Women Warriors?

[richw]

Whittlesey, Charles [1855], Recollections of a Tour Through Wisconsin in 1832 (Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 79

"In such plight were the fugitives, and with, such a spirit, their pursuers were rapidly approaching. The foremost of the mounted men fell in with the scattered divisions, of the enemy about two miles from the river. The party attacked fought desperately. The mounted squaws, provided with rifles, joined in the engagement, and the main body succeeded in crossing, with the loss of about thirty. Their fate is well known."

Has anyone seen any other references to women warriors?

[DJ Palama]

I've only seen some references about women warriors would have been an occasional Huron during the F&I War

[Jim Hart]

Are you talking real women warriors? Like the kind that would assume a mans role and take a wife and live their life as a warrior or are you talking about a woman taking up arms against a attack?
Jim Hart

[DJ Palama]

More likely it seems that they would defend the village.

[Robert Braun]

nawatuwa said:

Are you talking real women warriors? Like the kind that would assume a mans role and take a wife and live their life as a warrior or are you talking about a woman taking up arms against a attack?
Jim Hart

In this particular account, the writer has indicated "mounted squaws" or women, "provided with rifles"-- a phrase which says to me the rifles were given to the women. Perhaps this occured to augment the party of warriors suggested by BH to divert the advance guard of Atkinson's army from the main body of his followers on the river bank.

This account opens a whole new vista for me regarding the killing on August 2. Did the ensuing attack for which the "Battle of the Mississippi" has become so notorious unfold in part because it was difficult for the Regulars and the militia to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants?

Regards,

Bob Braun

[richw]

Bob has hit one of the two options I thought possible for the "Women Warriors" story.

The other, of course, is that this was "disinformation," spread after public outrage over the slaughter at Bad Axe. After all, Whittlesey was not present at the battle.

My personal opinion is that the "combatants" and the "non-combatants" were huddled together as family units. When the fighting started, the armed members of the "family units" started shooting. Probably some women and children were purposely killed by white "extremists," while more were simply in the line of fire. Armed women are not beyond the realm of possibility. However, one second-hand account does not equal fact.

[DJ Palama]

Sorry I know this is going off topic, but why do a lot of people refer to Native American women as "squaws"? This word really means something else...... :0

[Robert Braun]

dj said:

Sorry I know this is going off topic, but why do a lot of people refer to Native American women as "squaws"? This word really means something else...... :0

Really?

Here are some interesting facts:

1. Juliette Kinzie, spouse of a U. S. Indian Agent and (as far as it can be determined) a woman herself, used the word "squaw" in reference to Indian women without any perjorative at all.

2. John Russel Bartlett's 1848 Dictionary of Americanisms defines "squaw" as: "An Indian woman."

3. Black Hawk used the word several times in his own autobiography. His is also recorded as using the word in speeches attributed to him. None of these references were used contextually in the perjorative.

The word "squaw" is regarded by many experts as
'historically innocent." Please see www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20001102

Only in very recent modern times has a perjorative definition be ascribed to the word, as a purely MODERN invention. In other words, the current "ire" over sqaw is "made -up" and without historical context.

Regards,

Bob.

[Jim Hart]

The word squaw is also used in the Biggs narrative and is just used as a term for a Native woman with nothing negative attached to it.
What I meant with the questions I posed before is what type of documentation on women warriors exactly are we looking for? There are instances in history when a woman did assume a mans role and take a wife and live as a warrior. I wasn't sure if the topic was just with the Sauk during the BHW, or Native history in general.
Jim Hart

[DJ Palama]

Well, I'm probably wrong, but I thought it was more about the French fur traders............. Sorry, I should made clearer in post I did know that squaw is applied to the younger women of the tribes.

[Robert Braun]

dj said:

Well, I'm probably wrong, but I thought it was more about the French fur traders............. Sorry, I should made clearer in post I did know that squaw is applied to the younger women of the tribes.

No worries, DJ... information in response to reasonable inquiry is what this board is all about!

Thanks for your participation!

Bob.

[zeldaanslinger]

From reading various accounts of native American lives, I'd have to say that there are countless stories of exceptional brave women of other tribes, beside the Sauk, who fought when circumstances compelled them. It seems like Frank Linderman's _Red Mother_ has stories like this from the Blackfeet, for instance.

And the word "squaw," although found everywhere in the written documentation of the period, has indeed been considered by many to be derogative, and that's why states such as Oklahoma have initiated a re-naming of various "Squaw creeks" and other landmarks:
www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1891
www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=2033

This article explains how the origin of the word was Algonquian, and became an epithet as it moved westward:
legendarysurfers.com/naw/blog/2004/11/reclaiming-squaw-part-1.html
Here's a quote:

While the original, harmless usage of Algonkian words like "squaw" persisted into the 20th century, especially in the northeast, among both Indians and whites, the insulting usage increased in mixed-race urban and reservation areas. During the late 19th century, Algonkian words that had come into common usage among Americans were carried west, by French fur traders and other whites, to tribes who were not Algonkian speakers. When the label "squaw" began to be used as a generic term for all Native women, especially those subject to attack by government soldiers, it took on a sexually dangerous connotation....During westward expansion, "chief", "brave", "papoose", and "squaw" took on negative connotations as they were increasingly used as generic descriptions and epithets.


So "Buck" and "squaw" were words that deprived Indians of their humanity, portraying them not as "men" and "women," but as something more primitive and less valuable. Which made the government's treatment of them, and the land-stealing, easier on the white conqueror's conscience.

One Oregon settler named Beeson wrote: ''it was customary [for the whites] to speak of the Indian man as a buck; of the woman as a squaw; until at length in the general acceptance of the terms, they ceased to recognize the rights of humanity in those to whom they were applied. By a very natural and easy transition, from being spoken of as brutes, they came to be thought of as game to be shot, or as vermin to be destroyed.''
www.runningdeerslonghouse.com/webdoc406.htm

In response to the person who stated that 3. Black Hawk used the word several times in his own autobiography, I'd like to point out that Black Hawk's biography is a TRANSLATION from the Sauk by Antoine Le Claire, and that the editor of the translation was a journalist named Patterson who has been thought to have taken some liberties:
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/blackhawk.html


Z*lda
[e-mail]

[Robert Braun]

Hello and welcome to the BHW Message Board! Please sign your fill real name to each post-- this requirement is a Board rule and condition of participation.

Regards,

Bob Braun
Moderator.

[Robert Braun]

zeldaanslinger said:

From reading various accounts of native American lives, I'd have to say that there are countless stories of exceptional brave women of other tribes, beside the Sauk, who fought when circumstances compelled them. It seems like Frank Linderman's _Red Mother_ has stories like this from the Blackfeet, for instance.

And the word "squaw," although found everywhere in the written documentation of the period, has indeed been considered by many to be derogative, and that's why states such as Oklahoma have initiated a re-naming of various "Squaw creeks" and other landmarks:
www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1891
www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=2033

This article explains how the origin of the word was Algonquian, and became an epithet as it moved westward:
legendarysurfers.com/naw/blog/2004/11/reclaiming-squaw-part-1.html
Here's a quote:

While the original, harmless usage of Algonkian words like "squaw" persisted into the 20th century, especially in the northeast, among both Indians and whites, the insulting usage increased in mixed-race urban and reservation areas. During the late 19th century, Algonkian words that had come into common usage among Americans were carried west, by French fur traders and other whites, to tribes who were not Algonkian speakers. When the label "squaw" began to be used as a generic term for all Native women, especially those subject to attack by government soldiers, it took on a sexually dangerous connotation....During westward expansion, "chief", "brave", "papoose", and "squaw" took on negative connotations as they were increasingly used as generic descriptions and epithets.


So "Buck" and "squaw" were words that deprived Indians of their humanity, portraying them not as "men" and "women," but as something more primitive and less valuable. Which made the government's treatment of them, and the land-stealing, easier on the white conqueror's conscience.

One Oregon settler named Beeson wrote: ''it was customary [for the whites] to speak of the Indian man as a buck; of the woman as a squaw; until at length in the general acceptance of the terms, they ceased to recognize the rights of humanity in those to whom they were applied. By a very natural and easy transition, from being spoken of as brutes, they came to be thought of as game to be shot, or as vermin to be destroyed.''
www.runningdeerslonghouse.com/webdoc406.htm

In response to the person who stated that 3. Black Hawk used the word several times in his own autobiography, I'd like to point out that Black Hawk's biography is a TRANSLATION from the Sauk by Antoine Le Claire, and that the editor of the translation was a journalist named Patterson who has been thought to have taken some liberties:
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/blackhawk.html


Z*lda
[e-mail]

Interesting. Two points:

1. You seem to be indicating that, as time went on, the word usage of "buck" and "squaw"-- which we all agree had perfectly innocent origins in history-- began to take on perceived negative connotations (perhaps the same connotation that "boy" had in conjunction with black men.) Your point is that these prases tend to dehumanize and devalue. So too do other words depending on how they're used-- "idiot" "moron" "fool" "cracker" "chemokemon" etc., etc. My point in this and other posts is that modern protests regarding the use of squaw are claiming as THE overriding fact that it is a derogatory term for a portion of the female anatomy-- which it clearly was not and is not. Falsifying history dilutes one's arguements and debases legitimate history.

Are we ready to excise the word "boy" from our lexicon as well?

2. Conceding that BH's autobiography was and remains a traslation, are you saying that BH would never have used the word 'sqaw?'

Regards, Bob.