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A Letter to My Parents
by Maria
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Dear Parents,
I am still on the boat and it is the fourth week on the sea. I am somewhat lonely and I feel kind of seasick. For some reason I can not wait to get to Virginia because then I can be a free person and I might not be so poor. It is going to take nearly twenty-two weeks to get to Virginia.
On the boat we have to sleep on these small, hard bunks. We eat a lot of vegetables and we drink beer with our meals. Some of the women I have became a acquainted with on the boat were sad about leaving their families. I miss you Mother and Father, and wish you were here so you too could be free and wealthy. I am not scared of being a bride of anyone as long as they are nice. I also have doubts about getting to Virginia. I do not think I will make it, because I don’t think the boat is that strong. We eat three meals a day every day. We sleep under the top of the boat were there are bunks in that part. But that is all I can tell you now. I will write when we get to Virginia. Love, Elizabeth July 7, 1621
Dear Parents,
Today I arrived in Virginia and I found out that I will be Jonathan Dangers tobacco bride. I also learned that if a man wants to buy a tobacco bride, he has to pay The Virginia Company 120 pounds of tobacco. This is a huge sum!
My
friends from the ship,
Anna and Elizabeth, were not picked as brides so they ended up being
house servants. They are indentured for seven years, but I will
be a wife for my whole life. Elizabeth and Anna have to do
cleaning and laundry.
Now my
name is Elizabeth Dang and my husband is Jonathan Dang. It seems
like my body belongs to him. If I do anything toward him, he has
the right to punish me and I can not do anything about it. He
owns acres of land and he plants tobacco. Most of the time
I am doing housework. For my chores, I have to do the
dishes, cook, and do his laundry. When he comes home from work he
is kind of angry but fortunately he is not really aggressive. I
think he is a really nice man. I miss you,my parent so
much. Jonathan works in a big farm in Jamestown, where they grow
tobacco.The difference between Virginia and my beloved England is the environment. The water and the air here is clean unlike a England , where the air and water is polluted. In England it makes you feel like you are a slave because all I usually felt like I was doing hard labor. on the other hand, to stay because I wanted a different religion than the church of England. I was also poor there. Here in America we are not as poor, a we do not feel like slaves. We get a choice about who we get to we want to marry . In England we had beer with cheese and stable meat. The kids even had beer because their water was dangerous to drink since it was often dirty. In America, the food is more plain full and safer to eat. That's a good thing.