Although the scholarly study of American women’s history mainly focused on the nineteenth century, attention started to gear towards women in the eighteenth century as more information began to appear through extensive research. These women’s experiences included victim narratives and accounts of resistance to gender ideology. With the growing field of early American women’s history, the intersection of gender with other factors like race, class, and region has been studied through new methodologies. Women in Early America examines the choices women made during the revolutionary era and explores the socially defined female behaviors, and demonstrates the shared goals of women of different races. In the reading, the author demonstrates that Indian women went beyond contributing to extensive food resources by challenging the colonial belief that viewed Indians as uncivilized and nomadic. One crucial role that the Indian women played in political and cultural changes is calling into question the creation of independent male yeomen farmers. Indian women’s agrarian skills not only included cultivation of crops that were associated with them but also European crops and domesticated animals. Their labor was also complemented by that of male hunters, helping to create a civilized image of Indian communities. Furthermore, their extensive production of food resources led to an increased sedentism, further challenging the nomadic lifestyle of Indian communities. Although this long-established agrarian villages helped fight against American intrusion it also offered a reason for Indian women to become a target of kidnapping. These efforts by Indian women raised a question on the American government’s land expropriation on the basis that Indians weren’t capable of being civilized. The author further examines the rise in opportunity for American women who began to redefine their identity and role in both cultural and societal settings. This change in women’s education called for schooling that emphasized enlarged responsibilities for the nation’s women and provided education exclusively to women. In this revolutionary era, women engaged themselves in this newly independent America by claiming their intellectual equality and educational opportunity, allowing women to participate in the nation’s legal and political life. The reading informs us about my current research analysis by helping to explain why the term “Indian” is associated with “corn” and why “women” is associated with “busy”.
Analysis
1) Collocates tool: “he”, “she”
Using the collocate tool, I searched up “he” and “she” to see which words came up the most often with those words. For “he”, the words dear, wrote, care, welfare, and know came up the most often and for “she”, the words town, sees, safe, old, molly, and letter came up the most often. Words that are opposite of one another are “expect” and “deliver”. “Expect” is shown to be collocated with “he” and “deliver” is shown to be collocated with “she”. Given that in the letters, Mary portrays herself to be a submissive wife, we can infer from this analysis that men held more power as they were seen as the demander while women were seen as the provider.
2) Link tool – “wife”, “husband”
The link tool was used to examine which words were most linked with the terms “wife” and “husband”. Words linked to “wife” were claim, bring, authority, and came, which holds some meaning of authority and power. This is a surprising finding in that it strays away from the idea that women were submissive to men and confirms the idea that they were starting to gain more power with time. Furthermore, they word “apart” may infer that during the time period, many wives, including Mary, stayed apart from their husbands. Words linked to “husband” were city, acknolodge (acknowledge), adieu (goodbye), and children. The term adieu, which means goodbye, may indicate that men did not settle in one place and were often nomads, as the readings suggest.
3) Terms tool
The terms tool was used to figure out which words came up the most often within the corpus. These words were dear, shall, love, know, letter, mr, time, write, captain, and family. This shows that the letters between Lucy and Henry were of letters that expressed much affection, whether that was from one side or was mutual. “Family” shows that Lucy was mostly restricted to taking care of the family, which confirms the stereotypical role of women during the time period.
4) Cirrus tool
Visual representation of which words came up the most often with bigger words being the ones with the highest frequency.
6) Context tool – “husband”, “wife”
The contexts tool was used to examine in which context “husband” and “wife” was used in the corpus. For “husband”, a lot of words associated with leaving such as adieu, apart from, and far from were used. This could mean that men were not very present in their wives lives and were often moving from place to place. In contrast, for “wife”, words like sacrifice, tenderness, loves him, and wrote to him were used. The words sacrifice and tenderness could mean that wives were seen as figures who were tender and caring for their husbands and were the ones who had to make sacrifices in their households. “Loves him” and “wrote to him” shows their affection for their husbands and show that they were the ones who waited to hear back from their husbands.
7) Links tool – “Indian”
When using the links tool to look up the term “Indian”, the following words were linked to the term – appear, corn, buckland, chiefs, demonstration. In “The Agrarian Village World of Indian Women in the Ohio River Valley” by Susan Sleeper Smith, the author mentions that Indian women were known for their agrarian skills, which could explain why the term corn is linked to the term. Specifically, corn was an important crop in the Native American communities and was often used in main foods. The author also mentioned that Indians were seen as nomadic, meaning that they seemed like a wanderer rather than a settler. The term “appear” is seen to be linked with “Indian”, which I think could indicate how they were seen as nomadic. Because they were moving from place to place often, they seemed to have “appear” out of nowhere for the European settlers.
8) Context tool – “corn”
Using the context tool, I explored how the term “corn” is used in the context of the letters. In the letters, “corn” appears when Mary and Henry are talking about the Indians. It states “[Indians] expect that we will give them some corn feed to plant near Thring…” This shows that Indians thrived off of their agrarian skills and were very involved in agriculture. Such finding corresponds to the reading in that it demonstrates that agriculture was an important aspect of life in Indian communities and they were known for their agrarian skills.
9) Links tool – “women”
When using the links tool to look at the term “women”, the words busy, perceived and family were linked to the term. Depending on the context, “busy” could either mean that the women were busy doing domestic work and agrarian work but it could also mean that women were “busy” because they were starting to take more of men’s roles. The word “family” really highlights the domestic role that women took on during the time period. This sheds light on women’s roles of being a caretaker of the children, providing food for the family and being in charge of crops.
10) Context tool – “busy”
I used the context tool to see how the term “busy” was used in the letters and if the term was used to refer to women and their burgeoning lifestyle. As expected, the context tool shows that “I precieved the women are very busy”, meaning that women may have had an increase in workload compared to before. This may refer to an increase in workload in their homes or outside of their home. Nonetheless, this shows that women were highly involved in domestic roles and were starting to shift their working lifestyle.