Gender and Colonialism pt3: Reproducing White Settlers and Eliminating Natives by Margaret D. Jacobs

collage by nicholas b jacobsen

“Focusing on women, gender, and family in the West reveals that settler colonialism played out not only on the battlefield or in the halls of gover­nance, but also in the most intimate spaces of homes, schools, and missions.

“Indeed, questions related to women, reproduc­tion, and the family remain crucial to understanding the settler colonial past and present in the American West. 

“Indigenous women engaged in physical labor, and Euro-Americans often portrayed them as ‘squaw drudges’ who were cruelly oppressed by their idle menfolk.

“Representations of white, Euro women as potential victims of bloodthirsty and licentious Indig­enous men were equally important in justifying col­onization. 

“Many white women's experiences of captivity diverged from this common narrative, but the trope of the imperiled white woman held greater cultural power than firsthand accounts.”

Myths of Indigenous men assaulting pure/white women were the catalyst for the larg­est mass execution in the U.S.. It was signed by Lincoln and enacted against 38 Dakota men. 

“White men thus rep­resented themselves as the saviors and protectors of both brutalized Indigenous women and threatened white women, further justifying the subjugation of Indigenous peoples and the colonization of their lands. (saving the feminized land)

“With the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862, the fed­eral government engaged in gendered engineering to promote the settlement of white families in the West. 

“The 1790 Naturalization Act had limited naturalized citizenship to ‘white persons,’ which remained in effect until 1952. 

“The 1887 Dawes Act mandated that communally­ owned reservation land be allotted to individual Indigenous People in a manner similar to the Homestead Act. All told, Indigenous nations lost 90 million acres of land through the allot­ment process while settlers took up 285 million acres through the Homestead Act. 

“In popular culture, many observers characterized the disappearance of Indigenous People as inevitable, not the result of dispossession, neglect, [sterilization] and corruption.”

​(all quotes from Reproducing White Settlers and Eliminating Natives: Settler Colonialism, Gender, and Family History in the American West by Margaret D. Jacobs)