Sisters in Spirit: Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists Read Online Free
Author: Sally Roesch Wagner
which they lived was based on the oppression of women.
Haudenosaunee society, on the other hand, was organized to maintain a balance of equality between women and men. Shown here are the contrasting differences between the two worlds of women who lived side-by-side in this region of upstate New York in 1848.
War chief holding woman’s nominating wampum belt.
How Well Did These Culturally Different Women Know Each Other?
Even though they lived in very different cultural, economic, spiritual, and political worlds during the early 1800s, EuroAmerican settlers in Central/Western New York were, at most, one person away from direct familiarity with Iroquois people. The Haudenosaunee continued their ancient practice of adopting individuals of other nations, and many white residents of New York (including Matilda Joslyn Gage) carried adoptive Indian names. Friendships and visiting were commonplace activities between Natives and non-Natives. Newspapers routinely printed news from American Indian country. Each local history book began with a lengthy account of the first inhabitants of the land. These three leaders of the woman’s rights movement—Stanton, Gage, and Mott—were among those who had a personal connection with the Haudenosaunee.
Lucretia Mott visited the Seneca Nation in June 1848
Lucretia Mott and her husband James visited the Cattaraugus community in June 1848, just before taking part in the historic Seneca Falls Convention in July.
Matilda Joslyn Gage was adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation
“I received the name of Ka-ron-ien-ha-wi, or ‘Sky Carrier,’ or She who holds the sky.” She wrote. “It is a clan name of the wolves.” 4
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s cousin was named for an Oneida Chief and her closest Seneca Falls neighbor was an adopted Onondagan.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s cousin, Peter Skenandoah Smith, was named for an Oneida friend of the family, Chief Skenandoah. In addition, her nearest Seneca Falls neighbor, Oren Tyler, came from Onondaga, where he “had friendly dealings” with the people there and was adopted by them. He spoke their language fluently, and parties of Onondagans passing through Seneca Falls to sell their bead work and baskets “sought out their ‘brother,’ as they called Capt. Tyler, who always befriended them.” 5
Three generations of the Wolf Clan.
Forerunners
Gage, Stanton, and Mott were not alone among reformers to respect Native ways of life, nor were they the first. Many nineteenth-century feminists felt a strong kinship with Native Americans. Frances Wright, for example, was the first woman to publicly speak before audiences of men and women in the United States on woman’s rights—twenty years before there was an organized woman’s movement. Together with Robert Dale Owen, she edited a reform paper, the Free Enquirer, in the late 1820s. Practicing a decidedly pro-Indian editorial policy, their paper carried articles on the Cherokee alphabet, an interview with the Seneca sachem Red Jacket, a comparison of Christian and Indian “superstitions” (Christianity lost badly by contrast), and a strongly-worded protest against a threatened attack on the Winnebago and Potawatomi nations by the United States army. “The whites are more apt to commit first aggressions than the Indians,” the editors contended. Owen was deeply committed to woman’s rights. He and Lydia Maria Child, another prototype feminist most commonly known for her anti-slavery writing, were particularly moved by the fact that Indian men did not rape.
Newspapers
A wide range of information on the Haudenosaunee was readily available through newspapers. The local Syracuse paper, the Onondaga Standard —which Gage read—reported everything from condolence ceremonies to council proceedings to spiritual ceremonies. When legislation was introduced to break up the land of the Six Nations into individual ownership,
Haudenosaunee society, on the other hand, was organized to maintain a balance of equality between women and men. Shown here are the contrasting differences between the two worlds of women who lived side-by-side in this region of upstate New York in 1848.
War chief holding woman’s nominating wampum belt.
How Well Did These Culturally Different Women Know Each Other?
Even though they lived in very different cultural, economic, spiritual, and political worlds during the early 1800s, EuroAmerican settlers in Central/Western New York were, at most, one person away from direct familiarity with Iroquois people. The Haudenosaunee continued their ancient practice of adopting individuals of other nations, and many white residents of New York (including Matilda Joslyn Gage) carried adoptive Indian names. Friendships and visiting were commonplace activities between Natives and non-Natives. Newspapers routinely printed news from American Indian country. Each local history book began with a lengthy account of the first inhabitants of the land. These three leaders of the woman’s rights movement—Stanton, Gage, and Mott—were among those who had a personal connection with the Haudenosaunee.
Lucretia Mott visited the Seneca Nation in June 1848
Lucretia Mott and her husband James visited the Cattaraugus community in June 1848, just before taking part in the historic Seneca Falls Convention in July.
Matilda Joslyn Gage was adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation
“I received the name of Ka-ron-ien-ha-wi, or ‘Sky Carrier,’ or She who holds the sky.” She wrote. “It is a clan name of the wolves.” 4
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s cousin was named for an Oneida Chief and her closest Seneca Falls neighbor was an adopted Onondagan.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s cousin, Peter Skenandoah Smith, was named for an Oneida friend of the family, Chief Skenandoah. In addition, her nearest Seneca Falls neighbor, Oren Tyler, came from Onondaga, where he “had friendly dealings” with the people there and was adopted by them. He spoke their language fluently, and parties of Onondagans passing through Seneca Falls to sell their bead work and baskets “sought out their ‘brother,’ as they called Capt. Tyler, who always befriended them.” 5
Three generations of the Wolf Clan.
Forerunners
Gage, Stanton, and Mott were not alone among reformers to respect Native ways of life, nor were they the first. Many nineteenth-century feminists felt a strong kinship with Native Americans. Frances Wright, for example, was the first woman to publicly speak before audiences of men and women in the United States on woman’s rights—twenty years before there was an organized woman’s movement. Together with Robert Dale Owen, she edited a reform paper, the Free Enquirer, in the late 1820s. Practicing a decidedly pro-Indian editorial policy, their paper carried articles on the Cherokee alphabet, an interview with the Seneca sachem Red Jacket, a comparison of Christian and Indian “superstitions” (Christianity lost badly by contrast), and a strongly-worded protest against a threatened attack on the Winnebago and Potawatomi nations by the United States army. “The whites are more apt to commit first aggressions than the Indians,” the editors contended. Owen was deeply committed to woman’s rights. He and Lydia Maria Child, another prototype feminist most commonly known for her anti-slavery writing, were particularly moved by the fact that Indian men did not rape.
Newspapers
A wide range of information on the Haudenosaunee was readily available through newspapers. The local Syracuse paper, the Onondaga Standard —which Gage read—reported everything from condolence ceremonies to council proceedings to spiritual ceremonies. When legislation was introduced to break up the land of the Six Nations into individual ownership,
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