The Acoma Pueblo origin story reinforces the point that women viewed their food production as vital to their people and as something spiritual.

Starting with Christopher Columbus, who observed in 1493 that “the women seem to work more than the men,” the productive role of Native American women was an object of much commentary among European men. European’s representations and descriptions of Native women tell us about European perceptions of their conquest of the Americas and about the women depicted.

Pocahontas was kidnapped by settlers from Jamestown, became willingly a part of their community, converted to Christianity, took the name Rebecca, helped her husband to be the first European cultivator of tobacco, travelled to England where she died at the age of 21. Disneyland

Even after obtaining the vote with passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, for decades some states still prohibited women from serving on juries. Nevertheless, in 1656, an all-woman jury was impaneled to decide the case of Judith Catchpole. In this case, the women examined Judith Catchpole for any physical signs of recent pregnancy and childbirth. They found none and gave an oath to that effect. Although unusual, hers is not the only recorded case of a female jury.

Tobacco brides were Native American women who successfully cultivates tobacco and were very valuable in trade among native American tribes.

Dutch married women in Netherlands and in the New Netherlands were placed in the same legal category as minors and people of unsound mind. Therefore, they were not able to own property and manage their own businesses.

“Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shalbe held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother...”This Virginia colonial law of December 1662 made a child of an enslaved mother also a slave for life following the English common law where a child received his or her status from his mother.

The Hutchinson controversy represented not just a theological position that attracted men and women but also an undercurrent of female rebelliousness that community leaders felt compelled to repress.

During the American Revolution, many women followed the patriot’s Continental Army. Their activities were mostly extensions of women’s traditional household work. They also served as nurses. Only few women actually fought in combat.

The Great Awakening challenged religious authority and hierarchy and promoted a new egalitarianism across gender, class, race, and even slate status. It influenced the Revolutionary war by encouraging the notions of nationalism and individual rights.

Native Americans’ assimilation to white norms disturbed traditional patterns. Native American men left farming and started hunting and fishing, while Native American women had to leave the domestic work in their homes and start farming.

Plantation patriarchy was a gender and family system, organized around racial difference and inequality. These inequalities were considered God-given, therefore unquestionable. In this system, managing race necessitated managing gender and sexuality, e.g. the illegitimate child of a black female slave and a white master followed the legal status of the mother. These sexual relations were an open secret in the South.

In the 19th century Protestant worldview in the U.S., women were pure, with no sexual appetite. Many moralists were disturbed by the presence of prostitution.