Readings 8/25/08

"The Squaw Drudge: A Prime Index of Savagism" by David D. Smits

This article looked at how colonizing people started to categorize the Native American/Indigenous population in certain ways in order to justify their actions in the Americas. They created the idea that Native men were lazy who made their wives virtual slaves to their needs. In doing this, they were able to create an undesirable attitude towards both Native men and Native women. The women in the European societies were considered ladies if they were dainty, submissive, dependent on males for survival and educated in fields only considered "feminine." Because Native women a lot of times were relatively independent (they were able to leave their husband at any point, for example, a luxury their European counterparts could never even imagine) and capable of sustaining their communities with the fruits of their labor the European men did not consider them to be the ideal type of woman. At the same time, they saw Native men as lazy and brutish, something associated with the lower classes.

According to the reading... "By projecting onto Indians those values and behavior patterns most scorned in themselves, Whites may have viewed warfare with Indians as both a purge of their own society's defects and the destruction of an obstacle to civilization." This would be spread through Europe in the form of stories from settlers/colonizers - stories about the women being forced to work long hours outside while the men sat by and did nothing, how their children ran amok and the entire population was "uncivilized". The fact they followed religions other than Christianity also gave the Europeans what they felt was enough justification for what they did do the Native populations.

"Indian Women as Cultural Mediators" by Clara Sue Kidwell

This reading looks at the stories our country tells about women such as Sacagawea and Pocahontas to see if there is any truth in the story, while also examining why it is that the history of the United States has numerous women in the position of mediator. Kidwell looks at the stories of Sacagawea, Pocahontas, Dona Marina, and Nancy Ward. Separating the story-book version from reality is not easy, because as Kidwell points out the women were not able to write down their own stories for us to examine in the present. They were either written about by men or their stories were spread by story-telling, both forms that leave room for exaggeration and selectivity. That is why we must take their stories with grains of salt in the present day, appreciating the role in history those women played while remembering that we do not know the whole story.

One thing Kidwell looks at is the reasoning behind why so many women played key roles in the history of the United States. Many of the women probably did not have choice in the roles they played; Sacagawea was sold to her abusive husband, and when she found out the rest of her family had perished she was left with no other choice but to stay with him in the expedition of Lewis and Clark. So while our stories tend to romanticize the idea that she chose to travel the country with two great explorers, the reality of the situation says something quite different. But, as Kidwell, there is no real way for us to know what the truth really was. One thing we do know: there were many situations where women acted as mediators, and their roles were integral in the relations between the different cultures.