viernes, 18 de marzo de 2011

Deborah Sampson

Deborah Sampson's family was very poor. She was the oldest of six children. Her father left his family and went to sea on a ship. When her mother could no longer feed her family, she sent them to live with friends and relatives.

Eventually, at the age of 8 to 10 years old, she became an indentured servant. She worked on a farm and worked very hard. She could hunt, ride a horse, and even do carpenter work. She loved to learn and would get the boys in the family to teach her the lessons they were learning in school.

During the Revolutionary War she wanted to help, but they did not allow girls to join the army. She decided she could join the army if she pretended to be a man. She practiced walking and talking like a man. She was ready. She became an enlisted "man" using the name Robert Shurtleff. After she left the army, she married a farmer named Benjamin Gannett and they had three children. She taught at a school and also would give talks or lectures about her experiences in the war. Paul Revere wrote a letter to Congress asking for her to be given a pension. She began receiving four dollars a month.
She died at the age of sixty-six.

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