Native American Women in the Late 19th Century

SS 360-03: American Women

Native American Women in the late 19th Century 

 American pioneers had started migrating into Indian Territory and over took the Great Plains.  The pioneers shared on basic premise:  Indians would have to be removed to make way for new settlers.  White settlers regarded themselves as the superior civilization and saw the Native Americans as savages. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 342 ).

Native American women in the late 19th century lives were affected by societal changes.   The white settlers who were migrating into the Indian Territory changed their lives.  They tried to Americanize the Native Americans by taking their daughters away and sending them to boarding schools to instill white values and to make them less a savage.  (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 342).

Federal forces moved full force against the western tribes to gain control over the Great Plains. Native Americans raided the encroaching settlers, which provoked military retaliation.  This shortly escalated into a series of wars that wore away at the native unity and resources.  Bands of Native Americans who resisted pacification were regarded as hostiles.  These bands of warriors where not only the men in the tribes, but also women and children. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 342).  Women with children on their backs were gunned down.  Hunters and soldiers with high-powered rifles had decimated buffalo herds, which severely affected the Native American’s way of life.  The Native Americans became virtual prisoners on the reservations that were designed to protect them from the white settlers.  The Native Americans were unable to support themselves by farming or hunting and they had no other choice but to become dependant on the American Government to dole out food and clothing.  Often the Federal Agents who where supposed to help them were often embezzling as much as they dispensed.  Native American women, who where used to gathering and preparing food, had to stand in long lines waiting for rations that frequently never came. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 343).

U.S. Policy forced native children into government run boarding schools to be forcefully “civilized” and re-educated in the values and ways of dominate American culture. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 343). Several thousand children per year were removed from their parents control and were sent to the boarding schools, where they were made to stop dressing, speaking, thinking and believing “like Indians”. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 343).  Girls forcible reeducation was regarded as crucial to cultural transformation of the native population.   Their integration into American culture consisted of training in menial occupations and in American standards of domesticity.  Basically they were being trained to be servants in the homes of nearby white families. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 343).

The government felt that these programs were to save the child by destroying the Indian.  Repeated and harsh punishments were given to the girls as well as boys who refused to give up their Indian ways. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 343).  Parents and tribal leaders complained and protested about the brutality of this Americanization, but they could not stop it. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 344).

Many Native American women were able to acquire English literacy and other useful skills in the boarding school system.  Many worked in reservation agencies and many became teachers. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 344 – p. 345). A few women such as Susan and Susette La Fleshce  became public advocates for their people.   Susette was a writer and speaker on behalf of Indian causes and Susan became the first white trained native woman physician and served her people as a physician and political leader for many years. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 345).

  Protests against the corruptions of the reservation system led to congressional passage of the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887, which divided reservation land into allotments for individual native families.  The system by no means ended the native peoples misery.  Land that was not very fertile meant that Native American families could not farm the land and support themselves, and where the land was fertile and could be farmed productively, whites managed to gain control of those lands. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 345 – p. 347).

The allotment program deepened the dependency of Indian women on their men, which followed the pattern of white society.  If women chose to divorce their husbands they risked losing economic sources because the men where now the heads of the household.   Their beliefs that women where the heart of the family was being torn apart. (DuBois & Dumenil, 2005, p. 347).

Of all the women in the late 19th century, the Native American women had it the hardest.  In the beginning of the 19th century, they had the most freedom of all the women in this time period.  By the late 19th century, all of those freedoms where pretty much taken away and the Native American women were being forced to live like “white” society.  This meant that they were no longer the head of the household and they had no other choice then to be dependant on their husbands for everything.

  
References

DuBois, Ellen Carol  & Dumenil, Lynn  (2005). Through Women's Eyes An American History with Documents. Boston, MA: Bedford /St Martin's.