Indigenous experience during first encounters and early colonization obviously varied, but for Algonquians, including the Kaskaskia and Miami, the period represented a negotiation of conceptions of gender between themselves and Europeans, rather than the complete dominance of one or the other.
Native conceptions of gender, marriage, sex and the role of women differed greatly from French conceptions at the time. To the French, a woman could only be understood in the context of her sexual relationship with a man (White, 1991: 61). Women could occupy space at opposite sides of a spectrum: married or engaging in prostitution and adultery, and the most important relationship in a woman’s life was the relationship to her husband (61).
However, in native conceptions of gender and sex at the time, there existed more nuanced roles and ideas that did not line up with European ones. For one, women in Algonquian cultures often had stronger and more important relationships with their immediate family members than with a husband or partner, a concept foreign to the French (61).
Additionally, there existed an entire class of women in some Algonquian societies that did not fit into either category of women conceptualized in by the French, mainly the Jesuits. This group of women, called “hunting women,” accompanied men during the winter on hunts in the woods, away from the village, and never took husbands (63). Most women in Algonquian culture, hunting or not, were free sexually prior to marriage, possessing the freedom to sleep with whoever they chose without being ostracized. Hunting women retained this freedom lifelong, and if they became pregnant, their family raised the child (64). French culture had no concept of women who had acceptable sex out of wedlock.
However, because French traders were almost entirely male, crossing paths with a culture that gave women sexual freedom and allowed women to move from man to man had obvious advantages. Male traders often paired up with a native woman for a period, during which the woman “cooked and washed for them, made their clothes, and cut their wood” (63-64). This represented a cultural middle ground because women still carried out traditionally feminine roles within the home but not within the confines of a marriage; women were free to leave at any time and take a new partner.
This is also a prime example of the middle ground because the compromise benefited both sides: French traders had a surplus of men and Algonquian society likely had a deficit of men, thanks to warfare (65). Thus, through compromise in conceptions of gender, both sides could get the sex and companionship they desired. Another example of the middle ground in regards to gender and sexuality came with intermarriage. In Native culture, it was not uncommon for men to marry multiple women, often sisters, and women were free to leave a marriage at any point and return to their families (62). French marriages were, of course, monogamous and for life. However, a middle ground emerged for these two cultures because marriage was understood in both as a social contract between families (62) and it could be used to cement alliances, ensuring protection and aid (69).
Gender in Native Societies 