Native American women in Colonial America


Before the colonial period of early America, Native American women lead their daily lives by working equivalent jobs to those of their male counterparts, though most of the time they did not usually do the same type of work. The life of a women in Colonial America consisted of a long day of laborious and exhausting tasks. Women played a big role in the survival of their family and because of it, they were highly respected and admired. Women were essential for group survival and depended on for processing foods, gathering seeds, fruits, roots, responsible for cooking, preserving foods, making household utensils and furnishing aside from their "stereotypical" role of nurturing and child-bearing.

Life in society

Native American tribes believed that they originated from a woman and many of their legends and creation stories depict a "mother earth." 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. Women in the Iroquois tribes often controlled the distribution of food among their people. 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.

Leaders

The Native American people were known for having women sit in positions of political power beyond simply controlling the food or being “agricultural scientists.” Elder women in the Iroquois tribes gathered in clans to decide who would sit on the tribe or village council, even choosing the 49 chiefs sitting on the Five Nation Iroquois Confederacy.
There were women who learned skills in hunting, fishing, swimming and became a warrior for their people, like Queen Weetamoo. 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. 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.

Gender roles

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. 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. The women and all of their descendants lived in what is called a “longhouse” together. 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. 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. 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. This spurred on the concepts of warrior women or “manly hearted women” who acted like men in hunting and during warfare. 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.
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.

Effect of Europeans on native women

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.
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. 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.
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. Pocahontas’ story exemplifies the many marriages that brought alliances between tribes and colonists. A portrait of Pocahontas was made depicting a woman in stiff clothes, without a trace of anything uncivilized 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.

Significant figures

Some of the notable women of the time period include: