Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World: The Clash of Cultures in the Colonial Southeast

Title

Creator

Michelene E. Pesantubbee (IA) See all items with this value

Date

2005

Bibliographic Citation

Pesantubbee, Michelene E. 2005. Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World: The Clash of Cultures in the Colonial Southeast. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

annotates

In this book, Choctaw author Michelene Pesantubbee explores the changing position and roles of women in Choctaw society during the French colonial era pre-1763. Her central thesis is that influence from the patriarchal Catholic French disturbed the Choctaw’s matrilineal culture and reduced the number and influence of “beloved women,” who partook in councils and peace leadership. Pesantubbee uses historical, anthropological, and linguistic studies to reconstruct Choctaw women’s lives. To offset the lack of contemporary documentation of Choctaw women, she also draws upon sources from other southeastern Native Tribes. The chapters cover Choctaw women’s precontact roles, their loss of influence due to changes in attitudes on torture and captives, the efforts of French missionaries to advance colonial interests, exploitation of Native women by settlers, the decline of ceremonies tied to women’s status, and the continuation of some traditional roles for women into the nineteenth century. Pesantubbee’s book is notable for being the only work dedicated to Choctaw women’s experiences in the colonial era.

Subject

Chahta (Choctaw) See all items with this value

Chahta Culture See all items with this value

Commerce See all items with this value

Cultural Accommodation See all items with this value

French See all items with this value

Ceremonies See all items with this value

Identity See all items with this value

Mississippi See all items with this value

Alabama See all items with this value

Temporal Coverage

Precontact See all items with this value

Postcontact See all items with this value

17th Century See all items with this value