Public Mothers: Native American and Métis Women as Creole Mediators in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest

Posted in Articles, History, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2012-01-02 06:03Z by Steven

Public Mothers: Native American and Métis Women as Creole Mediators in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest

Journal of Women’s History
Volume 14, Number 4, Winter 2003
Special Issue: Revising the Experiences of Colonized Women: Beyond Binaries

Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, Professor of History
Ohio State University, Newark

During the early nineteenth century, the largely Francophone, mixed ancestry residents of the western Great Lakes region were faced with massive immigration of Anglophone whites who colonized the region, imposing a new U.S. government, economy, and legal system on the old Creole communities. Many of these immigrants from different cultural backgrounds in the eastern United States brought their prejudices and fears with them, attitudes that had the power to alienate and marginalize the old residents. This article explores the ways in which some women of color found techniques to mediate between cultural groups, using hospitality, charity, and health care to negotiate overlapping ideals of womanhood common to both Anglos and Native-descended people. In so doing, they won praise from both new and old neighbors, as they used Creole patterns of network-building to smooth community relations.

Read the entire article here.

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