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Insubordinate Spirit: A True Story of Life and Loss in Earliest America 1610-1665
Insubordinate Spirit is a unique exploration into the life of Elizabeth Winthrop and other seventeenth-century English Puritans who emigrated to the rough, virtually untouched wilderness of present-day New England. Excerpts from newly discovered personal diaries and correspondence provide readers with not only fascinating insights into the hardships, dangers, and losses inherent to English and Dutch settlers in the 1600s, but also first-hand descriptions of the local Native Americans' family life, allegiances, and society. Caught between the unendurable expectations of her Puritan relatives and land disputes with the neighboring Dutch, Elizabeth Winthrop demonstrated a tremendous strength of resolve to protect her own family and remain true to her heart.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 19, 2015
This was misrepresented by the blurb at Barnes & Noble. It led me to believe that this title was more of a biography than a dry history lesson, but Elizabeth Winthrop only figures into, maybe, a quarter of the book. The rest read like a textbook, full of dull dates and tangles of names. While Wolfe occasionally draws me into Winthrop's life as an early Puritan colonist, at other times I'm pushed away with vague descriptions that gloss over important details. (Her second husband's mental instability, for instance, is often referred to but never meaningfully described.) This is a book to read for research, not pleasure.
January 6, 2013
As a native of Greenwich, CT, I've read The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton more times than I can remember. This is the non-fiction version. Seton was close but this telling strips some of the romanticism from the story with great detail about some horrific massacres by both the Dutch and English. Well researched.
August 27, 2016
The title of this study is a bit misleading. Yes, there is information on the life of Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett, but there is much more info on the 17th century Puritan experience in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York (Amsterdam). With respect to Elizabeth, there is a dearth of evidence about her day to day existence, and Missy Wolfe has unearthed a bit more with a few interesting personal letters and diaries written by "Bess" and her family, especially her eldest daughter. Especially elucidating are their exchanges with John Winthrop, Jr. who, as Ms. Wolfe described him, was a true "renaissance man", scientist, medical specialist, political innovator, and man of reason. There are sections on the founding and development of Greenwich and Stamford, which came about only following lengthy wrangling between the English and Dutch over the borderlands between their respective colonies. In and amongst these sections, Wolfe manages to establish Elizabeth as an independent thinker who had the courage to resist conformity regardless of the personal hardships that the Puritan government visited upon her as a result.
Missy Wolfe is an amateur historian, and as such, she sometimes uses anachronistic language and repeats timeworn myths. Elizabeth, for example, didn't "date", and colonial women did not turn into torches because their home fires ignited their clothing as they worked over the flames. Still, there are things to be gleaned from this narrative, particularly in the many details about the Native Americans living in the Greenwich area during Elizabeth's time there; Ms. Wolfe also provides information about some of the names in the town of today that are directly related to them. Pinpointing the location of her last dwelling site, on a promontory that stood above Hell Gate, is interesting as well. The author also fleshes out the personality of John Underhill, infamous for his part in the Pequot massacre. At the end of the book, she reports what is known about the lives of the descendants of the key figures in her narrative.
Missy Wolfe is an amateur historian, and as such, she sometimes uses anachronistic language and repeats timeworn myths. Elizabeth, for example, didn't "date", and colonial women did not turn into torches because their home fires ignited their clothing as they worked over the flames. Still, there are things to be gleaned from this narrative, particularly in the many details about the Native Americans living in the Greenwich area during Elizabeth's time there; Ms. Wolfe also provides information about some of the names in the town of today that are directly related to them. Pinpointing the location of her last dwelling site, on a promontory that stood above Hell Gate, is interesting as well. The author also fleshes out the personality of John Underhill, infamous for his part in the Pequot massacre. At the end of the book, she reports what is known about the lives of the descendants of the key figures in her narrative.
January 1, 2019
Interesting story of the Puritans in the Boston area. This really focused on Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake and I appreciated learning of the women's constant labor and involvement in the early settlements. I'm sure this was difficult to research as women's roles often disappear in the retelling. I learned about the differences between the Puritans and the Pilgrims which has been enlightening.
April 24, 2020
A case of 'Bait and Switch'.
"An historical account of the early history of Greenwich, Connecticut, as told through the words of Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett."-- Provided by the publisher."
"Product Description:
Insubordinate Spirit is a unique exploration into the life of Elizabeth Winthrop and other seventeenth-century English Puritans who emigrated to the rough, virtually untouched wilderness of present-day New England. Excerpts from newly discovered personal diaries and correspondence provide readers with not only fascinating insights into the hardships, dangers, and losses inherent to English and Dutch settlers in the 1600s, but also first-hand descriptions of the local Native Americans' family life, 😱 allegiances, and society. Caught between the unendurable expectations of her Puritan relatives and land disputes with the neighboring Dutch, Elizabeth Winthrop demonstrated a tremendous strength of resolve to protect her own family and remain true to her heart."
Switch
"...The captain, after signing this peace treaty however, killed even more Indians on Long Island that same month, and two months later Kieft asked him to continue.
In April 1644, seven savages were arrested at Hempstead on Long Island for killing two or three pigs, although it was later found that some Englishmen had done it. Kieft sent John Underhill and fifteen or sixteen soldiers to Hempstead, who killed three of the seven in a cellar. He then put the four remaining Indians in a boat, two of whom were towed behind in the water by a string wound round their necks. The soldiers drowned these two men and the two unfortunate survivors were detained as prisoners at Fort Amsterdam where they were brutally tortured. A critic of the events, perhaps David DeVries, wrote up Kieft’s brutality in the most inflammatory manner possible to drive home his point that Kieft must be recalled (109)
When they had been kept a long time in the corps de garde, the Director became tired of giving them food any longer and they were delivered to the soldiers to do with as they pleased. The poor unfortunate prisoners were immediately dragged out of the guard house and soon dispatched with knives of from 18 to 20 inches long which Director Kieft had made for his soldiers for such purposes, saying that the swords were for use in the huts of the savages, when they went to surprise them; but that these knives were much handier for bowelling them.
The first of these savages having received a frightful wound, desired them to permit him to dance what is called the Kinte Kayce, a religious use observed among them before death; he received however so many wounds that he dropped down dead. The soldiers then cut strips from the other’s body, beginning at the calves, up the back, over the shoulders and down to the knees. While this was going forward, Governor Kieft, with his counselor Jan de la Montaigne, a Frenchman, [and Fort physician] stood laughing heartily at the fun and rubbing his right arm, so much delight he took in such scenes. He then ordered him to be taken out of the fort, and the soldiers bringing him to the Beaver’s Path, he dancing the Kinte Kayce the entire time, threw him down, cut off his partes genetales, thrust them into his mouth while still alive, and at last placing him on a mill stone cut off his head . . . What I tell you is true, for by the same token there stood at the same time 24 or 25 female savages who had been taken prisoner at the N.W. point of the fort; and when they saw this bloody spectacle they held up their arms, struck their mouth, and, in their language exclaimed: “For shame! For shame! Such unheard of cruelty was never known, or even thought of among us!” The savages have often called out to us from a distance: “what scoundrels you Swanneken are, you do not war upon us, but upon our wives and children who you treacherously murder; whereas we do no harm to either your wives or your children, but feed and take care of them, till we send them back to you again.
And further, Director Kieft, not content with this causing the hunted savages to be surprised, engaged some English spies to accompany his soldiers as guides, into places unknown to our people, by which many poor inoffensive savages were cruelly and traitorously massacred.”
That fall, on October 17, 1643/4, Underhill attended another meeting at Fort Amsterdam with Kieft and his council. There they planned yet another hostile attack...."
Who are the real savages?
With so many insubordinate spirits it's hard to tell which the book title is really referring to.
For your further reading enjoyment: "Thursday, August 23, 2018
Evidence Suggesting the Pelham Legend of Wampage Murdering Anne Hutchinson Then Changing His Name Is Untrue
...One of the local Natives who signed the Pell Deed on June 27, 1654 (Julian Calendar) was a Native referenced in the document as "Anhõõke." Many legends have arisen regarding Anhõõke.
Anhõõke has been described as a famed Siwanoy warrior who murdered Anne Hutchinson in 1643. At the time he supposedly was known as "Wampage" and allegedly took the name "Anhõõke" to pay homage to his notorious deed of murdering Anne Hutchinson by adopting a version of her name. Today's Historic Pelham Blog article presents evidence to dispel this legend in an attempt to reveal it for what it is: an apocryphal piece of fiction with no basis in fact. Indeed, it appears that Wampage was an Algonquian Patriot and that Anhõõke was an entirely different Native.
This fanciful story can be traced back to Robert Bolton, Jr. In his history of Westchester County first published in 1848 and reissued in a second edition (1881) and a third edition (1905), Robert Bolton, Jr. seems to be the first author to claim in print that Anhõõke and Wampage were one and the same.
Bolton wrote:
"The residence of Anne Hutchinson appears to have been situated on Pelham neck [sic; it was near today's Co-op City Complex], formerly called Ann's hoeck, literally, Ann's point or neck, hoeck being a Dutch name for a neck or point, for, up to a very late period, her farm was distinguished as the Manor of Anne hooks neck. A small stream that separates this town from Eastchester on the west still retains her surname Hutchinson's river. One of the principal Indian proprietors of this territory also assumed her christian surname, as we find it recorded in the early deeds, Ann-hoock alias Wampage. This individual may have taken an active part in the destruction of Mrs. Hutchinson, for nothing was more common among the Indians than for a warrior to assume the name of his victim."
Source: Bolton, Jr., Robert, A History of the County of Westchester From its First Settlement to the Present Time, Vol. 1, p. 515 (NY, NY: Alexander S. Gould 1848).
Other historians have questioned portions of this fanciful legend. See, e.g., Ultan, Lloyd, The Bronx in the Frontier Era, p. 196 (Bronx, NY: Bronx Historical Society 1994) ("Wampage was also known as Ann-Hooke. Several authors assume that he was the man who killed Anne Hutchinson and took her name. Without documentary evidence, this must remain speculation."). What follows is evidence that the Pelham legend of Wampage changing his name to Anhõõke after murdering Anne Hutchinson is untrue.... " https://historicpelham.blogspot.com/2...
Add.
😲😳😲NOT SURE IF MISSY WOLFE HAS BEEN ENTIRELY FORTHCOMING WITH US. She paints the Pequot as innocents tracked down and overrun by the bloodthirsty English, intent on destroying them and burning them out of their land; however, in his report back to England, Captain Underhill relays the episode of Master Tilly. "One Master Tilly, master of a vessel, being brought to an anchor in Coneticott river went ashore, not suspecting the bloody-mindedness of those persons, who fell upon him and a man with him, whom they wickedly and barbarously slew; and, by relation, brought him home, tied him to a stake, flayed his skin off and put hot embers between the flesh and the skin, cut off his fingers and toes, and made hatbands of them; thus barbarous was their cruelty! Would not this have moved the hearts of men to hazard blood, and life, and all they had, to overcome such a wicked, insolent nation?"
😱😡😱MISSY...YOU GOT SOME SPLAININ'TO DO!
"An historical account of the early history of Greenwich, Connecticut, as told through the words of Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett."-- Provided by the publisher."
"Product Description:
Insubordinate Spirit is a unique exploration into the life of Elizabeth Winthrop and other seventeenth-century English Puritans who emigrated to the rough, virtually untouched wilderness of present-day New England. Excerpts from newly discovered personal diaries and correspondence provide readers with not only fascinating insights into the hardships, dangers, and losses inherent to English and Dutch settlers in the 1600s, but also first-hand descriptions of the local Native Americans' family life, 😱 allegiances, and society. Caught between the unendurable expectations of her Puritan relatives and land disputes with the neighboring Dutch, Elizabeth Winthrop demonstrated a tremendous strength of resolve to protect her own family and remain true to her heart."
Switch
"...The captain, after signing this peace treaty however, killed even more Indians on Long Island that same month, and two months later Kieft asked him to continue.
In April 1644, seven savages were arrested at Hempstead on Long Island for killing two or three pigs, although it was later found that some Englishmen had done it. Kieft sent John Underhill and fifteen or sixteen soldiers to Hempstead, who killed three of the seven in a cellar. He then put the four remaining Indians in a boat, two of whom were towed behind in the water by a string wound round their necks. The soldiers drowned these two men and the two unfortunate survivors were detained as prisoners at Fort Amsterdam where they were brutally tortured. A critic of the events, perhaps David DeVries, wrote up Kieft’s brutality in the most inflammatory manner possible to drive home his point that Kieft must be recalled (109)
When they had been kept a long time in the corps de garde, the Director became tired of giving them food any longer and they were delivered to the soldiers to do with as they pleased. The poor unfortunate prisoners were immediately dragged out of the guard house and soon dispatched with knives of from 18 to 20 inches long which Director Kieft had made for his soldiers for such purposes, saying that the swords were for use in the huts of the savages, when they went to surprise them; but that these knives were much handier for bowelling them.
The first of these savages having received a frightful wound, desired them to permit him to dance what is called the Kinte Kayce, a religious use observed among them before death; he received however so many wounds that he dropped down dead. The soldiers then cut strips from the other’s body, beginning at the calves, up the back, over the shoulders and down to the knees. While this was going forward, Governor Kieft, with his counselor Jan de la Montaigne, a Frenchman, [and Fort physician] stood laughing heartily at the fun and rubbing his right arm, so much delight he took in such scenes. He then ordered him to be taken out of the fort, and the soldiers bringing him to the Beaver’s Path, he dancing the Kinte Kayce the entire time, threw him down, cut off his partes genetales, thrust them into his mouth while still alive, and at last placing him on a mill stone cut off his head . . . What I tell you is true, for by the same token there stood at the same time 24 or 25 female savages who had been taken prisoner at the N.W. point of the fort; and when they saw this bloody spectacle they held up their arms, struck their mouth, and, in their language exclaimed: “For shame! For shame! Such unheard of cruelty was never known, or even thought of among us!” The savages have often called out to us from a distance: “what scoundrels you Swanneken are, you do not war upon us, but upon our wives and children who you treacherously murder; whereas we do no harm to either your wives or your children, but feed and take care of them, till we send them back to you again.
And further, Director Kieft, not content with this causing the hunted savages to be surprised, engaged some English spies to accompany his soldiers as guides, into places unknown to our people, by which many poor inoffensive savages were cruelly and traitorously massacred.”
That fall, on October 17, 1643/4, Underhill attended another meeting at Fort Amsterdam with Kieft and his council. There they planned yet another hostile attack...."
Who are the real savages?
With so many insubordinate spirits it's hard to tell which the book title is really referring to.
For your further reading enjoyment: "Thursday, August 23, 2018
Evidence Suggesting the Pelham Legend of Wampage Murdering Anne Hutchinson Then Changing His Name Is Untrue
...One of the local Natives who signed the Pell Deed on June 27, 1654 (Julian Calendar) was a Native referenced in the document as "Anhõõke." Many legends have arisen regarding Anhõõke.
Anhõõke has been described as a famed Siwanoy warrior who murdered Anne Hutchinson in 1643. At the time he supposedly was known as "Wampage" and allegedly took the name "Anhõõke" to pay homage to his notorious deed of murdering Anne Hutchinson by adopting a version of her name. Today's Historic Pelham Blog article presents evidence to dispel this legend in an attempt to reveal it for what it is: an apocryphal piece of fiction with no basis in fact. Indeed, it appears that Wampage was an Algonquian Patriot and that Anhõõke was an entirely different Native.
This fanciful story can be traced back to Robert Bolton, Jr. In his history of Westchester County first published in 1848 and reissued in a second edition (1881) and a third edition (1905), Robert Bolton, Jr. seems to be the first author to claim in print that Anhõõke and Wampage were one and the same.
Bolton wrote:
"The residence of Anne Hutchinson appears to have been situated on Pelham neck [sic; it was near today's Co-op City Complex], formerly called Ann's hoeck, literally, Ann's point or neck, hoeck being a Dutch name for a neck or point, for, up to a very late period, her farm was distinguished as the Manor of Anne hooks neck. A small stream that separates this town from Eastchester on the west still retains her surname Hutchinson's river. One of the principal Indian proprietors of this territory also assumed her christian surname, as we find it recorded in the early deeds, Ann-hoock alias Wampage. This individual may have taken an active part in the destruction of Mrs. Hutchinson, for nothing was more common among the Indians than for a warrior to assume the name of his victim."
Source: Bolton, Jr., Robert, A History of the County of Westchester From its First Settlement to the Present Time, Vol. 1, p. 515 (NY, NY: Alexander S. Gould 1848).
Other historians have questioned portions of this fanciful legend. See, e.g., Ultan, Lloyd, The Bronx in the Frontier Era, p. 196 (Bronx, NY: Bronx Historical Society 1994) ("Wampage was also known as Ann-Hooke. Several authors assume that he was the man who killed Anne Hutchinson and took her name. Without documentary evidence, this must remain speculation."). What follows is evidence that the Pelham legend of Wampage changing his name to Anhõõke after murdering Anne Hutchinson is untrue.... " https://historicpelham.blogspot.com/2...
Add.
😲😳😲NOT SURE IF MISSY WOLFE HAS BEEN ENTIRELY FORTHCOMING WITH US. She paints the Pequot as innocents tracked down and overrun by the bloodthirsty English, intent on destroying them and burning them out of their land; however, in his report back to England, Captain Underhill relays the episode of Master Tilly. "One Master Tilly, master of a vessel, being brought to an anchor in Coneticott river went ashore, not suspecting the bloody-mindedness of those persons, who fell upon him and a man with him, whom they wickedly and barbarously slew; and, by relation, brought him home, tied him to a stake, flayed his skin off and put hot embers between the flesh and the skin, cut off his fingers and toes, and made hatbands of them; thus barbarous was their cruelty! Would not this have moved the hearts of men to hazard blood, and life, and all they had, to overcome such a wicked, insolent nation?"
😱😡😱MISSY...YOU GOT SOME SPLAININ'TO DO!
January 9, 2019
I was looking forward to reading about my 12 great grandmother. Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett did indeed have an insubordinate spirit. I wish the book had more information on her life. I did learn some things about her, and the times she lived in, which are fascinating.
January 16, 2017
Interesting view of conflict among Dutch, English colonists and Native Americans with the latter treated horribly even early in the colonization.
September 4, 2018
Interesting story, lots of history I never learned and best of all, learned a lot about one of my ancestors.
July 25, 2024
A terrific work of scholarship. Missy Wolfe does a fantastic job of clearly and unflinchingly telling the story of the early days of Greenwich.
May 5, 2016
This is a wonderful overview of the Puritans settling in North America. It starts with John Winthrop and his dissatisfied Puritans leaving England for the New World and clearly describes the problems within their group, the faith, and the world they came to. The author covers the Puritan relationship in England and America, their problems with Pilgrims, Native Americans, the Dutch, and each other. It is a fascinating book.
I was half way through it, having thought that although it was clearly written, it lacked style when I realized it is a YA book. It was not until the author mentioned there was no electricity that I realized this. But don't be put off...it's really a great introduction to the time.
The book focuses on John Winthrop's daughter-in-law, who is widowed early. As you read the book, you learn about the legal rights of women (not much), the differences between Dutch and English laws. Eventually (spoiler alert), she moves to what is now Queens and becomes the mother-in-law of John Bowne, who was responsible for the Flushing Remonstrance guaranteeing freedom of religion in New Amsterdam.
Read it history buffs.
I was half way through it, having thought that although it was clearly written, it lacked style when I realized it is a YA book. It was not until the author mentioned there was no electricity that I realized this. But don't be put off...it's really a great introduction to the time.
The book focuses on John Winthrop's daughter-in-law, who is widowed early. As you read the book, you learn about the legal rights of women (not much), the differences between Dutch and English laws. Eventually (spoiler alert), she moves to what is now Queens and becomes the mother-in-law of John Bowne, who was responsible for the Flushing Remonstrance guaranteeing freedom of religion in New Amsterdam.
Read it history buffs.
June 21, 2020
I read this book as research for a tour I am doing on Queens history. This offered incredible insight into the formation of New England and its rocky relationship with New Amsterdam and New Netherland and how they teamed up together to eradicate the tribes that inhabited the area. The Winthrop family was quite a dynasty, from Connecticut to Hallet's Cove - the religious bickering, the way that women were treated, the roots of Puritanical America and slavery - OMG. I couldn't put it down. Written in a very forthright style, somewhat complicated by a huge cast of characters with tangential connections, but connecting the dots it explains a lot about how the English gained control over the Northeast during that time, and how the ones that didn't fit in flew the coop, made a deal with Kieft and founded Queens (where they were promptly massacred). Not dry at all.
April 2, 2013
I don't generally like reading straight history books but this one was very readable and interesting. I didn't realize how much I didn't know about Connecticut history. This little slice of history from the 1600's in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York, is held together loosely by the tale of a very interesting woman Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feakes Hallett who chose 3 diverse men as husbands and had an array of children who went on to do interesting things. She challenged the norm in ways that I doubt I would have and lived a long and fascinating life during very troubled times. The author does an excellent job of interspersing old letters, quotations from writers of the period and a whole host of other surprises which kept my interest. I recommend the book.
September 16, 2013
This book focuses on the earliest years of colonial America (1600s), but I think I may have read it too soon after reading The Island of the Center of the World, which was much more thoroughly researched and detailed. Insubordinate Spirit somewhat focuses on The story of Elizabeth Winthrop (daughter-in-law of John Winthrop) and her many marriages and moves. The focus is more on the English / Puritan experience at first and then the struggles with the Native American populations. It's well-written though and a fairly easy read.
October 30, 2015
I am a westerner but I found myself imaging what places like Connectiut, Long Island, New York must have looked like in 1630. It was full of Puritans, Dutch,
Indians all in various stages of hatred, tolerance and greed. Several strong women populated this place and we're not afraid to stand tall in their beliefs.
Imagine losing children,land, husbands and moving households in the 1600s.
An interesting read, well documented. Of special interest to people who live in the area now.
Indians all in various stages of hatred, tolerance and greed. Several strong women populated this place and we're not afraid to stand tall in their beliefs.
Imagine losing children,land, husbands and moving households in the 1600s.
An interesting read, well documented. Of special interest to people who live in the area now.
January 20, 2013
Interesting history of MA/CT/NY area, but not the biography of the insubordinate spirit I was hoping for.
January 11, 2014
It was ok, worth the read. Would not have liked it had I not read the Winthrop Women by: Anya Seton first. It was more of a history book of the Puritan beginnings in America.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews