Date Awarded

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Department

History

Advisor

Karin Wulf

Committee Member

Leisa Meyer

Committee Member

Guillaume Aubert

Abstract

"Feminized Farmers: Native American Views of English Colonists in the Virginia Chesapeake 1607-1623" This paper argues that Native Americans in the Chesapeake viewed the English men as feminine because of English male agriculture labor. The written records of the Jamestown settlers reveal what English colonists thought of the Native Americans. But the Native Americans left no written record of their views of the English. This paper seeks to uncover the Native American view the English colonists who established Jamestown from 1607-1623. By using the English written accounts to track the actions of the English, we can understand what the local Native Americans saw the English doing. For example, the writings of John Smith or William Strachey reveal not only English opinions, but a record of English actions—actions local Native people observed and used to draw conclusions about their new English neighbors. of particular importance was English men’s agricultural labor. In many Native societies, including those around Jamestown, women performed agriculture labor. This labor and the food it produced was closely associated with women and femininity. Similarities in Native and English farming practices allowed Native Americans to draw direct parallels between Native women’s and English men’s labor. By examining how feminized the English colonists appeared and how Native Americans responded to the feminized Englishmen, this paper reveals a Native view of the first permanent English North American colony and its inhabitants. ““Inconvenienced in the accustomed manner”: Menstruation in the Eighteenth-Century Native Southeast” The historiography of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creek nations states that during the eighteenth century, Native American women practiced menstrual seclusion. However, women traveled throughout the Southeast, removing themselves from the physical space of the menstrual seclusion house meaning they could not have practiced menstrual seclusion. Tracing these traveling, menstruating women reveals a new view of Southeastern Native American women's menstruation practices. In this paper menstruation is framed as a physical practice dictated by culture. Therefore the fact that not all women practiced menstrual seclusion reveals something about Native culture as well as about the actions of Native women.

DOI

http://doi.org/10.21220/S2QG6P

Rights

© The Author

Available for download on Wednesday, September 27, 2028

Included in

History Commons

Share

COinS