1600s
Women can vote in certain colonies: voting qualifications are based on property ownership not gender.

Colonial women, whether on frontier or in towns, work alongside of men in agriculture or trades; enjoy some degree of independence in fluid, egalitarian society.

1634
Anne Hutchenson arrives in Boston; becomes a preacher with message that all people are equal in eyes of God; Puritan theocracy refuses to allow a womwn to preach in public; she is tried, found guilty, and exiled from the colony.

1648
First demand for women suffrage in America: in colony of Maryland; Margaret Brent, businesswoman and niece of Lord Baltimore, owns large tracts of property; attempts to vote in Maryland assembly like her property-owning male counterparts; she is refused and ejected from the Maryland assembly after demanding a place in the assembly.

Margaret Brent moves to Virginia rather than submit to such an indignity.

Next: 1700-1799

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