Iroquois and Women One of the Most

Iroquois and Women

One of the most influential Native American tribes is the Iroquois, whose way of life and constitution helped American women to realize that they, too, should be afforded the same rights and privileges as men within society. Women's rights activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Matilda Joslyn Gage were directly inspired by the Iroquois women they met and observed, which influenced them to advocate for women's rights within the United States.

In the summer of 1848, Mott and her husband visited the Seneca people -- one of the Five Nations comprising the Iroquois -- during which she was able to observe how women were treated as equals in terms of family, government, and economy. Coincidentally, during this same time, the Seneca Clan Mothers were debating on whether they should adopt the governance systems of the Quakers eventually accepting the model except for any concepts of male dominance that were outlined therein (Wagner). Mott subsequently held the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls in July, which was followed by Women's Rights Conventions in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. The first National Women's Rights Convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1850 ("Women's Rights Movement").

The Iroquois Confederacy deeply respected women and their role within their society to the extent that their rights were written into the Iroquois Constitution, also referred to as The Great Law. One of the most significant articles within the Iroquois Constitution states, "Women shall be considered the progenitors of the Nation. They shall own the land and the soil. Men and women shall follow the status of the mother" (The Constitution of the Iroquois Nations). One of the reasons that this article or statute was so impactful to women like Stanton, Mott, and Gage was because in American society, women were not only denied the right to property, but were stripped of that right upon marriage ("Inspiring Women's Rights").

In Iroquois society, women were not only granted rights to property, but they were also provided with forums, and the rights, to voice their political opinions within their respective clan. Within Iroquois society, women had two methods of voicing their concerns: through their Clan Mothers and through Women's Councils ("What Was the Iroquois Confederacy?"). Clan Mothers were responsible for keeping peace and their clan's welfare. Furthermore, they selected which men would lead them and had the power to remove them from their positions of power if they were not doing their job ("What Was the Iroquois Confederacy?"). Stanton observed, "the women were the great power among the clan…they original nomination of the chiefs always rested with the women" (Wagner). This is significant within the U.S. women's rights movement because women were not granted the right to elect men into office until 1920 when the 19th Amendment was passed, more than 40 years after Stanton and Susan B. Anthony drafted and presented the amendment to the U.S. Senate (Harper).

As the leaders of their families, women in the Iroquois nation were responsible for education their children equally, thus ensuring survival of their history, culture, and traditions. What is more, is the power granted to wives within Iroquois society, which were not afforded to the women in U.S. society. Iroquois women were given the power to divorce their husband if they believed he was not being a good husband, or if they believed he was not a good father to her children. Furthermore, children remained with their mother and her family after a divorce (Jamison). The same cannot be said for women in U.S. society at the time. What is more is that these women did not even "have rights to their children; a husband could "will away" guardianship" effectively taking a mother's children away from her against her will ("Inspiring Women's Rights").