The Europeans were on their voyage to find the route to Asia which they desperately wanted to find when they stumbled upon America and had their first encounters with the Native Americans. Their encounters and finding of America did not just affect them geographically and offer them new colonies to set-up. It meant they gained new insights into completely different cultures that were unlike any of the Europeans. At first, the Europeans viewed the Native Americans as ‘savages’ – as they seemed to view any new race of people as barbaric as they did not share the same languages or the same culture. The Europeans, however, found it of the upmost important to work out how the Native American tribes operated so that they could get close enough to convert them to the European ways. This meant that different European powers had different experiences, as every tribe differed in the way they were structured and had completely different cultures. This is indeed apparent with gender roles in tribes which all depended on how the tribe operated. In some ways – the Europeans and Native Americans had similar ideas to gender constructions and in other circumstances they had drastically different. However, there is no denying the Europeans thought of race differently and knew not to underestimate others after their encounter with Native Americans.
Most of the records we have acquired surrounding the set-up on colonies in Native America was wrote my white, European males. Therefore, it is important to remember that we cannot get an exact view on what is accurate, what is exaggerated and what is false. It also makes it difficult to get a full record of what jobs women performed as it is written from the male perspective – which means it is mostly trying to work out what jobs the males did not see the Indian men performed. From what we can tell, women were respected in a way they were not in Europe – which was hard to accept on the European front. Women were given more roles and worshipped in a way they were not in Europe. We do know that in most tribes’, women did the agriculture jobs and looked after the corn specifically. Each tribe decided whether they would be a matrilineal or patrilineal – which meant that if the community was matrilineal heritage would be traced through the mother. This was so different to European way of life where everything was done through the man and it was so important for bloodlines to be traced through the father by it going down with their last name. Helen C. Rountree tries to tackle the lack of evidence and sources on Indian women in her analysis “Powhatan Indian Women: The People Captain John Smith Barely Saw”. The Powhatan’s had a famous encounter with the English, but there is little wrote about women in their everyday life. Powhatan women seemed to do a lot of physical work and they oversaw everything within the village while the men were responsible for hunting, bringing food into the village while keeping intruders out. Rountree writes that “Powhatan women had to be physically strong and energetic to do their work, just as the men did.” This is because Powhatan women were viewed as equal to the men – especially in strength terms. Many European men acted as if they were happy with the gender roles in tribes’ such as the Iroquois to not anger the tribes’ while they were trying to be on good terms. However, European men could not shake their own constructed gender roles in countries such as England and France – where it was completely different to Native America. When the English developed colonies in Chesapeake, there was an ongoing issue in England regarding gender, with more women being vocal about gender relations than ever before. This was one of the reasons for them going over and setting up colonies – to attempt to restore some of their masculinity by showing that the can transform a full tribe and get them to fall into English line. Therefore, when they arrived and saw that women did jobs such as housebuilding, their masculinity took a hard hit. They had always seen everything regarding the outside and finance of the house as the man’s job and everything inside as the woman’s. Women jobs in Native America was one aspect of Native American culture that European men could not wrap their head around when they arrived – and they strived to change it when they took over power.
The fur trade is mostly written about from the male point of view however women were also very important in that. Many French traders married Native American women and most those who did marry Indian women ended up converting to their way of life by moving into their home and following their culture. This made some Indian women very wealthy, as it not only boosted trade but also increased agriculture. The Fur Trade helped introduce Indian women to trading and ended up helping their independence for a short while. Indian women were also important in trading as they looked after the food for their tribe, which was sometimes used for trading with the Europeans as they relied on the Indians to feed them. Sometimes they stole but they would also sometimes, to keep up good relations with the Indians, offer them things in return such as weapons and metal.
Neither the Indians or Europeans were aware that they followed a certain culture until being exposed to the others. Kathleen M. Brown discusses this thought, saying that “Identities as English or Indian were only partially formed at the beginning of this meeting of cultures: it required the presence of an “other” to crystalize self-conscious articulation of one’s own group identity.” The Europeans had no idea that anywhere would consider giving women jobs and treating them more like equals as that was not the way they had ever done things – while Native Americans were having trouble seeing what the issue was. Marriage and sex was different in Native American tribes compared to Europe – with a lot more freedom in relationships that was allowed in European relationships. Women had a lot more sexual freedom in Native America. There was sometimes a lot more women than men in certain tribes because of the loss of life in men due to battles and wars. This meant that many marriages were polygyny marriages – with men being married to more than one woman at a time. Sex was not seen as something that was restricted to marriage and was not seen as something for men either – as it was in Europe. Sex would not be discussed openly at that time in places like England therefore it would have been a shock to see women with so much sexual freedom. Women in Native America seemed to get much satisfaction of having the responsibility of looking after the tribe while also holding information about their tribes’ culture and roles. Therefore, Native American women were very beneficial to the English as the Europeans surveyed and became close to the Indian women to try and get intel on the tribe so that they could come up with ways to convert the Indians to European way of life. Clara Sue Kidwell wrote that “There is important Indian woman in virtually every major encounter between Europeans and Indians in the New World. As mistresses or wives, they counselled, translated, and guided white men who were entering new territory.” This meant that the Indian women did aide in the result of the Indians being wiped out and the little that was left was completely changed to European culture. Therefore, it is difficult to get the full picture when much of the sources we have are written by the European males – it is hard to get an idea of why the Native American women did this and their motives. They could have been forced to by the European men – who had weapons and were physically stronger. The European males romanticise Indian women in some sources into heroes that save them from capture – however there is no way to prove if this is accurate or if they were forced or had other motives. Thomas A. Foster discusses this regarding Pocahontas and John Smith. He argues that “scholars have long argued that the focus on her romantic relationship with Smith (which almost certainly didn’t happen) obscures the role that she played in securing diplomatic peace between the Powhatan and the English at a key moment of settlement for the Jamestown community.” Even though they became friendly with the colonists – Indian women were still weary of them and even seemed to cover up in front of them.
The missionaries that came over from Europe to Native America were motivated to find out everything about Native American culture – as it would be the only way they would be successful in their missions as the natives would not convert unless they felt some sort of trust towards the missionaries. Women prospered with the introduction of religion to Indian life – with the Jesuits taking well to Indian women, giving them a place to escape from advancing European men and showing them inspiring women such as Virgin Mary. Gail D. Macleitch discussed that “Christianity served as a vehicle for female empowerment as many Iroquois women and those inhabiting the western Great Lakes converted to this religion because it heightened their anatomy and social status.” Many Indian women were transformed into figures for the other females in their tribe to look up to and be inspired by – which is how they managed to get a lot of women involved in converting to Christianity. In some places, there was more women converts than men, with women taking their religion very seriously. The missionaries in all different European colonies made sure to treat the women with care and special respect as many gave their entire lives to the religion and made sure to introduce it to the generations ahead of them. This is especially apparent in Martha’s Vineyard – which the English settled in with the Wampanoag. In Martha’s Vineyard, they gave special meaning to roles that the Indian women already had, giving them meaning in a way that they might have not had before. James P. Ronda wrote that “Christianity attracted Indian women by honouring their traditional tasks, rewarding their special abilities, and offering them educational opportunities.” However, it seems that the English were promoting and encouraging the roles they thought were befitting for the women – such as traditional tasks of looking after the children, looking after the community and their husbands. The church also promoted that women forgive their husbands for any wrong they might have done, which appears as if they were trying to ensure there was a lesser equality in the colony. Religion was a good way for the Europeans to control Indian women without making it obvious and providing them for incentives so that they felt as if they were still important within their community.
Nevertheless, Indians were not as progressive as it is sometimes made out especially in certain tribes. Sometimes, the European and Indian men found that they had the same language about women and shared the same gender ideas. The Iroquois and Delaware tribes seemed to be the ones who had the most shared ideas with the Europeans. There are sources from Iroquois and Delaware speakers that show that they believed women should be working at home and looking after the household which was the normal belief in Europe at the time. Many Indian men and tribes spoke with gender metaphors, just as European men did, so that some of their insults were related to gender. Some tribes were also abusive to the women, and the arrival of the Europeans helped them to escape the abuse and with converting to Christianity they managed to acquire more say in their tribe. Susan Sleeper-Smith comments on the Ilini tribe, where “women were brutally punished for marital infidelity, and one Frenchman, a young observer named Pierre Deliette, described how an unfaithful wife was punished through gang rape.” There is also the argument that when the Europeans arrived and started to shake up the gender roles in Indian colonies, there was not a lot of argument from the Indian men, who started to settle into the new patriarchal structure that was developed with little argument. They gained new warfare and weapons through the Europeans, so at that point in time they had little resentment to the Europeans like the women did. As the women oversaw the corn and other food, they had a hard time with the Europeans stealing their food which angered them. This was happening while the men were getting better trade deals from the Europeans so they said little, while the Indian women were not taken seriously if they spoke up.
During many wars, it was apparent that one of the main ways the Indians fought was by taking European captives – normally white woman. In most records of how the Indians acted during wars with the Europeans – it normally describes them as being barbaric and savages. However, that is in the European white male records and it is common knowledge that they are normally exaggerated in a way to make the Europeans look respectable. On the other hand, European women’s’ descriptions of their Indian captives do not match that of the image European males established. The sources that are wrote first hand by the women describe their captives in a good light. In some women’s sources about being held captive, a European man would do the re-write which would make it sound as if the Indians were awful captors and complete savages. June Namias discusses in her book different accounts of women who, in some cases, owed their lives or children’s lives to the Indians. European women in the colonies did not get as involved in relations with the Indians as the European men did – they were kept to their house roles as they would have done in Europe and left the men to business. All tribes treated their captives differently, however, in European women sources it shows that the Indian men did not harm them, consoled them, fed them and looked after their children. This was both European men and women having a very similar experience with being captured but extremely different outcomes and reports on what happened. This is when it is important to realise there was a lot of negativity between European men and the Indians therefore the European men were going to extremely exaggerate many things to do with the Indians so that they seemed like the heroes that stopped the savages.
When Europeans first arrived in the Americas and had their first encounters with the Indians – racism was not an issue. Many of the Europeans thought that the Indians were just the colour they were because they were out in the sun a lot with the jobs they done and the temperatures. As the Europeans arrived and saw the Indians culture which was a lot less advanced than European culture – which had guns and metal. The Europeans looked down on the Indians as they saw them us less progressed and of a lower class. They also felt they could take advantage of them easily as they had no way of communicating with the Europeans properly as they had no one that spoke the same language. It seems that racism started to become more apparent after the amount of bloody wars that the Indians and Europeans had. The Europeans tried to have good relations with the Indians when they first arrived to try to convert them to their way of life, but after that did not work and they took the forceful way, they were no longer civil with the remaining Indians and gave them no choice but to convert to their way of life. It seems that this is where racism might have begun and spiralled into using Indians and Africans for slaves into what racism is in the modern world. The Europeans wanted rid of the Indians for good and wanted their land for themselves. However, the Indians were not fighting for that. They were fighting to protect themselves and possibly kill a few of the Europeans, however, they knew they had to keep a few of them around for the benefits of trade and as the Europeans had taught them a lot with warfare and trade. The Europeans also set up much stricter rules against European women marrying Indian men compared to the Natives with European men marrying Indian men. The Europeans also did not set up rules or prohibitions against European men marrying Indian women, which again shows their gender bias. Kathleen M. Brown discusses that: “Prohibitions on interracial marriages safeguarded white male access to white women, providing assurance that white female domesticity and sexuality would remain the preserve of white men.” The Europeans felt that they were superior to the Indians and they could have their women and their own however the Indians could not have theirs. This can be seen in racial history for the rest of modern history and this might have been where it first stemmed from.
Europeans were shocked when they arrived in America to find a completely different culture to any they had ever experienced, especially regarding gender and race. In Europe, they had completely constructed gender roles where women were left to very little tasks and were mostly hushed up. Subsequently, when Europeans arrived to see women with sexual freedom and completing jobs such as building houses – they were astounded and shocked. Europeans had come from cultures that were always built in a patriarchal structure whereas some tribes in America were built on either a matrilineal or patriarchal structure. They used the women to their advantage in many ways while they were working on converting the Indians, as the women had so much knowledge on their tribe and the culture of it. It is apparent that the Europeans voyage to the Americas did not change their gender thoughts – as when they returned women were still treated the same in Europe and one of their main goals in America was to culturally transform the Indians, even with their gender roles and views. It seems to me that even when the Europeans seemed to be showing the Indians kindness – in most cases it was just to keep up good relations for the short while until the Indians were vulnerable enough for them to take over their culture and lives. This is specifically accurate to Indian women, who were so taken aback by some of the things that the Europeans offered them with no idea that the Europeans had every intention of making the Indians gender roles the same to that of those in Europe after their take-over.