Native American Women Essay

Women in Native American culture had a very prominent role in intercultural relationships;

they held far more power and influence than their European counterparts. Europeans have long

used treaties written and signed by men to govern how relationships, trade and land are

developed. Indians have sought to develop kinship ties to to develop those same traits and

since many Indian cultures are matrilineal, women maintain a high status.

Women have been revered in Native American culture, perhaps this is most evident among

the Cherokee Nation. While men hunt for meat the women cultivated the crop especially corn.

Cherokees valued the corn so much that they held the Green Corn Ceremony to honor the corn

and the women who provided

These societies would not only live harmoniously but thrive and work

together for the better of the shared children. The women had a say in how they would help

create this new and improved world, they were not pawns. They controlled the land and any

children they had continued their lineage.

However, the Native Americans assumed that the European men would feel the same as

they did about these new family bonds. They were wrong. While, the kinship ties initially

seemed to work the Europeans never took them seriously and cut them off when it became

convenient or necessary to further their own agendas. The Indians could not foresee that

forcing the Europeans into marriages they did not want; in a religion they did not understand or

support would mean that they would not fully commit to the women, the children or the good

of the tribe. Because, the European men did not take the commitment to the tribe as seriously

as the Indians they were able to out maneuver them and render them unable to protect