Contextual Documents

In between bouts of dizziness, etc., I'm trying to keep up with everything (okay...I'm about to give up on my ecofeminism independent study). Hopefully these new meds will stop my world from spinning (at least I spin with the Earth...that's a little ecofem, isn't it?). Here's some early work on a couple of contextual documents. Like I tell my students: in order to understand what's going on in front of you, you need to be aware of what's going on around you.

To understand Mary Jemison and her Indianness, one must understand both her history and the history of the tribe she chose to remain with. In order to understand how her Indianness is the source of her strength and determination, the reader should know the people and landscapes that Jemison chose to call home. To gain understanding, I will examine four chapters from White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity in the American Frontier by June Namias. From her book I’ve gathered information on the history of the Indian practice of taking captives, how Anglo-American culture along with ideas of gender constructed the writings about the new American frontiers and how the white female captive in particular became the subject of a new literature. Namias states: “rather than being marginalized, subordinated, or totally missing, white woman captives are the subject of a vast array of materials. In this literature, white women participate fully in the so-called rise of civilization” (Namias 23). This participation, and Jemison’s in particular, demonstrates how white female captives were not always the victims as some authors would portray them. Seaver, for example, repeatedly sets up Jemison as a damsel in distress, yet I have found examples in the text where Jemison’s agency is apparent from her decision to remain with the Seneca to her eventual ownership of acres upon acres of land.

Namias’s book also presented some background material on the man who Jemison told her life story to. James Everett Seaver was a physician and “pioneer of sorts” (Namias 151). Knowing about the man who constructed Jemison’s narrative is helpful.

The chapter on Jemison’s narrative gives insight into the reason why some white women chose to remain with their captors. Namias cites the work of James Axtell which might prove interesting upon further investigation.

Namias, June. White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity in the American Frontier. Chapel
Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1993.


To understand Mary Jemison, you need to know about the Seneca people. One of the six tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Seneca occupy native lands in upstate New York which were set aside by the Treaty of Canandaigua of 1794. I found a good starting point at:
http://www.senecaindian.com
which led me to:
http://www.sni.org.
Both of these Web sites give a good overview of the Six Nations of the Iroquois and provide additional resources that I will be investigating. Turns out I lived just a few miles away from one of the six nations, the Onondaga Nation, when I attended SUNY Cortland.


The role of Native women in a tribe is key to understanding Jemison’s agency as an Indian woman. Two texts that I believe are important are:

Bilharz, Joy. "First among Equals? The Changing Status of Seneca Women." Women and
Power in Native North America. 101-112. Norman, OK: U of Oklahoma P, 1995.

Bilharz’s chapter provides insight on the status of Iroquois women and how the “claims of relatively high status for Iroquois women are usually based on such economic and/or political roles as female ownership of land, control over horticultural production, and nomination of Confederacy chiefs” (102). Iroquois women were the ones who worked the land so that gave them the rights to it. Female communal work parties cultivated crops and livestock. Men simply cleared the land initially and the women became the horticulturists and rightful owners. Jemison becomes of owner of hundreds of acres of land as a member of the Seneca tribe.

Shoemaker, Nancy. "The Rise Or Fall Of Iroquois Women." Journal of Women's
History 2.3 (1991): 39-57.
(I am waiting on this article from interlibrary loan.)


Mary Jemison was married to two Native American men: Sheninjee and Hiokatoo. Jemison was forced to marry Sheninjee, but she grew to love him and when he died a few years after they were married, she mourned her loss. She later married Hiokatoo and stayed married to him until his death decades later. I am currently looking for more information on Sheninjee and Hiokatoo and hope the following will help:

Hughes, James. "Those Who Passed Through: Unusual Visits To Unlikely Places. Mary
Jemison." New York History 87.1 (2006): 144-148.
(I am waiting on this article from interlibrary loan.)

Okay, I need to go lay down now. :)