There are very few sources available to historians which allow us to hear the voices of Anglo-American women. How can we understand what ordinary women believed were their responsibilities to their families and communities and the responsibilities of their government to them? Petitions provide historians with one of the few opportunities to “hear” non-elite women voice their concerns. In provincial New Hampshire, women regularly approached the royal government with individual requests. By viewing the rights associated with petitioning, the procedure involved, and the variety of applications for petition use, female agency in colonial society becomes more apparent. Through petitions, it is possible to understand under what circumstances women turned to the government for assistance, and under what circumstances the government granted their petitions.

The 1699 petition of Deliverance Derry Pittman is a good beginning for analysis. Pittman was the widow of John Derry and the wife of Nathaniel Pitman, and her petition provides a clear picture of a family destroyed by international disputes. The colony of New Hampshire was on the northern edge of English settlement, bounded by Massachusetts to the east and south, the Connecticut River to the west, and New France directly to the north. Because of its location, the colony was intimately involved in the numerous territorial disputes between the empires of England and France. Native Americans took sides in the disputes, with many New England tribes siding with France.