In “Sexuality and the Invasion of America: 1492-1806,” Vicki Jaimez gives a brief history of relations between native women and invading men which, in many ways is a testimony to the strength, independence and courage of these women. Part of their strength and adaptability is due to the demands made on them by their own culture, one in which women were regarded as pawns in complex political and economic games, but part is also due to their being free from the kind of religious and social oppression endured by their European counterparts. These same factors made them so alluring to the Europeans who came to the Americas during those centuries in search of gold, religious freedom, scientific advancement or personal freedom.
It is impossible to see the invaders through the eyes of native women but the evidence points to the fact that they saw them as men, and accepted that all men everywhere were much the same under their skin or their armor plating. We have a clearer picture of how European men saw the women in those exotic cultures. Initially they judged them by European standards of dress and decorum, and found them wanting but delightfully so.
In their own cultures, which were dominated by the Catholic Church and its celibate priesthood, sexuality had been suppressed and concealed by whatever means the Church could muster. Here in the New World women behaved as Eve might have, thereby raising the expectations of the invaders no matter whether their objectives were political, economic, sporting or merely obsessed with practices that in Europe were considered taboo.
Christopher Columbus, the first of the invaders to express his amazement at the native population’s nakedness, no doubt encouraged many young men to join the emigration to the Americas. Those who saw themselves as doing God’s work had to repress this motive as best they could but some, at least, felt that God would be satisfied if they made an honest attempt at doing His work and that, if they failed to reach their goals, He would not object to their recreational activities.
Cortez’s adviser told Cortez that his plan to refuse to accept the chief’s daughters until the chiefs accepted Christ was a good one and that if it did not work they could at least say they tried; but what he did not say was that if the chiefs insisted on giving them their daughters they could at least enjoy their company. So it was that Cortez was given a woman who was to bear him a child while married to another Spaniard, and who also served as his interpreter.
The women of the New World showed themselves to be more than just adaptable. As in most cultures where women do most of the work, they had developed valuable skills which they put in the service of the invaders in order to survive and survive well.
Pocahontas, for example, rescued John Smith, then married John Rolfe in spite of the Englishman’s reservations, and acted as a liaison between Powhatan and King James I, thereby ensuring four years of peace between natives and invaders. She also traveled to England, thereby traversing not just oceans but centuries. In today’s Virginia it is a point of honor to be one of her descendants and a statue of her was erected in Jamestown in 1922. Today she is best known as the heroine of a Disney film in which she and John Smith were recast as Romeo and Juliet (Anonymous 3).
Lewis and Clark’s expedition benefited greatly by the assistance given by a Shoshone woman, Sacajawea, who accompanied the explorers while carrying a baby on her back, interpreting for them and procuring horses. That is not to say that European women were necessarily their inferior. The story of Marguerite, a young French noblewoman who was abandoned on a deserted island, fought bears and kept herself alive during a severe winter, shows that women have acquired the ability to survive under all sorts of difficult circumstances.
It is remarkable, as Jaimez notes, that there are no recorded instances of native men pairing up with European women. Other historians have looked at the role of “berdaches” or transvestites during this period, noting that these were sometimes boys and men neutered by Spanish conquistadores and put into service as women by men deprived of the company of women(Trexler).
Allowing for the invaders’ double standard and perhaps that of the native culture as well, it is likely that most interactions between invaders and women as well as berdaches remained secret. On the other hand, the ease with which native women and invaders established relations shows again how adaptable women are compared to their men. A man’s cultural identity might be engraved in stone but a woman, it seems, had to keep her options open.
Works Cited
Anonymous. “Redesigning Pocahontas.” Journal of Popular Film and Television. Volume: 24. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 1996. Page Number: 91.
Jaimez, Vicki. “Sexuality and the Invasion of America: 1492-1806.” Web.
Trexler, Richard. Sex and Conquest: Gender Construction and Political Order During the European Conquest of the Americas. Cambridge, Polity Press, 1995.