2024/06/25 by Cerjak, Matthew
#Cherokee #Ethnohistory #Indigenous Feminist Studies #Matricultural Traditions #Settler Colonialism
paper · doi:10.60676/k9d4sg81
Over the course of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Cherokee Beloved Woman Nanyehi attempted to negotiate multiple treaties with Euro-American officials on the behalf of her people. This paper, through an ethnohistorical approach that interweaves contemporaneous reports and transcriptions of her negotiations with oral histories, argues that: (i) the Cherokee and Euro-Americans held opposing worldviews, especially with regards to gender, (ii) that their conceptions of gender came to head during their negotiations and that they were a driving cause of conflict despite Nanyehi's hopes of fostering coexistence, and (iii) that Nanyehi's call for the Americans to ’let your women hear our words’ resulted in the Cherokee matriculture being deemed a subversive threat by American men and subsequently motivated an explicit settler colonial mission to ’domesticate’ Cherokee women. In closing, however, this paper reflects on the survivance of Cherokee women and emphasizes the resilience of the Cherokee matriculture despite oppressive forces. In doing so, this paper underscores the ongoing struggles for recognition faced by Indigenous women, offering insights into the broader challenges confronting Indigenous communities today.