page_title: Native American women in Colonial America
section_title: Life in society
hierarchical_section_title: Native American women in Colonial America / Life in society
caption_attribution_description: Description/Notes: Photo was taken on Gifford Pinchot National Forest.U.S. Forest Service photo #281580 Original Collection: Gerald W. Williams Collection Item Number: WilliamsG:USFS281580 You can find this image by searching for the item number by clicking here. Want more? You can find more digital resources online. We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons; however, certain restrictions on high quality reproductions of the original physical version may apply. To read more about what “no known restrictions” means, please visit the Special Collections &amp; Archives website, or contact staff at the OSU Special Collections &amp; Archives Research Center for details.
context_page_description: Before the colonial period of early America, Native American women lead their daily lives by working equivalent jobs to those of their male counterparts, though most of the time they did not usually do the same type of work. The life of a women in Colonial America consisted of a long day of laborious and exhausting tasks. Women played a big role in the survival of their family and because of it, they were highly respected and admired. Women were essential for group survival and depended on for processing foods, gathering seeds, fruits, roots, responsible for cooking, preserving foods, making household utensils and furnishing aside from their "stereotypical" role of nurturing and child-bearing.
context_section_description: Native American tribes believed that they originated from a woman and many of their legends and creation stories depict a "mother earth."  Agriculture was put under the women of the tribe's trust, and they saw to the fields, both harvesting and cultivating the vegetables and plants for their people. Tribal women like the Algonquians planted their fields meticulously and in a way that kept the land sustainable for future use. After planting seeds and piling on earth to protect it from the birds and harvesting until the soil lacked nutrients to continue on, women decided when to clear new fields and allow the used ones to regenerate. Women in the Iroquois tribes often controlled the distribution of food among their people. Their perceived position as beings of spiritual power gave women in some tribes the opportunity to be healers for minor injuries, as men were more commonly shamans, midwives, and herbalists.
caption: Native American woman at work
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