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Women's Role In Native American Culture

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Throughout history women have always played a vital role in the prosperity and growth of their community. It is important to understand just how essential women’s roles were in the expansion of America. Women’s roles varied depending on the era, their race, and their culture. Native American women were very important in their communities, their duties expanded much farther than just being mother’s to the tribe’s children. Native American women belonged to a culture that gave them respect and power. Traditionally Native American culture allowed women to have a sense of autonomy and equality. Native American women’s work was very much centered around the home, they were in charge of gathering materials and building homes for the tribe. Women were respected in their communities, they provided a feeling of strength and consistency in their tribes. However, due to colonization, women’s roles and lives changed throughout the …show more content…

By the 1630’s disease and epidemics pervaded most New England tribes. During this time period Europeans brought many different technologies and lifestyles with them. Thus, the effect of such exchanges was the arrival and spread of many diseases. Native Americans had not built immunities to the new diseases nor did they form any medicines to combat them. These epidemics greatly impacted the lives of Native American women because many fell victims to the diseases or their families were broken due to the casualties. Native American women and their tribes lost many loved ones because of the plagues that infested their lives. Other changes that occurred in the lives of native women were intermarriages with Europeans. Along with the everyday contact with Europeans, these intermarriages resulted in many natives adopting to European ways of life. The lives of native were influenced by European culture, they occupied a unique position between two

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The population of native american took a big impact from some of the diseases that were transported from the old world. Smallpox, measles, and malaria were just a couple of the common diseases that killed many native americans. The old world also faced a lot of deadly diseases, such as syphilis. These diseases decimated many populations in both worlds and even eliminated some native american

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1518 Words | 7 Pages

The different settlers in America had continued to down women as a gender, and make males more superior. As Perdue continues, she addresses how the power that Cherokee women held had began to plummet the more they were involved with Europeans. However, today there are still Cherokee women that stand strong, hold positions of power, and even are still respected as if it was the 18th

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As the Cherokee became more dependent on the trade goods provided by the Europeans, the importance of agriculture weakened while the influence of trade and warfare grew. This resulted in men’s power to grow within the Cherokee society at the cost of the women’s power. At the same time, the U.S. government made several attempts to implant Euro-American values onto the Cherokee. Perdue later explains how the U.S. government’s objective was to confine Cherokee women and limit their power to domestic affairs. At first glance, the Cherokee Nation accepted many of the Americans ideology and values.

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Native American population decreased drastically from European diseases such as smallpox, yellow fever, malaria, measles and, typhus. European diseases were fatal to the Natives because they no longer had the biological resistance to fight the diseases from the Old World due to their isolation (Kennedy and Cohen 15). The colonizers’ breath, blood, sweat, lice, and their livestock in 1492 unknowingly began the spread of these diseases throughout the New World (Taylor 42). Although minor illness to the colonizers, infections

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1404 Words | 6 Pages

Unlike the Europeans, the Native Americans had limited exposure to epidemics because of their isolated way of life and less dense populations. Smallpox and other diseases spread

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761 Words | 4 Pages

These people brought diseases that these native peoples didn’t have immunities to or even ways to treat these diseases with medication or other ways that were used. Examples of diseases that were spread are measles, influenza, whooping cough, small pox and mumps. These diseases soon turned into childhood diseases that were believed to have killed around ¼-½ of children before the age of 6 years old. Also because of these diseases lots of crops died that were important to the natives daily lives. All of this caused many problems and changes to the environment which in turn negatively affected these people.

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417 Words | 2 Pages

While reading about American history the thing that I found most appealing was the limited rights that women had during this era. Although women gave the early settlers longer life expectancy and brought hope to their future, women still were not considered equal to a man. Women were discriminated against and didn’t play an important role in early American history. Generally, women had fewer legal rights and career opportunity than men because they were considered weak and not able to perform certain tasks. Different women came from different ethnic backgrounds and were all created equal in the eyes of men.

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For women in colonial times things were difficult, and liberties were limited, they were expected to be the basis for the common colonial family, and therefore were often treated like servants. Women were placed on the lower scale of the social totem pole. However, how low they were depended upon the wealth of their family, or the color of their skin. Even through their many hardships colonial women overcame their limitations and succeeded in the new world, as what some people would call the backbone of colonial family’s and future America. Women’s role in colonial times varied greatly upon the social ranking of their family.

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According to historian Ellen Holmes Pearson “Most scholars agree that Native American women at the time of contact with Europeans had more authority and autonomy than did European women.” The Native American women most likely had more authority and autonomy than women all over the world at the time, and no one came close until the transition by New Zealand in 1893. Women had a grave impact to their societies, and their selves as beings were recognized as being essential to their

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For writing assignment one I discussed the Native Americans role during the colonial world, and how the divisions of power gradually led to the collapse of the Native American nations throughout the United States. For this paper I was asked to discuss the top five most significant or surprising factors. For me they were gender roles for eastern tribes, the gradual dependency on fur trades, and their use as pawns for the American Revolution, the death toll from the revolution and then lastly the American commissioner’s ideals of rights of conquest for land accommodations. Gender roles for eastern tribes came to me as a surprise, mainly because I never really thought about them. The fact that women held certain statuses because of the child barring, and were from whom

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524 Words | 3 Pages

Colonization lead to the separation of the sexes and the belief that man is superior to woman. Native American women were portrayed in popular media such as Westerns as inhuman, which sent a negative message about Native American women and all women. This excerpt describes the way that women were described, “rarely speaking or showing any emotion, these women were often depicted as nearer to animals than human beings, and their dehumanization was compounded by their depiction as beasts of burden or slaves to their owners- their husbands” (Anderson and Young 165). The colonization of Native Americans has had a lasting effect on the women and men, however the women seem to be underrepresented. “As a result of colonial policies, Indigenous women are overrepresented in recent statistical data on issues such as domestic violence, imprisonment, suicide and general poor health” (Anderson and Young 173).

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797 Words | 4 Pages

Since the Native Americans had never been exposed to these diseases, their immune system was literally unable to put up a fight to the disease, thus causing a huge epidemic. Families and their communities died

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651 Words | 3 Pages

In the early 20th century, Native Americans had suffered endless discrimination and persecution from the European settlers. Native tribes were being kicked out of their ancestral lands so the white man can live there. At times, Native Americans were killed because they had a dark skin tone and they believed in different gods than the Christian belief. By the 1900’s less than 300,000 Native Americans live in the United States. How would being a Native American woman during this time be more difficult that living as a Native or White man?

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Similarly, Indian girls were instructed in cooking, sewing, knitting, and cleaning, using foods, materials, and techniques that were out of place in Indian society.” (Moranian 253) These gender roles were the foundation of the white American family and society, and these values were crucial to U.S. domination of Native

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4876 Words | 20 Pages

Some portray them as savage, some whores or prostitute, and some see them as squaw, doing menial job. In every field whether it is academic, political, or popular the whites attempt to paint Native American cultures as patriarchal when they are not. So, Leslie Marmon Silko has taken up writings to reconstruct and redefine their lives from an insider’s point of view and reclaim their lost identities. This paper aims to study the true status of the Native American women in lights to Silko’s three texts – Ceremony, Storyteller, and Garden in the Dunes and thereby constrasting it with that of the status of the Whites Women and the Status of Native American men.

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