Analysis: The Journal of Madam Knight

Date: October 2, 1704–March 3, 1705

Author: Knight, Sarah Kemble

Genre: journal; autobiography; memoir

Summary Overview

In the winter of 1704–5, Sarah Kemble Knight undertook a perilous journey from Boston to New Haven and New York City, presumably to settle the estate of a relative. As an experienced merchant, she traveled alone but hired guides along the way. In the Puritan tradition of journal keeping, she kept a diary of her journey, detailing both her travels and the people that she met along the way. She also noted the customs and curiosities of the communities in which she stayed. Not only is her journal an early example of women’s travel writing, it also provides a window on American society in the early eighteenth century, including commentaries on gender, race, and class issues. It is also written in a comedic style that many readers find enjoyable and entertaining. Although not published for the general public until 1825, the journal has since become a standard text for students of colonial America.

Document Analysis

Sarah Kemble Knight’s journal is among the few examples of women’s writing from the American colonial period. Her record of her five-month journey from her home in Boston to New Haven and on to New York provides an excellent insight into the social history of the early eighteenth century. Social history focuses on the lives and activities of ordinary people, as opposed to political history, which is concerned with political events, ideas, movements, and leaders. The journal also lies within the genre of women’s history, which tries to uncover the often unwritten and undocumented lives of women.

This work was never intended for a wide audience. In fact, it may never have been meant for anyone but Knight herself, as her journal was not published in her lifetime. Rather, it was first put into print in 1825, almost a hundred years after she died. If she meant it for anyone, most likely it would have been to regale a small circle of friends back in Boston, most likely women of her own class and station.

In direct opposition to the Puritan writing style of the period, Knight wrote in a secular, comedic style, which was much more akin to a travelogue or diary than any kind of religious sermon. Many writers have described her style as “picaresque,” which describes an early form of Spanish novel that has a roguish protagonist who goes on episodic adventures. As a merchant herself, she seemed particularly interested in the mechanics of trade outside of Boston. Her observations focus mainly on manners, dress, language, and behavior. It is also obvious from her journal that she was an educated woman, as she made allusions to the Bible and the Olympics.

Her description of rural areas, or perhaps better, the colonial American wilderness, is one of the defining features of the journal. More than once, she described dangerous situations and the fact that she was scared for her life. Sometime during October 6, she stated that “my hors stumbled, and very narrowly ’scaped falling over into the water.” In fact, colonial roads in this period were still little more than postal trails. On the way to Seabrook, she described them as follows: “Rodes all along this way are very bad, Incumbred wth Rocks and mountainos passages.”

A woman traveling alone was a rarity in colonial America, and Kemble was forced to hire local male guides to assist her with her travels. The beginning of the document starts with Knight staying at an inn and having the owner go out to find a guide for her. Despite this, Knight was far from being dependent on her husband. As her husband, Richard, was so often away on business, it gave Knight the opportunity to act as the de facto head of household, or a kind of deputy-husband. In this capacity, she seemed quite happy to undertake a voyage that was unusual for a woman of her time and place.

Race was also a key theme in Knight’s writings. As a white woman, she had a certain standing in society and this meant she felt superior to blacks and American Indians. As Massachusetts had legalized slavery in 1641, the first American colony to do so, Knight was well aware of black slaves. She also seemed to be aware of American Indians. Far from being rigid, Knight’s version of race relations shows that there was considerable fluidity and flexibility between the races, especially outside of the major urban centers.

There are numerous episodes in her narrative that shed light on race relations in colonial America. The first is a story she shared after she heard it from people she met in New Haven that includes all three races. After a black slave stole a cask of liquor from his white master, he then sold it to an American Indian, who sold the liquor in the neighborhood. It was the Indian, however, who was arrested and brought to justice. Justice, it seems, was mobile and happened wherever and whenever it was needed. As the judge was tending his pumpkins in a field with a fellow judge, the American Indian was brought to them in the field. Justice could not be served, however, without a bench, and so a temporary one was quickly made out of the pumpkins themselves, which shows that justice could also be cleverly improvised. When the American Indian appeared before the judges, an interesting interchange ensued. The junior judge chastised the first judge for speaking “negro” to the defendant (“Grandy wicked thing to steal”). The second judge tried to speak to the defendant in his own language (“me no stomany” and “tatapa-you”), but this backfired on the poor judge. The American Indian, by agreeing with the judge’s comparison of a cask of liquor to a human head, inadvertently implied that the judge was a drunkard and resembles a hog. The saga ends with the assembled crowd roaring with laughter and the humiliated judge threatening to resign. Knight often used this theme of humiliating people in power as a comedic device, and it emphasizes Knight’s own flexibility of opinion when it comes to class when it suits her. The judge deserved respect as a higher class of townsperson, but Knight seemed happy to recount his embarrassment.

The second episode involved a black slave who had a disagreement with his master. Apparently, the master had broken his promise to the slave to do some service and so the slave complained. After an argument between the two (“hard words”), they agreed to put the disagreement to arbitration and abide by the decision of the arbitrators. The arbitrators sided with the slave and ordered the owner to pay forty shillings to his slave, which the owner did. This again shows that relations between races were not rigid and that black slaves could and did appeal to the authorities for justice. Knight, however, referred to the slave as “black face,” betraying her own feeling of superiority.

Just prior to describing the above dispute between the slave and his master, Knight mentioned a tradition that truly demonstrated differences that she saw between race relations in the country and those in the city. In describing the customs of the colony of Connecticut she noted that white people (especially farmers) and black people were quite familiar with each other, to the point that they often ate at the same table together. Knight found this quite objectionable, as her choice of words indicates: “permitting ym to sit at Table and eat with them, (as they say to save time,) and into the dish goes the black hoof as freely as the white hand.” By using the word “hoof” to indicate a black hand, she effectively equated black people with animals and revealed her prejudice. In early eighteenth-century Massachusetts and Connecticut, slavery was legal, but it was still not as common as it was later in the century. Nevertheless, in Knight’s mind, the hierarchy between the races was already quite clear.

Knight next provided her observations on American Indians in the area. She noted that they are quite savage and that “little or no care taken (as I heard upon enquiry) to make them otherwise.” This could have been slightly surprising to her, as she may have expected someone to try to convert them to Christianity. Once again, however, she was not explicit in stating this and remained more concerned with their secular customs. She was aware that they had their own lands and laws, but that did not make her sympathetic to them. She next described their marriage customs, saying that the men could have many wives but could easily divorce them by “saying stand away to one another.” Curiously, Knight then went on to chide the colonists of Connecticut for imitating American Indian divorce customs. Again, her judgmental side surfaced when she said that these types of divorces were in vogue among the colonists too and that divorce was possible for trivial matters. She went on to note that women were often the ones who wanted the divorce.

Knight then wrote that if American Indians committed crimes on their lands, they were to dispense their own judgment, but if they committed crimes on English lands, they were subject to English laws, as demonstrated in the case of the man caught selling stolen liquor. Their mourning rituals were also a cause for emphasis, with the Indians “blacking their faces, and cutting their hair,” which Knight found both frightening and odd. She revealed her merchant roots, however, when she described their love of rum. She added that the English watered down the rum they sold to them.

Class and social hierarchy are important themes throughout her journal. As Knight was a merchant-class white woman, she held a certain position in society. She mentioned those of a lower class in less than glowing terms. As a Bostonian, she was used to a certain level of manners and courtesy, and as she traveled in the country, she found, often to her dismay, that there was a different code of behavior. Her description of people of lesser standing is often colorful and always judgmental. When she and her guide Mr. Wheeler stopped at an inn to eat, the landlady arrived with “her hair about her ears, and hands at full pay scratching.” Note also Knight’s use of a merchant term (“at full pay”) here. Although the landlady said she had some mutton, when the meal arrived, the meat was pickled and rancid. So the two had to pay for a meal that they never ate and “was only smell.” Being bested economically by a woman of lower class must have bothered Knight.

When she finally arrived in New Haven, Knight was greeted “with all Posible Respects and civility.” As an urban center, New Haven represented a more comfortable setting for Knight. Still, she was aware that New Haven was not Boston, and so she “Inform’d myselfe of the manners and customs of the place.”

Part of these customs was what Knight described as the residents’ “diversions,” or recreational activities. She spoke of training days and lecture days, during which Puritan preachers or judges would often give a lecture in the church around midday. This meant that many town residents would take time off and enjoy themselves on such days, many riding from town to town. Knight next discussed youth sporting activities and marriage customs. Target shooting was described, with ribbons given to the winners, and then Knight talked about the young age at which the men in particular married. Most were married while under twenty, which Knight considered “very young.” In another tradition she described, the groom’s friends carried him off before he finally committed to the bride, which was the opposite of a former Boston tradition where the bride was taken away.

It was only natural that Knight, herself a merchant, would be interested in customs surrounding trade and commerce. She was attentive to how people pay for goods in New Haven, and detailed four distinct types of payments: pay, money, pay as money, and trusting. Pay was a type of barter arrangement, with values set annually by the General Court of New Haven. A person would offer a certain amount of another commodity in exchange for their desired product. Currency in the form of coins was also accepted. There was no national currency or even a unified colonial currency at this time, and values fluctuated between various European coins or coins from different colonies. Paper money was printed in large quantities, increasing inflation, and thus widely mistrusted as worthless. “Wampom,” or wampum, referred to local American Indian shell beads that the English often used as currency. In New Haven, it seemed they were used as smaller denominations as change for transactions. Pay as money was another form of bartering, but the commodity was valued at a cheaper rate (“one Third cheaper”) than the General Court’s annual rate. Finally, New Haven merchants also extended credit (“trusting”) to their customers on a case-by-case basis.

Knight then described the process of purchasing. The first things to be decided were whether the purchaser had the means to make the purchase (“You pay redy?”) and then the type of payment. After that, and depending on the type of payment, a price was set. Knight gave an excellent example of the differing prices that a knife could have depending on the type of payment to be made: “as suppose he wants a sixpenny knife, in pay it is 12d [pence]-in pay as money eight pence, and hard money its own price, viz. 6d [pence].” Knight’s mention that this was a “very Intricate way of trade,” not what “Lex Mercatoria,” or “merchant law,” intended points to the fact that trade in Boston was conducted quite differently, and in her eyes, it was simpler and better there.

Having discussed merchant trade in general terms, Knight then gave another of her colorful anecdotes to further illustrate her point that trade was different in New Haven. Again, her sense of Bostonian superiority is evident in her description of a country fellow coming to buy something from a merchant. She described him with his cheeks (“alfogeos”) full of chewing tobacco, which she equated to chewing his cud like a cow. As with race, she referred to a human as an animal when making a point about someone from a lower class. She noted that people from the country such as this fellow chewed and spat tobacco all day “as long as they’r eyes are open.” She was entertained by his actions during the delay before he asked the merchant for anything. She almost reveled in describing his discomfort, as he spat his “Aromatick Tincture” on the floor, kicked at the floor, and finally “Hugging his own pretty Body with his hands under his arms, Stood staring rown’d him, like a Catt let out of a Baskett.” She again used animal symbols—here, a cat, and then later the biblical donkey that could talk. Knight referred to the fellow as “Bumpkin Simpers,” no doubt to reinforce his country origins, and to his female friend who eventually joined him as “Jone Tawdry,” a jibe at her lower-class status. Knight was clear that this woman was beneath her own station, as she used exaggeration when she came into the store, recounting that she dropped “about 50 curtsees.” She ended this episode and the excerpt with the observation that people in New Haven held merchants in high esteem, most likely because they were always indebted to them.

Bibliography

Balkun, Mary McAleer. “Sarah Kemble Knight and the Construction of the American Self.” Women’s Studies 28.1 (1998): 7–27. Print.

Bush, Sargent, Jr. “The Journal of Madam Knight.” Introduction. Journeys in New Worlds, Early American Women’s Narratives. Ed. William L. Andrews, Sargent Bush Jr., Annette Kolodny, Amy Schrager Lang, and Daniel B. Shea. Madison: U. of Wisconsin P, 1990. 69–83. Print.

Knight, Sarah Kemble. The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York in the Year 1704. Ed. William L. Learned. Albany: Little, 1865. Print.

Michaelsen, Scott. “Narrative and Class in a Culture of Consumption: The Significance of Stories in Sarah Kemble Knight’s Journal.” College Literature 21.2 (1994): 33–46. Print.

Stern, Julia. “To Relish and to Spew Disgust as Cultural Critique in ‘The Journal of Madam Knight.’” Legacy: A Journey of American Women Writers 14 (1997): 1–12. Print.