Cherokee Women

and their Assimilation to Western

Culture
Isabel Provisor-Lemery, Heide Ellis, Rose Guedea
Driving Question

How has the interaction between western society and

the Cherokee tribe led to the drastic shift in tribal
gender roles?
Thesis

The interaction between between the Cherokee and

Europeans ultimately led to changes in gender roles due
to trade relations, population decline, and boarding
schools.
Reasons
● Diffusion of Western Culture
● Trade Relations
● Disease and its effects on the population
● Boarding schools
● The U.S. government and their role in Native American Women’s suffrage
● Assimilation of Cherokee Native culture
 A change in Government
- Transformation of Cherokee Government
- Women’s power began to weaken
- Desire for white approval
- Limited voting rights to only adult males
- The 19th Amendment (1920) - Gave women the right to vote
- Native American women played a vital role in gaining women’s suffrage, they were still not given the right to
vote until 4 years later
- Native American Citizenship Act (1924)- U.S. government granted citizenship to Native Americans,
which gave them the official right to vote
- Native Women still faced many challenges when voting including fees, literacy tests, and their land status

Williams, Anna “Getting the vote” The Roles of Native American Women Tribal Society versus American Society, December 4 2014, http://annawilliams.web.unc.edu/.
“Our History” Cherokee Nation , February 18, 201 9, https://www.cherokee.org/About-The-Nation/History/Facts/Our-History.
Rogner, Danielle “Cherokee Acculturation & the Fall of Women’s Status” Eastern Illinois University, April 17, 2013, https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1001&context=lib_awards_2013_do s.
Trade
● The Cherokee traded meat and skins with the colonists for tools and weapons
○ Because the men hunted, they became the primary providers for the tribe
● They lost their original culture because they used Western tools and ideas
● Trade provided them with safety because the settlers needed the meat to survive
○ Created a relationship between the nations
● Women and farming were less needed so they started to work in homes

Bennion, Jillian Moore, "Assimilationist Language in Cherokee Women's Petitions: A Political Call to Reclaim Traditional Cherokee Culture" (2016). All Graduate Plan B and other Reports. 838,
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports/838.
 Native American Boarding Schools
- Many Native Americans were forced to attend boarding schools, where
they were taught western culture and ideas as a way to assimilate their
Native American culture
- Taught to read the Bible
- “Kill the Indian save the man”
- Were taught that Native Americans were “savage”- and therefore many
abandoned their original ideologies and followed those of white men with the
belief that their culture was inferior
- This led to a shift in Native American gender roles due to the teachings of
traditional American European gender roles

Williams, Anna “Progress or Regress: Nineteenth Century Struggles for Identity” The Roles of Native American Women Tribal Society versus American Society, December 4 2014, http://annawilliams.web.unc.edu/.
“The Power Of Cherokee Women” Indian Country Today, October 6, 2017, https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/the-power-of-cherokee-women-cguyNX91RE6asAyIQwYheg/.
Disease and Population Decline
● Population decrease led to stricter birth control and citizenship laws
● Population was decreasing because:
○ European disease (smallpox, influenza, etc)
○ Death from violence with colonists
○ Trail of Tears
● Because the population was decreasing, they had to allow more people to join the nation and
prevent abortions to allow for more births
○ The matrilineal society culture changed to allow everyone to join, not just the Cherokee mother’s children
○ Because they prevented abortion, women had less control over their lives

Fay Yarbrough. “Legislating Women’s Sexuality: Cherokee Marriage Laws in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Social History, vol. 38, no. 2, 2004, p. 385. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.3790444&site=eds-live.
 Forced Relocation and the Trail of Tears
- The Indian Removal Act (1830)- This act which was passed by President
Andrew Jackson, forced the Cherokee tribe to move from their ancestral
land east of the Mississippi, to a reservation in present day Oklahoma
- This also often referred to as the Trail of Tears
- Many Cherokee women had developed a relationship with the land- which they
had lost due to the removal
- The forced relocation of the Cherokees caused a shift in gender roles due
to U.S. government taking more control over the actions of Native
Americans
- Dawes Act- American government could break up tribal lands and disperse
them to individual Native Americans- Broke the cherokees communal
ownership
- Adoption of American Government ideas
- Judicial, Legislative, and Executive branch
- taxes
“Our History” Cherokee Nation , February 18, 20 9, https://www.cherokee.org/About-The-Nation/History/Facts/Our-History.
Williams, Anna “Progress or Regress: Nineteenth Century Struggles for Identity” The Roles of Native American Women Tribal Society versus American Society, December 4 2014, http://annawilliams.web.unc.edu/.
Audience
● US History class at Kealing Middle School (8th Grade)
● Many students are not taught the entire story of Native American assimilation
● Spread awareness on the topic
Product
● Link to the presentation
● Brochure so the students can refer back to the information in the powerpoint
○ The teacher received extra copies to give out to her other students
● Made traditional Cherokee recipes to pass out to the students at the end of the
presentation
Significance
● Many Americans are unaware of many side effects of assimilation
● By teaching the next generation, we can prevent this tragedy from happening again in the
future
What would
we do differently?
Work cited
Bennion, Jillian Moore, "Assimilationist Language in Cherokee Women's Petitions: A Political Call to Reclaim Traditional Cherokee Culture" (2016). All Graduate Plan B and other
Reports. 838, https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports/838.
Fay Yarbrough. “Legislating Women’s Sexuality: Cherokee Marriage Laws in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Social History, vol. 38, no. 2, 2004, p. 385. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.3790444&site=eds-live.
Keith, Angel “The Changing Role of Women in Cherokee Culture,“ The Spectator: Molding British Society in
1711https://etown.digication.com/angela_keith_10-28-10/The_Changing_Role_of_Women_in_Cherokee_Culture.
Marshall, John, and Supreme Court Of The United States. U.S. Reports: Cherokee Nation vs. the State of Georgia, The, 30 U.S. 5 Pet. 1. 1831. Periodical. Retrieved from the Library of
Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep030001/.
“Our History” Cherokee Nation , February 18, 2019, https://www.cherokee.org/About-The-Nation/History/Facts/Our-History.
Morris, Lauren “European and Cherokee Affairs” Native American HIstory, September 24, 2014, https://nativeamericanhist.as .ua.edu/european-and-cherokee-affairs/
“The Power Of Cherokee Women” Indian Country Today, October 6, 2017,
https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/the-power-of-cherokee-women-cguyNX91RE6asAyIQwYheg/.
Rogner, Danielle “Cherokee Acculturation & the Fall of Women’s Status” Eastern Illinois University, April 17, 2013,
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1001&context=lib_awards_2013_do s.
Ross, Lewis “Appeal of the Cherokee” The Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper Archive – Western Carolina University,
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/coretexts/_files/resources/texts/1830CherokeeAppeal.pdf.
Williams, Anna “Progress or Regress: Nineteenth Century Struggles for Identity”, The Roles of Native American Women Tribal Society versus American Society, December 4 2014,
http://annawilliams.web.unc.edu/.
Wishart, David ¨Native American Gender Roles” University of Nebraska-LIncoln, http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.gen.02.