by Marguerite Kearns

When colonial residents arrived in what later became the United States, there was relatively little knowledge available about the social and economic structures of the native peoples already living here.

Their children, for example, became members of the woman’s or mother’s clan at birth. Violence against women wasn’t part of the indigenous culture. And women’s responsibilities had a spiritual basis.

In the colonial cultures taking over, however, children represented the sole property of their fathers. Husbands had the power, legal right and responsibility to discipline wives. And women’s subordination was rooted in religious documents.

Multiple differences were also included in economic, spiritual, political, and gender differences. These values were laid out in Sally Wagner’s 2001 book, Sisters in Spirit.

“The Unfinished Revolution” book was featured on Suffrage Wagon’s book shelf. It represented the major increase in books with votes for women content. This book, however, is geared to Quaker values and its alternative standard when compared to the mainstream colonial culture.

In several instances, the native men adopted the partial or complete top-down values of the colonial men who settled the nation.

The native women chose their chiefs, whereas colonial women were not permitted to vote. The women were excluded from political office, whereas the native women held key political offices, including clan mothers.  Confederacy law ensured women’s political authority as compared to top-down common law in the mainstream defined married women as “dead in the law.” Decision making was by consensus in native communities, where everyone had a voice, whereas colonial decisions were made by men and the majority ruled.

So it was significant that native values were more progressive overall than those conquering groups and their cultures. Many of these underlying values are still problematic today.

Suffrage Wagon News Channel has published since 2009.