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theses

This dissertation uses a comparative framework to research and analyze religious identity among indigenous women who joined self-governed Christian Indian communities in the United States and Mexico in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as well as the role of gendered rhetoric in the creation and maintenance of those communities. Focusing primarily on convents for indigenous nuns in Mexico and two Christian Indian tribes, Brothertown and Stockbridge, in the United States, it argues that women in these communities leveraged the dual nature of their identities – as both indigenous and Christian – in order to gain recognition, authority, and autonomy within and beyond their communities. By becoming abbesses, schoolteachers, or simply “exemplary Christians,” these women gained influence over colonial and national authorities based on their Christian identity, while advocating for indigenous people and strengthening indigenous networks. They adapted to changing economic conditions and used creative strategies for fundraising, thereby ensuring the financial stability of their communities. They also asserted new understandings of the relationship between ethnic identity and allegiance that diverged from the perspectives of colonial and national officials, as well as indigenous men. In both regions, however, increasing nationalism and anti-indigenous or anticlerical land policies on the federal level caused the suppression of independent Christian Indian communities and exposed Native women within these groups to the full brunt of gendered and racialized oppression under national expansion. The efficacy of women’s strategies based on their membership within these communities, therefore, was also curtailed. Overall, the broad similarities in indigenous women’s responses to colonial and imperial rule in multiple locations suggest that gender and ethnicity, more than geopolitical context, shaped indigenous women’s strategies for survival across the Americas.

This dissertation departs from existing studies of Christian Indian communities not only through its focus on women and its comparative perspective, but also through its chronological framework, which spans both the late colonial and early national periods. Part 1 of this dissertation examines indigenous girls’ experiences in missionary-run schools in the mid-eighteenth century, where these students were instrumental in creating the networks which would provide the foundation for Christian Indian communities. Part 2 of this dissertation focuses on the emergence of these communities in the late eighteenth century, and the ways in which gendered rhetoric, as used by both indigenous communities and Euro-American colonial officials, supported or detracted from the efforts to create these communities. Finally, Part 3 of this dissertation looks at women’s lives within Christian Indian communities and examines the specific strategies for survival and advocacy developed by women within Christian Indian communities. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates both the possibilities and the limits of Native women’s influence and agency based on their dual identity as Christian and indigenous.

ETD_10674

doi:10.7282/t3-6ken-m367

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

ETD doctoral

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