Directions for Make-up Historical Reflection.You may create an Historical Reflection in response to content addressed during week 11 and analyze the life and achievements of Sarah Winne

Women in the 19th Century

American West

Opportunities, Limitations, and Agency

Francesca Benecia Carrillo y Vallejo

Bridgette “Biddy” Mason

Sarah Winnemucca

The West presented women with Opportunities, Limitations, and ground for exercising Agency. Some of the opportunities available to women were often determined by a woman’s race and citizenship status. Single women, with US citizenship status, were eligible to Homestead in western states and territories. Here in the West, the federal government promoted settlement of land with the Homestead Act :160 acres per adult head of family and then the Desert Land Act: 320 acres. Single adult women filed for land grants. In California, women benefited from Married Women’s Property Rights – a hold over from

California’s Mexican and Spanish Eras. The limitations women experienced often depended upon their race and citizenship status. Indigenous women found their culture under assault and faced a narrowing array of choices. The very land that some women homesteaded represented occupation of land once claimed by North American tribes. Mexican American women here in California saw their Californio lifestyle assaulted by new laws and loss of property – or marriage to Yankee men that provided them with avenues to both cultures; African American women faced both enslavement and freedom, but it is important to question what did freedom mean? Asian women, primarily Chinese women began arriving during the Gold Rush faced challenges with living in an increasingly hostile environment in California, limited numbers compared with men, and often isolation in Chinese communities. Chinese women became the first targets of U. S. anti- immigrant legislation.

The West reveals multiple ways in which women exercised Agency. This important historical concept is the extent to which one can determine their future – negotiating between limitations and opportunities. Agency reveals how women acted to avoid being overwhelmed by restrictions and avoided becoming powerless victims of the circumstances they faced. Agency means exercising as much control over one’s future as possible.

In this multi-part lecture, we will examine the lives of three women. The inspection of their lives reveals Insights into the opportunities and limitations they faced and how they exercised Agency here in the nineteenth-century American West.

1

Adaptation, Acculturation & Agency

 Adaptation: The process of adjusting to changing circumstances in order to survive and achieve desired goals.

 Acculturation: process of adopting the beliefs, behaviors, and practices of another group.

 Agency: The capacity to make choices, direct the course of one’s life, and exert an influence. This takes into account the limitations and opportunities one faces.

All three historical terms apply to women’s experiences in the nineteenth- century American West. We need to keep in mind, one of our course’s main themes for guiding our exploration of women’s history: how a woman’s multiple identities impact her opportunities and limitations. Let’s examine women’s western experiences through an intersectional lens.

2

Expansion or Invasion?

"Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (mural

Emanuel Leutze , 1861, Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way 33 X 43 hangs in US Capitol, House of Representatives.

Which term is accurate?

Does this painting reveal expansion or invasion? Consider how different points of view may answer the question differently. If we consider the migration from the vantage point of indigenous populations in the West, this migration may appear like an invasion. From the perspective of the white Americans moving West, the movement may appear like expansion.

3

CALIFORNIA:

Slave or Free State?

Compromise of 1850

California’s admission to the Union in 1851 upset the slave – free state balance. According the 1849 State Constitution, California would not allow slavery within its borders and it would preserve married women’s property rights. (a carry over from California’s Spanish legal heritage). This contrasts with the British common law feme covert status in which women lost control of their property upon marriage.

4

Californio Culture in California

The importance of Family and Women in

Californio Society of Alta California

Californio culture: Prior to the US was with Mexico and the signing of the

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Californio culture prevailed here in

present day California, the northern region of Mexico.

5

Francesca Benecia Carillo y Vallejo

1815 – 1891

A life

spanning

three eras of

California

history.

Spanish

Mexican

US

Vallejo Family:

Francesca Benicia Carillo, born in 1815 to Maria Ignacia Lopez and Joaquin

Carrillo married Mariano Vallejo (1808 – 1890) in March 1832, after waiting

nearly two-years for permission to be granted from Mexico City.

His military duties required separations during the early stages of their

marriage, but they made their home at the Rancho de Petaluma north of San

Francisco where he served as a military leader for the Mexican army.

Francesca: Birthed 16 children, 10 survived to adulthood.

6

Rancho Petaluma

Opportunities

US war with Mexico

Loss and Decline of wealth

and power.

Role within Family:

Responsibilities: Her responsibilities entailed managing the household. She is described as always

having a baby on her lap or at her breast. On one occasion while Mariano recovered from a hip injury, she

entertained and hosted visiting Americans. She not only oversaw serving them, but performed a

representative role in her husband’s physical absence. A number of her daughters and granddaughters

married white, American men. California Indians labored for Vallejos, each daughter was served by

Indigenous women who labored as personal servants.

Difficulties: The written record provides evidence of some stress in the marriage; she spent over a year

living with daughter Fannie in Vallejo while Mariano remained at Lachrya Montes in Sonoma. The conflict

stems from disagreements regarding US rule in California. Apparently, Francesca disapproved of Mariano’s

more favorable view of the white Americans. She left him in the fall of 1869, expressing disgust at his faith

in Americans, but returned to live with him in late 1870.

These two examples reveal how Senora Vallejo stepped outside the domestic role and into the diplomatic

realm when necessary. She also maintained her own views and strong opinions on political and government

affairs.

7

Home of Mariano Vallejo in Sonoma

Lachryma Montis: Vallejo Family Home in Sonoma:

Under US control, Californios lost much of their land. The California Land Act of 1851 required

land owners to prove title to their land in US courts and in English. The US system relied upon a

grid-based land survey to acknowledge land ownership, whereas Mexico relied upon disenos that

relied upon drawn maps with natural features described. To defend their claims to land,

Californios need to hire attorneys and translators who usually required currency for payment.

This forced Californios to sell land to defend their titles to it!

The Vallejo Family’s profits declined during this period and Mariano came to share Francesca’s

more skeptical view of US acquisition of California. She lived only one additional year after his

death.

(As an aside, both Rancho Petaluma and Lachrya Montis (which means tear of the mountain) are

preserved historical sites here in Northern California).

8

Interior images of Vallejo’s Home

Lachryma Montis , the Vallejo Family home in Sonoma reveals how the family adapted to white American society and incorporated some of their customs and traditions into their domestic lifestyle. The interior rooms at Lachryma Montis reveal a more Anglicized décor.

Adapting and Acculturating:

Like many other Californio families, the Vallejos experienced a loss of property, status, and rights as a result of U. S. acquisition. Under Spanish legal tradition, she maintained property rights as a married woman here in California, even after 1848.

Francesca fulfilled domestic and maternal responsibilities, while also exercising agency and power in her marriage.

9

Free or Slave?

 Bridget “Biddy” Mason

 1818 – 1891

 1849 California

Constitution prohibited

slavery and retained

married women’s

property rights.

Born into slavery in Mississippi, in1818, Bridgette “Biddy” Mason exercised agency to challenge racism in the American West. Robert Smith, a slave owner, illegally enslaved Mason, her children, and others when he moved to San Bernadino County in California in 1851.

In December of 1855, local law enforcement intervened and captured Biddy Mason, her children, and other enslaved people. They were detained in a Los Angeles jail to prevent Robert Smith from forcing them to move to Utah. Los Angeles District Judge Benjamin Hayes ruled, in January 1856, that Biddy Mason and thirteen others, including some of her children, were free because California’s constitution prohibited Slavery. Timing is key here. The California court declared the Masons free just one moth before attorneys representing Dred Scott argued his case before the US Supreme Court in February 1856. The US Supreme Court issued its decision in the Dred Scott case in March of 1857. In this case, the high court ruled that slave owners’ property rights did not end when they traveled to free states. This decision made it harder for enslaved people to gain freedom in free states because owners might argue that they were traveling, not residing, in a free state. Nonetheless, Biddy Mason was FREE by the time the US Supreme Court issued the Dred Scot decision. After gaining her freedom, Mason moved to Los Angeles where she worked as a midwife. She was one of the original organizers of the AME Church in LA. She purchased a plot of land for $250 and eventually sold it for $250,000. Segregated and racist policies denied her children access to local schools. She exercised agency to provide her children with access to quality education in California. Her younger children enrolled in Rev. Jeremiah Sanderson’s boarding school in Stockton, where African American children accessed quality education. By the time of her death in 1891, Biddy Mason exercised agency to circumvent racist obstacles. For Mason, freedom meant: liberation from bondage, property ownership, the ability to earn money, the opportunity for her children, and the ability to contribute to her community.

10

California Gold Rush

A Husband Wanted By a lady who can wash, cook, scour, sew, milk, sweep, spin, weave, hoe, (can’t plough) cut wood, make fires, feed the pigs, raise chickens, rock the cradle, (gold rocker I thank you sir) saw plank, drive nails, & e. These are a few of the solid branches; now the ornamental. “Long time ago” she went as far as Syntax, in Murray’s Geography, and through two rules in Pike’s Grammar. Could find six states on the atlas. Could read, and you can see she can write. Can – no, could paint roses, butterflies, ships, &e., but now she can paint houses, white-wash the fences, & e; could once dance; can ride a horse, donkey, or oxen, besides a great many things too numerous to be named here. Oh! I hear you ask, can she scold? No, she can’t you good for ______ no _______. Now for her terms. Her age is none of your business; she is neither handsome nor a fright, yet an old man need not apply, nor any who have not a little more education than she has, and a great deal more gold, for there must be $20,000 settled on her before she will bind herself to perform all of the above; for a good washer and ironer or seamstress alone, vary from $1000 to $15000. Address with real name to Dorothy Scraggs, Post Office. Marysville, post paid.

Marysville Herald 25 February 1851

Did the Gold Rush “Dust” the Cult of Domesticity?

This advertisement appeared in the Marysville Herald on the date shown. Pause here to consider what does it reveals about women’s value here in California during the Gold Rush? Would an eastern newspaper print a similar advertisement placed by a woman? Why or why not? Clearly, Dorothy Scraggs recognized the value of her domestic skills and the benefits of a heterosexual woman seeking a male partner in a town where men outnumbered women 10:1.

11

Western Suffrage Successes!

Wyoming,

1869

The West: 14

The East: 2

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Maps/Figs/Tables, 21–2

Map 21.1: Woman Suffrage Before the Nineteenth Amendment

White women living in western states and territories gained the right to vote before their eastern sisters did. Consider why the West was more supportive of voting rights for women than the East was. Was there as much organized resistance to woman suffrage in the West? Did western suffrage campaigns do a better job of convincing men of the benefits of a woman’s vote? Each state and territory has its own history, but the map shows the West enfranchised women sooner than the East did.

12

ADAPTATION & AGENCY

Sarah Winnemucca

Sarah Winnemucca lived from1844 – 1891. Born the daughter of a Paiute tribal headman, she later called him Chief Winnemucca, near present day Lovelock, NV. Her tribe of the Paiutes lived near Pyramid and Honey Lakes (Nevada – California). She was the grand daughter of Chief Truckee. Her Paiute name was: Thocmetony (Shell Flower). Sarah was born right on the cusp and in the path of Westward Invasion / Expansion. At the age of 14, she lived with Major William Ormsby and his family near Carson City where she learned English. She was fluent in several Paiute dialects as well as Spanish and English. She spent some time at a convent in San Jose in 1860. She became literate and is the first Native American female author who published an autobiography: Life Among the Paiutes, 1883.

Sarah Winnemucca exercised agency to create the best possible options available to Paiutes, as she identified the options.

13

The State of Nevada

Following the Bannock War of 1878, the US government relocated many Paiute to the distant Yakima Reservation in Washington state – far from their sacred, home land. Sarah sought the return of Paiute to Nevada. She created a public image appealing to white society and published an autobiography to raise awareness of the mistreatment of Paiute at the hands of the US Bureau of Indian affairs and military. Sarah’s presentation of the “Indian Princess” image captured the attention of many white Americans eager to be entertained. Her autobiography presented her life’s story and the challenges of the Paiute who were forcibly dislocated from their land. Sarah pursued the return of Paiute to their land in Nevada. She worked to establish a school for Paiute children located on Paiute land to ensure the Paiute children were not sent to distant, boarding schools.

14

Indian Princess Image

Traveling

Shows

Book

Promotion

Tours

Commercial

Photo Sales

1844 – 1891

Determining her path: She married twice; both times to cavalrymen. She first married Lt. Edward Bartlett in 1871, but were divorced in 1876. She broke off an engagement to another soldier, John Brandon. She married her second husband, Lt. Lewis Hopkins in 1881. (He was a drinker and gambler and wasted much of her money). There are two sides to this woman who sought to communicate between two cultures. She did this through her public and her personal lives. She presented a public entertainer image to white society. She portrayed an Indian Princess image that she determined white society expected. They paid to be entertained. At the same time, she pursued an important political goal: the establishment of a reservation for her people in Nevada – pursuing a goal of self – determination. She worked as an interpreter and eventually opened an industrial school for Paiute children near Lovelock in 1889, but it burned in 1890.

Sarah popularized the image of an “Indian Princess” to achieve her goals of returning Paiute to Nevada and establishing a school for children in Nevada.

15

Promotional Tours and Commercial

Photos

Crafting an Image: At the time, white society popularized image of the Indigenous women with long, flowing hair (not something white women did outside of their bedrooms!) There were often bows and arrows connected with Indigenous people, including women. By the late nineteenth century, white society frequently associated the incorporation of feathers into regalia as something common to all tribal populations of North America. To enhance the Indian Princess image, she referred to her father as Chief Winnemucca and promoted the belief that he was a chief.

16

Winnemucca

Marketing an image: In 1864, Sarah and other members of her family first performed for white audiences. One performance, a reenactment of Pocahontas rescuing Captain John Smith proved very popular with white, male dominated audiences. She quickly recognized that white society was eager to be entertained.

17

Photographs of Sarah Winnemucca

An “Indian Princess Image” In November 1879, she returned to San Francisco, this time in a more serious role, to deliver lectures. She explained her goal for going on the lecture circuit: “I have just been thinking how it would do for me to lecture upon the Bannock War. I might go to the California Theater, and perhaps, I could make my expenses. I would be the first Indian woman who ever spoke before white people, and they don’t know what the Indians have got to stand sometimes.” The report in the newspaper the next morning, primarily addressed her attire and what she wore – a buckskin dress, feather headdress. White society showed a desire to be entertained, not educated, by Sarah Winnemucca.

18

1880 Paiute Delegation to Washington DC

Educating and Persuading: The 1880 photograph includes Sarah, her father Winnemucca, her brother Natchez, and Captain Jim (a Paiute leader from western Nevada), and an unidentified white boy. She traveled East and lectured to audiences charging admission of 10 to 25 cents, sold her book for $1 and autographed copies of her portrait for 50 cents. Baltimore, Maryland audiences were particularly supportive of her. The Peabody sisters contributed generous funds to go toward establishing an Industrial School for Paiute children in Nevada. Sarah helped get the Peabody Industrial School opened in 1889. Tragically, it burned the next year. Because it was uninsured, funds were not available for rebuilding it. The photograph reveals Sarah and the Paiute delegation who traveled to Washington D. C. to meet with President Rutherford B. Hayes and Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior. (The Bureau of Indian Affairs was part of the Interior Department in 1880). Sarah succeeded in the negotiating the establishment of reservations for Paiute in Nevada, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs failed to consistently and adequately provide resources and necessities to Paiute who agreed to live on the Pyramid Lake Reservation land and at Fort McDermitt in Nevada. Sarah succeeded in establishing a school for Paiute children in Nevada. Tragically, it burned in 1890, the year after it was established. Sarah promoted acculturation as a way for Paiute to survive. She died in 1891 while visiting her sister Alma near the present border between Idaho and Montana.

19

Legacy

Conclusion: Sarah Winnemucca exercised agency to pursue the best possible path for herself and Paiutes, as she identified available options. She served as an intermediary between two cultures. Through her personal and public lives, she worked to increase awareness of the Paiute removal from their homeland. She worked to return Paiute to Nevada and maintain families by opening a school in Northern Nevada for Paiute children. She pursued her goals without a role model or example to follow. At each point, she made decisions based upon her experiences and recognized options. Her statue is now one of two that represents Nevada in the nation’s capitol statuary museum and a statue of her is prominently positioned outside the Nevada State Capitol in Carson City.

Let me conclude with a personal Note: Out of all the historical figures I have studied, Sarah Winnemucca stands out as the one who most exemplifies the exercise of Agency in her personal and public lives. She faced daunting challenges and obstacles throughout her life, but never allowed the limitations to prevent her from finding a path to move forward with achieving her goals. She is a controversial figure in that some question her choices and actions. She took action without role models to follow. Those who came after her, could use her experiences and legacy as a compass to guide and inform their choices.

20

Women in the 19th Century

American West

Opportunities, Limitations, and Agency

Francesca Benecia Carrillo y Vallejo

Bridgette “Biddy” Mason

Sarah Winnemucca

The West presented women with Opportunities, Limitations, and ground for exercising Agency. Some of the opportunities available to women were often determined by a woman’s race and citizenship status. Single women, with US citizenship status, were eligible to Homestead in western states and territories. Here in the West, the federal government promoted settlement of land with the Homestead Act :160 acres per adult head of family and then the Desert Land Act: 320 acres. Single adult women filed for land grants. In California, women benefited from Married Women’s Property Rights – a hold over from

California’s Mexican and Spanish Eras. The limitations women experienced often depended upon their race and citizenship status. Indigenous women found their culture under assault and faced a narrowing array of choices. The very land that some women homesteaded represented occupation of land once claimed by North American tribes. Mexican American women here in California saw their Californio lifestyle assaulted by new laws and loss of property – or marriage to Yankee men that provided them with avenues to both cultures; African American women faced both enslavement and freedom, but it is important to question what did freedom mean? Asian women, primarily Chinese women began arriving during the Gold Rush faced challenges with living in an increasingly hostile environment in California, limited numbers compared with men, and often isolation in Chinese communities. Chinese women became the first targets of U. S. anti- immigrant legislation.

The West reveals multiple ways in which women exercised Agency. This important historical concept is the extent to which one can determine their future – negotiating between limitations and opportunities. Agency reveals how women acted to avoid being overwhelmed by restrictions and avoided becoming powerless victims of the circumstances they faced. Agency means exercising as much control over one’s future as possible.

In this multi-part lecture, we will examine the lives of three women. The inspection of their lives reveals Insights into the opportunities and limitations they faced and how they exercised Agency here in the nineteenth-century American West.

1

Adaptation, Acculturation & Agency

 Adaptation: The process of adjusting to changing circumstances in order to survive and achieve desired goals.

 Acculturation: process of adopting the beliefs, behaviors, and practices of another group.

 Agency: The capacity to make choices, direct the course of one’s life, and exert an influence. This takes into account the limitations and opportunities one faces.

All three historical terms apply to women’s experiences in the nineteenth- century American West. We need to keep in mind, one of our course’s main themes for guiding our exploration of women’s history: how a woman’s multiple identities impact her opportunities and limitations. Let’s examine women’s western experiences through an intersectional lens.

2

Expansion or Invasion?

"Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (mural

Emanuel Leutze , 1861, Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way 33 X 43 hangs in US Capitol, House of Representatives.

Which term is accurate?

Does this painting reveal expansion or invasion? Consider how different points of view may answer the question differently. If we consider the migration from the vantage point of indigenous populations in the West, this migration may appear like an invasion. From the perspective of the white Americans moving West, the movement may appear like expansion.

3

CALIFORNIA:

Slave or Free State?

Compromise of 1850

California’s admission to the Union in 1851 upset the slave – free state balance. According the 1849 State Constitution, California would not allow slavery within its borders and it would preserve married women’s property rights. (a carry over from California’s Spanish legal heritage). This contrasts with the British common law feme covert status in which women lost control of their property upon marriage.

4

Californio Culture in California

The importance of Family and Women in

Californio Society of Alta California

Californio culture: Prior to the US was with Mexico and the signing of the

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Californio culture prevailed here in

present day California, the northern region of Mexico.

5

Francesca Benecia Carillo y Vallejo

1815 – 1891

A life

spanning

three eras of

California

history.

Spanish

Mexican

US

Vallejo Family:

Francesca Benicia Carillo, born in 1815 to Maria Ignacia Lopez and Joaquin

Carrillo married Mariano Vallejo (1808 – 1890) in March 1832, after waiting

nearly two-years for permission to be granted from Mexico City.

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