Paper Title
I’m in Family Way”: Inter-racial Sexuality, Labor, and Guardianship in Territorial Washington
Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Abstract
Based on probate records from the Puget Sound region between 1850 and 1890, this paper argues that territorial Washington officials used guardianship as an imperial process to dissolve the economic and social power of Indigenous women by placing American Indian and mixed-race girls into white households. This practice served as an alternative to the more explicitly hegemonic indenture policies enacted in other Western states and territories, and as a precursor to the seemingly philanthropic practice of adoption. Female Indian minors made wards to citizens were economically and sexually vulnerable to the whims of their guardians, and the relationships they shared make clear the ambiguity and contestations of racial and sexual hierarchies in this U.S.-Canadian borderland.
Keywords
Indigenous women; guardianship; legal history; intimate colonialism; Washington Territory
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I’m in Family Way”: Inter-racial Sexuality, Labor, and Guardianship in Territorial Washington
Based on probate records from the Puget Sound region between 1850 and 1890, this paper argues that territorial Washington officials used guardianship as an imperial process to dissolve the economic and social power of Indigenous women by placing American Indian and mixed-race girls into white households. This practice served as an alternative to the more explicitly hegemonic indenture policies enacted in other Western states and territories, and as a precursor to the seemingly philanthropic practice of adoption. Female Indian minors made wards to citizens were economically and sexually vulnerable to the whims of their guardians, and the relationships they shared make clear the ambiguity and contestations of racial and sexual hierarchies in this U.S.-Canadian borderland.