Page 72 - All About History - Issue 54-17

Regency women

Frances Wright

6 September 1795 — 13 December 1852 Many approved
This Scot fought for abolition and free love in America of Frances’s ideas
because she had
found a way for slaves
Dundee-born Fanny Wright was the daughter of wealthy political radicals, and what she to prepare to be self-
supporting citizens
learned in infancy she put into practice in adulthood. When she was in her early 20s,
the orphaned Fanny took her inheritance and financed a passage for herself and her
sister to America, where they travelled widely across the country. Here she developed an
unshakeable belief in the principles of suffrage, education, emancipation and the rights of
women to govern their own bodies.
Fanny published an eye-opening political critique of American society and was sure that
she could come up with a better way of life. Her dream took the form of the Nashoba
Commune, which was intended to educate slaves in preparation for their emancipation. She
sank her inheritance into the commune and dreamed of a community free of class or the
shackles of society’s expectations. The commune proved to be an expensive white elephant,
however, and its belief in free love regardless of race or creed caused a scandal. Although
Fanny was forced to close it down and re-house its inhabitants at her own expense, she
continued to argue passionately for the rights of all until her dying day.

Sacagawea Anne Lister

3 April 1791 — 22 September 1840

May 1788 — 20 December 1812 Out and proud, Anne was an industrialist
to be reckoned with
Lewis and Clark didn’t undertake their
groundbreaking expedition across America alone
Anne Lister, the châtelaine of
Yorkshire’s Shiben Hall, had no time
Sacagawea was born into a Lemhi Shoshone tribe and sold as a bride for convention. When she took
to a trapper called Toussaint Charbonneau when she was just 13. control of her family estate in 1826,
When Charbonneau was hired to join the Lewis and Clark expedition she proved herself to be a business
in 1804, his young wife went along to serve as a translator. brain to be reckoned with and
Lauded for her intelligence and bravery, Sacagawea played a vital turned the Lister agricultural empire
role in smoothing relations between the explorers and the Shoshone into a multi-industry portfolio
people whose land they wished to cross. She was even reunited with including property, mining and
her brother, who she had lost when they were abducted as children. transport interests. With a keen
The young woman was a valued and respected member of the scientific and mathematical brain,
party and knew the land better than any of them. She had a natural she left male business rivals in
affability that often headed off conflict. her wake and earned herself the
Sacagawea’s fate remains unknown. mocking nickname ‘Gentleman Jack’. Anne’s diary totalled more
While most sources record her death Yet it wasn’t only business for than 4 million words and
detailed her love affairs
as 1812, some indigenous tales claim which Anne had a passion. She lived
that she lived into the 1880s. Efforts to at Shibden with her lover, Ann Walker,
confirm this have so far proven elusive a wealthy woman who Anne Lister considered her wife. The two
and, though her grave at Fort Washakie women made no secret of their relationship and though Ann was the
is marked by a statue of the remarkable most serious in a long string of affairs going back to adolescence,
young woman who helped Lewis and emotional affairs between women were dismissed as a simple rite of
Clark seal their place in American passage in the 19th century.
history, whether she really rests there When they were discovered years after her death, Anne’s diaries
remains a tantalising mystery.
revealed her passionate personality and devotion to her partner.
Written partially in code, they proved that the two women were far
Sacagawea was pregnant more than best friends, and today Anne Lister is lauded as a woman
when she undertook the
Lewis and Clark expedition who lived by her own rules, regardless of convention.

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