A History of Indigenous Women with Lily Gladstone: Ep 19 of Crash Course Native American History

Key Concepts

• Matriarchal Societies: Social systems where women hold primary power, authority, and decision-making roles.
• Matrilineal Heritage: A system where family lineage, property, and often leadership are passed down through the mother's line.
• Medicine People: Traditional healers in Native American cultures who perform ceremonies for the sick and maintain spiritual well-being.
• Nádleehi (Diné): Individuals in Diné (Navajo) culture who embrace both masculine and feminine energies, viewed as sacred.
• Māhū (Native Hawaiian): A traditional Native Hawaiian term for individuals who identify as a third gender, bridging male and female.
• Settler-colonialism: A form of colonialism where the colonizing power seeks to replace the original population with a new settler society, often through violence and cultural destruction.
• Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW): A grassroots movement and advocacy effort addressing the disproportionately high rates of violence, disappearance, and murder among Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people.
• Not Invisible Act (2020): U.S. federal legislation that established a commission to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
• Indian Country: A legal term referring to lands within the United States that are under the jurisdiction of Native American tribal governments.

The Sacred and Powerful Roles of Native Women Throughout History

Native women have historically held sacred and powerful roles within their communities, extending beyond familial positions like aunties, mothers, and grandmothers to include holy women, healers, and leaders. Native oral traditions across diverse cultures are rich with divine female figures embodying protection, creation, destruction, life, and death.

Diversity in Gender Roles and Matriarchal Societies: Prior to European arrival, Native beliefs around gender were diverse. Many Native American tribes were, and some still are, matriarchal, meaning women held significant power, often serving as primary decision-makers. These societies typically valued equality, consensus-finding, gift-giving, and peace-building.

• Diné (Navajo) Example: In Diné culture, mothers and grandmothers serve as matriarchs, heading individual clans. While men often lead intertribal meetings and war decisions, women have the final say in clan disputes. They control their own land, livestock, crafts, and earnings. Diné society is also matrilineal, with family heritage passed through the mother’s line. This equality extends to spirituality, where both men and women can become Medicine People, traditional healers. Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé (Changing Woman) articulated this equality to the Sun, stating, "You are of sky, I am of earth… Remember, as different as we are, you and I, we are of one spirit… we are of equal worth."
• Warrior Women: Women in many Native nations led war parties and participated in battles. Examples include Running Eagle (Pi'tamaka) and Buffalo Calf Road Woman of the Northern Cheyenne. Buffalo Calf Road Woman famously rescued her brother in battle and later fought in the Battle of the Little Bighorn with her Colt 45; stories from several tribes suggest a woman delivered the final blow to Custer.
• Leaders and Diplomats: Native women also served as leaders and diplomats during conflicts. Jikonsaseh, a Native woman, was instrumental in co-founding the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Living along a war road between five warring nations (Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca), she offered shelter and food to warriors and helped resolve arguments. Peacemaker, seeking to unify these nations, recognized her neutrality and influence, naming her "Mother of Nations." Her contributions ensured that Haudenosaunee law recognizes the equal responsibilities of women and men, a principle that continues to guide their practices today.

Nuance in Gender Concepts: It is a misconception that all Native American tribes treated men and women as equals; there was significant diversity. Some tribes had strict gender-based labor divisions, and in others, men held most wealth and power. Furthermore, Native peoples often held different understandings of gender than Europeans. For instance, Diné culture recognizes Nádleehi, individuals embracing both masculine and feminine energies as sacred. Native Hawaiians historically recognized māhū, a term that transcends gender and serves as a bridge between male and female. This highlights that there was no single, monolithic way of thinking about gender across Native cultures.

Disruption by European Colonization and Targeted Violence

The arrival of European colonizers profoundly disrupted Native gender roles and societal structures. Europeans often did not accept the power held by women in many Native societies. As Laguna Pueblo scholar Paula Gunn Allen observed, "The colonizers saw (and rightly) that as long as women held unquestioned power of such magnitude, attempts at a total conquest of the continents were bound to fail." The Northern Cheyenne saying, "A nation is not defeated until the hearts of its women are on the ground," underscores the strategic importance of women's power.

Colonizers actively worked to dismantle this power by stripping Native women of their roles and rights, sometimes by elevating men to positions of authority, but more often through targeted violence. This violence was not a passive byproduct but a strategic tool. Native women were singled out due to their ability to bear children, a role often considered sacred by many tribes. By killing Native women, colonizers aimed to destabilize Native populations, a core component of settler-colonialism—the effort to destroy and replace Native peoples with European settlers. This had disastrous consequences, leading to the abuse and killing of thousands of Native women and permanently altering tribal cultures, such as the marginalization of the Choctaw's matrilineal heritage system.

Ongoing Violence and the Rise of Native Activism

The violence against Native women continued for centuries and persists today. In the 1970s, the U.S. federal government authorized the secret sterilization of thousands of Native women, with at least 36 under the age of 21. A study from 1973-1976 found that one in four American Indian women were sterilized without their consent.

Contemporary Statistics and Challenges: Today, Native American women face some of the highest rates of violence in the nation, with nearly 96% of it committed by non-Natives. CDC data from 2018-2023 indicates that homicide is the third leading cause of death for Native women aged 15-24 and is in the top ten for ages 25-44. These numbers likely underrepresent the true scale of violence, as a 2022 Amnesty International report found that many law enforcement agencies fail to record Native women's ethnicity, mislabel them, or categorize them as "other," effectively erasing their stories. Furthermore, prosecuting crimes in Indian Country is challenging because Native American law enforcement often lacks the authority to prosecute non-Native criminals.

Native Activism and Leadership: Despite these challenges, Native activism is making significant headway.

• Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) Movement: This movement is raising awareness and advocating for policy changes to address violence against Indigenous women, femmes, Two-Spirit individuals, and girls.
• Not Invisible Act (2020): Thanks to MMIW activism, this act was signed into law, creating a federal commission to develop methods for "identifying, reporting, and responding to instances of missing persons, murder, and human trafficking on Indian lands and of Indians." The act was authored by then-Representative Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo Nation and the first Native woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
• Ladonna Harris: A Comanche activist who, in the 1960s, spearheaded Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity, the first intertribal coalition in the state. She later served on Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Council on Indian Opportunity and founded Americans for Indian Opportunity.
• Elouise Cobell (Yellow Bird Woman): A Blackfeet Nation Tribal Elder, activist, and banker. She led a class-action lawsuit, Cobell v. Salazar, against the U.S. government for mismanaging trust funds belonging to over 500,000 Native Americans. The 2010 settlement of $3.4 billion provided payments to tribal members, restored fractionated land, and established a scholarship fund.

Influence on Non-Native Feminism: The work of Native women has also inspired non-Native women, including early American feminists. Matilda Joslyn Gage, a 19th-century leader in the women’s suffrage movement, drew inspiration from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which she described as having "Never was justice more perfect; never was civilization higher."

Conclusion

Native women have profoundly impacted not only Native history but all history. Despite centuries of oppression and violence, they continue to demonstrate resilience, imparting wisdom, advocating for change, exercising leadership, and amplifying Native voices. Their ongoing contributions remain as vital today as ever.