Sisters in Spirit: Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Who Gets to be Part of History?

  “Fourteen Strings of Purple Wampum to Writers about Indians” by Tehanetorens ...

  Multidimensional Thinking

  The Historical Development of History

  What is in a Name?

  What Do We Call the People Who Influenced the Suffragists?

  Language Evolves to Reflect the Way People Change

  Haudenosaunee Women: An Inspiration to Early Feminists

  Haudenosaunee and EuroAmerican Women in 1848

  How Well Did These Culturally Different Women Know Each Other?

  Forerunners

  Women Writers

  Newspapers

  The Untold Story

  Women’s rights

  A Vision of Everyday Justice

  A Vision of Power and Security

  A Vision of Radical Respect

  A Vision of Responsibilities

  Mother Earth, Creator of Life

  Old-Time Baked Indian Pudding

  From Subordination to Cooperation

  Violence Against Women

  A Woman’s Right to Her Children

  Property Rights

  No Equality in Employment

  Political Outsider and Lawbreaker

  Mother of Nations

  War and Peace and Land

  Women’s Rights Support by Haudenosaunee Men

  Endnotes

  Bibliography

  Artist Credits

  Index

  Sally Roesch Wagner

  Native Voices

  Book Publishing Company

  P.O. Box 99

  Summertown, TN 38483

  1-888-260-8458

  Copyright 2001 by Sally Roesch Wagner

  Cover painting by David Kanietakeron Fadden

  Cover design by Warren Jefferson

  Book design by Jerry Lee Hutchens

  07 06 05 04 4 3 2

  ISBN 1-57067-121-4

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or by any information retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to The Book Publishing Company.

  Wagner, Sally Roesch.

  Sisters in spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) influence on early American feminists / Sally Roesch Wagner.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 1-57067-121-4

  1. Feminism--United States--History. 2. Feminism--Indian influences. 3. Women’s rights--United States--History. 4. Iroquois philosophy. I. Title.

  HQ1410 .W35 2001

  305.42’0973--dc21

  2001003988

  To my grandson, Tanner.

  May your eyed always be clear

  and your ears open.

  Acknowledgments

  This book is in your hand because of John Kahionhes Fadden. I was so convinced that anything a white woman wrote about Natives would get it wrong that I resolved not to publish anything in this area of research until I was askedto do so-by Native people. I met John at a conference in 1988. He walked out immediately after my paper, and I put my notes in my bag with sinking heart. He’d said everything I needed to know with his back. Others came up to visit and I was about to leave the hall when the door opened and back in came John. He smiled as he walked up to me. “You made me very happy with what you said.” My life changed with those words.

  John asked for a few business cards to share with folks. When I returned home to California, there was an encouraging letter from his father, Ray, waiting for me. Calls came from other scholars (quickly friends) Bruce Johansen and Don Grinde, and soon, a note from Doug George requesting an article for Akwesasne Notes. I sent my conference paper—the first thing I published. Another conference at Cornell and Jose Barreiro asked for an article in Northeast Indian Quarterly. With two Native publications requesting work on this topic, I felt that perhaps I wasn’t getting it too wrong, and agreed to write an article for a feminist journal, On the Issues,working with friend John Stoltenberg, a brilliant editor. These three articles appear in rewritten form in this book.

  Two other projects inform the book, both done during “Celebrate ’98,” that summer when eyes were fastened on Seneca Falls, New York, and the commemoration of the first woman’s rights convention held there 150 years before. There was a long-overdue thanks needed, it seemed to me, to the Haudenosaunee women for modeling the position women should occupy. Mary Ellen Snyder, Chief of Interpretation at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park, agreed, and arranged for me to write a curriculum for the Park: “Celebrating your Cultural Heritage by Telling the Untold Stories.” Mary Kelly Black thoughtfully edited it, while Vivien Rose, Pat Rittenhouse and Joanne Hanley supported it in various ways. Freida Jacques and Stephanie Waterman, from the Onondaga Nation, reviewed it, as did Art Einhorn and Vista Fundamental School in Simi Valley, California, Barbara Marino, Principal.

  The title, “Sisters in Spirit,” came from an exhibit a group of us produced that summer: Edgar Brown and Robyn Hansen, Julie Uticone, Cheryl Frank and Linda Rosekrans. Bob Venables carefully shaped the words Robyn and I wrote, they will recognize some of them between these covers. The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Foundation sponsored the project, as did The Friends of Ganondagan, Wells College and Eastern National.

  The late Alice Papineau generously and gently opened my eyes, as Audrey Shenandoah continues to do. Freida Jacques and her family feed my thoughts as we share meals (and do we ever eat well!)

  This book owes everything to Gloria Marvin, who polished my words without ever changing the meaning. Denise Waterman suggested critical changes and held me to my voice, pointing out where I lost it, as only one who lives in an oral tradition would recognize. Laurie Carter Noble encouraged and Paul Waterman kept me laughing. Jerry Hutchens respected every hesitation and every attempt to avoid cultural intrusion, understanding and patiently midwifing the book, creating it in beauty as he wove the visual stories of John Kahionhes Fadden through my words. Jeanne Shenandoah sets the context, so that you may know the purpose of the book, and gifts me with her friendship as we lecture and work together. The words of Tehanetorens (Ray Fadden) begin and end the book, which brings me great honor. And finally, the crowning glory, David Kanietakeron Fadden, provided the cover art. Which seems just right. Three generations of a Mohawk family carry the book: Ray and his son, John, and his son, David. Adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk nation, Matilda Joslyn Gage would be pleased, I’m sure, as am I. This is the book Julie Uticone dreamed.

  Friends all, thank you.

  Sally Roesch Wagner

  Introduction

  For those of you who are reading this, we hope that the messages inside will help to open your eyes and ears to things that you may have never realized or even thought about, since this type of information has been withheld in the education of all the people. Hopefully it will help you to overcome stereotypes and misunderstandings and gain an appreciation of some of the teachings and behaviors of the Native people that allowed relationships to form between our peoples. These bonds created friendships and movements that made a difference in the future of many women’s lives.

  We Haudenosaunee live within the traditional structure that we’ve always had, the structure of equality among all members of our community. Women, men, and children have equal spiritual, huma
n, and political rights. We have equal opportunity to voice opinions or objections to any situation within our community, and we know that our voice will be heard.

  And so, when we met these white women so long ago, I am sure that our women were probably shocked at the lack of human equality that these other women had to live under. And we, seeing them as equal—all women as equal—couldn’t understand how not only women, but women and children, were living under this totally oppressive situation. How people who had fled their homelands, for exactly the same reason, could appear here on our Turtle Island, our Mother Earth, and bring with them the exact same oppressive behaviors that they had experienced. For the men to walk, set foot on this land and say, “This is mine, I want this, I’m taking this,” is an example of how they were thinking.

  Read this book and learn from it. It helps you to realize what women have gone through to make a stand for their rightful, equal place on earth. These women raised the children, gave them teachings and influenced them to be caring, respectful people—and still had energy to claim their place on earth, standing equal in all areas of life.

  Jeanne Shenandoab,

  Onondaga Nation

  Who Gets to be Part of History?

  “Fourteen Strings of Purple Wampum to Writers about Indians” by Tehanetorens (Ray Fadden)

  We hold in our hand fourteen strings of purple wampum. These we hand, one by one, to you—authors of many American history books; writers of cheap, inaccurate, unauthentic, sensational novels; and other writers of fiction who have poisoned the minds of young Americans concerning our people, the Red Race of America; to the producers of many western cowboy and Indian television programs and moving pictures shows; to those Treaty-breakers who delight in dispossessing Indian Peoples by constructing dams on Indian lands in violation of sacred treaties; and to those of this, our country, who are prone to build up the glory of their ancestors on the bonds and life-blood of our Old People:—With this first string of wampum, we take away the fog that surrounds your eyes and obstructs your view, that you may see the truth concerning our people!

  —With this second string of wampum, we pull away from your imprisoned minds the cobwebs, the net that prevents you from dealing justice to our people!

  —With this third piece of wampum, we cleanse your hearts of revenge, selfishness, and injustice, that you may create love instead of hate!

  —With this fourth string of wampum, we wash the blood of our people from your hands, that you may know the clasp of true friendship and sincerity!

  —With this fifth string of wampum, we shrink your heads down to that of normal man, we cleanse your minds of the abnormal conceit and love of self that has caused you to walk blindly among the dark people of the world.

  —With this sixth string of wampum, we remove your garments of gold, silver, and greed, that you may don the apparel of generosity, hospitality, and humanity! —With this seventh string of wampum, we remove the dirt that fills your ears so you may hear the story and truth of our people!

  —With this eighth string of wampum, we straighten your tongues of crookedness, that in the future you may speak the truth concerning Indian People!

  —With this ninth string of wampum, we take away the dark clouds from the face of the sun, that its rays may purify your thoughts, that you may look forward and see America, instead of backward toward Europe!

  —With this tenth string of wampum, we brush away the rough stones and sticks from your path, that you may walk erect as the first American whose name you have defamed and whose country you now occupy!

  —With this eleventh string of wampum, we take away from your hands your implements of destruction—guns, bombs, firewater, diseases—and place in them instead the Pipe of Friendship and Peace, that you may sow brotherly love rather than bitter hate and injustice!

  —With this twelfth string of wampum, we build you a new house with many windows and no mirrors, that you may look out and see the life and purpose of your nearest neighbor, the American Indian!

  —With this thirteenth string of wampum, we tear down the wall of steel and stone you have built around the TREE OF PEACE, that you may take shelter beneath its branches!

  —With this fourteenth string of wampum, we take from the hen-coop the eagle that you have imprisoned, that this noble bird may once again fly in the sky over America!

  I, Te-ba-ne-to-rens, say this!1

  Wampum—purple and white shell beads strung or sewn onto belts of material—carries the history of the people. (European settlers corrupted wampum into currency.) Wampum also instructs in the importance of responsibilities. Mohawk historian Te-ha-ne-to-rens (Ray Fadden) guides non-Native writers in what we need to do to prepare ourselves to write. His words are fueled by indignation at the damage white writers have caused Indians.

  I read Ray’s words when I sit down to write about Native people. They remind me that the greatest likelihood is that, as a white person, I will get it wrong; the highest probability is that I will cause damage. Filled with centuries of justifications for genocide, popular as well as academic stereotypes that mask the truth, and a cultural belief that I have the right to tell someone else’s story my way, I am dangerous. If I wish to create accurate, inclusive history I must first open my ears to hear, my eyes to see, and my mind to absorb the story before me.2

  I am not alone. We EuroAmericans are filled with the poison of misinformation. Great gaps of knowledge accompany the lies. Omissions teach us equally, and more insidiously, than misinformation. The lesson of exclusion is clear. Groups of people included in the interpretation of history are respected, while excluded groups are outsiders and can easily be ignored. If our teachers do not tell us about a group of people, we assume they are unimportant.

  The message of omissions is an educational foundation of racism. Through the silence in our education, many of us have learned not to listen to the histories of people of color, women, and other excluded groups. We have been trained to pay attention to what is “important” and to ignore what is not. Therefore it is not enough to be exposed to new information. We must first be able to receive it. Essentially, we must remake ourselves in order to absorb what we have been taught from childhood to ignore.

  It is important, of course, to know that “In 1492, Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue,” as that date marked the beginning of EuroAmerican settlement in this hemisphere. However, recognition of diversity comes about when we revisit the Columbus story, identify the participants, and consider how they each experienced the event. If indigenous people do not exist in the story we are told, we conclude their story has no importance and neither do they. We need to ask basic and simple questions to break this silence. What was the view from the shore? What did those who were living on Turtle Island (the Native Americans’ term for North America) see as the boats approached and the occupants disembarked ? How did each group interpret what they saw? What was going on that both the Natives and those on the boats did not have “eyes” to see? Columbus described the world he “discovered” as a virtual utopia—the happy, well-fed, peaceful inhabitants a mirror contrast to the militaristic, cruel, harsh world from which he had sailed. What would have happened if he had asked, “How do you do this?” rather than scheming how best to exploit the Natives and their resources?

  Multidimensional Thinking

  Human interactions are complex, and there is never one way to tell a story. In fact, people throughout history have experienced conflicts and friendships simultaneously. It should come as no surprise then, that in our history, we find intermarriage among cultural groups at war with each other. Similarly, EuroAmerican women taken captive by Native American nations often chose to continue to live as adopted members of the nation rather than return to the EuroAmerican world. Their enemies had become family; their identity Indian.

  Influence is a basic theme of history. As groups come into contact (in violence and/or friendship) they influence each other and adapt to one another. Each group takes on the others’ way
s. Influence does not necessarily mean bias-free interaction. We can believe we are superior to a group of people at the same time we are influenced by them. Rap music’s popularity with white youth does not mean we have eliminated racism, any more than the popularity of jazz did with their parents.

  The Historical Development of History

  There is nothing inherent or inevitable about history. Created by people, it is shaped by the same socio-political-economic forces that determine the telling of it. History changes, like institutions, when people demand change. As excluded groups seek inclusion in institutions, they also celebrate their histories, demanding to be remembered. United States history has gone through phases in the last fifty years reflecting cultural and social shifts toward greater inclusion and diversity.