"Caring for Our Affairs Ourselves": Stockbridge Mohican Women and Indian Education in Early America

Abstract

Abstract:Indian education has long been acknowledged in American historiography and American Indian Studies as the primary conduit for the cultural genocide of indigenous peoples. The rise of federal Indian boarding schools looms large over the long narrative of Indian education in America, often shading the way scholars interpret earlier Indian engagement with Anglo-style education. This is particularly evident in scholarship that traces the roots of American education and civilization policies to Henry Knox in the 1790s. The emphasis scholars have placed on white men and their initiatives toward "civilizing" Indian people have inadvertently erased indigenous agency and power within the early education system. Informed by indigenous feminism, this article utilizes ethnohistorical approaches to piece together how Mohican women advocated for the prioritization of girls' education in the 1790s. Their emphasis on female education resulted in greater prosperity for the nation, but their work to establish this model was quickly hijacked by white missionaries and Indian agents who took credit for the idea and Stockbridge success. The female-first strategy that was originally deployed to aid in the securing of Stockbridge land and sovereignty was later adopted by white architects of Indian education as a tool of tribal destruction. Drawing upon Mohican women's never-before-analyzed letters, Mohican craft works, and a careful reevaluation of War Department and missionary records, this piece contributes to the growing body of literature on indigenous women and power in early America while complicating the narrative of the decline of indigenous women's authority in the early years of the American Republic.