History of American Indians and the United States

Gender & Interpreting the Past

Dr. Kane

mkane2@albany.edu Humanities 109 | MWF 9:20 - 10:15 AM

Office Hrs: M 10:20 - 11:20 & F 1:30 - 3:30

Social Science 60S

Friday, October 27

coming up

  • Objects paper Nov 6
  • email your images by Nov 5 - mini presentations in class
  • Final proposal - Nov 13

today's class

  • where does the sexy princess come from?
  • Iroquoia - 18th c
  • mid-continent - 18th c
  • California - 18th c
  • Virginia - 17th c
  • Native women's bodies and land

where are we?

  • Enganglement period
  • middle ground - 1600-1800
  • French & Indian War - 1754-1763
  • Pontiac's War - 1762-1763
  • Revolutionary era
  • American Revolution - 1774-1783
  • Treaty of Canandaigua 1794

sexual and gender diversity

  • how were two-spirit people perceived by Europeans?
  • how does "berdache" differ from two-spirit?
  • how does two-spirit differ from gay, lesbian, or trans?

Iroquoia - 1740

barclay
barclay

mid-continent - 1700-1760

  • French intermarriage
  • Illinois patrilineal households
  • kinship necessary for trade
  • frenchification by marriage - two spirits & gender roles

California - 1650-1790

  • Spanish & Russian frontier
  • household as women's space, ranchero as men's space
  • colonies do not equal colonialism
  • hispanicization by mission

Vespucci Waking America

waking
waking

Virginia - 1620-1630

misunderstanding Pocahontas

  • Native: women's roles as diplomats
  • John Smith's symbolic rebirth as Powhatan
  • Euro: women can only be domestic
  • Pocahontas' captivity as possession of land

Native women's bodies as land

  • what's more American than an Indian princess?
  • 17th & 18th century theories of biology and property
  • women's bodies and land empty until men's active labor is added
  • why is the Cherokee grandparent never a grandfather?

gender & entanglement

  • Native gender roles shape engagement
  • European expectations shape recording
  • our own cultural expectations are shaped by records & shape how we interpret the past

looking backwards

  • who made the records?
  • how did cultural bias affect what they recorded?
  • how has the creation of records affected narratives of history?
  • how do narratives of history affect peoples' lives?