Deborah became an indentured servant when she was about nine, in the household of Jeremiah Thomas. The Thomas household was in Middlebourgh Massachusetts where Deborah worked for ten years. Deborah did various jobs including household chores and work in the fields. In the Thomas household there was always a job to be done. There were three young boys that Deborah helped and entertained. Deborah also taught the boys to read. Deborah longed to go to school with them but she was needed at home to work on the farm. Deborah read the boy's schoolbooks late at night when the family was asleep. The family sometimes worried about her trying to figure out why she would trouble herself so much with learning. As Deborah did strenuous labor on the farm she grew very strong and tall. Also Deborah learned various trades including spinning thread and shooting a rifle, after accompanying the boys on hunting trips, Deborah became proficient with the musket. To teach Deborah the worth of money, Deacon Thomas gave Deborah five young sheep to sell and she was allowed to keep the profit she got. Deborah cherished her earnings and hid them in her kerchief. Luckily for Deborah she was allowed to go to school in the winter because there was not much work to be done on the farm. .
In 1770, Deborah was ten years old and she began to read newspapers in order to could keep up on the daily news. In Boston, the King sent over soldiers to insure that the rules of England were being followed. When news hit the citizens of Boston would have to pay for the soldier's expenses they were outraged. In 1773, only three years later, the Boston Tea Party occurred, at this time Deborah was thirteen years old. The king demanded that all the tea be paid for in order to do this the citizens planted crops to send over. Soon after this the Revolutionary War began. It was during this time that the Stamp Act was placed into effect, and revolutionary thinkers such as James Otis and Samuel Adams were starting to show the colonists that they didn't need the British to protect them, and that in fact the colonies could protect themselves.
We, as women, especially those of us who live in liberal parts of the world, often take for granted the rights and benefits which we have. We forget that in other times, women were not considered to be equal to their male counterparts; they were considered to be but "helpers" to the men...