Women of the Great Plains
When the United States was taking shape a nation, many events took place, and they played an important role in defining the country in different ways. One theme that comes up is the role women played in the development of America as a nation. For long, the society has been focusing on the role of men from different races and ethnicities in the development of America. The women of the Great Plains are among those that the American society had failed to recognize on many fronts, including their lives before America started to become a great nation in the mid-nineteenth century. These women lived between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains horizontally and between Arctic Circle and Mexico vertically, where the land is
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Barbie provides the example of Sacagawea, who is an idealized American Indian Woman of the early nineteenth century (60). According to Barbie, although Sacagawea is one of the most famous American Indian woman, who is recognized across America and even honored by her image being put on the dollars, there is little information about her. There are questions as to how she became that popular yet there is nothing much about her (60). However, there are suggestions that the reason she became popular was that she guided explorers through the Great Plains. Another woman considered a myth to some extent is Naturist Sakina 's who was married to a French man. According to Carter, Sakina 's ' history is unique because she was married to a non-native American, which was a rare union at that time (567). Historical journals about her assert that she was skilled, knowledgeable, and with an energetic personality that attracted many people. These assertions are purely based on the accounts of explorers that are not necessarily true or are
Juliana Barr’s book, Peace Came in the Form of a Women: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands. Dr. Barr, professor of history at Duke University-specializes in women’s role in American history. Peace Came in the Form of A Women, is an examination on the role of gender and kinship in the Texas territory during the colonial period. An important part of her book is Spanish settlers and slavery in their relationship with Natives in the region. Even though her book clearly places political, economic, and military power in the hands of Natives in the Texas borderland, her book details Spanish attempts to wrestle that power away from indigenous people through forced captivity of native women. For example, Dr, Barr wrote, “In varying diplomatic strategies, women were sometimes pawns, sometimes agents.” To put it another way, women were an important part of Apache, Wichita, and Comanche culture and Spanish settlers attempted to exploit
When you open up a book and read about the Lewis and Clark expedition, it is likely that you are going to read about a woman named Sacagawea. But who exactly is Sacagawea? In about 1788, Sacagawea was born in the Lemhi-River Valley in present day Idaho. For the following twelve years, she grew up as a Shoshone child. Although everyone got along with each other, every person in the community had a responsibility. Children were expected to work hard and taught from a very young age to be hospitable. They catered to absolutely everyone, and this was a well-known trait for most of the Shoshones. Most woman grew up and had children by the time they reached the age of twenty- such was the expectation of most Shoshone woman. However, at the age of twelve, Sacagawea, along with her brother, sister and mother were captured by the Hidatsa tribe. This tribe had the opposite reputation as the Shoshones, being known as cold people. The way Sacagawea, as well as many other young girls, does prove the accusation. Sacagawea became isolated in her new tribe, mainly due to her dreams of becoming more than just a mother.
Sonneborn, Liz. A to Z of Native American Women. New York: Facts on File, 1998.
Sacagawea, or also referred to as Sacagawea with a “g” or Sacakawea with a “k”, is known for her history in the Lewis and Clark expedition.(Sacajawea) She was born in Lemhi Mountains, which is now called Idaho, in 1788. She was the daughter of the Chief of the Indian Tribe, Shoshone. When she was 12 years old in 1800, she was kidnapped by the Hidasta Indian Tribe and taken to North Dakota. The Hidasta Indians also took several others along with her, and raided her Tribe from their stuff, killing a few people. A year after her arrival she was bought or gambled by a French-Canadian fur trapper, Toussaint Charbonneau, he made her his wife along with all his other “wives”. When she was 16, in 1804, she had gotten pregnant. By that time Lewis and Clark were setting up camp for the winter in Fort Mandan and had hired her husband as a translator. They later learned that Sacagawea spoke Shoshone and Hidasta, so they then asked her to join them, and she gladly accepted. “The soil as you leave the heights of the mountains becomes gradually more fertile. the land through which we passed this evening is of an excellent quality tho very broken, it is a dark grey soil” (quotes Lewis as he travels through Idaho Country.)
Significantly, Welch deconstructs the myth that Plains Indian women were just slaves and beasts of burden and presents them as fully rounded women, women who were crucial to the survival of the tribal community. In fact, it is the women who perform the day-to-day duties and rituals that enable cultural survival for the tribes of...
The small community of Hallowell, Maine was no different than any other community in any part of the new nation – the goals were the same – to survive and prosper. Life in the frontier was hard, and the settlement near the Kennebec Valley was no different than what the pioneers in the west faced. We hear many stories about the forefathers of our country and the roles they played in the early days but we don’t hear much about the accomplishments of the women behind those men and how they contributed to the success of the communities they settled in. Thanks to Martha Ballard and the diary that she kept for 27 years from 1785-1812, we get a glimpse into...
Throughout history, women have rarely been recognized for their contributions that have impacted the world. Sacagawea, a young native american girl, had a rough start in life by being kidnapped and sold at a young age. During the Lewis and Clark expedition, Sacagawea acted as both their guide and translator. Lewis and Clark were saved countless times with the use of Sacagawea’s knowledge and survival skills. Sacagawea was an important women in American History because without her the Lewis and Clark expedition would have failed.
Women In the Progressive Era In today’s times, women are more equal to men than they ever have been, even though differences like the wage gap exist. However, the rights of women have come a long way since, even as little as a hundred years ago. How is this possible? Women have fought – and won – against the inequalities that they have faced.
Women’s study clubs became popular during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many of these organizations are still prospering today in some form. Women’s clubs focused on enriching their members intellectually through the learning and understanding of different cultures from around the world. The motto for the Study Club of Fargo, “To be rather than to seem,” embodies the objective of their club. Every member should strive to be more than her current state and every member has the ability and opportunity to grow and develop beyond her formal education. The Fargo Fortnightly Club and the Women’s Club of Fargo had similar objectives in which they wanted their members to focus on their “intellectual advancement” and “awaken…interest in literature, and in topics of general information and social concern.” Study clubs offered women intellectual stimulating social experiences that forged a path for female empowerment, activism and higher education.
Jamestown, Virginia, is a crucial source of legends about the United States. Pocahontas, a daughter of an Indian werowance married an Englishman named John Rolfe and changed her name to Rebecca. In her article, “Gender Frontier”, Kathleen Brown underscores gender role and responsibility in both Native American and English settlers. Gender frontier is the meeting of two or more culturally specific system of knowledge about gender and nature. She also stresses the duties that they played in their societies prior to the arrival of the English people in the early colony in Virginia. Brown describes the difference values between Europeans and Native Americans in regards to what women and men should and should not do and the complex progression of
Nothing simply begins. Everything needs something else in order to develop and live continuously. Fire needs wood to burn, water needs heat to boil, and the women’s right movement needed abolition to begin the real fight. The women’s rights movement of the nineteenth century emerged out of abolition activism because it was not until after abolitionist groups formed and began fighting slavery that women began to realize they had no rights themselves and began their own fight.
Native Americans were known to be indigenous people because they were always settling in particular regions, so they were known as natives to the lands of America. Later on, Native Americans were known as American Indians. The Native Americans got their name from the first explorer of America, named Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus thought that he reached the Indies when he first came to America and so he decided to call the group native residents or “people of India” (Schaefer). Some of the Indian groups are The Cherokees, Navajos, Latin American Indians, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Blackfeet, Iroquois and Pueblo (Schaefer). There are many cultures that are related to Native Americans, but today I will discuss only one which is the Cherokee
Kugel, Rebecca, and Lucy Eldersveld Murphy. Native women's history in eastern North America before 1900: a guide to research and writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.
Women in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had to follow the common role presented to them by society. This role can be summed up by what historians call the “cult of domesticity”. The McGuffey Readers does a successful job at illustrating the women’s role in society. Women that took part in the overland trail as described in “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey” had to try to follow these roles while facing many challenges that made it very difficult to do so.
In the 1960’s women were still seen as trophies and were beginning to be accepted into the work industry. They were still homemakers, raised the family, and made sure their husbands were happy. That was the social norms for women during that time period. They were not held to high work expectations like men were. But something amazing happened that would change women 's lives for centuries; it was the 1970’s. The 60’s put the equality movement in motion but 70’s was a time of reform where women were finally able to control their own paths. Not only was the 70’s a historical marker for the fiftieth anniversary for women suffrage, it was also a marker for the drastic change of different social norms, the changes of the American Dream, and the