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Colonial America Was a Wild and Difficult Place to Be

Khalid Elhassan October 27, 2021 35 min

The seizure and destruction of tea in colonial Boston. Encyclopedia Britannica

Colonial History - An advertisement by Sarah Wilson's indentured servitude master, seeking her capture and return — An advertisement by Sarah Wilson’s indentured servitude master, seeking her capture and return. Pennsylvania Historical Society

From Queen’s Maid, to Queen’s Sister

At some point, Sarah Wilson got herself a job in Buckingham Palace as a maid to one of Queen Charlotte’s ladies in waiting. She had light fingers, however, and was fired after she stole some of the queen’s jewels and gowns. She was also arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang – theft was one of the hundreds of crimes punishable by death in Britain back then. Luckily, her sentence was commuted to penal transportation to colonial America. Upon arrival in Baltimore, Sarah was taken off the convict ship and sold as an indentured servant, but escaped within a few days.

She had managed to hang on to some of Her Majesty’s belongings, and clad in the queen’s dress, she claimed to be Queen Charlotte’s sister, “Princess Susana Caroline Matilda of Mecklenberg-Sterlitz”. To explain her presence in the American Colonies, she invented a royal family quarrel and a scandal that required her to temporarily leave Britain until things calmed down. During her time as a maid in Buckingham Palace, Sarah had observed royal mannerisms and aristocratic etiquette. As seen below, she managed to convince many colonial Americans that she really was a princess, and parlayed that into a life of luxury.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.