brestfeeding and maternal sexuality in colonial america

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal ofInterdisciplinary History

Breastfeeding and Maternal Sexuality in Colonial AmericaAuthor(s): Paula A. TreckelSource: The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer, 1989), pp. 25-51Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/204048 .

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Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xx:I (Summer I989), 25-5I.

Paula A. Treckel

Breastfeeding and Maternal Sexuality in Colonial America If colonial historians are better to understand the process of family growth and development during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is important for them to investigate the roles of women and attitudes toward their sexuality. Access to such information is possible through the exploration of the customs and practices of breastfeeding as seen in the advice of theologians, moralists, and "medical authorities" of that time. This article shows that changing patterns in breastfeeding reflected changing societal views concerning the appropriate roles of women as wives and mothers.1

Although it is impossible to determine how many women or men in the English colonies in North America read articles and books about women's sexuality and reproductive functions, or were influenced by them, it is possible to categorize these works into two distinct types: I) those intended to inform readers about the reproductive processes and 2) those intended to exhort readers to change their behavior. The latter type was often the work of moralists and Puritan theologians who sought to bring the sexual behavior of their readers into conformity with specific religious beliefs. Both shared assumptions about the natural functions of women's bodies-assumptions which shaped the advice that they gave their readers.2

Paula A. Treckel is Associate Professor of History, Allegheny College, Meadville, Penn-

sylvania.

( 1989 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History.

I Colonial historians who early observed that husbands and wives spaced their children at roughly two-year intervals and attributed this regulation of family growth to maternal

nursing include John Demos, A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (New York, 1970), 68, I33; Philip J. Greven, Jr., Four Generations: Population, Land and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts (Ithaca, I970), 30, I I2; Ross W. Beales, Jr., "The Child in Seventeenth Century America," in Joseph M. Hawes and N. Ray Hiner (eds.), American Childhood: A Research Guide and Historical Handbook, (Westport, Conn., 1985), 17. 2 An example of a popular advice manual available in the colonies is The Works of Aristotle, the Famous Philosopher, in Four Parts (London, 80oo?). For more on this manual, see Otho T. Beall, Jr., "Aristotle's Master Piece in America: A Landmark in the Folklore of Medicine," William and Mary Quarterly, XX (I963), 207-227; Angus McLaren, Reproductive



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26 | PAULA A. TRECKEL

From the classical period until the eighteenth century, phys- icians subscribed to the humoral theory of medicine. This theory, represented by the works of Claudius Galen and Hippocrates, was based on the belief that the human body consisted of four humors-blood, bile or cholor, black bile or melancholy, and phlegm-corresponding to the four major elements-earth, air, fire, and water. The humoral theory, applied to women's reproductive functions, explained the process of menstruation as the elimination of bad humors from the body, and described the uterus as "the common Sink of the Body." When women were pregnant, however, menstrual blood was thought to nourish the fetus until birth. According to the author of a popular seventeenth-century obstetrical manual, "The supposed or stopped tearmes [menstrual flow] in women that are great with childe, are divided into three parts: the more pure portion maketh the nu- triment for the childe, the second ascendeth by little and little into the dugs, and the impurest of all remaineth in the womb about the infant and maketh the . .. afterbirth." Breast milk was thought to be menstrual blood which changed color in the womb and flowed into the breasts after birth to feed the newborn infant.3

In seventeenth and eighteenth century North America, the primary source of infant nourishment was maternal breast milk, although, among wealthy women in England and the American colonies, the practice of maternal breastfeeding was subject to the fashion of the time. Women of the upper classes in England employed wet nurses for their children until the late I700oos, when the custom of maternal nursing was adopted. It is probable that

Rituals: The Perception of Fertility in England from the 16th to the 19th Century (New York, I984), I8-19. On the history of early medicine, see Graham Harvey, Eternal Eve: The

History of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (Garden City, I95I), 173-176, 227. For a discussion of whether advice manuals reflect or prescribe the customs employed, see McLaren, Reproductive Rituals, I ; Jay Mechling, "Advice to Historians on Advice to Mothers," The

Journal of Social History, IX (1975), 44-63; Beales, "Nursing and Weaning in an Eighteenth Century New England Household," in Peter Benes (ed.), Dublin Seminar for New

England Folklife, Annual Proceedings, 1985 (Boston, I987), 49. 3 Audrey Eccles, Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Tudor and Stuart England (Kent, Ohio, 1982), 28, 51. See also Emil Novak, "The Superstition and Folklore of Menstruation,"

Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, XXVII (1916), 270-274; "His Experienced Midwife," Works

of Aristotle, 84, "His Master Piece," ibid., 75. On the humoral theory, and "scientific" notions of the eighteenth century on conception, see McLaren, Reproductive Rituals, 13- 29, 33-37. On the nature of breastmilk, see Valerie Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies: A

History of Infant Feeding (Edinburgh, 1986), II2, 180.



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their practice was emulated by women in England and America who were of lesser status but were able to afford the services of a wet nurse for their infants. Although there is scant mention of

breastfeeding techniques in contemporary manuscripts and diaries, indications are that methods of breastfeeding changed little during those centuries. Contrary to modern practice, which places newborn infants at their mother's breast immediately following birth, until the late i6oos, all authorities on infant care indicated that doing so was unhealthy for both the mothers and their children. Colostrum, the initial secretion of the breast containing vitamins, minerals, and anti-allergens which protect newborns from disease and infection before their own immunological sys- tems develop, was thought toxic and believed fatal if ingested by the infant. Jane Sharp, author of The midwives book: On the whole ART of Midwifery Discovered. Directing Childbearing Women how to behave themselves (1671), a book read both in England and the American colonies, stated: "It is not good for a woman presently to suckle her child because those unclean purgations cannot make

good milk, the first milk is naught." It was advised that women should delay breastfeeding their infants until they were able to produce milk. Such advice meant that children received no nourishment at their mother's breast for a few days to a few weeks

following birth, and that alternative sources of nourishment had to be found. John Maubray, in The female physician (1724), recommended that newborn infants be fed sweetened wine, or "the Breast of some other clean and sound Woman may be given the CHILD, until the Mother's Milk be purified for its proper Use; which it can scarce be supposed to be . . . before the ninth day after DELIVERY." If the advice of Sharp and Maubray was heeded, and families were sufficiently prosperous, they could hire a wet nurse or servant nursing her own child during this period to nourish the newborn infant. This practice of employing wet nurses during the first two or three weeks postpartum explains the presence of nurses in households which some historians have attributed simply to the mother's need for assistance during and after her "groaning" or lying-in. When families could not afford wet nurses, sometimes a nursing neighbor volunteered to take in the newborn until the infant's mother was able to nurse.4

4 The best source on changing attitudes about maternal nursing by women of the English



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By the beginning of the eighteenth century, some medical authorities had changed their opinion that colostrum was harmful, and, by mid-century, William Cadogan, in his Essay upon nursing . . (1748), indicated that to deny an infant colostrum was to risk its ill-health or death. Cadogan's opinion influenced other authors, and a positive view of colostrum prevailed for the rest of the

century. It is not known how quickly women accepted the new belief that it was beneficial for infants to ingest this "first milk." It is possible, indeed probable, that most women who could afford to use wet nurses immediately postpartum continued to employ them for a time, despite changes in authorities' opinions. It is possible, too, that these changes did not alter the customs of most

English colonists in North America for some time after their introduction in the mother country. According to some historians, the frontier conditions in colonial America and the relative

scarcity of women in many of the colonies, especially in the seventeenth century, often precluded the employment of wet nurses. As a result, colonial women either artificially fed their infants until they were able to feed them themselves or, despite their fears of the harmful nature of colostrum, nursed them im-

mediately after birth.5 Women's decisions about when and how to nourish their

own infants were influenced by their knowledge of, and adherence

aristocracy and gentry is ibid., 8I-I50. See also Lyle Koehler, The Search for Power: The Weaker Sex in Seventeenth Century New England (Urbana, 1980), 114; Eccles, Obstetrics and

Gynaecology, 52, 94, 99; "His Experienced Midwife," Works of Aristotle, 59. Jane Sharp was the first English midwife to write a manual, although some historians doubt that The midwives book (London, I67I), or its later edition, The Compleat Midwife's Companion (London, 1725), was actually written by a woman or a midwife. Harvey, Eternal Eve, 230. Authors who acknowledge the use of wet nurses post-partum until the mother's milk flowed include Ernest Caulfield, "Infant Feeding in Colonial America," Journal of Pediatrics, XLI (1952), 676-679; Joseph Illick, "Child Rearing in Seventeenth Century England and America," in Lloyd de Mause (ed.), The History of Childhood (New York, I974), 310. See also, Lorena Walsh, "'Till Death Us Do Part': Marriage and Family in Seventeenth Century Maryland," in Thad W. Tate and David Ammerman (eds.), The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society and Politics (New York, 1979), I41; Rose Ann Lockwood, "Birth, Illness and Death in i8th Century New England," Journal of Social History, XII (1978), I22. Beales, "Nursing and Weaning," 5I, disagrees with Lockwood, believing Parkman's nurse was employed to care for her and not to nurse her infant. 5 For changes in views about colostrum, see Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 84-88. For the belief that colonial women dry nursed their children immediately after birth because of a shortage of wet nurses, see ibid., 266.



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to, methods prescribed by authorities at the time, and their ability to breastfeed their own children. The latter factor was most important, for many women encountered problems with breastfeeding. Ironically, prior to the mid-eighteenth century, the women most likely to have read the manuals which warned that colostrum was harmful to their children may have been frequent victims of breast ailments which precluded maternal nursing. Delay in placing infants to their mother's breast was detrimental to the health of both mothers and children. The children were deprived of the benefits of the colostrum and the mother-child bond, which is vital to infants' development; mothers were deprived of the suckling stimulus which hastened lactation and their own recovery from childbirth. The result was often mothers with dry or ab- cessed breasts, unable to suckle their children even if they so desired, and children undernourished and vulnerable to disease. The manuals which advised women to delay breastfeeding were also full of nostrums and remedies for stimulating milk produc- tion and curing breast abcesses and other physical ailments. One medical manual advised that midwives suck the colostrum from new mothers' breasts until milk was produced, whereas another advised that puppies be used to suckle until the secretions were considered suitable for infant consumption.6

If new mothers were stricken with milk fever, an infection of the breasts resulting in a high fever and significant maternal mortality, or with puerperal fever, an infection of the uterus following childbirth, their infants were also put out to wet nurse. It was believed that illnesses of any kind could be transmitted from mothers and nurses to infants through breastmilk, and that milk from healthy women could cure sickly children. The re- storative properties of breastmilk were promoted by medical authorities, who recommended that the seriously ill, regardless of their age, be permitted to suckle at a healthy nursing mother's breast to ensure their recovery. Temperament, too, was thought transmittable from wet nurses to suckling infants; therefore, ex- tremes in complexion or hair coloring, believed to be reflective

6 Claire Fox, "Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Infancy in Anglo-American Culture, I675-I830," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Univ. of Pennsylvania, I966), I94-I95, I97-I98, 22I;

Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 272-273. Koehler, Searchfor Power, 58, relates that women

suffering from an inadequate milk supply were advised to snuff anemone juice by Zero- babel Endicott, a physician in Salem, Mass.



30 PAULA A. TRECKEL

of temperament, were avoided in selecting wet nurses. Instead, "sanguine," ruddy complexioned, brown-haired women were highly recommended, since their temperaments were thought most desirable in the child. It was also thought wise to have nurses who had given birth to boys suckle male children, and nurses who had given birth to girls suckle female children, for fear that boys reared on the milk intended for girls would be effeminate, and girls nourished by the milk for boys would be masculine in nature.7

If women could not nurse their own children, and wet nurses were unavailable or unaffordable, dry-nursing or artificial feeding was advocated only as a last resort during most of the seventeenth century, for medical authorities attributed to the practice a higher infant mortality. Newborn infants were fed pap and panada, con- coctions of meat or rice broth, cow's milk, water and sugar mixtures, and goat's milk, using cloth teats and suckling bottles. Since many beautifully hand-crafted silver, ivory, and pewter suckling bottles have been found in colonial American estate inventories, it is likely that these bottles were used for supplemental feeding, or in the weaning process, for families able to afford silver or ivory bottles could also have afforded the services of wet nurses. By the end of the seventeenth century, attitudes of the upper classes in England about artificial feeding began to change, as reflected in the works of medical authorities of that time. Wealthy families came to prefer the dry-nursing of infants to the employment of wet nurses because of their dissatisfaction with the quality of the care that their infants received at the hands of nurses. An increase in infant mortality at the end of the seventeenth century fostered parents' fears that wet nurses were ne- glecting their charges, poorly nourishing them, and exposing them to harmful diseases. The preference for dry-nursing or hand feeding their infants persisted among aristocratic families until the mid-eighteenth century, when fashionable, upper-class women in

7 Caulfield, "Infant Feeding," 676; Eccles, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 98; Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 85-86; Harvey, Eternal Eve, I7I. See also the sentiments of Landon Carter in Daniel B. Smith, Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth Century Chesapeake Society (Ithaca, I980), 36. The milk of a nursing woman was also thought to ease childbirth pains: "His Experienced Midwife," Works of Aristotle, 27; McLaren, Repro- ductive Rituals, 50. Ebenezer Parkman drank his nursing wife's milk when he was ill: Lockwood, "Birth, Illness and Death," I20. On how to choose a wet nurse, see "His Book of Problems," Works of Aristotle, 153; Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, I68-I87.




England began to nurse their infants themselves. How closely the customs of aristocratic and upper-class English women were emulated by their colonial sisters is not known. If the suckling bottles found in colonial estate inventories date from this later period, it might mean that colonial women followed the lead of their counterparts in the mother country. However, the majority of women, both in England and its colonies in North America, probably nursed their own children during both centuries if they were able to do so, regardless of the changing fashions of the wealthy or titled.8

Although most women in colonial America nursed their own infants, the decision to breastfeed might well have precluded sexual activity during the year or so that mothers nursed their children. Historians have wondered whether seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American colonists practiced sexual abstinence during the postpartum period. Most manuals written during these centuries conveyed the belief that nursing women who were sex- ually active jeopardized their nursing infants' health and well- being. If their advice either reflected or influenced popular opinion on sexual matters, couples sought to abstain from sexual intercourse while women nursed. Most manual writers advised against the resumption of sexual relations following birth because they believed that intercourse encouraged the resumption of menstruation, thereby initiating the transformation of breast milk back into menstrual blood and depriving infants of nourishment. Sex- ual abstinence was seen as a means of ensuring both the quantity and quality of breast milk. One author warned that even sexual thoughts could "infect the milk," and advised abstinence in both thought and deed if "the plenty and goodness of milk" was to be preserved. Not all medical authorities thought that total sexual abstinence was required of nursing women. Although these authors accepted the belief that breast milk was menstrual blood

8 Caulfield, "Infant Feeding," 677, 683-687, relates that Increase Mather survived artificial feeding as did a child of William Byrd, III. See Eccles, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 99; Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 213-234. Some recent studies validate the belief that artificial feeding is a factor in infant mortality. See John Knodel and Etienne van de Walle, "Breastfeeding, Fertility and Infant Mortality: An Analysis of some Early German Data," Population Studies, XXI (1967), I09-135. Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 264-265, dis-

agrees. On changing attitudes about dry nursing, see ibid., 288-292; Randolph Trumbach, The Rise of the Egalitarian Family: Aristocratic Kinship and Domestic Relations in Eighteenth Century England (New York, 1978), 204-205.



32 PAULA A. TRECKEL

transformed in color, they thought that women could minimize the detrimental effects of intercourse on the quality of the milk merely by abstaining from sexual relations for two hours prior to nursing. Virtually all writers of manuals throughout both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries agreed that when nursing women resumed their menses, they should wean their infants or be guilty of risking the children's ill health or death.9

Among the most outspoken advocates of maternal breastfeeding in seventeenth-century England and America were Puri- tan reformers who sought to people the old world and the new with saints. Emphasizing the maternal rather than the sensual nature of women, they castigated those women who chose not to nurse their own infants as vain, Eve-like, and sinful in nature. Prominent Puritan ministers actively campaigned against mothers placing newborn infants with wet nurses. Influential theologians argued from a scriptural rather than a medical basis that women's breasts were created to provide milk for infants, not as erogenous zones, defining the dichotomous nature of women's sexuality in the eyes of Puritan men. They stated that the principal duty of Puritan women was to serve their Creator as mothers. Women's sexual expression was tolerable only in marriage, and in marriage the sexual pleasure of both husbands and wives was a gift from God for the purpose of procreation. William Perkins, a Puritan theologian, stated in a treatise on the purpose of marriage that an obligation of marriage was the "procreation of children for the propogation and continuance of man upon the earth, Gen. I.28 . . . [and] the procreation of an holy seed, whereby the Church of God may be kept holy and chaste, and there may alwaies be a holy companie of men, that may worship and serve God in the Church from age to age, Malach.2. I." To impede this end was

thought a violation of God's will, a sign of women's selfishness and pride. Therefore, Puritan women were expected to nurse

9 Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 104-I05, believes that there was no sexual taboo practiced by women who nursed their own infants; the taboo existed only for those women hired as wet nurses. Yet, the physiological reasons for not resuming sexual relations, according to the manuals of the time, would have prohibited all women from

engaging in sexual intercourse while nursing. See also, McLaren, Reproductive Rituals, 68- 69; Eccles, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 98; "His Book of Problems," Works of Aristotle, 0I7. Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (New York, 1977), 64, 398, 427. Stone believes that the taboo fell into disrepute by the late eighteenth century but was revived in the early nineteenth century: ibid., 296, 423.



BREASTFEEDING IN COLONIAL AMERICA j 33

their infants. As Cotton Mather exhorted: "You will Suckle your Infant your Selfe if you can; Be not such an Ostrich as to Decline it, merely because you would be One of the Careless Women, Living at Ease. Of such we read, They are Dead while they Live." Concerned with creating a flourishing community of healthy saints and their progeny in the wilderness of New England, American Puritan divines advocated the most healthful method of infant feeding known in their time.10

If the New England Puritans, like their contemporaries, thought that the resumption of sexual relations while nursing was detrimental to the health of infants, it is probable that they, too, attempted to practice sexual abstinence until their children were weaned. William Gouge, a Puritan pamphleteer, acknowledged it was not just women's vanity and sinful nature which led them to

place their children with wet nurses. He also blamed the women's husbands for this practice: "Husbands for the most part are the cause that their wives nurse not their owne children. If husbands were willing that their wives should performe this dutie, and would perswade and encourage them thereto, and afford them what helpes they could, where one mother now nurseth her child

twenty would do so." One way that husbands could encourage their wives to nurse their infants was by not forcing them to choose between resuming conjugal relations and nursing their infant. That women's marital obligations to their husbands con- flicted with their maternal duties was perceived by Gouge, who

grappled with the dilemma: "Because giving sucke is a mother's

duty, and hindered by breeding and bearing another child, man

ought to doe what hee can to containe for that time: yet dare I not make this an inviolable law for man and wife to deny due benevolence each to other, all the time that the wife giveth sucke."

Gouge's inability to resolve the wife/mother conflict for Puritan women indicates that for many Puritan women and men the

io Koehler, Search for Power, 56-58, 82-88. Ralph Houlbrook, The English Family: 1450- 1700 (London, I984), states that maternal breastfeeding had advocates among theologians, moralists, and medical authorities both Protestant and Catholic, I32. McLaren, Reproduc- tive Rituals, I5-I6; Robert V. Schnucker, "The English Puritans and Pregnancy, Delivery and Breastfeeding," History of Childhood Quarterly, I (1974), 637-657; idem, "Elizabethan Birth Control and Puritan Attitudes," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, IV (1975), 663- 665, Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth Century New England (New York, I966), 29-30; Cotton Mather, Ornaments of the Daughters of Zion (Delmar, N.Y., 1978), I05-IO6.




dilemma of whether to resume sexual relations while nursing remained.11

Husbands' desire to resume sexual relations with their wives, and the belief that to do so threatened the health of their infants, motivated some men of property and standing in England and the American colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to secure wet nurses for their progeny. The available evidence suggests that, in England, men were principally responsible for the decision to place their children with wet nurses, regardless of their wives' desire or ability to nurse. The authority of men to make this decision, and their reasons for doing so, are illustrated in the diary of Landon Carter, an eighteenth-century Virginia planter and medical practitioner. He indicated his belief that maternal intercourse was injurious to the health of nursing infants when he criticized his daughter-in-law for resuming sexual relations with his son while she was still nursing his grandchild. At the same time, his remarks confirm the idea that responsibility for placing a child with a wet nurse belonged to the husband, in the American colonies as well as in England. He stated: "Poor children! Are you to be sacrificed for a partner's pleasure? I have been a parent and I thought it murder and therefore hired nurses or put them out." For Carter, sexual abstinence and the employment of wet nurses were the only alternatives. Possibly the activities of his son and daughter-in-law pointed to a new generation's response to this dilemma. Ironically, Carter blamed his daughter- in-law for resuming sexual relations with her husband, implying that she placed gratification of her own sexual needs and those of her husband ahead of the needs of her infant. In criticizing his daughter-in-law, Carter acknowledged the sexual desires of women, but his remarks reaffirm the belief that those desires should be subordinated to the needs of infants and the authority of their husbands. If the medical authorities and the moralists of the seventeenth and eighteenth century reflected the beliefs of women and men about the impact of maternal intercourse on infant nursing, the decision of whether or not to resume sexual relations while breastfeeding was a traumatic one for both wives and husbands.12

i As quoted in Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 104; McLaren, Reproductive Rituals, 69. I2 Carter, as quoted in Smith, Inside the Great House, 36-37. See also Trumbach, The




The subject of infant weaning is inextricably linked to beliefs about women's reproductive functions and sexuality during the I6oos and I700oos. Although medical authorities advised nursing women against sexual intercourse, fearing it "stirred up the courses" and harmed the quality and quantity of breastmilk, they urged women to wean their infants once menstruation had resumed. Weaning probably signaled the resumption of sexual relations between husbands and wives, or the decision to resume sexual relations precipitated the weaning of the infant, if the medical authorities were heeded by couples. Thus, the decision of when to wean infants and the process of weaning marked a critical juncture not only in the lives of infants and their nursing mothers, but also in the relationships between husbands and wives. The weaning process was a traumatic one for mothers, infants, and husbands, for parental anxiety about their children's

well-being was fraught with an underlying sexual tension.13 The average age recommended by medical authorities for

weaning children changed dramatically from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century. How reflective their advice was of the actual age at which infants were weaned is an issue historians have debated. It has been estimated that in the seventeenth century women were advised to nurse their infants for one year or more. In the American colonies, women probably nursed their infants for twelve to eighteen months before weaning them either gradually or abruptly. This practice coincided with the advice of Jane Sharp, who believed parents should commence weaning their infants at one year, and that children should not be nursing after the age of two. Other medical authorities, including James Nel- son, an English physician, advised parents to begin the weaning process when infants were between three and four months old.

Egalitarian Family, 202, 204; Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, I02, I04-I05; McLaren,

Reproductive Rituals, 69; Stone, Family, 64. On the increase in the use of wet nurses in Boston, see Caulfield, "Infant Feeding," 677-679. 13 Laurel T. Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650--1750 (New York, 1982), 140-I44; Demos, Little Commonweatlh, 68; Beales,

"Nursing and Weaning," 57-59; idem, "In Search of the Historical Child: Miniature Adulthood and Youth in Colonial New England," American Quarterly, XXVII (I975), 38I. Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (New York, 1982), I97-206, discusses the implications of weaning on the development of the self in Puritan culture, whereas Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 380, differentiates between the impact of weaning by a wet nurse and by a mother on subsequent personality development.




What may be at issue is the definition of weaning. It is probable that Nelson meant parents to supplement their infants' diets of breast milk with pap and other foods at the age of three or four months, beginning the process of gradual weaning. The children of lower-class English women were generally fed completely from the breast during the first year of life and weaned at an age when they were able to eat the same diet as the rest of the family. Factors influencing the age at which infants were weaned included the season of the year and the appearance of the infants' first teeth. Diaries and journals which record the weaning of infants indicate that the process occurred in the warm months of July, August, and September only if absolutely necessary. The weaning of infants usually took place in the autumn or spring, presumably to avoid the summer heat or winter cold which made both children and anxious parents uncomfortable, and to spare the infants ex-

posure to seasonal diseases. The appearance of teeth was also

thought to be an indicator of readiness for weaning. Many infants were fully breastfed until their upper and lower front teeth appeared, usually between the ages of nine months and a year. Then, supplements like cornmeal, and well-chopped or pre-chewed fish, fowl, and red meat were introduced to the diet until, by the age of two, the children no longer received any nourishment from the breast. Once their children's teeth appeared, the process of

breastfeeding became uncomfortable for their mothers, although nipple shields were sometimes used to minimize the discomfort.

Many mothers who followed the advice of Lionel Chalmers, a medical authority from South Carolina, must have borne the discomfort to ensure their children's health during the weaning process. Perhaps influenced by a seventeenth-century proverb, "Soon todd [toothed] soon with God," Chalmers believed wean-

ing children before most of their teeth were cut risked death in the event of illness. He stated, "It is therefore safest, not to wean infants before they have all or most of their teeth, that they may have somewhat [sic] to trust in case of sickness; for they will take the nipple when all other nourishment is refused." In the eighteenth century, artificial feeding became more common, and spe- cial foods were developed for infant consumption. By the latter half of that century in England, the duration of maternal breast-

feeding was shortened to an average of 7.5 months. This decline in the average age for weaning is also attributable to an increase




in the number of women in the aristocracy who chose to nurse their infants and a reduction in the use of wet nurses.14

Various methods were used to wean children permanently. The most common was painting the breast and nipple with a bitter mixture to discourage children from sucking. Such mixtures were often made of alum, mustard, and wormwood. Anne Brad- street revealed her own weaning remedies in her Meditations (I664): "Some children are hardly weaned: although the teat be rubbed with wormwood or mustard, they will either wipe it off or else suck down sweet and bitter together." Other mothers weaned their children by leaving them at home while they visited friends or relatives far from their infants' cries, or by placing their children in the care of family or friends until the process was complete. 15

The weaning of infants in England and colonial America was a significant rite of passage for parents and children alike. It is possible that many colonial women and men sought to minimize their anxieties about resuming sexual relations while the mother nursed by partially supplementing their infants' diets before completely weaning them from the breast. If women became pregnant while breastfeeding their infants, they were compelled to wean

14 Caulfield, "Infant Feeding," 677-679, 686-687; Stone, Family, 398, 426-496; Smith, Inside the Great House, 27; Houlbrooke, English Family, 134; Walsh, "'Till Death Us Do Part,"' 142. Illick, "Child Rearing," 309; Demos, Little Commonwealth, 135-136; Alan

Macfarlane, The Family Life of Ralph Josselin, a Seventeenth Century Clergyman: An Essay in Historical Anthropology (New York, I979), App. A, I99-204; Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and

Babies, 352-370, on changing patterns in infant weaning. Leland H. Scott, Child Devel-

opment: An Individual, Longitudinal Approach (New York, 1967), 82, states the first four deciduous central incisors appear between four and eight months of age. The lateral incisors

appear between eight and ten months of age, and the molars appear between twelve and sixteen months of age. Demos, "Underlying Themes in the Witchcraft of Seventeenth-

Century New England," American Historical Review, LXXV (1970) 1325, n 39, deals with the issue of weaning and the arrival of baby teeth, as does Smith, Inside the Great House, 39. See McLaren, Reproductive Rituals, 67, for the proverb on teething. On nipple shields, see Theodore G. H. Drake, "Antiques of Medical Interest: Nipple Shields," Journal of the

History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, I (I946), 316-317; Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 139-141.

15 Joseph R. McElrath and Allan P. Robb (eds.), The Complete Works of Anne Bradstreet (Boston, I981), 200. See also, Caulfield, "Infant Feeding," 681-682; Ulrich, Good Wives,

I40-144. Ulrich discusses the "weaning journey." Beales, "Nursing and Weaning," 57- 58; idem, "Ebenezer Parkman's Children," paper presented at the Charles Rieley Arming- ton Research Center, Case Western Reserve Univ. (Cleveland, I979) 15, also discuss

weaning. Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 377-382, states that both gradual and abrupt weaning were common, the abrupt weaning being used for older children.




their infants immediately, believing that unborn children should not have to compete with their siblings for nourishment. To continue to nurse while pregnant was thought dangerous to both infants. 16

Most women believed that nursing their own infants delayed pregnancy. Over the centuries, midwives and nursing women had noticed that breastfeeding postponed the resumption of menstruation, an indication of women's ability to conceive once more.

Knowledge of the effect of nursing on women's reproductive cycles was probably shared by women over countless generations, and became a part of the lore of midwives and new mothers. Whether women intentionally chose to breastfeed their infants as a way of limiting their family's size, regulating its growth, or

protecting their own health is seldom revealed in personal letters, diaries, and manuscripts. The lack of comment on this issue does not necessarily mean either that women did not believe in the

contraceptive effect of lactation, or that they chose to nurse their infants in order to achieve some control over their reproductive and sexual lives. By the end of the seventeenth century, Mather

expressed his concern that women in New England were nursing their infants to delay conception. In the eighteenth century, Carter criticized his daughter-in-law for nursing her infant so that she would "not breed too fast," and Elizabeth Drinker candidly advised her daughter to suckle her latest child as a means of avoiding future pregnancies: "She was now in her 39th year, and that this

might possibly be the last trial of this sort, if she could suckle her

baby for two years to come, as she had several times done hereto- fore." Perhaps the reason why more comments like Drinker's do not appear in English or American manuscript sources was women's awareness that their husbands' desire for more children was

potentially at odds with their own desire to space their births to

protect their own health and the health of their children, if not to limit family size.17

Recent medical findings confirm, in part, the assumption that

breastfeeding impedes conception, and that, by nursing their own

I6 Novak, "Superstition and Folklore of Menstruation," 274, Houlbrooke, English Fam-

ily, I33. See also, Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Piety in an English Village: Terling, 1525-1700 (New York, 1979), 56-57; "His Book of Problems," Works of Aristotle, I53. 17 Koehler, Searchfor Power, 433; Smith, Inside the Great House, 36-37; Elizabeth Drinker, as quoted in Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, Io9.



BREASTFEEDING IN COLONIAL AMERICA [ 39

infants, colonial American women gained a measure of control over their family's size and rate of growth. Modern studies com-

paring the fecundity of women who breastfed their infants to those who did not confirm the theory that lactation inhibits female

fecundity. As early as one month after delivery, 20 percent of all

non-nursing mothers resume ovulation. By the second month

postpartum, the majority of these women are fecund, and, by the third month, 80 percent are capable of becoming pregnant once more, as indicated, in most cases, by the resumption of their menstrual cycles. By contrast, the period of postpartum amenorrhea, the absence of menstrual cycles, for nursing mothers is

substantially longer. Among women breastfeeding their infants for eighteen months, the average length of time women in the seventeenth century nursed their infants, the majority resumed their menstrual cycles between seven and eleven months follow-

ing delivery. However, these findings about the fecundity of

breastfeeding women include both those who fully nursed their infants and those who supplemented their infants' diet with other forms of nourishment. The distinction is an important one, for the fecundity of nursing women is influenced by the type of

breastfeeding that they practice. Women who nurse their infants

only partially resume their menstrual cycles before fully nursing mothers. The majority of partially nursing women are fecund by the eighth month following delivery, whereas fully nursing women are fecund by the eleventh month postpartum. Thus, women can influence the length of time that they are unable to conceive and so delay the possibility of pregnancy.18

I8 A small percentage of women may ovulate before menstruation and in some women the first one or two cycles may be anovular. Eva Salber, Manning Feinleib, and Brian MacMahon, "The Duration of Postpartum Amenorrhea," American Journal of Epidemiology, LXXXII (I966), 349-35I; T. J. Cronin, "Influence of Lactation upon Ovulation," Lancet, II (1968), 422-424; Anrudh K. Jain et al., "Demographic Aspects of Lactation and Post-

partum Amenorrhea," Demography, VII (1970), 255, 259, 26I; Alfredo Perez et al., "First Ovulation after Childbirth: The Effect of Breastfeeding," American Journal of Obstetrics and

Gynecology, CXIV (1972), I04I-1047. More recent studies include John Bongaarts, "The Proximate Determinants of Natural Marital Fertility," in Rudolfo A. Bulatao and Ronald D. Lee (eds.), Determinants of Fertility in Developing Countries, I: Supply and Demand for Children (New York, I983), o05-IIo. The type of breastfeeding practiced has been rec-

ognized as a factor influencing fecundity by Dorothy McLaren, "Fertility, Infant Mortality and Breastfeeding in the Seventeenth Century," Medical History, XXII (1978), 382; Jeroen K. Van Ginneken, "Prolonged Breastfeeding as a Birth Spacing Method," Studies in Family Planning, V (I974), 203; Henri Leridon and Benoit Ferry, "Biological and Traditional



40 PAULA A. TRECKEL

Once ovulation resumes, there are other factors which influence women's ability to conceive again. These include the status of the previous pregnancy-whether it ended in a live birth with the child surviving at least a year, a live birth with the infant

dying within the first year, or intended or spontaneous abortion- and the age of the mother. It has been found that it takes, on the

average, seventeen months for women to conceive again when their preceding pregnancy ended in a live birth and the child survived at least a year. This period is the time measured from the last birth to the new conception, and implies full or partial breastfeeding by the mother. If the infant dies within a year of its

birth, curtailing the limited contraceptive effect of breastfeeding, the average time required for conception is reduced to an average of eleven months. Finally, if the preceding pregnancy ends in

abortion, the time required for conception is reduced to an average of ten months.19

Age is also an important factor influencing the resumption of ovulation in breastfeeding women. The older women are, the

longer the duration of postpartum amenorrhea, regardless of the method of breastfeeding practiced. Age becomes a significant factor in the resumption of ovulation when women approach the

age of thirty. The increase in the delay in ovulation with age results in a corresponding delay in the time it takes women to conceive again. The average time required for conception in- creases by approximately one month for every two additional

years of maternal age after the age of twenty-seven. The result is a gradual lengthening of intervals between births as women approach menopause.20

These medical findings are important in helping colonial historians both to understand and to interpret the individual child-

bearing experiences of specific women, as well as the collective

experiences of generations of women in a community or region.

Restraints on Fertility," in John Cleland and John Hobcraft (eds.), Reproductive Change in

Developing Countries: Insights from the World Fertility Survey (New York, 1985), I53-I55. I9 Jain, "Pregnancy Outcome and the Time Required for Next Conception," Population Studies, XXIII (1969), 423-433; idem et al., "Demographic Aspects of Lactation," 256;

Bongaarts, "Proximate Determinants of Natural Marital Fertility," 121-124. 20 Salber, Feinleib, and MacMahon, "Duration of Postpartum Amenorrhea," 357; Jain et al., "Demographic Aspects of Lactation," 255, 264; Jain, "Pregnancy Outcome," 428; Leridon and Ferry, "Biological and Traditional Restraints on Fertility," 157; Bongaarts, "Proximate Determinants of Natural Marital Fertility," I24-127.



BREASTFEEDING IN COLONIAL AMERICA 41

These findings also enable us to create a model against which we can compare the experience of colonial women in an effort to determine if they were attempting to regulate the growth of their families by breastfeeding their infants or by practicing sexual abstinence while nursing.

The majority of colonial American women during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries probably nursed their infants. These women therefore also experienced the limited contraceptive effects of lactation. Whether fully or partially nursing their infants, most nursing women in their twenties resumed their menstrual

cycles, and, hence, ovulation, between seven and eleven months

postpartum. As they grew older, the period of amenorrhea was somewhat longer. If they completely abstained from sexual intercourse while nursing their children, believing it would harm them, they were further protected from pregnancy. Depending upon whether or not they engaged in sexual relations while fully or partially nursing their infants, and whether their infants survived for at least a year, these women could expect to conceive

again, on the average, seventeen months postpartum. As they aged, the longer they could expect to remain free from pregnancy after delivery. Adding a nine-month period of gestation to the seventeen-month period for conception results in an average birth interval of twenty-six months among women who chose to breastfeed their infants. In other words, children were born to these women approximately every two years.21

The records of the births, weanings, and deaths of one eighteenth-century New England minister's children provide a unique opportunity for studying the reproductive histories of two colonial women and comparing them to the model formulated from recent medical findings. In his diaries, begun in 1719 and spanning more than sixty years of his life, Ebenezer Parkman, a Congre- gational minister, recounted the pregnancies and miscarriages of his two wives. Parkman married Mary Champney, his first wife, in 1724. She was twenty-four years of age. Until her pregnancy- related death in 1736, Mary Parkman gave birth to five children. Her first child, Mary, was born fourteen months after her mar-

21 McLaren, Reproductive Rituals, 4. George S. Masnick, "The Demographic Impact of

Breastfeeding: A Critical Review," Human Biology, LI (I979), I09-125, discusses problems in applying recent medical research to the study of breastfeeding in earlier times.



42 PAULA A. TRECKEL

riage, whereas Ebenezer, Thomas, Lydia, and Lucy followed at intervals of twenty-three, twenty-two, twenty-six and thirty-six months, respectively. The birth intervals reflect the effect of breastfeeding her children for ten to twenty months following their births. After Mary Parkman died, her husband married Hannah Breck who was twenty-one years old. Within six months of their marriage, she suffered a miscarriage. Her second pregnancy resulted in the birth of Elizabeth ten months later, indicating that she had conceived within a month of her miscarriage. Elizabeth died within seventeen days of her birth, and Hannah Parkman conceived again only to miscarry eleven months after the death of her daughter. Fourteen months later, she gave birth to William, indicating that conception occurred five months following the last miscarriage. The short intervals between her first miscarriage, the birth and death of Elizabeth, the second miscarriage and the birth of William demonstrate that without the contraceptive effect of breastfeeding her miscarried infants or her infant daughter, she was fecund and conceived once more. After the birth of William, Hannah Parkman gave birth to nine more children. The birth intervals of these children are a model for demonstrating the impact of maternal breastfeeding on fecundity and family growth. They ranged from twenty-three to thirty-five months in length. Their last child was born when Mrs. Parkman was about forty-four years old, and the thirty-five-month interval before its birth further illustrates the impact of age on the fecundity of breastfeeding women.22

It is possible that the experience of these two women was exceptional; certainly their husband's record of their reproductive lives was atypical. Yet, when their reproductive lives are placed in a larger historical context, they raise questions about the role of women as mothers and wives, and the patterns of family growth in the communities of New England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Demographic data about family size and birth intervals during that period show both how maternal breastfeeding, encouraged by Puritan theologians, influenced family development, and

22 Beales, "Nursing and Weaning," 61-63; Lockwood, "Birth, Illness and Death," 121-

123, App. 128. Ulrich, Good Wives, 138-145, provides more general examples of Puritan women's experiences in New England. For an example of an English Puritan woman's birth and weaning experience, see Macfarlane, Family Life of Ralph Josselin, 83, App. A.




the limitations of that method of regulating family size, especially in the eighteenth century. Seventeenth-century Andover, Massa- chusetts, and Plymouth Colony are examples of societies where Puritan culture was strong, and the injunction encouraging women to breastfeed their own infants was in evidence. The development of Andover from a frontier outpost into a thriving agricultural community required the labor of large families to settle and work the land. Large families were desired, and, even though Andover mothers breastfed their infants, increasing the intervals between births, the number of children born to the community's families was only slightly affected by this practice. The average number of children born to an Andover family in the I65os and I66os was 8.3, 7.2 living to the age of twenty-one. The birth intervals of this generation of children averaged twenty- eight months. These families were large by both early American and English standards. The average interval between births in Andover indicates that, although Andover mothers delayed their physiological capability to conceive again by breastfeeding their infants, they sought merely to regulate the growth, not limit the size, of their families. A similar picture emerges for the first three generations of Plymouth Colony. Family size ranged from 7.8 to 9.3 children, with a corresponding interval of about twenty-four months. A changing picture of family size can be seen in data from the town of Hingham, Massachusetts. There, mean family size declined from 7.59 children before 1691 to 4.6I children between 1691 and I715. It gradually rose again to 6.74 children between 1716 and 1740, and 7. I6 children between 1741 and 1760. One factor influencing this marked decline in family size from 1691 to 1715 was the rise in the average age of women at marriage, from twenty-two years before 1691 to almost twenty-five years of age thereafter. The difference in the average age of women at

marriage can account for the birth of one less child, on average, per family, but does not fully account for the birth of three fewer children per family during this era. The practice of maternal

breastfeeding alone is inadequate to explain this decline. It is

probable that other methods of birth control were utilized by married couples in Hingham to control the growth of their families once the desired number of children had been born. The most reliable form of birth control available was sexual abstinence, a

practice which required the cooperation of both partners, thereby



44 I PAULA A. TRECKEL

altering the relationship between husband and wife within the marriage. Although historians attribute the decline in family size in Hingham to external economic factors such as the limited availability of land, the desire for fewer children affected the sexual relationship of women and men in the community, and, possibly, their perceptions of their roles as husbands and wives, and fathers and mothers, as well. Even though the decline in family size was only temporary, the experience of the women and men of Hingham from 1691 to 1715 presaged trends in other communities in the region during the latter part of the eighteenth century. The residents of the New England colonies participated in a series of wars fought by England in North America, wars which had a major impact on the region and led to its economic decline. Economic difficulties mandated changes in both the size and the nature of New England families, requiring the transformation of sexual as well as social relations between men and women. 23

The trends in family size and birth interval patterns experienced by the first generations of settlers in Andover and Hingham and in Plymouth Colony were not duplicated in all of the colonies. Recent investigations into family life and death in seventeenth- century Maryland and Virginia, although hindered by the unre- liability of the recorded data used, reveal the struggles of women

23 Greven, Four Generations, 30; Demos, Little Commonwealth, 192. See also Daniel S. Smith, "The Demographic History of Colonial New England, "Journal of Economic History, XXXII (1972), 165-183; idem, "Parental Power and Marriage Patterns: An Analysis of Historical Trends in Hingham, Massachusetts, "Journal of Marriage and the Family, XXXV

(1973), 419-428, analyzes the impact of wealth and parental power on the age at marriage, and its implications for family size, as do Greven, Four Generations, 26, 30, 33, 37; Edward

Byers, The Nation of Nantucket: Society and Politics in an Early American Commercial Center, 1660-1820 (Boston, 1987), i80; Nancy Osterlund and John Fulton, "Family Limitation and Age of Marriage: Fertility Decline in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, I730-I850," Popu- lation Studies, XXX (1976), 48I-496. Other historians relating family size to economic

change include Robert V. Wells, "Family Size and Fertility Control in Eighteenth Century America: A Study of Quaker Families," Population Studies, XXV (1971), 73-82; Gerald E. Markle and Sharon Pasco, "Family Limitation among the Old Order Amish," Population Studies, XXXI (I977), 267-280. Louise Kantrow, "Philadelphia Gentry: Fertility and Fam-

ily Limitation Among an American Aristocracy," Population Studies, XXXIV (1980), 21- 30, disputes the theory that most families began to limit family size by the end of the

eighteenth century. For information on the impact of warfare on the economy of New

England, see Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 55-56, 60-65, I02-IIo, 170-176, 246-263.




and men in the Chesapeake to create families. Many of Maryland's first settlers were indentured servants, not free to marry until their terms of service were completed. As a result, the first generation of women in the colony did not marry, on average, until their mid-twenties, and men, until their late twenties, shortening their reproductive lives together. The average family of these first settlers consisted of only two or three children, whereas the next generation, able to marry earlier, had families of three to five children. Nevertheless, the average size of families in early Mary- land was smaller than that in early Andover and Hingham and Plymouth Colony, and more closely resembled the size of families in Hingham between I691 and 1715 when, it has been hypothe- sized, efforts to limit family size went beyond maternal breastfeeding. It is unlikely, however, that in labor-scarce Maryland the first two generations of colonists were intentionally limiting the size of their families. Although errors in recording infant deaths may account for the relatively small families in Maryland, inves- tigation of family life in seventeenth-century Middlesex County, Virginia, has helped to illuminate the problems of family development in some areas of the Chesapeake.24

In Middlesex County, the average age at marriage for women was twenty, whereas that for men was twenty-five. The average life-expectancy for Middlesex County women was thirty-nine years. During married life, they could expect to bear five children, one of whom would die in infancy. On average, they would give birth when they were twenty-one, twenty-four, thirty-four, and thirty-seven years of age. The longer-than-average birth intervals represented in this model of reproductive life in Middlesex County point to the difficulties that colonial women experienced in becoming pregnant, bringing their infants to term, and nursing them. It is probable that disease, especially malaria, was a major factor influencing the fecundity and shaping the reproductive lives

24 Walsh, "'Till Death Us Do Part,"' I28; Lois Carr and Walsh, "The Planter's Wife: The Experience of White Women in Seventeenth Century Maryland," William and Mary Quarterly, XXXIV (I977), 554, n 44. However, Russell R. Menard, "Immigrants and their Increase: The Process of Population Growth in Early Maryland," in Aubrey C. Land, Carr, and Edward C. Papenfuse (eds.), Law, Society and Politics in Early Maryland (Balti- more, I977), 102, found that in Somerset County, Maryland, the average number of children born to immigrant women was 6. I, whereas native born women bore 9.5. These

figures more closely resemble those found in Andover, early Hingham, and Plymouth Colony.




of these women, retarding the establishment and growth of families in this region. Even if women of seventeenth-century Ches- apeake, like their counterparts in England and New England, thought that nursing their infants from birth with the colostrum from their breasts was harmful to them, they had no alternatives. The scarcity of women in the Chesapeake area probably precluded the acquisition of wet nurses immediately postpartum. As has been noted, historians of infant feeding believe that artificial or dry nursing was more common in the American colonies than in England because of the scarcity of wet nurses, despite the higher infant mortality attributed to it during the seventeenth century. Delay in placing infants to their mothers' breast also endangered the health of the mothers who were, as a result, more susceptible to milk fever and other illnesses related to the birthing process. Customs in maternal nursing of infants, when coupled with the prevalence of malarial disease in the region, help to explain the problems encountered in creating families in the Chesapeake.25

Malaria affected the fecundity of women, especially in the Southern colonies, during the seventeenth and even the eighteenth centuries. In addition to the immediate impact of the disease on its victims, malaria taxed their immunological defenses, and the victims often fell prey to other diseases. When victims were pregnant, their fetuses may also have been threatened by the disease. Malarial infection impeded reproduction, threatening spontaneous abortion with each conception. In the Chesapeake, and later in the colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, women between the ages of fifteen and forty-five, the childbearing years, were at a substantially greater risk of death from malaria than their male counterparts. Pregnancy reduced their body's ability to deal with malarial infection, and anemia resulted from a buildup of parasites in their blood. Spontaneous abortion, premature labor, and the death of mothers and infants may occur. The premature birth of infants was noted by the first settlers of Georgia in the early

25 Darrett B. Rutman and Anita Rutman, "Of Agues and Fevers: Malaria in the Early Chesapeake," William and Mary Quarterly, XXXIII (I976), 58-59. See also idem, A Place in Time: Explicatus (New York, I984), 61-78, for an understanding of how these figures were arrived at and the reliability of the colonial records from which their figures are drawn. Idem, "'Now Wives and Sons-in-Law': Parental Death in a Seventeenth Century Virginia County," in Tate and Ammerman (eds.), Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century, I60. See Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, 266, on the greater use of dry nursing in the colonies because of a shortage of nursing women to serve as temporary wet nurses.




eighteenth century, one of whom remarked, "I am told that some of these wives will hardly stay the nine months out to create a progeny. ..." Premature births were apparently common in the community of Ebenezer, Georgia, prompting one colonist to re- mark: "It is very observable that hitherto all our childbearing women are delivered of their children before their full growth, and that most of the women died. ... So that such of our women that are now pregnant are in deadly apprehensions that the present soil is pernicious to both the growth of children and seeds." When mothers infected by malaria chose to nurse their infants, they placed a great strain upon their stores of energy, delaying their own recovery from the birth process. Such circumstances mark- edly increased the period of postpartum amenorrhea experienced by nursing women, resulting in longer and more irregular intervals between births. The cumulative effect of malarial infection in the Chesapeake, South Carolina, and Georgia resulted in a decline in the birth rate, longer and more irregular birth intervals than those for populations unaffected by malaria, greater infant and maternal mortality, and a reduction in family size. When coupled with the maternal breastfeeding practices of women in the seventeenth century, malarial infection hindered the formation of families in this region.26

Problems in family development contributed to a labor shortage in the southern colonies throughout the seventeenth century. The scarcity of laborers and the desire to develop a surplus agricultural economy led to the adoption of slave labor by the eighteenth century. The expansion of slavery in the English colonies of North America, especially in the South, enabled some colonial women, especially those of the planter class, to utilize slave women as wet nurses for their children. Although visitors to

26 Rutman and Rutman, "Of Agues and Fevers," 49-52. Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713 (Chapel Hill, 1972), 302-303, discusses the impact of malaria on the colonization of the sugar islands, whereas Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York, I974), 85-98, discusses the impact of malaria on slavery in colonial South Carolina. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York, I975), I62, 409, apparently disagrees that women were more vulnerable to the disease than men. See also the discussion by Menard, "Immigrants and their Increase," 93-96. On women, malaria, and the colonization of Georgia, see Mills Lane (ed.), General Oglethorpe's Georgia: Colonial Letters, 1733-1743 (Savannah, 1975), I, 39-40, I73-I79.




these colonies frequently remarked upon the use of black women as wet nurses for white children, historians disagree in their judg- ments of how representative these observations were of the customs of the planter class. It is possible that the nursing of white infants by black slave women was thought remarkable by visitors, who believed that infants ingested both the physical characteristics and the temperament of their nurses through the breastmilk, and therefore was noted in theirjournals and diaries. Thus, a relatively unusual occurrence, frequently remarked upon by observers, may have created the appearance of custom, and given rise to the legend of the black "Mammy." It is more probable that some women utilized the services of a nursing slave temporarily to wet nurse their infants immediately following birth, especially during the first half of the eighteenth century before views about colostrum's harmful effects had changed. It is also possible that the wet nursing of white infants by slave women was more common in some Southern colonies than in others. The wealthy planters' wives in colonial South Carolina, for example, had both the means, and knowledge of the customs and fashions of the mother country, to emulate their English sisters of the gentry in using wet nurses for their infants. The prevalence of malarial disease in South Carolina and the belief that slaves were immune to that disease might well have encouraged some planters' wives to use wet nurses for their infants even after their English counterparts turned to maternal nursing by the end of the eighteenth century. Also, the custom of seasonal relocation to the city of Charleston and the social activities required of planters' wives possibly mit- igated against women of the planter class nursing their own infants. The desire of their husbands for many children to inherit their estates might also have been a factor in the use of slave women as wet nurses for planters' infants, for maternal nursing delayed the possibility of pregnancy, thereby limiting the number of children who were born.27

27 Sally McMillen, "Mothers' Sacred Duty: Breastfeeding Patterns among Middle- and

Upper-Class Women in the Antebellum South," Journal of Southern History, LI (I985), 333-334, n 2; Catherine Clinton, Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South (New York, 1982), I55-I56; Jane Turner Censer, North Carolina Planters and their Children, 1800- 1860 (Baton Rouge, I984), 34-35. Clinton believes it was more common for plantation mistresses to nurse their own infants in the eighteenth century than in the nineteenth century. Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, Io6, says that aristocratic women began to nurse their own children by the end of the eighteenth century, which would appear to agree




Eliza Lucas Pinckney, the wife of an eighteenth-century South Carolina planter, had slave women nurse her children. Born and raised on the island of Antigua in the Caribbean, and educated in England, it is probable that Pinckney was, herself, nursed by a slave woman. She was also a well-read and well-traveled woman, aware of the changing attitudes about maternal nursing and wet nurses held by upper-class women in England. Pinckney had no reservations about using slave women as wet nurses, despite contemporary beliefs that children assumed the characteristics and temperament of their nurses. She recorded a discussion about wet nurses and breastfeeding that she had with Princess

Augusta of England during a visit by the Pinckneys to the royal court in I753. She recalled that the princess had asked if she nursed her own infants and that she had replied that she had tried but was unable to do so: "I told her we had Nurses in our houses, that it appeard very strange to me to hear of people putting their children out to nurse, we had no such practices in Carolina, at which she seemed vastly pleased; she thought it was a very good thing, the other was unnatural. Princess Augusta was suprized at the suckling blacks; the Princess stroakd [Pinckney's daughter's] cheek, said it made no alteration in the complexion and paid her the compliment of being very fair and pretty." Pinckney had

attempted to nurse her infants herself, but whether her method of nursing the children, physical limitations, or her social status and activities prevented her from doing so is unknown. Rather than resort to artificial feeding, however, she brought a slave woman into her home to serve as a wet nurse. In this way, the diet of the nurse could be monitored, as could the care that she

with Clinton's conclusions. Fildes, however, believes that the trend of maternal nursing was prompted by women's desire to maintain their health, and that this consideration, more than the benefits to the infant, was the motive in adoption of maternal nursing by aristocratic women. It is possible that in the American states, immediately after the Revolution, the focus on "Republican Motherhood" influenced women to nurse their own infants as evidence of their patriotism. See Jacqueline S. Reiner, "Rearing the Republican Child: Attitudes and Practices in Post-Revolutionary Philadelphia," William and Mary Quarterly, XXXIX (I982), 150-163, who cites Benjamin Rush, an advocate of maternal

nursing, as an important force in postwar child rearing. Another advocate of maternal

nursing in the new republic was William Shippen, a Philadelphia physician. For more on

"Republican Motherhood," see Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill, I980), 265-288. Censer and McMillen found more women nursing their own infants than using slave wet nurses in the nineteenth-century South.




provided the infant. Pinckney's remarks appear to speak for a particular class of wealthy, slave-holding planters' wives in the colony and perhaps are reflective of that group alone. The nursing and weaning customs of wealthy, slave-holding planters' wives should be explored further by historians. If the use of slave women as wet nurses was typical of women of the planter class in South Carolina, it might have had a measurable impact upon family size, although studies of the English gentry show that families which frequently utilized wet nurses were no larger than those wherein women nursed their own infants.28

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most colonial women breastfed their infants. Their understanding of the methods and practice of maternal nursing, as well as the effect of nursing upon their ability to conceive, was influenced by the customs and attitudes of the medical authorities and moralists of the time. Although it has been demonstrated that maternal breastfeeding temporarily inhibits women's ability to conceive, few studies of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century communities indicate that women nursed their infants in order to limit their families' size. Women probably utilized the limited contraceptive effects of breastfeeding to regulate the growth of their families, extending the intervals between births to ensure the health of their infants and themselves, when possible. When colonial women and men sought to limit family size, they could not rely upon maternal breastfeeding alone to achieve that end. Instead, once their desired family size was reached, they probably practiced sexual abstinence to prevent further pregnancies. In regions where families were slow to develop, especially the southern colonies in the seventeenth century, beliefs about maternal breastfeeding, coupled with disease, might well have retarded the creation of families. The scarcity of women in the southern colonies and the subsequent lack of available wet nurses immediately postpartum, especially in a culture which believed in the harmful effects of colostrum, probably contributed to infant and maternal mortality

28 Harriott Ravenel, Eliza Pinckney (New York, I896), 151-152. Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies, I58, I63, indicates that only the aristocracy and the higher gentry employed wet nurses in their own homes. Others sent their children to live with their nurses in their homes. Although Stone, Family, 64, states that more children were born to the wealthy because they did not nurse their own infants in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, this assertion is disputed by Houlbrooke, English Family, 128.




in the region. The use of slave women as wet nurses for the children of upper-class planters mirrored the use of wet nurses by the English aristocracy in the early eighteenth century, and helped to ensure the survival of planters' progeny.

By exploring the customs and patterns of maternal breastfeeding and beliefs about women's sexuality in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is possible to better understand the experience of women and their relationships with men in colonial America. Studying works about women's sexuality by early medical authorities, theologians, and moralists, in conjunction with recent medical research on the fecundity of women, enables us to see how beliefs about women's sexuality and the customs of maternal breastfeeding affected women's lives and shaped the growth of their families. Changes in family size and birth intervals during the colonial era point to alterations in breastfeeding practices as well as revisions of beliefs about women's sexual nature. Such changes also indicate the redefinition of the relationships between women and men, and the role of women within the family. The practice of maternal breastfeeding in America de- serves further study for what it may reveal of contemporary attitudes about women's sexuality, women's own views of their roles as wives and mothers, and the relationships between men and women.



brestfeeding and maternal sexuality in colonial america

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