Women in The American Revolution - Native Women, Patriot and Loyalist

Native Women, Patriot and Loyalist

For Native Americans, the American Revolution was not a war of patriotism or independence. At the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, much of the land ceded to the British by France was actually in the hands of Native tribes across the western frontier, although “ownership” of “unsettled” parts of North America was and would be contested. With British rights westward acknowledged back in Europe, most Native people faced increasing encroachment by settlers and a greater military presence of British troops. As the American Revolutionary War drew near, many of these soldiers ultimately relocated in coastal cities like New York and Boston, as British strategy called for greater control there, leaving the western frontier to ballooning numbers of conflicts between white settlers and Native Americans. In addition, by 1763, famine and disease had become widespread problems in and among native communities.

Several historians claim that contact with whites resulted in the displacement of women from their traditional spheres, both as a result of war related upheavals and specific American policy after the war. Post-Revolutionary guidelines called for the “civilization” of Native peoples, and which meant turning a population from a hunting-based society to an agricultural one, despite the fact that almost all Native American societies did practice agriculture—the women farmed. However, U.S. policymakers believed that farming could not be a significant part of Native life if women were the main contributors to the operation. Thus, the American government instead encouraged Native women to take up spinning and weaving and attempted to force men to farm, reversing gender roles and causing severe social problems that ran contrary to Native cultural mores.