972 



WOMEN 



[B. A. E. 



treatment, they being industrious, frugal, 

 careful, loving, and affectionate." 



According to Smith, among the In- 

 dians of Virginia, while the men devoted 

 their time and energy to fishing, hunting, 

 warfare, and to other manly exercises 

 out of doors, within the lodge they were 

 often idle, for here the women and chil- 

 dren performed the larger share of the 

 work. The women made mats for their 

 own use as well as for trade and ex- 

 change, also baskets, mortars, and pes- 

 tles; planted and gathered the corn and 

 other vegetables; prepared and pounded 

 the corn to obtain meal for their bread, 

 and did all the cooking; cut and brought 

 all the wood used for fuel, and with the 

 help of the children fetched the water 

 used in the lodge. Thus, the women 

 were obliged in performing their duties 

 to bear all kinds of burdens; but they 

 willingly attended to their tasks at their 

 own time and convenience, and were not 

 driven like slaves to do their duty. The 

 descent of blood was traced through the 

 mother. The class of women whom 

 Smith calls "trading girls" affected a 

 peculiar tonsure that differed from that 

 of all other women, to prevent mistakes, 

 as the Indians were as solicitous as Cau- 

 casians to keep their wives to themselves. 



Lawson (Hist. Car., 1866) says that a 

 woman with a large number of children 

 and with no husband to help support her 

 and them, was assisted by the young men 

 in planting, reaping, and in doing what- 

 ever she was incapable of performing her- 

 self. He says also that they eulogized a 

 great man by citing the fact that he had 

 "a great many beautiful wives and chil- 

 dren, esteemed the greatest blessings 

 amongst these savages." It would thus 

 appear that the North Carolina native 

 woman was not the drudge and slave of 

 her husband or men of her tribe. Con- 

 cerning people of the same general re- 

 gion, Bartram (Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc, 

 III, pt. 1, 31, 1853) says that among the 

 Cherokee and the Creeks scarcely a third 

 as many women as men were seen at work 

 in their fields. De Soto found in 1540 a 

 woman whom he styled a queen ruling 

 in royal state a tribe on the Savannah r. , 

 indicating that woman at that early pe- 

 riod was held in high esteem among these 

 people. 



From what has been said it is evident 

 that the authority possessed by the Indian 

 husband over his wife or wives was far 

 from being as absolute as represented by 

 careless observers, and there is certainly 

 no ground for saying that the Indians 

 generally kept their women in a condi- 

 tion of absolute subjection. The avail- 

 able data show that while the married 

 woman, because of her status as such, 

 became a member of her husband's house- 



hold and owed him certain important du- 

 ties and obligations, she enjoyed a large 

 measure of independence and was treated 

 with great consideration and deference, 

 and had a marked influence over her hus- 

 band. Of course, various tribes had dif- 

 ferent conditions to face and possessed 

 different institutions, and so it happens 

 that in some tribes the wife was the equal 

 of her husband, and in others she was his 

 superior in many things, as among the 

 Iroquois and tribes similarly organized. 

 In most, if not in all, the highly or- 

 ganized tribes, the woman was the sole 

 master of her own body. Her husband 

 or lover, as the case may be, acquired 

 marital control over her person by her 

 own consent or by that of her family or 

 clan elders. This respect for the per- 

 son of the native woman was equally 

 shared by captive alien women. Mrs 

 Mary Rowlandson, the wife of a clergy- 

 man, and a captive in 1676 for 12 weeks 

 among the fierce Narraganset, bears ex- 

 cellent witness to this fact. She wrote: 

 "I have been in the midst of those roar- 

 ing lions, and savage bears, that feared 

 neither God, nor man, nor the devil, by 

 day and by night, alone, and in com- 

 pany; sleeping, all sorts together, and 

 not one of them ever offered the least 

 abuse or unchastity to me in word or in 

 action." Roger Williams, with reference 

 to another subject, brings this same re- 

 spect for woman to view ; he wrote: "So 

 did never the Lord Jesus bring any unto 

 his most pure worship, for he abhors, as 

 all men, yea, the very Indians, an un- 

 willing spouse to enter into forced rela- 

 tions" (R. I. Hist. Tract, 1st ser., 14, p. 

 15). At a later day, and in the face of 

 circumstances adverse to the Indiarte, 

 Gen. James Clinton, who commanded 

 the New York division in the Sullivan 

 expedition in 1779 against the hostile 

 Iroquois, paid his enemies the tribute of 

 a soldier by writing in April 1779, to 

 Colonel Van Schaick, then leading the 

 troops against the Onondaga, the follow- 

 ing terse compliment: "Bad as the sav- 

 ages are, they never violate the chastity 

 of any woman, their prisoners." How- 

 ever, there were cases in various tribes 

 of violation of women, but the guilty 

 men were regarded with horror and aver- 

 sion. The culprits, if apprehended, were 

 punished by the kindred of the woman, 

 if single, and by her husband and his 

 friends, if married. Among the Sioux 

 and the Yuchi, men who made a practice 

 of seduction were in grave bodily danger 

 from the aggrieved women and girls, 

 and the resort by the latter to extreme 

 measures was sanctioned by public opin- 

 ion as properly avenging a gross violation 

 of woman's inalienable right — the con- 

 trol of her own body. The dower or 



