It must be remembered that there is no parallelism in the chronology of the beginnings of the North and the South. The Virginia colony was, in matter of time, far in advance of that on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, and the colonial period had fairly begun in the South when settlement was yet hardly established in the North. Many white children, native Americans, had succeeded Virginia Dare in the southern colony before Peregrine White made his appearance as the pioneer American of the New England dominion; and therefore the American type had to some extent become confirmed in the one section before it had been modelled in the other. So that synchronistic treatment of the development of the American race in its beginnings is impossible, and this tends to produce confusion of statement and consequently of thought. It is fortunate for our present purpose, therefore, that the development of a distinct feminine type seems to have been almost confined to New England. The Virginia woman was not markedly individual; she had certain definite characteristics, even from the first, but these seem to have been rather of environment as modifying original race than of race as taking impression from environment. There were many reasons for this, which we shall consider later in the chapter; but for the present we will leave the woman of Virginia to turn to her younger but stronger sister of the North, the American Puritan woman. If it be true--and denial is hardly possible--that during the period of settlement women played but a small part, at least as individuals, in the general result and progress, the same statement concerning the early colonial period, at least in New England, would meet with prompt and strenuous denial at the hands of history. We are accustomed to vaunt the present as the day of feminine influence in matters of human interest; but it may be doubted if, as far as our own country is concerned, the palm must not be awarded to the early days of the Puritan settlements. Such award may not be altogether to the liking of the fair sex, since the effect of the feminine influence was almost invariably in the direction of turbulence and revolt; but that effect was very intense and formative. It was chiefly in the matters of religion, or that which passed for such, that woman's influence was exerted and effectual; but it must be remembered that religion was the paramount subject in the consideration of the Puritan, whether male or female. None the worse for that, doubtless, were those staunch, if stern, followers of conscience; but one may be permitted to wish that they had been less unbending, less gloomy,--less Puritanical, in short,--in their ideas concerning that which they termed Christianity. As in all else, it was the women who were the extremists in this matter; and fanaticism, persecution, and enthusiasm were by the women rather than the men maintained at a height of fervor, not to say frenzy, that stopped short not even at the taking