Cherokee – Popular Politics in Early America

October 17, 2013

An Expansion of Women's History

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This past week, we read Theda Perdue’s Cherokee Women. I found it very interesting because I have not read many direct accounts of Native American life and society structure, and unsurprisingly ones I have read tended to focus on men. As Michael Lameroux points out in his post, this book fits into what I have seen from a few other books in my history classes in the past year or so. For example, last year I read Woody Holton’s Abigail Adams, which focused on how John Adams’ wife Abigail took an active and often equal role in their marriage. I also read Maya Jasanoff’s Liberty’s Exiles, which spent a good deal of time on Molly Brant, a woman of the Mohawk tribe who wielded great power in her community during the Revolutionary era, in great part due to her romantic relationship with the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs. However, those books focused on women of the upper echelons of their respective societies, and also ones who likely would not have had as much power were it not for their husbands’ positions. Perdue’s book, on the other hand, exposes the importance of the roles of a wider swath of Cherokee women.

Perdue begins by establishing that the Cherokee did have defined gender roles, which she describes as “theoretically rigid” but in reality not so, due to men’s propensity to help. Women’s duties included agricultural chores, which seems to have been typical of native societies who depended heavily on crops. (18) Another example of a similarly structured society is that of many western African cultures, where agricultural tasks were similarly seen as women’s work to the point that men who participated were lesser than their peers. However, Perdue makes it clear that things were much more fluid among the Cherokee, pointing out that men were often expected to help in these agricultural duties rather than discouraged. Perdue also points out the important role of the menstrual cycle in Cherokee society. Cherokee women derived power from the menstrual cycle as it was so tied to pregnancy and childbirth. Perdue’s account of the myth of the “stone man” shows that this reverence for women’s menstruation was a deep-rooted part of Cherokee culture.

If I had one issue with the book, it is that I am a bit worried about the primary source material Perdue uses to make these claims. In the introduction, Perdue outlines the difficulties of finding reliable primary source material on Native American women, noting that many of the early accounts of Native American life come from Europeans who lacked context for what they saw and likely misinterpreted a lot. That, combined with the fact that historians have neglected women in general until relatively recently, makes this a difficult subject to research. However, after the introduction, Perdue does not remark much on those concerns. I think that it is difficult to make definitive claims with such limited source material, and believe Perdue should have done more to justify why her sources were worthwhile and good enough to back up her claims.

October 17, 2013

"Hear that, Ed? Bears. Now you're putting the whole station in jeopardy."

As both Ian and AJ have commented, this book shocked my preconceived perception about Cherokee women. I, too, began this book with the notion that women maintained a submissive role to the men in Cherokee society as they did in European societies. A combination of menstrual power, farming techniques, and the ability to birth children, positioned women atop the gender ladder in Cherokee society. In conjunction with Ian’s claim, Perdue even goes so far as to say women were dangerous because they maintained the ability to bring about unknown change (34). Furthermore, Perdue discusses those Cherokees who crossed the traditional gender roles. As I read her description of the events, I came to the same conclusion as Perdue. Men who farmed were not taken seriously because they could neither fight nor bear a child, yet women who proved victorious on the battlefield showed their power to be proficient in nearly all aspects of life important to the Cherokees. Another aspect of the Cherokee society that Perdue brings up concerns the opposite of the classic Disney portrayal of Native Americans. Hunting was not nearly as important to the tribe as I anticipated it would be; however, farming various foods, especially corn, provided most of the tribe’s sustenance. This dependence on farming further elevated the status of women.

The concept of marriages in Cherokee culture also varied significantly from European marriages. Although the two cultures were similar in the reverence for childbearing ability, Cherokee women were revered for this ability and they derived much of their power from it (55). Perdue’s description of infidelity astonished me. As she states, married women were not given complete freedom to intermingle with other men; however, the attitude was drastically different than if a man cheated on a woman. Part of this attitude change derived from the lack of support men had to tell on their wives. In Cherokee culture, according to Perdue, it seemed in the man’s best interest to never speak of his wife’s infidelity. Additionally, when a man did decide to take action, an implausible experiment was the only way to punish his wife (reviving a dead fly and burrowing the fly in the woman’s body).

I wasn’t a big fan of the rest of Perdue’s book. Once she got away from the initial information about Cherokees (maybe I liked it because it was new and unique), Perdue describes the Indian encounters with Americans in extreme detail. Because Cherokee women adopted much different roles and lost much of their power due to this American invasion, I think the book loses some of its mystique during the chronicles of Cherokee maltreatment. Cherokee women adopted many western characteristics, such as religious beliefs and domestic roles. Interestingly though, the United States initially sought to maintain somewhat peaceful relations with the Cherokees and respected many of their customs, laws, and traditions. At least during Washington’s presidency, the overall American goal was to coexist with the Cherokees in a symbiotic relationship. As Perdue points out, Washington’s ideas severely hurt women because the American view of women was drastically different than the Cherokee. Washington didn’t even include women in his address to the Cherokee chief (112). Unfortunately for women, the American perception eventually became more of the norm within Cherokee culture and women’s power diminished severely as did the Cherokee nation itself.

October 17, 2013

My Kind of Women

This week’s reading was centered on Cherokee Women and their role within Native American society. Theda Purdue’s “Cherokee Women” is the first piece regarding Native Americans (specifically the Cherokee Tribe) I have ever seen that serves as a gender study, truly making this piece one of a kind. Echoing the statements made by both AJ and Ian, this book presents an often ignored aspect of American history as it not only tells the story of a group of women but women who make up one of the “minority” groups of the United States at this time. Now when I say minority group I mean a group of people that to this day continues to be treated as second class citizens that throughout American history has constantly received the short end of the stick. Having a small bit of knowledge regarding Cherokee tribal life (not necessarily women in the Cherokee tribe) I found myself constantly intrigued by the accounts demonstrating the power of women and the respect that they garnered within the tribe. This account more specifically shows that women were the backbone of tribes as they controlled property and dictated how family life would take place, meaning they in many ways decided where the family lived.

“Women in the United States” (regardless of where or how they lived) is a category of history that I believe men in particular today pay little attention to due to false information being presented due to the state of women in Europe. AJ and Ian’s comments regarding their thoughts of women in early America doing what their husbands told them and raising the children prove this point (I think at least). So often we forget the significant roles women such as Abigail Adams and Martha Washington played in influencing their husband’s policy or putting their minds at ease regarding an issue. David McCullough’s book John Adams provides more insight to the role of Mrs. Adams in her husband’s life; but that is a blog for another day. Ultimately, what I am trying to show by this little tangent is that this view of women simply remaining quiet and doing as they were told is not true that many men have is simply untrue. This is not to say though that all women with European origin were outspoken voices.

Cherokee women simply are “persistent” according to Purdue and I cannot think of a better world to describe these women she focuses her work on. Despite the numerous changes the Cherokee tribe has experienced over the years due to white people expansion out west women have always remained a force in the community. Even when it appears that whites desire to lessen the role of the Cherokee Women, these women find a way to hold on to some sort of power/control. Ian comments on this specifically in his blog but the way in which women ran family life simply is fascinating I feel. Their ability to call the shots regarding if a sick child should be abandoned or if they wanted a divorce from a husband (a power men and women in the Cherokee tribe shared) was unheard of in many cultures across the world. Today, seeing the power women in the tribe had back in the 18^th, 19^th, and even early 20^th Century it becomes obvious to me why white men tried to lessen the role of the Cherokee Woman as soon as they possibly could; if white men removed Cherokee women from tribal roles, their own wives would not get ideas of amassing some degree of power. Also by removing women (the backbone of tribal life) from dealings with the white men it becomes simpler I feel to take advantage of the Cherokee due to the men not knowing how to trade like the woman could. Simply put these woman, who weren’t afraid to take charge, ran the show in Cherokee tribes.

October 17, 2013

Cherokee Balancing Act

In Cherokee Women, Theda Perdue presents the story of a people which has received scant coverage in recent writing: Native women. Perdue asserts that recent literature regarding Native cultures has skipped over the female population because it assumed that since women were not prevalent among Native sources then they did not contribute much to Native society. Perdue counters that this primary source absence is due to men controlling all the documents and literature in society so that women were victims of neglect in respect to being mentioned. One of Perdue’s overarching arguments, however, is that men and women cooperate to create a balancing system between their roles and beliefs in society.

As Perdue states early on, “women balanced men just as summer balanced winter.” This indicates how women and men were similar in that they occupied powerful roles in society but ones that were separate so that they would not intrude or disturb each other. Native Americans like virtually all other civilizations at the time imposed gender norms on their people which held that men engaged in war and hunted while women stayed at home and farmed the land to nourish their family. This explanation implies a semblance of equality between the sexes but it neglects to mention what Ian and AJ have both addressed- women enjoyed an almost dominating role over men because they were connected to, among other things: corn, babies and the home. As I will show, women could cross into various spheres. They both made the apt claim that women, unlike in most Western societies, held the capacity to wield substantial power over men and engage in behavior men may not have found possible. I also agree with AJ’s assertion that the work “distanced itself from other reads by presenting it in a manner that makes it manageable to the average history reader.” Perdue definitely organizes her work in a very categorical method, outlining the basics of a situation then delving into the specifics of the topic as a segue into the next topic.

The men and women in society saw gender as “an affirmation of cosmic order and balance” so that if they did not fill their own roles the society would not function correctly or to its potential. This is shown in the Cherokees’ reaction to men who attempted to fill the position of women, resulting in joking and being compared to bears, a sign of ineptitude and incongruence. Women, on the other hand, were afforded the ability to alter their identity into men. Women who became warriors were seen as particularly powerful because they overcame their innate weakness and the limitations traditionally ascribed to females. Such women “possessed extraordinary power: through war and menstruation she had male and female contact with blood.” Women were elevated into supreme positions as War Women and beloved women, these positions according them the power to live and interact in any circle of society, whether it be farming, fighting, birthing children, or maintaining the home. This balance between men and women can thus be seen as a system of women exercising much influence in daily life, in spite, of their absence from the period’s primary sources.

October 16, 2013

The Power of the Cherokee Women

Theda Purdue’s “Cherokee Women” is a piece that asserts a somewhat unheard of view regarding the power of women during colonial times. Radically different from the colonial/European view of the subservience of women, Cherokee females actually possessed a significant matrix of power within their society. One abstract way in which Cherokee women possessed power over the rest of their culture was during menstruation (30). Cherokee’s viewed menstrual blood as that of an unborn child, which could bring about unknown change in society. They feared this change because they did not know whether it would be good or bad, making the unknown their true tormentor (34).

With the common European and colonial portrayal of women in mind, I was shocked to read about women possessing this type of power within society. At first I thought it might just be an abnormality but, as I read further, Purdue asserts more claims regarding the power of Cherokee women. They alone had the right to abandon a new born if it was sickly, if anyone else did then it would be constituted as murder (33). To really cap it all off, Purdue quotes an eighteenth century trader named Alexander Longe which says “I have this to say that the women rules the roost and wears the breeches and sometimes will beat their husbands within an inch of their lives” (45). This statement alone encompasses the entirety that was Women’s power in the Cherokee nation. They were not subservient to men but instead, a balancing factor, with both genders performing their duties as needed to better the tribe as a whole. Unfortunately for the Cherokee women, as Europeans took more of a foothold within the American lands these equal rights began to shift into more of a reflection of European culture. Cherokee women lost their right to actively participate in government, farm, and have that same power they had before European arrival.

As there have not been any other posts this week to respond to, I would like to take this time to comment on how Perdue’s piece compliments my own research on the Cherokee nation. Her description of the Cherokee’s adoption of a republican directly corresponds to efforts of the people to show themselves as cultured in an attempt to avoid removal. This same idea connects to the alteration of women’s power within the tribe, as this shift is simply another way in which the Cherokee people hoped to portray themselves as peaceful and sophisticated individuals, rather than the savages that some whites coined them as. Throughout the beginning to mid nineteenth century, the Cherokee openly expressed these changes within their own newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix, in what could be viewed as a plea to both the United States Government and the rest of the nation to cease their efforts in removal. It is clear how important this land was to the people, as they were willing to radically alter their own customs to conform to white standards in order to maintain their place in the country. Unfortunately, the very people who spurred these publicized efforts into existence ended up signing over the Cherokee land to the United States, disregarding the will of the rest of the tribe for what they viewed as a lost effort.