Southern Ute Women

by Osburn, Katherine M. B.

• ISBN13: 9780803220386
• ISBN10: 0803220383
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

After the passage of the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887, the Southern Ute Agency was the scene of an intense federal effort to assimilate the Ute Indians. The Southern Utes were to break up their common land holdings and transform themselves into middle-class patriarchal farm and pastoral families. In this assimilationist scheme, women were to surrender the considerable autonomy they enjoyed in traditional Ute society and become housebound homemakers, the "civilizers" of their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons.Southern Ute Womenshows that these women accommodated Anglo ways that benefited them but refused to give up indigenous culture and ways that gave their lives meaning and bolstered personal autonomy. In spite of federal policies that stripped women of many legal rights, Southern Ute women demanded participation in political, economic, and legal decisions that affected their lives and insisted on retaining control over their marital and sexual behavior.

Author Biography

Katherine M. B. Osburn is a professor of history at the Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville.

Table of Contents

Maps	p. xxxiii
Tables	p. xxxv
Acknowledgments	p. xxxvii
Preface	p. xxxix
Introduction	p. 1
The People of the Shining Mountains	p. 9
Women and Public Leadership	p. 21
Women and Economics	p. 37
Homemaking	p. 69
Sex and Marriage	p. 85
Conclusion	p. 113
Notes	p. 119
Selected Bibliography	p. 149
Index	p. 163
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