Elizabeth Pulley Sets Sail II: first stop Santa Cruz, Tenerife
Descendant: A. Maie
the
first leg to Santa Cruz (Drawing A. Maie)
By 3rd June the first stopover, the port of Santa Cruz, a Spanish colony
on the Island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, was ‘in Sight distance 12
Leagues.’ [1] At this and every subsequent
stop the convicts were put out of irons and the officers and seamen went ashore. The ships were watered and fresh provisions
were brought on board. At Santa Cruz the
convicts were given ‘wine and fresh Beef for the whole of use while we remained
here’; quite a change to the salted meat and beer which were the usual
provision while at sea. That however was
the limit. Unlike the seamen and
officers the convicts were not allowed to disembark.
Freedom did not last long for Elizabeth. On 9th June Elizabeth Pulley and three other
women were put in irons for, in Lt. Clark’s words, ‘fighting ther was never
three great whores living than they are, the four of them that Went throu the
Bulk head while we lay at the Mother Bank’.
Whether they were, in fact whores or not, is immaterial. Lt. Clark called all the women convicts
‘whores’. [2]
…and the second leg
Two weeks after arriving, the First Fleet was on its way again. In contrast to the May rains experienced on
leaving England, there was little wind and the heat made its presence
felt. The second leg of the journey was
not without incident. On 18th June a
gale broke and the Fore Top Sail split.
The next day Elizabeth and the others were allowed out of their irons,
with the comment by Lt. Clark,
I am convinced the[y] will not be long out of
them the[y] are a disgrase to ther Whole Sex B.....s that they are I wish all
the Women Wair out of the Ship
Sure enough one month later, on 3rd July, it was reported that the day
before some of the ‘men [seamen] had brock throu the Womens Convicts Bulk head
again and that he had caught four of the women in the mens place’. Elizabeth Pulley was one of them. The men were flogged and the women ‘to be
keep in Irons all the Way -- if I [Lt. Clark] had been the Commr. I Should
flogd the four Whores also’.
Captain Phillip had tried to stop at Porta Praya in the Cape Verde
Islands to take on more water and fresh vegetables but the surf was too strong
and the winds tricky. In the end he was
warned off by gunfire from the Fort and he decided to keep going. So, by 5th July the whole fleet was placed on
water rations. Later that same day one
of Elizabeth’s ‘crowd’, Elizabeth Dudgeon, was flogged for impertinence. Lt. Clark then ordered her ‘tied to the pump
She has been long fishing for it which She has at last got untill her hearts
containt’.
On Saturday 14th July the fleet crossed the equator. Soon after the wind picked up and they began
to make headway. Midway through the next
week Elizabeth Barbur, another woman mentioned in the same breath as Elizabeth
Pulley, ‘was very much in liquor’, first abusing the ship’s doctor and then
anyone else who came near her, except for Lt. Clark. His comment was, ‘I wonder how She come to
forget me amonst the number’. She was
promptly put in leg irons, had her hands tied behind her back, and was gagged
to keep her quiet. The next week
Elizabeth Pulley was in irons again although the irons must have been taken off
at some stage previously as she was taken out of handcuffs for it.
This leg had been a long one and it showed in the restlessness of the
women convicts. As well as Elizabeth
Pulley and the two women already mentioned, another two, Margaret Hall and Mrs
McNamara, had caused problems, and on the 24th July there had been quite a bit
of shuffling between the handcuffs and leg irons. There also had been a problem with bed bugs
‘the Ship is Swarming with them every body complains of them Except Capt. Meredith
and Self who Sleep in cotts’.
Elizabeth Pulley was not in irons for long this time. By the 26th ‘the doctor desired that Eliz.
Pully might be put out of Irons She being very ill having a blister on
her’. It must have been some blister,
but not bad enough. Six days later she
was back in irons with Elizabeth Dudgeon - ‘the doctor having reported them
well again...--the damned whores the moment that the[y] got below fel a
fighting amonst one a nother and Capt Meridith order the Sergt. not to part
them but to let them fight it out which I think he is very wrong in letting
them doe so’.
During this leg both the male and female convicts had been kept
occupied sewing clothes for the officers or mending or washing. The seamen had been catching shark and
dolphin, which augmented their diet, as well as cleaning barnacles off the
sides of the boats.
NOTES.
c. Annette Maie, 2019
NOTES.
[1] Tenerife
was conquered by Spain in the 15th century, defeating the
inhabitants, the Guanches, who are thought to have descended from the
Lybian-Berber peoples of North Africa.
By the 18th century Tenerife was a flourishing port and
popular stopover on the trade route between Europe and the Americas, as well as
an exporter of plantain, cochineal, rum and sugar cane, which was grown after
the original pine forests were cut down and used for fuel.
[2] According to Karskens, The Colony, p. 316, 317 “The
term (ed. damned whores) had to do with defiant behaviour, with rebellious
working-class women possessed of short tempers and big mouths, women who
effectively used language to retaliate against and humiliate men. Many of these women became wives and mothers
in New South Wales…though they were not meek paragons of respectability and
wifely subjection.”
Goodness - doesn't show Elizabeth Pulley in a good light! I suppose there may have been mitigating circumstances ....
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DeleteHi Glenda...Trying again...further from my comment on Facebook...I imagine she was quite wild, and I really don't have a problem with that...in another of my blogs, https://andsoitgoes775.wordpress.com/2017/01/ I include a bit about what I understand (from what i've read) it would have been like for many women like her...and her sentence to be hung and time in Norwich Castle/gaol would not have made her at all accommodating or complacent. I quite like the impression that she was not going to give in easily. It makes it all the more impressive that by the end of her life she and Anthony had raised a family which was able to stand by themselves, and...which evolved into us.
DeleteThank you for these articles. I am directly descended from Elizabeth and Anthony. The article photo seems perfect to me and could be any one of several of my female relatives, or myself! It makes me smile to think that Elizabeth bucked against authority, which seems to be a theme in my family at least. Curious to think a trait like that could be passed down through so many generations?
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DeleteThank you...glad you are enjoying the journey...and often thought the same as a number of us are also a determined and single minded bunch
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