Countering Colonization: Native American Women and Great Lakes Missions, 1630-1900 (Hardcover)

by Carol Devens (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
With Countering Colonization, Carol Devens offers a well- documented, revisionary history of Native American women. From the time of early Jesuit missionaries to the late nineteenth century, Devens brings Ojibwa, Cree, and Montagnais-Naskapi women of the Upper Great Lakes region to the fore. Far from being passive observers without regard for status and autonomy, these women were pivotal in their own communities and active in shaping the encounter between Native American and white civilizations. While women's voices have been silenced in most accounts, their actions preserved in missionary letters and reports indicate the vital part women played during centuries of conflict. In contrast to some Indian men who accepted the missionaries' religious and secular teachings as useful tools for dealing with whites, many Indian women felt a strong threat to their ways of life and beliefs. Women endured torture and hardship, and even torched missionaries' homes in an attempt to reassert control over their lives. Devens demonstrates that gender conflicts in Native American communities, which anthropologists considered to be "aboriginal," resulted in large part from women's and men's divergence over the acceptance of missionaries and their message. This book's perspective is unique in its focus on Native American women who acted to preserve their culture. In acknowledging these women as historically significant actors, Devens has written a work for every scholar and student seeking a more inclusive understanding of the North American past.

About the Author
Carol Devens is Assistant Professor of History at Central Michigan University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (March 20, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520075579
• ISBN-13: 978-0520075573
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,585,639 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an important book, September 25, 2001

By	[e-mail] (Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews

Countering Colonization provides refreshing insights about the interplay among Native nations, early contact, and ecological changes induced by the colonizer's commerce and religion. Carol Devens sets forth an evolving tapestry with regional differences that occurred across decades. Part of the shifting tapestry was ecological, as indigenous life ways became increasingly affected by traders' commercialization of hunting and trapping. Concurrently, many Native Nations were affected by zealous Christian missionaries whose message and methods were directed against Native life-ways and religiosity. Although her primary and well-argued thesis calls attention to Native women's role in resisting colonization, her essay is equally important for its summary portrayal of colonization's impact upon ecological balance and how that change altered male/female relations within Native communities. Devens also provides informative critiques helpful for interpreting cultural biases and insights provided by various early and mid-20th Century anthropologists who described Native ways. Probably, Countering Colonization is more useful for intermediate and advanced students of Turtle Island's native history. For persons wanting insights into indigenous ways of knowing, Buhner's "One Spirit, Many Peoples" and Abram's "The Spell of the Sensuous" are recommended. In contrast, Devens' book stands with Allen's "The Sacred Hoop" in providing an overview of societal and interpersonal changes that occurred within Native Nations as colonization endured. Fortuitously, by Countering Colonization, Native women (and men) have helped preserve Native Nations' more healthy ways of knowing and acting. Perhaps someday, after polluting one too many rivers, the colonizers' descendants will come to their senses.