The Silent Story of Indigenous Women from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-first.
Breaking the Toxic Colonialist Cycle
(An opinion piece)
Screaming, running, captive, powerless. That is what became of indigenous women, from a powerful dynamic to no basic freedom over themselves. Freedom was a right they deserved; it is a right that should not be questioned, yet for indigenous women, it would appear to be a luxury they cannot afford. The suppression has created the disappearance of indigenous women, figuratively and literally, and with a lack of acknowledgment, the problem has only increased, thus the topic of conversation. It is the mission of this writer to remind people of who Native women once were and what has become of them due to colonial suppression, which is still relevant to this day. For this discussion, we will travel back in time to explore the ways in which Indian women were perceived and how the degradation of women occurred.
A vital part of this narrative is understanding the history of women, their status, and how they were viewed. The first woman that comes to mind is Pocasset Sachem Weetamoo, a true vision of a warrior Queen. An article titled: “ ‘As Potent A Prince as Any Around Her: Rethinking Weetamoo’s of the Pocasset and Native Female Leadership in Early America” brought back the truth of Weetamoo and her ability. Mary Rowlandson captive narrative is where the opinion of Weetamoo is formed in a negative light; she was seen as a “spiteful, vain antagonist,” but this article serves as a reminder that Weetamoo had earned the respect and loyalty of her people, similar to that of the “European systems of rank and gender, both of which operated under compatible assumptions that status and family connect could overcome the social limitations of gender” (Martino-Trutor, 2015 p.38) it was her status that prevented her gender from being an issue when it came to having her in power. At the time she was highly valued as both sides of the war wanted her, a man by the name of William Hubbard had tried convincing her to join the colonist cause; she gave him no answer. She was in charge of herself and her people, that is where her loyalty was and in return for that, the “loyalty of troops for Weetamoo was close to 300 men” in contrast to Prince Phillip who “brought barely 300” (Martino-Trutor, 2015 p.44) ; this shows the demand of power and respect others gave her.
Respect for women was not only reserved for women in leadership, but it was also for menstruation and motherhood. According to “Mother of All the Living,” when a girl got her menstrual, they would have a ceremony to celebrate her womanhood and teach her more tasks to help her contribute to the village. Eventually, they would become mothers, and as mothers, it was their rite of passage to cultivate “an organized household in which there was a community, care, food, and a place to sleep. What a mother provided her children was passed down through the family when she died…when her children died and her grandchildren” (Denial, 2019 p. 447), their presence had great value and respect. After giving birth, they were given a celebration for bringing new life and thanks for undertaking the responsibility. Part of the reason why the mothers were vital to tribes was that the creation stories of the Ojibwe often included a mother, like Mother Earth, and in order for Mother Earth to thrive and grow, it must be done through her children; therefore, women were held to the highest esteem so the life cycle may continue. The question to ask is, how did women go from leadership and triumphant mothers to broken souls?
“One woman, big with child, rushed into the church, clasping the alter and crying for mercy for herself and unborn babe. She was followed, and fell pierced with a dozen lances [...] the child was torn alive from the yet palpitating body of its mother, first plunged into the holy water to be baptized, and immediately its brains were dashed out against a wall.”
These are acts of horrific violence that were only added to the genocide of the Yuki and the venereal diseases these women faced, the separation from family, sodomization, and the prevention of reproduction. These basic human rights were stripped away from women, stealing their bodily autonomy, stealing their ability to lead, and their ability to celebrate womanhood and motherhood.
The violence did not cease over time. Indian women today face many hardships, although it may not be as publicly graphic or outwardly seen in blatant masses, these hardships are just as violent is the tragedies from above. It continued through the justification that when the Europeans arrived in America, it was assumed that any individuals on the new land had the same Eurocentric-patriarchal mentality. When arriving, they saw that it was on a level playing field, that the women were not treated as fragile and needed to be submissive. A way to get around this was the assimilation of the Native women in order to dominate over them; the way this happened was when the government added an addendum to the Dawes Act, which “declared all Native women marrying Euro-American Men had ‘de facto’ agreed to abandon their Native identity, including all their children” (Le May, 2018 p.6), which caused an incentive to settlers to marry these indigenous women in order to split them away from their land. The effects of this were that marriage offered no protection to the Native women, by the 1930’s there was an increase in wife abuse being reported and as these women were married the violent sexual acts were treated differently by the law and society. Society blamed the women, further alienating them from themselves and anyone around them. Marriage would nullify any complaints a wife had about her husband’s abuse as the marriage certificate was seen as a “consent” form. The violence against women traveled for decades and maintained its stamina through legalized means and behind closed doors in an effort to silence women even further.
Eventually, remembering where they came from, the women would escape and try to find some semblance of a better life. It is speculated by an informant for “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women” that they were “moving from abusive relationship to abusive relationship.” When able to break free from this cycle, this is where the significance of this topic truly hits home. In order to survive, Native women found themselves forced into prostitution, and this prostitution has cultivated a negative connotation with Native Women in which they are often sex trafficked and eventually murdered. It is through colonialism and sexual objectification that these women have found themselves stuck in these sickening situations, and it is a systemic issue. Now, the attention turns to how big of a problem this has become.
The start of this happens with the dismantling of the narrative for Weetamoo, while Rowlandson did it herself; historians speculate it happened simply because she didn’t understand the dynamic between the Native men and women compared to the patriarchal dynamic she lived through; it was deemed to be more of a cultural misunderstanding than defamation of character. A direct line of insult would come from William Hubbard, the same individual who hoped Weetamoo would join his cause. When he regarded the death of Weetamoo and Prince Phillip, he painted her as a villain and Phillip as a true warrior. He said that Phillip’s body was strong and “a Salvage and wild beast” along with his stature, bringing an impressive look of a “messenger of death,” giving Phillip a sliver of respect for the warrior that he was. When he wrote of Weetamoo and said she looked “tired and spent” and declared her death was a fitting end to her “wretched life” (Martino-Trutor, 2015 p.50), changing her story and narrative of power and excelling leadership to one of weakness and devaluing her existence; so much so that her story is rarely heard, thus begins the cycle of suppressing women.
When it came to the mothers, they could not be viewed as simply mothers. Instead, there was a misconception of indigenous women’s sexuality, they were viewed as “sexual beings free for the taking” by the looks of what they wore and how they were not “reserved” but more outspoken in their tribes. To the colonist, these mothers and their daughters were exotic, creating an environment of forced seduction, particularly in the beginning interactions between men and the Native Women. In a diary passage of Christopher Columbus’ associate, Michelle de Cuneo he explains :
“She being naked as is their custom, I conceived desire to take my pleasure. I wanted to put my desire to execution, but she was unwilling for me to do so, and treated me with her nails in such [ways] that I would have preferred never to have begun. But seeing this .. . I took a rope-end and thrashed her well, following which she produced such screaming and wailing as would cause you not to believe your ears. Finally, we reached an agreement such that, I can tell you, she seemed to have been raised in a veritable school of harlots” (33).
This passage exemplifies the nature of men’s desire toward indigenous women. However, when desire is not present, the only thing left is gender violence towards women. At a conference, Angela Davis’s address is as follows:
The Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition did a study of 105 Native American female prostitutes 92% of interviews had been raped, 84% were physically assaulted, and 72% suffered TBIs in prostitution. While the US has statistics on violence against Native Women, it does not include prostitution and sex trafficking as sexual violence. When these women were asked why they had turned to sexual acts for money to survive, they said because they had nothing else. They were slowly pushed into this corner by stripping the value women offered when it came to leadership, the value of motherhood, and taking their bodily autonomy away, and yet the acceptance of these violent acts is not allowed in statistics, despite the fact that the colonist is the one who corned them in the first place.
Furthermore, a report to the Minnesota Legislature discusses that despite the fact that only “1% of American Indian women and girls make up the state population from 2010 through 2018, 8% of all murdered women and girls in Minnesota were American Indian” (Gordon, 2020) nearly nothing has come from these numbers. Another study added to the Minnesota Legislature states, “2012 to 2020, 27 to 54 American Indian girls in Minnesota were missing in any given month.”(Gordon, 2020), yet what is the answer to help with this? Will it continue to fall on deaf ears? In 1930 there was a surge of violence towards native women in the home, 90 years later violence is occurring still. It appears that there is a direct correlation between colonization and historical trauma and the sexual objectification of these Native women and girls, and this correlation is the root of the problem, which has “led to systemic risk factors for experiencing violence among abused Indigenous women” (MMIW). Lives are still being paid with the actions of colonists over 400 years ago because nothing has been done to break the cycle of systemic abuse and hide the true narrative.
Native women deserve peace after all of this time; not only do they have to function under the lens of their race, but they are women, gender being automatically problematic. These were women who once stood powerfully on top of a hill like an eagle and were cherished because of their ability to give life and their ability to exemplify strength. We must remember the narrative of what women were, leaders and givers, and bring back a space in which they can have their freedom and live in the ways they used to, without fear of assault and defamation. The story of Weetamoo is necessary to show that the narrative has been abused and warped. It is necessary to reveal the strength these indigenous women had; they did not get put into this fragile place by themselves. This is their silent story, which, after all of its time, deserves to be heard, and it is time for the narrative to shift from colonial suppression to thriving Native women.