rs of
the family take up, is spent in writing, either on the business of the
plantations or on letters to my friends...."[302]

And yet this mere girl found time to devote to the general conventional
activities of women. After her marriage she seems to have gained her
greatest pleasure from her devotion to her household; but, left a widow
at thirty-six, she once more was forced to undertake the management of a
great plantation. The same executive genius again appeared, and an
initiative certainly surpassing that of her neighbors. She introduced
into South Carolina the cultivation of Indigo, and through her foresight
and efforts "it continued the chief highland staple of the country for
more than thirty years.... Just before the Revolution the annual export
amounted to the enormous quantity of one million, one hundred and seven
thousand, six hundred and sixty pounds. When will 'New Woman' do more
for her country?"[303]

Martha Washington was another of the colonial women who showed not only
tact but considerable talent in conducting personally the affairs of her
large estate between the death of her first husband and her marriage to
Washington, and when the General went on his prolonged absences to
direct the American army, she, with some aid from Lund Washington,
attended with no small success to the Mount Vernon property.

_III. Woman's Legal Powers_

Just how much legal power colonial women had is rather difficult to
discover from the writings of the day; for each section had its own
peculiar rules, and courts and decisions in the various colonies, and
sometimes in one colony, contradicted one another. Until the adoption of
the Constitution the old English law prevailed, and while unmarried
women could make deeds, wills, and other business transactions, the
wife's identity was largely merged into that of her husband. The
colonial husband seems to have had considerable confidence in his
help-meet's business ability, and not infrequently left all his property
at his death to her care and management. Thus, in 1793 John Todd left to
his widow, the future Dolly Madison, his entire estate:

"I give and devise all my estate, real and personal, to the Dear Wife of
my Bosom, and first and only Woman upon whom my all and only affections
were placed, Dolly Payne Todd, her heirs and assigns forever.... Having
a great opinion of the integrity and honorouble conduct of Edward Burd
and Edward Tilghman, Esquires, my dying requ