in male clothing while living under her female name, and at the time of her enlistment, it is recorded that "her local church hearing rumors of her 'Unchristian' like behavior of wearing men's clothing and joining the army, decided shortly after her company left the Boston area, to excommunicate her" ("Deborah Sampson Gannett: American Patriot," American Revolution, 2007). This was despite the fact she had joined the Baptists because of their relatively open attitudes towards women having a prominent role in the church, in comparison to other sects at the time.

Sampson, using the name Robert Shurtleff became part of the company of Captain Nathan Thayer of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment. Deborah's company, while fighting in Tarrytown, NY, was wounded in her thigh, but she did not tell the doctor for fear of being discovered. Her leg never healed properly, although she did return to active duty. The shot that was still in her leg caused her to suffer a fever and the doctor discovered her secret. On October 23, 1783, Deborah was honorably discharged "as a great soldier, with endurance and courage, something much needed in the military at that time" but was only granted a veteran's pension at the end of her life ("Deborah Sampson Gannett: American Patriot," American Revolution, 2007). "Sampson's superiors all agreed that she was an excellent soldier...it was her reliability, intelligence, and bravery that made it possible for her to go undetected for so long" (Saxon, 2004). She risked her life to save her country and to fight for her country, and even risked her life to remain a soldier.