Voices of Native Women: Re-defining Indianness in the West" ; "La voix des femmes amérindiennes : vers une redéfinition de l'indianité à l'Ouest

Abstract

International audience At the beginning of the 19th century, the dynamism of the old southwestern frontier put the Five Civilized Tribes (Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee) in the position of active participants in the making of the Early Republic due to their outstanding integration in the commercial and cultural exchanges with whites in the region. This phenomenon results from the fact that the Natives voluntarily adapted to American standards in order to ensure their integration within the American nation state and to preserve their sovereignty on their tribal lands. As it was in line with what settlers considered as « civilization », this transition from a traditional Indian society to a hybrid entity seemed to grant the Five Civilized Tribes a certain degree of legitimacy in the region. However, their removal west of the Mississippi enacted in 1830 proved that such was not the case. Yet, the creation of the Indian Territory, where the Five Tribes were forced to settle, seemed to give those « Americanized » Natives the opportunity to assume a position of strength in the West since it placed them in a central geopolitical position in the nineteenth century American landscape. This paper studies the role of Native women in this transformation of Indian identity before and after Removal. It will analyze how they modified the codes of Indian womanhood and femininity, using acculturation as a means to resist. ; Au début du XIXe siècle, le dynamisme tout particulier de la frontière du Vieux Sud-Ouest (Géorgie, Caroline du Sud et Tennessee) confère aux cinq nations dites « civilisées » (Choctaw, Chickasaw, Séminole, Creek et Cherokee) le statut d'agents actifs dans la construction de la jeune République, du fait de leur intégration exceptionnelle dans le tissu commercial et culturel de la région. Cela est dû notamment à une volonté autochtone d'entamer un processus d'adaptation aux standards civilisationnels américains, afin de garantir leur intégration dans la république et de maintenir leur ...