Native American women in Colonial America

Native American woman at work

Native American tribes believed that they originated from a woman and many of their legends and creation stories depict a "mother earth." [1] Agriculture was put under the women of the tribe's trust, and they saw to the fields, both harvesting and cultivating the vegetables and plants for their people. Tribal women like the Algonquians planted their fields meticulously and in a way that kept the land sustainable for future use. After planting seeds and piling on earth to protect it from the birds and harvesting until the soil lacked nutrients to continue on, women decided when to clear new fields and allow the used ones to regenerate.[2] Women in the Iroquois tribes often controlled the distribution of food among their people.[3] Their perceived position as beings of spiritual power gave women in some tribes the opportunity to be healers for minor injuries, as men were more commonly shamans, midwives, and herbalists.[3]

The Native American people were known for having women sit in positions of political power beyond simply controlling the food or being “agricultural scientists.[1]” Elder women in the Iroquois tribes gathered in clans to decide who would sit on the tribe or village council,[4] even choosing the 49 chiefs sitting on the Five Nation Iroquois Confederacy.[5]

There were women who learned skills in hunting, fishing, swimming and became a warrior for their people, like Queen Weetamoo.[6] It was not usual for women to go into combat "there are numerous stories of women rushing onto the battlefield to protect or substitute for their fallen husbands or brothers," some even earned titles and were allowed to sing and dance with their warrior brothers.[1] Women who sat as leaders of their tribes, like Queen Anne and Weetamoo, were known for their participation in wars, as many tribal leaders were.[2]

Depiction of Iroquois women

In many different tribes, like the Iroquois, the families were matrilineal, where the family line was continued through the women. Instead of women leaving their families to join their husbands, it was the opposite; men joined the families of the women they married and their sons left to join their wives’ families.[5] Or like the Hopi, where they were both matriarchal and matrilineal, with equalitarian roles in society where superiority or inferiority based on gender or sex didn't exist and unlike men, women participated in politics.[7] The women and all of their descendants lived in what is called a “longhouse” together.[2] While it was common for marriages to be arranged by fathers or the other male family, women controlled whether or not they wanted a divorce.[1] They could simply move back in with their families or, as was common in Iroquois society, a woman could leave her husband's belongings outside their door to say she wanted a divorce.[5] Women were in charge of gathering materials, building their "longhouse", maintaining homes, and often helped their men to hunt down buffalo. Once the buffalo was gathered, the women was in charge of skinning, cutting and cooking the animal.

In the Lakota tribes there was the legend of the “Double Woman Dreamer” who behaved in masculine ways and had special powers.[3] This spurred on the concepts of warrior women or “manly hearted women” who acted like men in hunting and during warfare.[3] There was the counterpart role for men of the “berdache” a role where a man could dress and take on the responsibilities of a woman.[3]

Apache tribe, girls are not recognized as a woman until they have gone through the Sunrise Ceremony. The Apache Sunrise Ceremony is an ancient coming of age four day celebration that Apache girls experience soon after their first menstruation. Throughout the four day sacred ceremony they dance to songs and prayers to fill themselves with the physical and spiritual power of White Painted Woman in order to embrace their role as a woman of the Apache nation.[8]

Pocahontas in English garb

Depiction of Kateri, Lily of the Mohawks

European immigration came with the effect of territorial claims and removing Native Americans from their land. They came to make new homes for themselves and Native American nicely welcomed these immigrants and shared their skills and belongings with the newcomers. Teaching the Europeans how to build shelter, grow crops, hunt, dry foods for harsh winters, the immigrants also shared some of their things. After winning their trust and freedom they took advantage of Native Americans hospitality and started building their own nation and more and more Europeans began moving to the land and building new towns and homes for their people. Aside from pushing many Indians off their land, the Europeans brought diseases and caused a high mortality rate among the tribes and affected the birth rate by decreasing it. As the number of Europeans grew bigger, American Indians population decreased and was at the border of extinction. Coming to America, Europeans misunderstood Native American customes.[9]

One of the effects on the Native American women by the onslaught of Europeans was marriage. In many Northeast tribes, native women were used as guides, interpreters, and eventually wives for the fur traders. These marriages appeared to broker an alliance between cultures; however, when the fur traders decided to return to Europe they would abandon their wives, or even pass them on to another trader like property.[3] The children resulting from these unions were not under the control of the mothers, as they were traditionally in Native American society. Many of these children were sent away by their father to get a Christian or civilized education.[3]

Relations between native women and colonists were to be expected, although some colonists sought to convert the natives involved in these relationships into Christian people.[10] Pocahontas’ story exemplifies the many marriages that brought alliances between tribes and colonists.[11] A portrait of Pocahontas was made depicting a woman in stiff clothes, without a trace of anything uncivilized[11] Some native women took to Christianity, most notably Kateri Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks. She embraced Catholicism, from the teachings of her mother, and, at age 19, her uncle allowed her to convert, which elicited scorn and harsh treatment from her tribe.[12]

Some of the notable women of the time period include:

• Queen Anne of the Pamunkey Native American tribe rose to her position between 1706–1715 in the most powerful tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy. She came to power after the death of her aunt and previous tribe leader, Cockacoeske.[13] The European colonists, only having seen monarchy and queens in their homelands, called her Queen Anne because of her high ranking position. Upon a request from General Berkeley for warriors from her tribe to be added to soldiers ready to stop Bacon's Rebellion, Anne originally denied them this on the grounds that her people had been being mistreated for decades by the white colonists. After the governor made promises for better treatment and alliances, Anne agreed to supplying warriors.[14]

Pocahontas and John Rolfe

• Pocahontas was the daughter of a well-known Algonquin chief of Powhatan. Pocahontas played a pivotal role in the affairs between the natives and the European colonists.[11] She allegedly saved the life of Englishman John Smith, by almost sacrificing herself to be put to death instead of him.[11] After John Smith returned to England, she married a member of her tribe before being captured in the first Anglo-Powhatan War, where she was kept by the English, taught from the Bible and given a Christian name: Rebecca. She later married John Rolfe and established a time of peace between the Powhatan tribes and the colonists.[11]
• Queen Weetamoo was a chief of the Pocasset Wampanoag tribe, succeeding her father. Weetamoo became skilled in hunting, fishing, and swimming, along with learning the tasks and skills of the other women in her tribe. She married five times,[6] one of whom was the son of Massasoit, who is known for having had the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims, and she kept alliance alive through her marriage. Weetamoo is known for giving her warriors to fight in King Philip's War, and even led her warriors into a successful attack against the colonists.[14] After King Philip was betrayed and the war came to an end, the colonists sought out all the chiefs and leaders of the tribes to punish them. Weetamoo tried to escape, fell into the Taunton River, and drowned.

• Anderson, Gary C. Ethnic cleansing and the Indian: the crime that should haunt America. Norman, OK: University Of Oklahoma Press, 2014.
• Axtell, James. The European and the Indian: essays in the ethnohistory of colonial North America. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1982.
• Bataille, Gretchen M., and Kathleen Mullen. Sands. American Indian Women Telling Their Lives. University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
• Bataille, Gretchen M., Lisa, Laurie. Native American women : a biographical dictionary. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge. 2001
• Calloway, Colin G. After King Philip's War: Presence and Persistence in Indian New England. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1997.
• Champagne, Duane. Chronology of Native North American history: from pre-Columbian times to the present. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1994.
• Carpenter, Delores B. Early Encounters - Native Americans and Europeans in New England. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1994.
• Evans, Sara Margaret. Born for liberty: a history of women in America. New York, NY: Free Press Paperbacks published by Simon & Schuster, 1997.
• Graebner, Norman A., Gilbert Courtland. Fite, and Philip L. White. A history of the American people. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Inc. , 1970.
• Green, Rayna. Women in American Indian society. New York, NY: Chelsea House Publishers, 1992.
• Green, Raya. Native American Women. The University of Chicago Press, 1980
• Perdue, Theda . Sifters : Native American Women's Lives. Oxford University Press, 2001.
• Plane, Ann Marie. Colonial intimacies: Indian marriage in early New England. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.
• Wilson, James. The earth shall weep: a history of Native America. New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998.
• Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States 1492–Present. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.