Dear Captain,
March 18th 1719
I am reporting back to you on the mission to travel back in colonial times. I discovered lots of things, like there trade habits, type of government, and there gender roles. For me to travel backing time I used a time machine. When I walked out of the time machine I saw a boy and girl about my age. They were about to call for the watchmen. “No wait please, my name is Lindsay. What is your guys name?” “ I’m William,” said the boy. “My name is Amanda,” said the girl.” Where are you guys going?” I asked politely, “ school” said Amanda, “ would you like to join us?” “Sure!” I replied. As we walked William explained to me that all I had to do was read the hornbook. When we walk in I saw a boy sitting in the corner wearing a sign that said ‘bite finger baby’. I was waiting on a log bench next to William and Amanda patiently until it was my turn. I learned that usually didn’t go to school, they had to stay home with there mother and help them with the house work. I also learned that if you bit your fingers you would have to wear a sign around your neck that said ‘bite finger baby’, and if learned that there were lots of punishments in school if you were bad. As I was waiting the teacher Mr. Hudson called me up and handed me the hornbook. I read front to back, the kids stared at me like no one has ever done that before, even the teacher was surprised! I sat back down next to William and Amanda, when everybody got done reading the hornbook, school was over, when we all walked out of the building William and Amanda asked me if I wanted to stay the night and I said yes. “We have a father named Bob, and a mother named Mia,” said William as we were walking. When we walked in their house I noticed that there houses in colonial times weren’t as big as our houses today, I also noticed that it smelled really good when I walked in.
“Hello,” said Mia “what is your name?” “My name is Lindsay” I replied, “What are you cooking? It smells really good!” ”Thank you. I’m cooking turkey” as she said that Bob (Amanda’s and Williams dad) came in yelling about how he cant find his fish head that he had for over two weeks (gross). “Where is my fish head?!?!?! Where is it?!?!?! “I through it away, you didn’t need it” replied Mia, “yes I did!” “No you didn’t!” said Mia in a sassy voice. Bob walked and slammed the door while he was calling for the watchmen. The watchmen came in and picked up Mia, they put her on a long stick near the lake. They tied her to one side of the stick and they dunked her in the water! I learned that if you talked back to your husband you would have to go to the dunking stool. And I learned that the first man who made the stocks was the first man put in the stocks. After that cruel moment we went back to their house to eat dinner. The food was cold from not eating it earlier. When we all got done eating our dinner we went to bed. I learned that the mother and father slept on a bed called the jack-bed. The jack-bed is not big. The jack-bed was high, so that the smaller bed could fit under it; it was called the trundle bed. At night, the trundle bed was pulled out from under the jack-bed. I also learned that the babies slept in their cradles near the fireplace, and the older children slept in the attic on bags filled with scratchy straw. Or they slept on a softer mattress filled with feathers and wool. When we woke up Mia and Bob called us for a family meeting. They told us about the government they had, their gender roles, and there trade habits. For trade habits he talked about there most popular trading things were rice, wheat and tobacco. Then Mia talked about their gender roles. Men usually hunted the food for dinner, and grew the plants, boys usually went to school. Women stayed home and did the house work, and girls usually stayed home with their mother and helped them work. Bob was talking about the government. He was saying that the three types government was Charter, Royal, and Proprietary. After we learned all that we ate dinner. We all had corn and chicken. We said our prayers, and then we ate! I went upstairs and grabbed my stuff and gave everybody a hug and said good bye.