The journal of madam knight. The Journal of Madam Knight by Sarah Kemble Knight 2022-10-29
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The Journal of Madam Knight is a fascinating historical document that offers insight into the life and thoughts of a woman living in colonial America during the 18th century. Written by Sarah Kemble Knight, the journal chronicles her journey from Boston to New Haven, Connecticut in 1704.
Madam Knight was a strong and independent woman who was not afraid to speak her mind. Throughout her journal, she writes candidly about her experiences and observations, including her encounters with Native Americans and her frustrations with the difficult and often dangerous conditions of travel.
One of the most striking aspects of Madam Knight's journal is her wit and humor. Despite the challenges she faced on her journey, she was able to find moments of levity and laughter, and her writing is often infused with her dry sense of humor.
At the same time, Madam Knight was also deeply aware of the social and political issues of her time. She writes about the treatment of women and the role of religion in society, and she expresses her own views on these topics with clarity and conviction.
Overall, the Journal of Madam Knight is a valuable and engaging historical document that offers a unique perspective on life in colonial America. It is a testament to the strength and intelligence of Madam Knight, and serves as a reminder of the rich and complex history of our nation.
The journals of Madam Knight and Rev. Mr. Buckingham : Knight, Sarah Kemble, 1666
As most journals written, it was intended to keep her memory fresh and to relate events of the travel to her relatives. 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. Pay was a type of barter arrangement, with values set annually by the General Court of New Haven. But my own thoughts are that the journal is a delight. Her legacy was, to a great extent, her very normalcy. 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.
Source: Transcription by Bryan Wright Related Links:. As an experienced merchant, she traveled alone but hired guides along the way. As a white woman, she had a certain standing in society and this meant she felt superior to blacks and American Indians. Nothing frequently accomplished by many, and certainly not by a woman, who was very independently out of character during that era. At one point she was fined for selling liquor to the Indians.
The Journal of Madam Knight by Sarah Kemble Knight
The second episode involved a black slave who had a disagreement with his master. Delivery times may vary, especially during peak periods. She is spunky and courageous. Over that tract of country where she travelled about a fortnight, on horseback, under the direction of a hired guide, with frequent risks of life and limb, and sometimes without food or shelter for many miles, we proceed at our ease, without exposure and almost without fatigue, in a day and half, through a well peopled land, supplied with good stage-coaches and public houses, or the still greater luxuries of the elegant steam boats which daily traverse our waters. .
I so wish I could meet Mrs. 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. The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York in the Year 1704. The saga ends with the assembled crowd roaring with laughter and the humiliated judge threatening to resign. I really, really wish there was more to her journal than this, or that she had written something else. Sometimes, as out of Puritan Boston.
Colonial Sense: Regional History: Journals: The Journal of Madam Knight: Biography
It was only natural that Knight, herself a merchant, would be interested in customs surrounding trade and commerce. Despite this, Knight was far from being dependent on her husband. She gives so many specific details about the people she meets, the food they serve her, the conditions of her travel, etc. It was a vastly delayed voice, however—her journal was published almost a century after she completed it, as part of a concerted movement by American publishers to uncover an authentic American voice in print. The journey itself was a difficult one at that time, and she followed a route used mainly by postal riders. I'd recommend this little book to anyone interested in our colonial history. Subjects so closely connected with ourselves ought to excite a degree of curiosity and interest, while we are generally so ready to open our minds and our libraries to the most minute details of foreign governments, and the modes and men of distant countries, with which we can have only a collateral connection.
Since then, students of American history have turned to Sarah Kemble Knight and her travel journal to provide a captivating account of the colonial wilderness and the customs of colonial New Haven and New York. It is to be regretted that the brevity of the work should have allowed the author so little room for the display of the cultivated mind and the brilliant fancy which frequently betray themselves in the course of the narrative; and no one can rise from the perusal without wishing some happy chance might yet discover more full delineations of life and character from the same practised hand. She doesn't flinch from letting her feelings be known, at least in her private writings. Due to her stature as a business woman, she received a designated pew at the Norwich church meeting house. A literate woman, she taught handwriting; ran a boarding house, shop, and school; and worked as a court scrivener, copying out legal documents and thereby gaining some knowledge of the law. It was the Indian, however, who was arrested and brought to justice. Apparently, the master had broken his promise to the slave to do some service and so the slave complained.
Colonial Sense: Regional History: Journals: The Journal of Madam Knight
Her description of people of lesser standing is often colorful and always judgmental. She revealed her merchant roots, however, when she described their love of rum. Its stark portrayal of the New England backwoods to the refined prosperity of New York reminds us that the Puritan community was soon confronted with another America, in which, by 1704, world prosperity and secular sophistication and in strong contrast with large areas of ignorance, violence, and backwardness. She was called Madam Knight, out of respect to her character, according to a custom once common in New-England; but what was her family name the publishers have not been able to discover. A wonderful collection of snippets of the daily lives of the people on the track from Boston, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York and back in the winter of 1704. Author Biography Sarah Kemble Knight was born on April 19, 1666, the daughter of Boston merchant Thomas Kemble and Elizabeth Trarice of Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Knight sloshes her way through New England, stays at disreputable hovels, and avoids the worst of the food she's offered. Two interruptions occur in the original near the commencement, which could not be supplied; and in a few instances it has been thought proper to make short omissions, but none of them materially affect the narrative. I picture her exactly like Mrs. But my own thoughts are that the journal is a delight. 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. She wrote a journal not intended for publication. It is an excellent source of colonial customs and conditions.
Her own life, beyond this five-month period in the winter of 1704—5, was of little significance otherwise. Knight left Boston in October 1704, and as part of this journey, she kept a diary of her travels, now an historical document known as The Journal of Madam Knight. She comes through as a real force of nature, too. There are numerous episodes in her narrative that shed light on race relations in colonial America. Madam Knight comments on the morals and manners of the social classes.
