“Now we act more like Women than Head Men": Gender and the Native American in the Colonial South

Ian Chambers

This paper looks at the changes brought to the gender construction of southeastern Native Americans by contact with Europeans during the eighteenth century. It looks at the construction of gender in both European and Native American society and argues that the hierarchical, dualistic system of the Europeans was to conflict with and bring radical change to the balanced tripartite system of the Native American. I ask if gender roles, at least within current ideology, even existed within Native American communities and, if not, then what changes were brought about by their introduction with the arrival of the Europeans? [WP# 98007]