Images left to right: Petrina Moore, Cherokee welder, ca. 1943 (by Alfred Palmer). Abenaki woman, 18th century. Tshusick, Ojibwe woman, ca.1836-44 (by Charles King Bird). Choctaw Belle, 1850. Mohawk woman,18th century (G. Dagli Orti / NPL - DeA Picture Library / Bridgeman Images). Anishinaabe woman, 1928. Jú-ah-kís-gaw, Anishinaabe woman, 1835 (by George Catlin).
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Every year WIEP shares informational posts highlighting historic Indigenous women and traditional women's culture with our Facebook followers. Now you can view those same posts here. WIEP Women's History Month social media post topics include (in order):
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--- Motherly Advice in Goverment Matters: A Message from a Cherokee Beloved Woman ---
--- The Status of Native Women: Celebrating the Influences of Indigenous Women's Culture ---
--- Haudenosaunee Women, The Heartbeat of a Nation: Traditional Role & Social Standing ---
--- Netnokwa, Ottawa Chief and Other Female Sachems ---
--- Coo-coo-chee, and Women Spiritual Advisors, Priestesses, and Prophetesses ---
--- This Land is Indian (Women's) Land ---
--- "Independent" Native Women ---
--- Woodland Warrior Women ---
--- The Little-Known History of Native Women Miners ---
--- The "Women's Ball Game" & Indigenous Women's Sports ---
--- The Women Who Played Lacrosse ---
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Scroll Down to Read
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Our #WomensHistoryMonth posts begins with the Words of Beloved Woman Katteuha in a letter addressed to BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1787)...
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Brother,
I am in hopes my Brothers & the Beloved men near the water side will heare from me. This day I filled the pipes that they smoaked in piece, and I am in hopes the smoake has Reached up to the skies above. I here send you a piece of the same Tobacco, and am in hopes you & your Beloved men will smoake it in Friendship and I am glad in my heart that I am the mother of men that will snaoak it in piece.
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Brother,
I am in hopes if you Rightly consider it that woman is the mother of All and that woman Does not pull Children out of Trees or Stumps nor out of old Logs, but out of their Bodies, so that they ought to mind what a woman says, and look upon her as a mother and I have Taken the privelage to Speak to you as my own Children, & the same as if you had sucked my Breast and I am in hopes you have a beloved woman amongst you who will help to put her Children Right if they do wrong, as I shall do the same the great men have all promised to Keep the path clear & straight, as my Children shall Keep the path clear & white so that the Messengers shall go & come in safety Between us the old people is never done Talking to their Children which makes me say so much as I do. The Talk you sent to me was to talk to my Children, which I have done this day, and they all liked my Talk well, which I am in hopes you will heare from me Every now & then that I keep my Children in piece tho' I am a woman giving you this Talk, I am in hopes that you and all the Beloved men in Congress will pay particular Attention to it, as I am Delivering it to you from the Bottom of my heart, that they will Lay this on the white stool in Congress, wishing them all well & success in all their undertakings I hold fast the good Talk I Received from you my Brother, & thanks you kindly for your good Talks, & your presents, & the kind usage you gave to my son.
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From KATTEUHA,
The Beloved woman of Chota.
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Outsiders may be puzzled to understand why a woman, acting as an ambassador of her community, would use language of childbirth addressing representatives of another nation. After all childbirth, breastfeeding, and all things motherhood was at the heart of the “weakness” EuroAmericans ascribed to the female sex. Yet those Anglo-Christian views were not universal, and Cherokee “references to motherhood evoked power rather than sentimentality.”* (Hence the language Katteuha used addressing Benjamin Franklin.) “When Attakullakulla, a distinguished Cherokee headman, appeared before the South Carolina Governor’s Council, he demanded to know why no women were in attendance. After all, he pointed out to the governor, “White Men as well as the Red were born of Women.”(1)
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Who was Katteuha? We don’t know exactly… Unlike her contemporary Nanye’hi (Nancy Ward) - a Beloved Woman whose active diplomacy caught the attention of American leaders, Katteuha received little mention in the written record. It’s possible she just flew under the radar of those outsiders writing of diplomatic matters involving the Cherokee People, as most certainly many Indigenous women had among their Euro-American neighbors. It’s also very possible “Katteuha” wasn’t a different woman but was Nanye’hi herself - a misidentification stemming from a possible “mistranslation of Nanye’hi’s title Ghighua” or Beloved Woman (2). Is Katteuha in fact Nanye’hi?… Maybe.
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Quotes:
(1) “Cherokee Women” by Theda Perdue (pgs. 55 & 101).
(2) Chapter 33: “Nancy Ward/Nanye’hi and Cherokee Women” in “Transatlantic Feminisms in the Age of Revolutions” edited by Moore, Brooks, and Wigginton.
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Photo: Eastern Cherokee Woman with Children between 1930-45 (Boston Public Library).
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CELEBRATING the INFLUENCE of INDIGENOUS WOMEN'S CULTURE in the early Women’s Rights Movement during #WomensHistoryMonth
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In their quest for equal rights, many women’s rights activists were inspired by the statuses and rights Native women enjoyed in their own communities. To understand why, we need only look at the legal and social culture these activists found themselves a part of… Historian Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner summed it up neatly when she wrote:
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“Under the European-inspired laws that were adopted by each state after the revolution, a single woman might be economically independent, owning property and earning her living but upon her uttering the marriage vows, she lost control of her property and her earnings. She also gave away all rights to children she would bear. They became the “property” of the father who could give them away or grant custody to someone other than the mother in the event of his death. With the words, “I do,” a woman literally gave away her legal identity. The woman lost her name, her right to control her own body, and to live where she chose. A married woman could not make any contracts, sue or be sued; she was dead in the eyes of the law. Further, wife-beating was not against the law, nor was marital rape.” (1)
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A prevailing belief among Western-descended Americans was that women were, as fact, designed to be subordinate to men (whether by nature or by deity). This assumption influenced early Americans (including government officials) in their stance against women voting. However this supposed universal “truth” wasn’t universally supported. Not only was it not universal, but those female populations that did have a voice in their governments weren’t just found in fictional works, or in societies lost to history, or in a place located halfway around the world… No, these women were, in fact, living on the same continent as American suffragists, sometimes as close neighbors. Having ties to upstate New York - the ancestral territory of the Iroquois Confederacy - suffragists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898), and Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) were in usual contact with Haudenosaunee communities. The Haudenosaunee Constitution (“The Great Law of Peace”) guaranteed their women citizens representation in Haudenosaunee government - a representative democracy predating the United States. Haudenosaunee women played an integral role in the government (and they still do). Women’s Councils convened to render opinions and decisions concerning local, national and international affairs, while Clan Matrons held the authority to install chiefs - to nominate or put forth (“raise up”) a Chief, and if need be, initiate an impeachment (“knock his horns off”) should he perform his office in an unsatisfactory manner. A large part of a Haudenosaunee woman’s authority was derived from her matrilineage: her clan membership and her inheritance, all gained through her maternal lineage. Hence all children were born/adopted into their mother’s clan, not the father’s. Moreover, Haudenosaunee women enjoyed rights and protections often discouraged by or reserved only for White men in the United States, like the authority to dissolve disagreeable marriages or own property as a married individuals.
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Alice Fletcher (1838-1923) was an anthropologist and activist whose understanding of Indigenous women’s culture was shaped largely by living among the Omaha and neighboring Nations. Fletcher witnessed first-hand the rights married Native women exercised, such as rights to personal property:
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“When I was living with the Indians, my hostess, a fine looking woman, who wore numberless bracelets, and rings in her ears and on her fingers, and painted her face like a brilliant sunset, one day gave away a very fine horse. I was surprised, for I knew there had been no family talk on the subject, so I asked: "Will your husband like to have you give the horse away?" This must have been a puzzling question… “Her eyes danced, and, breaking into a peal of laughter, she hastened to tell the story to the other women gathered in the tent, and I became the target of many merry eyes.”
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Simply put, in this Native community a wife is her own person, and her property is hers to do with as she pleases; a Native husband had no business interfering with his wife’s property transactions, and most likely it was unbecoming for a husband to concern himself with her personal affairs. Fletcher “tried to explain how a white woman would act, but laughter and contempt met" her "explanation of the white man's hold upon his wife's property.” (2)
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Fletcher concluded that the Native wife was “as independent in the use of her possessions as is the most independent man in our midst. If she chooses to give away or sell all of her property, there is no one to gainsay her.” Even homes were generally considered the property of one or more persons based on descent and not marriage… Thus it wasn’t unusual that a married man did not own a home but resided in a structure owned by his wife, his/her mother, or his/her female relatives (depending on the specific tribal community).
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Though it was often customary for Indigenous husbands and wives to keep and control their properties separately, such a concept was slow to follow among their American neighbors of foreign ancestry… The state of Mississippi, in their legal quest for the “emancipation of married women,” had passed the first married woman’s property law in the Nation (1839), which was notably associated with local Native customs when the Mississippi Bar Association wrote:
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“Of this lead, our State may well be proud… Let it not be forgotten… whence came to us the conception. It is said, and it is no doubt true, that our first married woman’s law “in the statute of 1839” embodied and was suggested by the tribal customs of the Chickasaw Indians, who lived in our borders.” (3)
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But the rights of many Indigenous women went far beyond the ownership of material things and livestock… The line “my children could never forget me” alludes to a mother’s rights to her children even in the event of divorce or death of the father, not like US mothers whose children’s fates were based on their father’s preferences, legally enforceable in divorce or death.
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“I owned…the work of my own hands…” refers to the economic autonomy of the Native women Fletcher met, many practicing economic interdependence rather than being economically dependent on their partners. The difference was evident, and according to Fletcher, the importance of women's autonomy was not lost on Native men:
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“Men have said: "Your laws show how little your men care for their women. The wife is nothing of herself. She is worth little but to help a man to have one hundred and sixty acres." One day, sitting in the tent of an old chief, famous in war, he said to me: “My young men are to lay aside their weapons; they are to take up the work of the women; they will plow the field and raise the crops; for them I see a future, but my women, they to whom we owe everything, what is there for them to do? I see nothing! You are a woman; have pity on my women when everything is taken from them." (2)
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Particularly of interest were the Indigenous societies that honored married women as fully human persons with the right to live free of abuse. Should marital violence occur, offenders could expect to be brought to justice by the victim’s family within the framework of community-approved policing customs (which is to say much was settled between the immediate families or clans of those involved in the offense). For this reason Alice Fletcher “was concerned about what would happen to Indian women when they became [US] citizens, lost their rights and were treated with the same legal disrespect as white women,… (4)," which was, in fact, the best case scenario for non-white women under US law. US citizenship would not only strip Native women of their traditional rights to property and their children, but would also legalized martial rape and wife battering of a “proper harshness” (the threshold between acceptable battery and criminal battery in the context of marriage was pretty subjective in its legal determination).
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Suffragists Also Raised Concerns over Compulsory Citizenship:
Fletcher wasn’t the only women's rights advocates to write about impending citizenship, which threatened more than only the rights of Native women. Matilda Joslyn Gage also addressed the topic while echoing contemporary Haudenosaunee opinions: “That the Indians have been oppressed, —are now, is true, but the United States has treaties with them, recognizing them as distinct political communities, and duty towards them demands not an enforced citizenship but a faithful living up to its obligations on the part of the Government.” And those obligations included treaties the US entered into with sovereign Indigenous Nations (a “Nation-to-Nation” relationship). “Indians over the whole country…are not part and parcel of us, but live upon their own lands, under their own laws… Our Indians are in reality foreign powers, though living among us… Compelling them to become citizens would be like the forcible annexation of Cuba, Mexico, or Canada to our government, and as unjust.” (5) Indeed the proposal to extend citizenship actually forced citizenship without consent upon all Native Americans. Indigenous Peoples were divided on citizenship because many saw it as an attack on their sovereignty - tribal sovereignty the US promised to preserve and respect. The Onondaga Nation (a Haudenosaunee People) points out that accepting US citizenship “would be treason to their own Nations” and “a violation of the treaties and a violation of international law,…” (6) Notably the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was passed with the support of largely non-indigenous Americans who argued citizenship would protect Native Peoples, though in reality the US saw compulsory citizenship as another tool in furthering assimilation of Native Peoples (not unlike the allotment of tribal lands and use of residential Indian schools).
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Quotes:
(1) “The Root of Oppression is the Loss of Memory: The Iroquois and the Early Feminist Vision” by Sally Roesch Wagner, Ph.D., 1988. In “Iroquois Women: An Anthology.” edited by W.G. Spittal, 1990. (2) “Report of the International Council of Women, Assembled by the National Women Suffrage Association… March 25 to April 1, 1888.” (3) “Proceedings of the Mississippi Bar Association. At It’s Sixth Annual Meeting Held January 6th 1891.” (4) “Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists.” by Sally Roesch Wagner, Ph.D., 2001. (5) “Indian Citizenship” by Matilda Joslyn Gage, May 1878. In “American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote, 1776-1965.” edited by Susan Ware, 2020. (6) “The Citizenship Act of 1924” by Joseph Heath, Esq., 2018. https://www.onondaganation.org/news/2018/the-citizenship-act-of-1924/
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HIGHLIGHTING the TRADITIONAL ROLE and SOCIAL STANDING of HAUDENOSAUNEE WOMEN during #WomensHistoryMonth:
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Breaking down Joseph-Francois Lafitau’s account (1724) of the status of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) women, with background…
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“There is nothing more real than the superiority of the women.” We shouldn’t translate this as Native women were, for example, treated as superior to Native men. Lafitau, and his contemporaries, were likely surprised to see a society where women were afforded the rights and personal freedoms given Anglo-European men, which shows in this line.
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“It is they who constitute the tribe, transmit the nobility of blood, and perpetuate the family.” It is through the women’s lines both individual families (and clans) and the tribal government (ie eligibility of chief titles) were based.
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“They possess all actual authority; own the land, and the fields and their harvests;” “Actual authority” is a huge statement here – it is not simply symbolic - women did own (right-to-use) the lands on which they resided and farmed, and they too controlled the food stores.
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“…they are the soul of all councils, the arbiters of peace and war;” The Women’s Council’s opinion was crucial for the outcome of all decisions (even when not present, a traveling council negotiating with Euro-Americans often had to delay conclusions until the Women’s Council was briefed and their conclusions made). And while Haudenosaunee women have long been celebrated as perpetuating peace in times of possible war (addressing war leaders and warriors, asking them to abandon their campaign as it was not a war they, the women of their families, believed in – it was said men rarely if ever went to war against the wishes of their female kin), they were also known to start some wars or initiate raids. One such event recalled, a woman insisted to put a captive to death no matter the leaders’ warnings that such an action might bring on more war… her right to dispose of her captive was heeded. And because the clans were matrilineal, women asked male kin to raid others for live captives (men, women, children) to replace deceased family/clan members (especially their deceased children), or bring home live captives to torture and put to death themselves (or scalps) to revenge the wrongful death of relatives ("restore the balance"), and “wipe away their tears” (stop the mourning process so they may live unburdened with sorrow once again after such a loss).
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This all relates to the line “[captives] are given to them;” which originally said “slaves” instead of captives. I replaced “slaves” with “captives” because Haudenosaunee captives (of this time) were generally victims of abduction-adoption, not chattel slavery (if not put to death), which most readers may envision when the term “slave” is used. Indeed the Haudenosaunee (and their Native neighbors) did take/steal persons against their will… However unlike victims of chattel slavery, abduction-adoption or “kinship slavery” offered captives a path to integrate into free society. More specifically, captives were adopted and became family (persons, not property), their children were born as free citizens, and they themselves usually gained full freedom with time… freedom to come and go, or leave completely if they so chose to… though notably that freedom usually didn’t come till after captives planted roots, such as getting married, having children, or forgetting their previous lives and languages (as those taken as young children often did). Thus the usual goal of obtaining captives (especially when captives were given over to women) was not to create a commercial trade or class of slaves, but to grow the general populace - a system where “captives” became “cousins” (to quote James F. Brooks).
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“…they have the care of the public treasury;” most likely refers to women’s roles possibly as keepers of government paraphernalia (wampum belts, wampum strings, etc.) and their authority in village food stores for public events (celebrations, feasts, and ceremonies).” True as observed.
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“…they arrange marriages; the children belong to them and to their blood is confined the line of descent and the order of inheritance.” Indeed, it wasn’t a father’s place to arrange the marriages of his children – that was the right of the mother in a matrilineal clan. Fathers weren’t even of the same clan of their children, and so didn’t have the same investment in their children’s marriages as the mothers (with that said, this does not reflect their personal affection for their children... we cannot assume fathers to be less concerned with their children's futures including happiness in marriage, especially on a personal level, as they are still concerned parents). Because marriages were alliances to other families, the mothers had a stake in what family her own would be connected to. It wasn’t unusual to see a mother showing off her son, sort of parading him around proudly, looking to marry him to a young woman of a clan she approved. As was stated, children were not of the same clan as their fathers – in matrilineal Haudenosaunee society (as well as even some patrilineal tribes), women’s rights to retain their children in the event of a divorce was rule (unlike in Euro-American societies where children belonged to the father, his surname given to his children was a legal binding of such). The Haudenosaunee also followed a matrilineal line of inheritance, whether it be property or chief titles.
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Some of the above is still practiced by Haudenosaunee communities/Nations today, like inherited titles and clan membership, which tribal membership is sometimes based on. You might wonder why clan membership is necessary for tribal membership in some Nations today... Well this is a direct carryover from historical practices - a continuing tradition. Historically for most Indigenous communities of the Woodlands, tribal association was absolutely based on clan membership. If you weren't a member of a Clan within the Nation, then you didn't have a community of people - a Clan - to vouch for you, to police your behavior (and feel compelled to make good to victims of your misdoings), to participate in the necessary social practices that benefited other Clans (and they to you and your Clan), etc. Historically Anglos often "categorized" Native persons under their Nation, while Indigenous persons strongly identified themselves by Clan. Today a few Tribes still require clan membership to be a member of their Nation. For example, to be an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation (a Haudenosaunee Tribe), a person's mother must be, or have been, an enrolled member.
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Photo: Haudenosaunee woman, 1846-48.
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John Tanner's words: "In spite of her sex, this woman was regarded as principle chief of the Ottawas" is revealing, both of Anglo perspectives and Great Lakes tribes of this time and place (late 18th century). Though Tanner’s description is mostly factual, his bias and misunderstandings should be kept in mind.
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She likely was a high-ranking chief among others (she had much influence according to Tanner), but certainly Netnokwa wasn't "the” chief of the Ottawa/Odawa. Yes her political career demanded she serve her community in that capacity, and so her schedule sometimes dictated the family’s travels, when the family went with her. However Tawgaweninne, her husband, was not a second-class citizen. But Tanner's observation is correct concerning chief titles, which Native women, when in formal leadership positions (titles passed and/or titles earned), often fulfilled those offices not based on marriages to male leaders but through their own clan membership or deeds… Netnokwa's husband wasn't a leader like herself, nor would he need to be to legitimize her position.
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Most likely everything belonged to Netnokwa not because she was chief, but because she was the woman of her household (with exception to redistribution materials and political paraphernalia... she would have been in charge of these materials because of her office). In traditional culture, women owned most of the household items, even in patrilineal households. However during the late 18th century a shift in household dynamics had taken place (more or less depending on the Native community),… such a change likely influenced by contact with Euro-American culture (and internal/cultural strife). Indigenous households had begun to put more importance on, or give more prestige to, male-gendered work (whether in response to the fur trade, or European insistence on acknowledging male "heads of households," etc). What John saw was very likely a traditional household where a woman was still in charge of the home-life.
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In general, Netnokwa was’t alone. There had been other female chiefs before herself in Eastern North America. And these women weren't exactly rare before 1700… like Weetamoo, female sachem of Pocasset, and Awashonks, female sachem of Sakonnet (among other southern New England women leaders) - both who provided warriors during King Philip’s War (1). Or Mamanuchqua, an Esopus (Munsee-Delaware) sachem of the Catskills region… “Among the Indians in Munsee country, some women, like Mamanuchqua, strode late seventeenth-century diplomatic floor boards as full-fledged sachems signing treaties and selling land. In Mamanuchqua’s case, her sex was of so little relevance to her role as sachem that it was often not even mentioned in meeting minutes (2).” But with outside European influences and internal cultural upset and strife, female chiefs become more rare by the late 18th century, making John Tanner’s account of Netnotwa invaluable.
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Such ambition among Eastern Native women is not lost to history… Consider activist Wilma Mankiller (1945-2010) who became the first female Principle Chief elected to serve the Cherokee Nation (1985-1995). And Chief Glenna Wallace who today serves as the first female Chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma (2006-present). At the national level is Representative Sharice Davids (Kansas, District 3), an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, who is one of two first Native American women elected to the US Congress (along with Secretary Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo), and the first openly LGBT Native American to serve in the House (2019-present). With the backing of their communities, they too continue the tradition of Indigenous women serving in leadership positions traditionally reserved for men (3).
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Notes:
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(1) A Wampanoag woman sachem is also referred to (in other texts) as a “sunksqua” (also spelled “sunksquaw”) - a Wampanoag term meaning elevated woman or female sachem. The term is an appropriate title when speaking of these specific Wampanoag women leaders…“Squaw is a word or what's called a morpheme — a meaningful morphological unit of a language. It refers to the female character of a woman and it's used to create words that mean woman, or little girl, or good girl,” - Camille Madison (Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head) of the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project. *** HOWEVER*** It is also true that this word was highjacked by non-natives and weaponized, and is regarded by many Indigenous people today as a racist and sexist slur. The reader should understand that outside the context of those very specific Algonquian dialects the morpheme originates, the use of this word is suspicious and usually offensive, even hostile. Want to learn more about this topic? Read: https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/news/2021/12/27/squaw-island-cape-cod-debate-native-american-cultural-reclamation-language/8905364002/ - And our article: “The S-Word: Benign Origin, Offensive Reality” --------
(2) Quote about Mamanuchqua from Robert S. Grumet’s “The Munsee Indians: A History.”
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(3) Chief positions were/are usually reserved for men, though not exclusively in some communities. Women did, and still do, have leadership positions as clan matrons - a position exclusively reserved for women. To be clear, this post is about women chiefs, not clan matrons.
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It can be hard to distinguish a female chief from a clan mother/matron in the historical writings of EuroAmericans whose understanding of Native authority was sometimes lacking. Take Ojuncho, “Queen of Conestoga” for example… (Conestoga - A village of largely Iroquoian-speaking Peoples located in Pennsylvania.) In about 1706, she is noted as having “great authority” and speaking “frequently at the councils of the chiefs.” The frequency of her speaking in council could point to her being a chief, however the same writer then states that upon “surprise at such interference of a woman in public business,” the person inquiring was “told by the chiefs that this was “because some women were wiser than some men.” Adding: “…the Indians there had done nothing without the counsel of an ancient grave woman.” This statement now leads us to conclude that she may be instead a clan mother (or fulfilling a matron role), given how the interpreter likened (or reasoned) Ojuncho’s participation to the usual practice of appealing to, or including, the wisdom of a distinguished older woman. Thus if her sex is a strong reason to consult her, then she may likely be a matron, and not a chief to which being a woman would not have been a prerequisite in administering her authority. But in truth the words describing Ojuncho could be used to argue her position as sachem or as matron.
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Image: Jú-ah-kís-gaw, Anishinaabe woman by George Catlin, 1835. (Ojibwe and Odawa (Ottawa) are a related People.) She wears a wool strap-dress trimmed in silk ribbons and glass beading. The strap-dress is historical garment that is, today, in the process of being reclaimed/revived by the Anishinaabe... every year more and more Anishinaabekweg wearing traditional strap-dresses for special occasions (See "Our Grandmothers Dress" at https://www.facebook.com/strapdress/about)
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Our Women's History Month Posts continues with Woodland NATIVE WOMEN SPIRITUAL ADVISERS, PRIESTESSES, and PROPHETESSES:
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In 1792, 11-year-old Oliver Spencer takes his first steps into the lodge of an Indigenous woman named Coo(h)-coo-chee(h). Young at the time, Spencer later writes of his captive experience, and particularly of Coo-coo-chee... She took charge of Spencer, caring for him, as he writes “whose kindness I felt grateful;” she “having restored me to health, took some pains to comfort and amuse me.” However Coo-coo-chee is by no means any ordinary mother figure… She is also a respected “priestess” and medicine woman in her society. A closed-off room in her elm bark lodge acted in part as a “sanctuary, where she performed her incantations (1).” Though Mohawk herself, Coo-coo-chee lives in an ethnically-rich conglomerate of communities: Shawnee, Delaware, and Miami villages, with a few Haudenosaunee residents like herself, and a British trading station located not far from Coo-coo-chee’s lodge near the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers in northeastern Ohio. Together these villages comprise an anti-American "militant" society opposing U.S. encroachment on Native Lands, hitting back by launching a series of raids against settlers... Spencer himself was captured on one of these very attacks. Coo-coo-chee’s spiritual abilities was an invaluable resource to many of those warriors setting out from the Auglaize villages in pursuit of war honors and the freedom to exist on their beloved Ohio lands.
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Coo-coo-chee’s spiritual practices and status may seem untouched by foreign Western religions, though more likely strengthened in opposition to it. Not that the introduction of Christianity slowed down Indigenous women from practicing very public religious/spiritual roles,... at least at first. In 1641 Father Chrestien Le Clercq says of the Mi’kmaq residing in the Gaspé Peninsula (Quebec, Canada): “It is a surprising fact that this ambition to act the patriarch does not only prevail among the men, but even the women meddle therewith.” (The patriarch refers to priesthood.) The Mi’kmaq “look upon these women as extraordinary persons, whom they believe to hold… communication with… their divinity.” Father Chrestien Le Clercq’s observation (the full text) shows his contempt at the way Mi’kmaq applied Catholic elements to their Indigenous belief system, and he particularly focused on the way women acted as religious authorities with the admiration of their community. The Father described one particular Mi’kmaq “priestess” who applied rosary beads to her aboriginal faith. As James Axtell writes, the Mi’kmaq had little desire to convert but rather “revitalize or shore up their own religion by adding Christian elements that seemed to be useful.” Indeed, foreign people, introduced diseases, new vices, and the social stresses produced of it pressured Indigenous worldviews for answers and hope, and often initiated religious revitalizations in Native societies. And since many of the Native Peoples’ problems “in the colonial period derived from the European presence (diseases and aggressive missionaries, especially), they logically assumed that European “medicine” - in small doses - could help provide solutions (2).” No, the Mi’kmaq of this time and place did not seek complete adoption of Christianity, nor did they shut women out of what was interpreted as priest-like roles… to the dismay of the Father.
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And where some absorbed/accepted parts of Christianity, others vehemently preached against it, including Indigenous women. One Munsee-Delaware prophetess in particular made quite an impression among her Anglo Christian adversaries: In 1805, a Lenape woman living in Woapicamikunk, a Delaware village located in Indiana, was attracting Native men and women from miles away to come, listen to visions, and attend sacrificial feasts. As recorded in Moravian writings: “The Great Spirit…recently appeared to a woman and told her that the Indians must live after their ancient manner…” noting her “teaching makes a great impression on the Indians…” and “meets with the upmost approval of the chiefs.” The woman’s name was Beate (also spelled Beade and Beata). She called for the return to Lenape traditions, to resist Anglo influences, and the renewal of old ceremonies… all this in direct opposition to Moravian missionaries baptizing Lenapes and establishing Christian Indian Towns. Bias, ridicule, and resentment are evident in their language: “Beate, who is the greatest lying prophet,…” who “pretends to have seen God himself,” her “babbling,” her “gossip,” and her “foolish fable (3).” Moravians took offense not just to a Nativism revival that threatened their missionary work, but that a woman was heading it and men in leadership positions were listening to her.*
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Though many historians may treat Indigenous “priestesses” or female oracles, prophetesses, and medicine women as uncommon, we surely can’t believe the White man’s eye saw all. (Nor should Native history be based fully on the written record of outsiders.) However what was preserved by witnesses is persuasive evidence of Native women fulfilling public spiritual roles, probably not as rare exceptions, but likely with some regularity and normalcy. Beate, for example, wasn’t the first Lenape woman in the missionaries’ midst to share visions or preach… There were women before her who did similar, who were spoken of in journals and letters. However it was Beate that made a lasting impression among both Lenapes and missionaries. Her opposition to Christianity led to her infamy in Moravian texts… Her Nativism led to her legacy in a century more of Delaware ceremonies (preserving the Big House tradition from Indiana west to Indian Territory, and north to Canada).
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* Note: While not always equal to men (in every way, and at any time), Delaware women generally enjoyed a status that offered a level of control over self, authority within the family, and influence in the community. Indeed the Moravians’ writings exposed their “anxiety for women’s… power over sex, marriages, children, and their own bodies.” “Moravians could not conceive of proper marriage relations without the subjugation of wives to their husbands (4).” In fact they felt their mission work so threatened by female autonomy that they were known to sometimes turn away prospective residents to their Christian Indian towns (Native persons seeking residency), particularly single Lenape women they feared may cause disruption, or spouses residing separately of their partners (which was sometimes customary in Native communities)… These were, to the missionaries, women without a Christian chain of command existing at the family level.
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Quotes: (1) “The Indian Captivity of O. M. Spencer” edited by Milo Milton Quaife. (2) “The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes” edited by James Axtell. (3) “Voices from the Delaware Big House Ceremony” edited by Robert S. Grumet. (4) “A Nation of Women: Gender and Colonial Encounters Among the Delaware Indians” by Gunlog Fur.
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Image: Mohawk woman/mother, 18th century. (She wears very typical Eastern Native women’s dress of the time period: likely a ruffled shirt under a stripped short gown/bed jacket, wool wrap skirt and leggings trimmed in silk ribbons and trade silver, puckered moccasins, complete with a wool matchcoat (wearing blanket) heavily lined with silk ribbons.) Credit: G. Dagli Orti / NPL - DeA Picture Library / Bridgeman Images.
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In the late 18th century, two great examples of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) women’s stake in land ownership (right-to-use/exclude), and their right to sell (or refuse sale), were recorded. These historic events included the presence of Seneca leaders/diplomats Cornplanter and Red Jacket, communicating the conclusions of the women’s councils:
-------------Haudenosaunee women to Col. Proctor in 1791: “…you ought to hear and listen to what we, women, shall speak, as well as the sachems; for we are the owners of this land – and it is ours. It is we that plant it for our and their use. Hear us, therefore, for we speak of things that concern us and our children, and you must not think hard of us while our men shall say more to you; for we have told them.” Red Jacket “…was made spokesman for the woman, and in that capacity was obliged to yield to demands which he previously bitterly opposed.” It was no matter that Red Jacket’s position contrasted to the women’s council – as their spokesman, he was obliged to put away his feelings in order to present a the conclusion the women’s council came to, whether he agreed or not. “This he did in the following emphatic language: “Now, listen, Brother: you know what we have been doing so long, and what trouble we have been at; and you know it has been at the request of our head warrior (Cornplanter) that we are left to answer for our women, who are to conclude what ought to be done by both sachems and warriors. So hear what is their conclusion (Carr)."
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In 1797, the Haudenosaunee women’s council were “…said to have fallen back on their reserved rights and in conjunction with the warriors, to have obliged the chiefs to reopen a council that had been declared closed, and to make a sale of lands upon terms which had been previously rejected. Upon this occasion, Cornplanter seems to have been selected as their [the women’s council and warrior’s council] spokesman, for in reopening the deliberations, he said, among other things, “that the women and warriors had seen with regret the misconduct of their sachems;” and a chief “was constrained to admit that the course of the women and warriors, in thus nullifying the proceedings of a council, “was in perfect accordance with their customs (Carr)."
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“These two instances – in one which the women assert, without contradiction, that they owned the land, and in the other they take the negotiation out of the hands of a council, and in conjunction with the warriors, oblige the chiefs against their wishes, actually to sell a part of that land” justifies “us in concluding that, either wholly or in part, the land belonged to the women (Carr)."
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And it wasn’t just Haudenosaunee women (and their Iroquoian-speaking sisters) who controlled land use. Among their Algonquian neighbors many women made their marks on land deeds, especially in the 1600’s. Mamanuchqua, an Esopus (Munsee-Delaware) female sachem, participated (with four other sachems) in selling land in the Catskills region (New York). And her daughter Dostou sold land around present day High Falls (New York). Notike, a Lenape/Delaware “woman-of-authority” sold land to the New Sweden colony (of northern Delaware/southern New Jersey). If not a sachem herself, she was likely the woman who carried the bloodline the sachemship passed through… She (and her kin) successfully defended her authority when the land she sold came into question between the Dutch, Swedish, and a Lenape man claiming sachemship and authority over the tract Notike sold (while possibly defending her right to name the next sachem, which wasn’t him). Further east, four Pocumtuck women (of western Massachusetts) were noted to have sold land to the English.
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As many are aware of, not all land “sales” were elective transactions. Indian Land was all too often relinquished under extreme duress, whether the deeds or treaties were signed by Native men or women. Under threat of attack, the female Wampanoag sachem Awashonks signed over her landholdings to Plymouth… Plymouth had been extremely land hungry in the mid-1600’s, with a pattern of slapping fines on their Native neighbors in pursuit of payment in land.
It’s certain that many Indigenous Peoples may have had differing views of land ownership than that of Anglos, but they still had aboriginal practices of land ownership under their cultural definitions. Nations had territories that were protected from (excluded their) enemies, hunting tracts that were passed down from father to son or uncle to nephew, and maple sugar groves that were passed down from mother to daughter. Native People claimed land, or the "right-of-use" of it, in common or exclusively. The myth that “Native Americans didn’t believe in owning land” was (and still is) an oversimplification, still perpetuated mostly as a misunderstanding... (And whether or not meant to) repeated to the ends of “justifying” the wrongful (even unlawful) Anglo taking of lands claimed first by Native Peoples.
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It’s also worth noting that Western-Christianity held righteous a man’s land claim through the noble occupation of farming… When lands were cleared and plowed, he exercised his place in the hierarchy of a Christian universe. If Native farmers also did such righteous work, then they too must have stood on level ground, equally at least in this way to Anglo men by a Western rationality. But then EuroAmericans would have to admit that Indigenous farmers rightfully owned their land (by Western standards). President Theodore Roosevelt knew better but still wrote that Native Peoples, including the Eastern Woodland Peoples, did not till (farm) the land or clear trees for building their homes and farms. But they did farm and they did clear trees for both farming and building. Thus Native horticulture, which produced more than half the foods for many (if not most) Eastern Native Peoples (including the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois, Mahican, Wendat/Wyandot/Huron, Lenape/Delaware, Myaamia/Miami, Cherokee, Muskogee/Creek and many more), was likely downplayed because growing crops proved a Native tie to the land defendable even by Western and Christian standards. If they admitted the Indigenous Peoples were farmers, then they admitted they illegally took land from their rightful owners.
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Furthermore there still existed the issue of EuroAmericans non-acceptance of Indigenous women as free-person farmers (not “slaves” in the field, as was sometimes written), failing to acknowledge female-controlled farming and female ownership of the fields and produce. Generally in Anglo society, married women couldn't actually own anything of value as it was "truly owned” by her husband (or father, if she hadn’t been married yet), and therefore Native female farmers were not likened to White male farmers - those men who had the “God-given right” to land. Denial of Indigenous land-rights, property customs, and women’s autonomy and occupations (as farmers) served only to “justify” the colonization of Indian Lands.
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Quotes from “On the Social and Political Position of Woman Among the Huron-Iroquois Tribes" by Lucien Carr.
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Image: A Lenape (Delaware) woman, depicted after the original appearing on a 1653 map.
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Original Text: “…fome young Women will not hear of a Husband.... That fort of Women are call'd Ickoue ne Kiouffa } i. e. Hunting Women: for they commonly accompany the Huntfmen in their Diverfions. To juftify their Conduct, they alledge that they find themfelves to be of too indifferent a temper to brook the Conjugal yoak, to be too carelefs for the bringing up of Children, and too impatient to bear the patting of the whole Winter in the Villages. Thus it is, that they cover and difguife their Lewdnefs. Their Parents or Relations dare not cenfure their Vicious Conduct; on the contrary they feem to approve of it, in declaring, as I faid before, that their Daughters have the command of their own Bodies and may difpofe of their Perfons as they think fit; they being at their liberty to do what they pleafe (“New Voyages to North America” p.463).”
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There appears to be, within some Nations of the East, a position for women who chose to live unmarried – they are commonly referred to as “independent women" or "hunting women.” This has been reported of Ojibwe and Illinois societies (the quote is supposedly referring to Illinois women). And full disclosure, because of our reliance (often too much) on early accounts from outsiders and, arguably, a continuing pattern of ethnocentric gender assumptions in ethnography works (as indeed, we often consider some sort of "common gender roles" to be a universal given, blurring the understanding of how fluid gender roles can be in many Indigenous cultures), we have probably failed to identify similar practices among many related and neighboring Nations.
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Such is not too hard to conceive considering both societies, and several other Woodland communities, historically accepted men who identified as female, or both male and female (categorized as a 3rd gender), and so these communities had some form of mobility in gender roles and identity. Today the term "two-spirit" (a word coined in about 1990), is often used by Native persons identifying themselves with a gender outside of the men-male or women-female genders... though there is also tribal-specific (Native language-derived) "two-spirit" gender terminology within many communities.
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The Indigenous women Lahontan spoke of freely rejected the role of wife and mother, and instead, took up the role of men’s work (becoming “hunting women”). He states again: “A Young Woman is allow’d to do what she pleases; let her Conduct be what it will, neither Father nor Mother, Brother nor Sister can pretend to controul her. A Young Woman, say they, is Master of her own Body, and by her Natural Right of Liberty is free to do as she pleases (p.453).” While I do not question a woman’s autonomy (as indicated in by Lahontan), I do believe he simplified the role of independent women far too much as we know family members, such as parents and siblings, were a guiding force in any young person’s life… So this quote really calls attention not just to the freedom of hunting women but very much to the acceptance of these hunting women not by just their family, but by their society too. “Hunting women” may have been, in fact, an accepted gender role.
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Who were these women? According to the observation: "To juftify their Conduct, they alledge that they find themfelves to be of too indifferent a temper to brook the Conjugal yoak, to be too carelefs for the bringing up of Children, and too impatient to bear the patting of the whole Winter in the Villages. Thus it is, that they cover and difguife their Lewdnefs." --- Did this group include women who just didn't care to have the life of a wife? Or did they include women who actually identified as "male" and rejected the female gender? Or did they include women who we would modernly label as "single" and just not ready to settle down yet (possibly keeping casual relationships with men... is this what "their Lewdnefs" refers to coming from an outsider's perspective)? Was the category of hunting women an outlet for women who identified with one or any of the above? Maybe in our haste to categorize and create neatly packaged gender roles, we are in fact failing to grasp the fluidity of individual roles within Native societies by interpreting them through contemporary (Western-influenced) ideals of gender roles. Indeed we may never know the answer to this.
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And please do not assume OUR modern mainstream definition of the traditional Native female gender role as one of total dependance, based on the option (and given title) to become "independent women." Native women in band societies, village communities, and confederated Nations were, more often than not, born into cultures that fostered a level of autonomy among all citizens within a communal framework. These two values are not mutually exclusive although often assumed to be, and assuming such is really simplifying the social complexity of Native cultures.
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The same right was noted as a tradition among Anishinaabekweg (Ojibwe women), where women who decided not to marry, or not to remarry, took upon themselves the work of both man and woman to support themselves and their children... thus becoming "independent women." Some Ojibwe women started doing male work because their families lacked sons, so daughters were picked to assist their fathers and in the process learned masculine activities and skills. For these daughters their daily duties resembled that of sons. Also, in the absence of an adult man in the house, some widows may train a daughter to take up masculine skills in order to help provide for the family. Once of marriageable age, these young women could chose to return to female gendered work, and many did. Those who didn’t continued living in a realm akin to the male gender, whether single or married.
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Image: Ojibwa Woman by Charles Bird King.
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Indigenous women actively participating in combative or leadership roles in war today is not new but, in a way, a continuing tradition... Historically some women actively participated in raids and war campaigns as fighters, leaders, and medicine bundle holders here in the Eastern Woodlands. Whether sparked by visions, a want to restore balance by their own hands "on the battle field," or a need to fulfill a male gender role in its entirety, these women freely risked life and limb in the pursuit of the enemy. Though not as numerous as the men, these women were warriors.
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The Miami/Myaamia People spoke about a particular woman who received a vision and eloquently related the vision to a council; the council decided the war campaign she requested was to be put together with her at the head of it as the carrier of the War Medicine Bundle, and they were victorious, as her vision said they would be. Ojibwe/Anishinaabe women too were prompted by visions to join war parties, and one such Ojibwe woman, with extraordinary deeds in war, was said to have edged out the previous war leader from his position. Many Cherokee women were reported as “famous in both war and in council” …one such warrior woman was rumored to have been shot down in Rutherford’s expedition in 1776, and it was only upon close inspection of the body that the North Carolina militia realized she was a woman and not a male warrior (she was dressed and painted as the men). An Oneida woman named Tyonajanegen (Two Kettles Together) fought alongside warriors, even assisting her husband after he was struck with a musket ball (1777). The Winnebago/Ho-Chunk too reported a famed warrior woman in their history, as well as some Choctaw women were rumored to have taken up arms.
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It is likely we may never know the true extent of Woodland women warriors because so many probably identified as male in the presence of Anglos, meaning they likely covered physical features that revealed them to be women, and their male comrades treated them as men, as was common practice in many communities across North America. It is not hard to see why most women warriors recorded in the Woodlands region were female-women who just crossed the gender line to participate in war activities... such was more evident to the outsider. If we were, however, to take a cue from Western Tribes with data collected in the 19th century by more anthropologically-minded observers, who looked for/acknowledged more than two genders, sexual patterns, diversity in women’s culture, etc., I believe (as some scholars) that Eastern Indigenous Peoples were no less void of these Indigenous women,… just more examples were probably overlooked by Anglo observers that were not as aware of or attuned to these complexities.
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And beware of concluding women warriors as rare exceptions as it has been easy to “overlook the frequency and significance of woman’s participation in activities defined as male – or to treat this participation as random or incidental when, in fact, it was often the expected behavior… (Roscoe).” The rigid borders built around gender roles may be more construed by the observers than what was reality among the observed (note: Native history still based far too heavy on outsider historical opinions and retold through non-Native academia today)... and this leading to the downgrading of such behavior as incidental and not an accepted practice in the feminine sphere. As E. B. Leacock spoke of the Montagnais-Naskapi, "a girl who qualifies as a warrior is considered as a warrior, and not as a queer girl" by her male colleagues." Indeed, maybe even Lang's statement: "warrior women stepped or crossed out of the feminine gender role temporarily or partially..." may be assuming such an activity to be first defined by gender (under the default category of masculine) when that may not be the reality/worldview of the culture(s) being spoken about.
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To be sure, we can see leadership in war wasn’t gender exclusive either as evident by the Algonquian leaders in King Philip’s War. Quaiapen, a Narragansett woman sachem, sanctioned a raid against her tributary village after the Wampanoag sachem Pumetacom (King Philip) challenged her authority. After much pressure/threats from both sides (Plymouth and Pumetacom), Wampanoag female sachem Awashonks enlisted her warriors to fight for the English. On the other side was the Wampanoag woman sachem Weetamoo, who provided 300 warriors to fight against the English. After her warriors were reduced to less than 30 they were captured. Weetamoo appeared to have drowned in a river while attempting escape. The English decapitated her and displayed her head in front of her surviving warriors, who in turn proceeded to mourn loudly at the sight of their fallen leader.
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Indigenous women’s participation in war, whether in supportive roles (like nurses) or combative roles (as soldiers), has continued to modern day (when and as allowed for women). Even before US citizenship was extended to Native People, Indigenous men and women enlisted into the US Armed Services. The Smithsonian states that the earliest Native women to serve the US Military were four Lakota nuns: Susie Bordeaux, Ellen Clark, Annie Pleets, and Josephine Two Bears… These four women served as nurses to US troops during the Spanish-American War. Susie Bordeaux was buried with full military honors. (Learn more at https://womenshistory.si.edu/.../learn-about-native... ) According to the National Indian Council on Aging, Inc, as of 2019 Native Americans have continued to have the highest volunteer service/military involvement rate of any ethnicity (per population) in the US… “almost 19% of all Native Americans have served in the Armed Forces - in comparison to an average of 14% of all other ethnicities” according to the USO. And almost 20% of those Indigenous service members are Native women. A couple notable Indigenous service members include: Ola Mildred Rexroat (1917-2017), born to an Oglala (Lakota) mother, she was the only Native woman to serve in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (also know as WASP); And Lori Ann Piestewa (1979-2003), a member of the Hopi tribe, she was the first woman in the US military killed in the Iraq War, and the first Native American woman to die in combat serving as a US Army soldier. Consider visiting https://nawwassociation.com to learn more about, and donate to Native American Women Warriors - a community supporting active duty and veteran Native American women.
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Note: This post does not cover the many other roles women played in war-related activities including spiritual guidance (seers who could predict, and medicine persons who could offer protection), song and dance (ceremony before and after, including scalp dances), those who accompanied fighters on the war path in a non-combative role (seen taking the loot of fallen enemies), and the women who participated in torturing and putting to death prisoners brought home to them for that purpose ("restoring the balance"). And even though current academia has acknowledged (quite unwillingly in the past) the normalcy of Native women to participate in these above stated roles, we still downplay these roles as they do not fit nicely into our contemporary (even cultural) notions of Native women to ONLY act as nurturers and givers of life. This is not to downplay what is in fact a widespread Native worldview honoring biological women as life-givers, only maybe the role of life-giver is more complicated than the term implies. And Native men and masculine roles are, in contrast, simplified on the opposite spectrum as "takers of life" (vs women/female roles as "givers of life"), when in fact masculine roles were celebrated also for the preserving of life too, whether by physical defense, acting as provider, or practice in diplomacy. The truth is preserving life (whether physical lives or ways-of-life) included the taking of life, whether it be from the Plant, Animal, or Human Nations (harvesting, hunting, or warring)... and such cultural values to preserve and encourage life were in fact not the concern of one gender or another, but the duty of all. Some may even point out the title "warrior" means more than a person who just physically fights... it's in the way a person lives and conducts their everyday life. Today we often hear the term “cultural warrior” applied to many who perpetuate traditions, and so the term and role "warrior" still defies these supposed gender barriers today.
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Post quotes from "Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures" by Sabine Lang, and "Changing Ones: Third and Forth Genders in Native North America" by Will Roascoe. This photo was chosen to remind us that Native women in the military is nothing new, but instead, a continuing tradition. Text quote from Elenor Burke Leacock in "Native Women's History in North America before 1900."
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Image: “Choctaw Belle” by Phillip Romer, 1850.
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By the 17th century the French noted galena (raw lead or ore) to be found in great quantity in what is now the American Midwest/Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB)... good veins of which come from the now states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. Almost as early as furs exchanged from Native hands to European ones in this region, so did the galena. While some early historians assumed that Native mining of galena had been only a recent practice, citing European trade and musket ammo as the cause for mining raw lead, in reality the mining of galena by Indigenous Peoples dated back for thousands of years (along with the Native harvesting copper from the Lake Superior area, and excavating gypsum from caves in the now states of Kentucky and Tennessee - a fact that would be realized much later by archaeologists). In preColumbian times galena was obtained and traded far and wide, likely used for manufacturing ornaments and pigment. The Copena People, a Woodland Period culture a long ways south in northern Alabama, was so named for their great use of copper and galena (COP-per and gal-ENA... COPENA).
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During post-historic times, it was Winnebago/Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Meskwaki/Fox and Sauk women who headed mining activities, often assisted by their young sons and elderly male kin, and at times aided with able-bodied male relatives fulfilling roles of prospecting, smelting, and guarding the mines. Such as with the corn crop and maple sugar product Native women managed (well-demanded by Anglo neighbors), it is likely that galena resources too were controlled by Indigenous women, the trade of which they directly benefited from, and in turn, provided for their families with. Mining in this time and place was decisively a woman’s prerogative and task. Moses Meeker explains in detail the method in which Native women (with support of male kin) extracted galena: “They would form an inclined plane where they went deep. I saw one place where they dug forty-five feet deep. Their manner of doing it was by drawing the mineral dirt and rock in what they called a mocock, a kind of basket made of birch bark, or dry hide of buckskin, to which they attached a rope made of rawhide. Their tools were a hoe made for the Indian trade, an axe, and a crowbar, made of an old gun barrel flattened at the breach, which they used for removing the rock. Their mode of blasting was rather tedious, to be sure; they got dry wood, kindled a fire along the rock as far as they wished to break it. After getting the rock hot, they poured cold water upon it which so cracked it that they could pry it up.”
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In 1822, the US sent troops to force Native miners to accept non-native miners to dig for ore. Dozens of American men had come to mine for a living, doing so beside Native women miners. They purchased meat from Native hunters, and their children fished and prospected side-by-side Native children. But such a family-oriented, good-standing community didn’t last. An influx of about 4,000 Anglo miners, and about 100 Black miners, flooded the Native mining region following US occupation… a lead rush was born in the Midwest. And as with any rush, outsiders seeking fast money swarmed, bringing instability to a region already claimed and populated for generations by Native families.
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And although it was primarily Native women and Anglo men that mined galena, the combination of such failed to come together and prosper in what could have been many business-savvy unions built on common ground… such as had happened among many Indigenous women and French fur-trappers/traders whose ambitions were aligned. Unlike many (but not all) Frenchmen who sought both business and family in a new land (understanding the connection of both was integral to prosper), a new strain of White men came to mine the Midwest, and they weren’t looking to accommodate. Bringing with them their own brand of racial intolerance, these young Anglo-American men weren’t particularly fond of Native women they saw more as a threat to their paychecks than allies in the mining business. Rarely unions were forged, both in friendships and marriages (marriages usually involving Anglo-traders, not Anglo-miners), but without a network of kinship tying both Natives and non-natives together, such as was seen in Midwestern Creole communities, there existed no real system of checks, particularly when it came to illegal trespassing and property damage. Specifically a man without connection to Indigenous family/community by way of adoption or marriage meant his behavior was not influenced by or accounted for by relatives or community... An individual's behavior untethered was reckless where Indigenous policing (aka the law of the land) relied on relationships to discourage abuse or carry out justice. Instead these unrelated persons (generally Anglo men) sought to dominate, staking claims on established Native mines, destroying Native cornfields, and at times abducting, beating, and murdering Indigenous women (it should be noted here that some Black and Anglo women and girls in these mining camps/towns suffered like abuse by largely Anglo miners as well). The same year a Menominee woman miner was knocked down and stomped to death, the Winnebago Uprising took place (1827), in part due to the encroachment of Anglo miners on Winnebago claims (and such mining conflicts only helped to fuel the Black Hawk War/Conflict of 1832).
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Violence against Native women is not confined history… Violence against Indigenous women continues at an alarming rate, often underreported and insufficiently investigated. Speaking to murder statistics alone, the murder rate of American Indian and Alaska Native women are 3x that of non-Hispanic White women, and in some areas, Indigenous women may face murder rates 10x the national average (NCAI Policy Research Center, 2018). Please visit MMIW USA: https://mmiwusa.org or MMIWG2S: https://www.csvanw.org/mmiw/ or Natl. Inquiry into MMIWG (Canada): https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca for more information.
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Quote from Moses Meeker’s “Early History of the Lead Region of Wisconsin.” Also see: "Notes on Early Lead Mining of the Fever (or Galena) River Region" by Rueben Gold Thwaites, "Confrontation at the Fever River Lead Mining District" by Ronald Rayman, and Lucy Eldersveld Murphy’s article "To Live Among Us: Accommodation, Gender, and Conflict in the Western Great Lakes Region, 1760-1832" and her book "A Gathering of Rivers: Indians, Metis, and Mining in the Western Great Lakes, 1737-1832."
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Image: Two Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) women from the latter 19th century.
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Sports weren't just for the boys... There were many physical games in which Indigenous women participated in here in the Eastern Woodlands. Some were just for the ladies, and others were for men and women (and likely all genders) to play. From foot races to Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) “hacky sack,” from Shawnee “football,” to contact sports like shinny and lacrosse, Woodland women of many tribal backgrounds had much opportunity to display their strength and endurance, and earn praise for such skill from their communities. (See our upcoming lacrosse post for more on the history of women playing lacrosse.) In the western Great Lakes, one game in particular was extremely popular - the Women’s Ball Game.
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Anishinaabe/Ojibwe, Sac & Fox/Meskwaki, and Menominee communities, along with the Cree, were noted for their love of the Women’s Ball Game, also known as Doubleball. Doubleball was (is) a contact sport played in the same manner as lacrosse.The ball, which consisted of either two stuffed hide game balls or two wooden billets attached together, was not to be touched by the players' hands. The game ball was passed (caught and thrown) using a slightly curved stick. Players on both sides attempted to get the game ball to their respective goals in order to score points. The goals were at a great distance from each other (like lacrosse), ranging from 100 or 200 yards, to 1 mile from each other. Often goals were outstretched tree limbs or poles erected for that purpose. Like lacrosse, doubleball was a contact sport, and female players would push and shove, doing whatever was necessary to gain control of the ball and score points. Women could (and did) get hurt playing this sport. While they played for recreation and for pride, sometimes they also played for prizes, and spectators took the opportunity to place bets on the outcome of the game. In many cases female players dressed themselves special for the game, whether decorating their hair, painting their bodies or faces, and even stripping of unnecessary clothing. The Women's Ball Game was such an influential sport that miniature doubleball sets were sometimes suspended from Anishinaabe cradleboards (as observed by J. G. Kohl, 1860).
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Expanded text: “Doubtless the most interesting of all games is the Maiden’s Ball Play, in the Ojibway language, pah-pah-se-Kah-way. The majority of those who take part in this play are young damsels, although married women are not excluded. The ball is made of deer skin bags, each about 5 inches long and 1 in diameter. These are so fastened together as to be at a distance of 7 inches each from the other. It is thrown with a stick 5 feet long. This play is practiced in summer beneath the shade of the wide-spreading trees, beneath which each strives to find their homes, tahwin, and to run home with it. These having been appointed in the morning, the young women of the village decorate themselves for the day by painting their cheeks with vermilion and disrobe themselves of as much unnecessary clothing as possible, braiding their hair with colored feathers, which hang profusely down to their feet. At the same time the whole village assemble, and the young men, whose loved ones are seen in the crowd, twist and turn to send shy glances to them, and receive their bright smiles in return. The same confusion exists as in the game of ball played by the men. Crowds rush to a given point as the ball is sent flying through the air. None stop to narrate the accidents that befall them, though they tumble about to their not little discomfiture; they rise, making a loud noise between a laugh and a cry, some limping behind the others, as the women shout… Worked garters, moccasins, leggings, and vermilion are generally the articles at stake. Sometimes a chief of the village sends a parcel as they commence, the contents of which are to be distributed among the maidens when the play is over.” “I remember that, some winters before the teachers from the pale faces came to the lodge of my father, my mother was very sick. Many thought she could not recover her health. At this critical juncture she told my father that it was her wish to see the Maiden’s Ball Play, and gave as her reason for her request that were she to see the girls at play it would so enliven her spirits with the reminiscences of early days as to tend to her recovery (G. Copway, 1851).”
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Though not as popular as baaga'adowewin (traditional Anishinaabe lacrosse), some Native folks are reclaiming the game of doubleball, bringing back home the beloved tradition that showcased Indigenous women’s skill and passion in sport.
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Image: Anishinaabe woman in a cloche hat, Parry Island, Ontario, 1928.
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ACKNOWLEDGING the Tradition of NATIVE WOMEN LACROSSE PLAYERS in the East during #WomensHistoryMonth:
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Lacrosse (or stickball, or racket, or "Little Brother of War," or "They Bump Hips," etc.) is thought of as a Native man's sport, and indeed, it was overwhelmingly men who played, though not exclusively in every community. Quite a few Eastern communities appeared to have female players too, whether in regular play (those women joining the men), in lighter social games (teams of men/males, teams of women/females facing off), or in female-player only games. In some cases women could have played more usually, while in others, women may have played only on selected occasions.
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In at least one Wabanaki tradition (Passamaquoddy), lacrosse was treated as a women's sport too, played by female players usually without men in attendance (W.W. Brown, 1889). Choctaw women too were noted to play the kabocca (stickball) game “among themselves (after the men have done) disputing with as much eagerness as the men…” (Capt. B. Romans, 1776). Wendat/Huron women and girls were noted to play lacrosse (N. Perrot, before 1718). Anishinaabe/Ojibwe women played baaga'adowewin ("the game of lacrosse") armed with their rackets aside their fellow male teammates (C. Copway, 1851), while another Eastern community in Indian Territory didn't require female players to use the rackets like their male teammates, instead throwing and catching the ball with their hands (possibly Sauk & Fox/Meskwaki or Shawnee, Dr. W. Jones, before 1902). Indeed some lacrosse games could be very social in nature, pinning teams of women against teams of men. And in the case of social games, the game wasn't as violent as it was usually played. However for those competitive games female players participated in, whether with men or not, all players were expected to do what was necessary to gain control of the ball. Lacrosse was (and still is) a contact sport in which players could be seriously injured - both teams doing all they could to hit their respective goals (unlike mainstream lacrosse today, many tribes used poles or hard targets, not nets, that needed to be struck with the ball to score a goal). In these contexts women lacrosse players were not unlike men lacrosse players, or other Native sportswomen competing in shinny, doubleball, races and the like... (Doubleball or "The Women’s Ball Game" discussed in the previous post). Exhibiting prowess in sports - speed, strength, skill - was an acceptable and welcomed trait of the feminine sphere in these Indigenous societies.
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Lacrosse remains a semi-continuing tradition for Native female players today, despite decades of Indigenous women being discouraged by both external and internal pressures (the history mentioned here unknown or worse, purposely suppressed). Now revived or claimed among Native female players, lacrosse today helps to heal and empower Indigenous girls and women as they navigate racial and sexual violence in a modern world (Roman Stubbs, 2019).
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Image: Woman from "Abenaki couple" (the Abenaki are part of the greater Wabanaki Peoples), early 18th century.
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