Women Voted in New York — Before Columbus

October 11, 2017 - 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Sally Roesch Wagner will lead a story-telling presentation about this important part of the history of our region.

Imagine that women have the right to choose all political representatives, removing from office anyone who doesn’t make wise decisions for the future. Living in a world free from violence against them, women will not allow a man to hold office if he has violated a woman. Economically independent, they have the final say in matters of war and peace and the absolute right to their own bodies.

This is not a dream. Haudenosaunee (traditional Iroquois) women have had this authority — and more — since long before Christopher Columbus came to these shores.

Sally Roesch Wagner

While white women were the property of their husbands and considered dead in the law, Haudenosaunee women had more authority and status before Columbus I than New York State women have today. Women of the Six Nation Iroquois Confederacy (the Haudenosaunee) had the responsibility for putting in place the male leaders. They had control of their own bodies and were economically independent. Rape and wife beating were rare and dealt with harshly; committing violence against a woman kept a man from becoming Chief in this egalitarian, gender-balanced society. When women in New York State began to organize for their rights in 1848, they took their cue from the nearby Haudenosaunee communities, where women lived in the world that non-native women dreamed. Amazingly, despite the assimilation policy of the United States, Haudenosaunee women still maintain much of this authority today.

The 2017 centennial of women’s suffrage in New York State opens the opportunity for us to explore this new — yet very old — and unknown history of our region.

Sally Roesch Wagner is the Director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center for Social Justice Dialogue and a Professor at Syracuse University. She is the author of many books including Sisters In Spirt: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists

Humanities New YorkThe lecture is a Public Scholars presentation supported by Humanities NY.
Admission is free to the public.