Sisters in Spirit: Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists (15 page)
3
Matilda Joslyn Gage editorial, “Indian Citizenship,”
National Citizen and Ballot Box,
May 1878.
4
Matilda Joslyn Gage to “My dear Helen,” 11 December 1893, Gage Collection, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.
5
“Capt. Oren Tyler,” 1906. Seneca Falls Historical Society Papers, Seneca Falls, New York.
6
Free Enquirer,
Vol. 2, No. 1, p. 406; Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 200-201; Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 293-294; Vol. 2, No. 5, pp. 155, 264; Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 112; Robert Dale Owen, “The Moral Physiology” in
Birth Control and Morality in Nineteenth Century America: Two Discussions.
New York: Arno Press, 1972, p. 46.
7
Harriet S. Caswell,
Our life Among The Iroquois Indians.
Boston and Chicago: Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, 1892. pp. 29-30.
8
Harriet Phillips Eaton, letters to Matilda Joslyn Gage, 1890s. Matilda Joslyn Gage Collection, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass.
9
New York Herald,
5 November 1905. Iroquois collection, Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse, N.Y.
10
Onondaga Standard,
8 January 1946. Iroquois collection, Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse, N.Y.
11
Marcellus Observer,
8 July 1949. Iroquois collection, Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse, N.Y.
12
Unidentified newspaper clipping, 17 April 1893, Iroquois collection, Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse, N.Y.
13
Erminnie Smith,
Myths of the Iroquois.
U. S. Bureau of American Ethnology, 2nd Annual Report,1880-1881. Washington, D.C.:1883; reprint ed. Ohsweken, Ontario, Canada: Iroqrafts, 1994.
14
Mary Elizabeth Beauchamp, “Letter to the Editor,”
Skaneateles Democrat,
10 April 1883, Beauchamp File, Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse, New York. In William Beauchamp’s papers in the Onondaga County Library, he has listed a number of articles Mary Elizabeth wrote for the
Baldwinsville
Gazette as well as the
Skaneateles Democrat.
William Beauchamp writes, “She wrote many poems, stories and letters. I have also a typewritten Quaker story by her, unpublished and her last work. She wrote a great deal for the Family (Troy, N.Y.),
]ournal, Gospel Messenger, Churchman, Living Church
and local papers.”
15
Caswell, Life, p. 289; William M. Beauchamp,
Iroquois Folk Lore Gathered from the Six Nations of New York.
Empire State Historical Publication 31, n.d.; reprint ed. Port Washington, N.Y.: Ira J. Friedman Division, Kennikat Press, n.d., p. 7.
16
The Iroquois collection in the Onondaga Historical Association in Syracuse, N.Y., is an extraordinarily rich resource of 100 years of articles clipped from Onondaga County newspapers.
The Untold Story
1
Matilda Joslyn Gage, “Preceding Causes,” in Stanton, Anthony and Gage,
History of Woman Suffrage
Vol. 1, p. 29.
2
Stanton, Anthony and Gage,
History of Woman Suffrage
Vol. 1, p. 31.
3
Abigail Adams letter of 31 March 1776, quoted, among other sources, in Stanton, Anthony and Gage,
History of Woman Suffrage
Vol. 3, pp. 19-20 and Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle, New York: Atheneum, 1974, p. 15. Abigail Adams letter of 7 May 1776 quoted in
Should Women Vote? Important Affirmative Authority,
N.p.: Equal Rights Association, n.d., p. 4. Original source was an edition of their correspondence
(Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife, Abigail Adams, During the Revolution),
published during 1876 by their grandson, Charles Francis Adams, and obviously read by the suffragists, who cited it in their 1876 protest.
4
Stanton, Anthony and Gage,
History of Woman Suffrage
Vol. 1, p. 33.
5
Herbert Spencer,
Descriptive Sociology of England.
London: Williams and Morgate, 1873. Described by Gage as the “epitome of English history” in
History of Woman Suffrage
Vol. 1, p. 26.
6
Tom Paine, “Occasional Letter on the Female Sex,”
Pennsylvania Magazine,
March 1775.
7
See Chapter 4 in Sally Roesch Wagner, A
Time of Protest: Suffragists Challenge The Republic 1870-1887,
Aberdeen, S.Dak.: Sky Carrier Press, 1992.
8
For an excellent theoretical analysis of the “eurocentric notion,” see Jose Barreiro, “Challenging the Eurocentric Notion” in
Indian Roots of American Democracy.
Ithaca, N.Y.: Northeast Indian Quarterly, 1988, pp. xii-xvi.
9
Gage,
Woman, Church and State,
p. 324.
10
Gage,
Woman, Church and State,
p. 324.
11
Henry B. Stanton,
Random Recollections.
New York: Macgowan and Slipper, 1886, p. 94. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s husband Henry describes the frequent presence of Oneidas during their visits to Peterboro.
12
“Equal pay for equal work” was a major theme of the New York state woman’s rights convention held in Rochester during 1853. “Why should not woman’s work be paid for according to the quality of the work done, and not the sex of the worker?” the convention call asked. Greeley chaired the five-member Committee on Industry on which Gage served. Stanton, Anthony and Gage,
History of Woman Suffrage
Vol. 1, pp. 577, 589.
13
John Vivian in “the Three Sisters: the nutritional balancing act of the Americas”
(Mother Earth News,
February/March 2001, p. 50) describes the “complete nutritive punch” of these three plants. A “nearly ideal foundation food,” corn lacks only riboflavin and niacin, along with two essential amino acids—lysine and tryptophane—all supplied by beans. Carbohydrate-rich squash contributes quality vegetable fats the other two lack, along with vitamin A.
14
Harriet Maxwell Converse, “New York’s Indians,”
New York Herald,
2 February n.d. Writings of H. M. Converse and Miscellaneous Scrapbook of Ely S. Parker, p. 109. New York State Archives, Albany, New York.
15
R. Emerson and Russell P. Dobash, “Wives: The ‘Appropriate’ Victims of Marital Violence,”
Victimology: An International journal
Vol. 2, 1977-78, pp. 430- 431.
16
Paula Gunn Allen,
The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1986, pp. 213-214.
17
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “The Matriarchate or Mother-Age,” National Council of Women of the United States. Rachel Foster Avery (ed.),
Transactions of the National Council Women of the United States, Assembled in Washington, D.C. February 22 to 25, 1891.
Philadelphia, Pa.: 1891, pp. 218-227. Stanton-Anthony Papers 28: 1013-1017. Also published in
The National Bulletin
Vol. 1, February 1891.
18
Harriet Stanton Blatch, “Voluntary Motherhood.”
The National Bulletin
Vol. 1, No. 5, February 1891, pp. 7-12.
19
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “If You Would be Vigorous and Healthy” in M. L. Holbrook, M.D., “Parturition Without Pain,” appendix to George H. Napheys,
The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother.
New York: M.A. Donohue and Company,1927, pp. 365-366.
20
Stanton, “The Matriarchate or Mother-Age.”
21
Gage, “The Remnant of the Five Nations: Woman’s Rights Among the Indians.”
22
Stanton, “The Matriarchate or Mother-Age.”
23
Audrey Shenandoah, Speech at The Elizabeth Cady Stanton Annual Birthday Tea, 10 November 1991, Gould Hotel, Seneca Falls, New York. Sponsored by the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Foundation.
Mother Earth, Creator of Life
1
Matilda Joslyn Gage, “The Onondaga Indians.”
The
(New York)
Evening Post,
3 November 1875. Scrapbook of Gage’s Published Newspaper Articles, Matilda Joslyn Gage Collection, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass.
2
Harriet Maxwell Converse,
Myths and Legends of the New York State Iroquois.
Albany: New York State Museum, 1908, pp. 63-64.
3
Arthur C. Parker, “Iroquois Uses of Maize and Other Food Plants,” Education
Department Bulletin,
No. 482, 1 November 1910, Albany: University of the State of New York, 1910, p. 27.
4
James. E. Seaver, A
Narrative of the life of Mrs. Mary Jemison, Who was taken by the Indians, in the year 1755, when only about twelve years of age, and has continued to reside amongst them to the present time.
J.D. Bemis & Co., 1824, pp. 35-36, 69-71.
5
Gage, “The Onondaga Indians.”
7
W. M. Beauchamp, “The New Religion of the Iroquois,”
The Journal of American Folk-Lore.
Vol. 10, No. 38, July-September 1897, p. 177.
8
“The Creation Story” in
Legends of Our Nations.
Cornwall Island, Ontario: North American Indian Travelling College, n.d., p. 76.
9
Stanton, “The Matriarchate or Mother-Age.”
11
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Blessing” in Margaret Stanton Lawrence “Reminiscences,” Stanton Collection, Vassar College Library, Poughkeepsie, New York.
12
The notable exception was Mary Baker Eddy, the one United States woman to establish a continuing religion (The First Church of Christ, Scientist). Mrs. Eddy_before Santon and Gage_recognized the Motherhood and Fatherhood.
13
“Condensation of the Opening Address sent by the Mohawk Nation and the Haudenosaunee Grand Council to the Fourth Russell Tribunal, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, November 1980,”
Northeast Indian Quarterly,
Fall 1987, p. 8. From the Thanksgiving Address.
14
Stanton, “The Matriarchate or Mother-Age.”
15
Matilda Joslyn Gage, “Msickquatash,”
Appleton’s Journal,
[1875]. Scrapbook of Gage’s Published Newspaper Articles, Matilda Joslyn Gage Collection, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass.
16
Matilda Joslyn Gage, [Alcor], “Green Corn Dance of The Onondagas.” To the Editor of the [New York]
Evening Mail,
n.d. Scrapbook of Gage’s Published Newspaper Articles, Matilda Joslyn Gage Collection, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass.
17
Gage, “The Onondaga Indians.”
18
Hattie A. Burr,
The Woman Suffrage Cook Book,
N.p.: 1886; reprinted in Robert B. Thomas,
The Old Farmer’s Almanac,
1968.
19
Matilda Joslyn Gage, editorial, “Indian Citizenship,” (Syracuse, New York)
National Citizen and Ballot Box,
May 1878.
20
Stanton, “Elizabeth Cady Stanton on Socialism.”
From Subordination to Cooperation
1
Stanton,
The Woman’s Bible, p. 7.
2
Stanton, “The Matriarchate or Mother-Age.”
3
Stanton et al,
History of Woman Suffrage
Vol. 1, pp. 70-71.
4
Stanton, “The Matriarchate or Mother-Age.”
5
Fletcher, “The Legal Conditions of Indian Women,” pp. 238-239.
7
Burnham, Carrie S.,
Tract No. 5: Common Law,
N.p.: n.d., Women’s Rights Vol. 2, Department of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. When Burnham applied to the University of Pennsylvania to study law, Spencer Miller, who was dean of the law department, said that if women or Negroes were admitted, he would resign. Ultimately she won and studied law there.