Suffragette City?

Louise Youngblood; against female suffrage

We are all truly products of our upbringing – until we choose to break the chain.

The young lady in the article shared here was from a long line of slaveholders bearing the surname “Youngblood“, who ultimately trace back to Dutch “Jongbloedt” families of New Amsterdam/New York – people who may have come to the Americas via Recife, in Brazil.

Very few Americans are aware that New York City was a ferocious stronghold of anti-“Patriot” sentiment during the 1770s.

Like many of their neighbors, some Youngbloods took the “Tory” side, appalled at the mob violence being perpetrated by many “Patriots”, who demanded that people publicly declare for a side, or face being burnt out of their homes, or suffer being publicly tarred-and-feathered and run out of various districts.

William Franklin – son of “the” Benjamin Franklin himself – was the royal governor of New Jersey, and unlike his father, a staunch Loyalist.

During and after the American War for Independence, many Loyalists/Tories removed to England, Canada, or British holdings in the Caribbean.

Others fled into Appalachia, the Deep South, or British-controlled Florida.

It is amusing in the extreme that many of the most fervent MAGA flag-wavers today, who see themselves as the torchbearers of nebulous ideals of “liberty” and “freedom”, are in fact the descendants of people who stood AGAINST the “patriot” cause.

By the time of the Civil War 80 years after the “Revolution”, many Patriots and Tories had set aside their grandparents’ differences to focus on accumulating land and riches.

Female collaborators like Ms. Youngblood were the product of a society with highly ritualized roles defined by wealth, racial caste and gender.

I found myself thinking of women like Louise Youngblood this month, when I studied the breakdown of votes cast by women for Trump/Vance – men with views on women’s rights and gender roles which would not have been out of place a century ago.