Tennessee Women

A Guide for Teachers
 

by

Carole Stanford Bucy

This Teachers Guide was originally written and published with grants from the Tennessee Humanities Council and the League of Women Voters of Tennessee Education Fund in 1993.
Table of Contents

How to Use This Guide......................................................................... 7

Introduction ............................................................................................. 9

Your Place in Tennessee's History.................................................. 14

Tennessee's Earliest Women ........................................................... 18

            Nancy Ward

            Trail of Tears

European Settlers Come to Tennessee......................................... 25

            Mary McKeehen Patton

            Charlotte Reeves Robertson

            Hagar

            Catherine Sherrill Sevier

            Sally Ridley Buchanan

            Ann Robertson Johnston Cockrill

Tennessee Becomes a State............................................................. 34

            Rachel Donelson Jackson

            Ann Phillips Rodgers Grundy

            Frances Wright

            Rebecca Budman

            Sara Childress Polk

The Civil War and Its Aftermath........................................................ 40

            Adelicia Hayes Franklin Acklen Cheatham

            Sarah Childress Polk

            Eliza McCardle Johnson

            Virginia Bethel Moon

            Hetty Montgomery Kennedy McEwen

            The Rhea County Girls

            Loreta Janeta Velazquez

            Mary  Middleton Rutledge Fogg

            Benevolent Societies

After the Civil War - Women as Writers and Activists.................. 51

            The Fisk Jubilee Singers

            Ida B. Wells

            Mary Church Terrell

            Frances Hodgson Burnett

            Mary Noailles Murfree

            Emma Bell Miles

            Will Allen Dromgoole

Women in the Twentieth Century..................................................... 58

Tennessee Women and the Vote:  Tennessee’s Pivotal Role in the Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment

            National Suffrage Leaders

            The Setting in Tennessee History

            August 1920 - Nashville, Tennessee

            The Suffragists

                        Anne Dallas Dudley

                        Lizzie Crozier French

                        Catherine Talty Kenny

                        Elizabeth Avery Meriwether

                        Abby Crawford Milton

                        Frankie J. Pierce

                        Lulu Colyar Reese

                        Mary Church Terrell

                        Ida B. Wells

                        Sue Shelton White

                        Charl Ormond Williams

Women in Business and Professions in Tennessee.................. 83

            Treadwell and Harry

            The First Women's Bank of Clarksville

            The Satsuma Tea Room

            Emma Wheeler

            Henrietta Veltman

Other Twentieth Century Tennessee Women............................... 89

            Women in the Arts and Entertainment

                        Dolly Parton

                        Minnie Pearl

                        Dinah Shore

                        Bessie Smith

                        Oprah Winfrey

            Women in Athletics

                        Wilma Rudolph

                        Pat Head Summitt

            Women in Politics

                        Diane Nash

                        Martha Ragland

                        Molly Todd

                        Pauline LaFon Gore

                        Anna Belle Clement O'Brien

                        Jane Eskind

                        Marilyn Williams

                        Martha Craig Daughtrey

                        Tipper Gore

            Women in Social Service

                        Josephine Groves Holloway

                        Dorothy Brown

            Women Writers

                        Wilma Dykeman

                        Nikki Giovanni

            Other Contemporary Tennessee Women

                        Cynthia Murray Palmer

                        Cornelia Fort

Bibliography........................................................................................ 105

How To Use This Guide

        This guide represents only a small representation of Tennessee Women.  There are numerous women yet to be discovered in every community across this state.  Local public libraries are an excellent source of information about local history and local citizens.   It is hoped that this guide and the workshops for which the guide has been prepared will be the beginning of an awareness of women and their contributions to history.  

            The materials presented here have been arranged chronologically so that they can be incorporated into existing Tennessee and American history materials.  Social Studies teachers can start by considering with students what women were doing at the time of events in a textbook.  Sometimes men and women were doing the same thing while at other times they worked independently.  Teachers should ask themselves and their students, "What were women doing at a particular time?  What was taking place in Tennessee  at that time?"  The use of parallel time lines as a teaching aid can be an effective tool to demonstrate the relationships between events in Tennessee, American, and World History.

            These materials  can also be used independently as part of a study of women's history or the celebration of Women's History Month in March.  The National Women's History  Project (7738 Bell Road, Windsor, California 95494-8518; 1-707-838-6000 or www.nwhp.org) produces an excellent catalogue of materials on women and women's history month that is available to teachers on request.  They provide specific visual aids (posters, banners, etc.) which can be used for the celebration of women's history month.   They have numerous guides and teacher information packets  which can be ordered from them.

Carole Bucy’s web page can be found on the Volunteer State Community College web page: http://www.vscc.cc.tn.us/academic/socialsci/history/bucy/index.html

To get in touch with Carole Bucy:

Carole Bucy

Assistant Professor of History and Department Chair

Volunteer State Community College

1480 Nashville Pike

Gallatin, Tennessee  37066

615-452-8600, ext. 3394     E-mail address:  cbucy@vscc.cc.tn.us

Introduction

            Women have always been an integral part of Tennessee's history.  They have worked to build the state as settlers, wives, mothers, activists, reformers, writers, entertainers and leaders.  Yet the names of Tennessee women may not be familiar to many students.  Consequently, this guide and the poster which accompanies it have been designed to help students in kindergarten through grade twelve identify and learn about several significant women in Tennessee's history who have made important contributions to this state.  These women and countless unnamed others show students what has been done in the past and serve as role models for Tennessee's students .  These women can provide inspiration for the future.

            Women have been a constant force in Tennessee  history. They came into this geographical area that we know as Tennessee as tribal women, and later as wives, daughters, or slaves.  They came as a member of a family unit and functioned within their culture’s prescribed roles for women.   The events that shaped the lives of Tennesseans through history often had quiet beginnings.  These events often resulted from ideas and attitudes held by ordinary women who saw problems within their own communities and realized that they could work together effec­tively to provide solutions to those problems.  These women, perhaps slowly at first, spoke and acted with the courage of their convictions to bring about change.  They believed that their activities could make this state a better place in which to live.  Their actions resulted in changes that affected the lives of all Tennesseans - changes in the nature of work and family life as well as in the interrelationships of people from different cultural, social, and economic backgrounds.

            Tennessee historian, Wilma Dykeman, describes Tennessee's women:  "As the state is varied in its geography, in its natural resources, and in many other ways, so its women are varied.  Their variety and versatility go hand in hand, from earliest days to the present.  Four times as long as it is wide, Tennessee stretches from the forested pinnacles of the Great Smokies and the Unakas on its eastern border to the wide fertile plains of the mighty Missis­sippi in the west.  And its women have sung the lonely highland ballads which were part of the Scotch-Irish and English heritage, and the lonesome blues which grew out of the river and cotton culture.  Except for Missouri, Tennessee exceeds any other state in the number of states on its borders.  Influences spill over, and the Tennessee woman may have something of the middle Kentucky bluegrass belle, the eastern Kentucky or southwestern Virginia or western North Carolina mountaineer, the Georgia or Alabama or Mississippi lowlander, or the westering Arkansas and Missouri neighbor in her own character and lifestyle." (from Tennessee Women: Past and Present)

            The choices of whom to include in this guide have been difficult to make since there are  so many exemplary Tennessee women.  Each woman described here  has made a significant contribution to this state.  Each woman has lived during a different era in Tennessee's history, and each represents many racial, ethnic, and social groups.  Each woman's contributions and achievements are different; and each chose her life's work for a different reason.  Each woman was shaped by different historical events and changing attitudes toward race and sex.  Yet each woman made a significant contribution to Tennessee.  The biographies are provided for teachers to use as the  teacher sees fit.  They have been written primarily  to provide teachers background information.  Their complete stories are so rich that the condensed versions presented here hardly do them justice.  It is hoped that teachers will take the time to investigate these and other individual women in depth on their own. 

            This guide will provide Tennessee's teachers with an opportunity to learn more about these women and the contributions they have made.  Teachers and students  will be able to view women's history  and to understand Tennessee's social, educational, economic, and cultural institutions as they exist today. An appreci­ation of the similarities and differences of people, regardless of their culture, social class, race or sex is an important goal of this project. 

            The stories of notable Tennessee women, past and present, can be very instructional for students as they glimpse their own futures.  Boys and girls will benefit from knowing about  the true lives of women and their work in our state.  This material is as important for boys in Tennessee's schools as it is for female students.  An understanding of women's contributions to history will broaden the perspectives of all students.

            These materials have been arranged chronologically.  Each section of the guide includes information about specific Tennes­see women who lived during a particular period as well as suggestions for classroom activities.  The name of the city or town associated with each woman is included in parentheses after each biographical entry.  In addition, the guide includes names of reference materials students and teachers can use to  understand the spirit of the times in which these women lived.

            Teachers are encouraged to use the information contained in this guide to help students learn about these women as well as to:

            * Understand the life experiences of Tennessee women.

            * Relate their life experiences to the experiences of women living today.

            * Analyze the role of women in society during different historical periods, including options available to women and prevailing attitudes about women.

            * Compare the lives of women who lived during different periods with the lives of women who live in Tennessee today.

            * Identify other active, interesting, and inspirational women in Tennessee's history, including those who live in Tennes­see today, and investigate their lives.

            * Understand the relationship of all people and the inter-dependence of men and women of all ethnic backgrounds.

            * Understand how events in Tennessee are often influenced by events and actions outside our state.

            A secondary goal of this project is to promote an awareness of the significance of gender throughout all aspects of the school curriculum.  To develop students' fullest potential is a goal of every educator.  In order to make the most of the individual potential of male and female students, teachers must become aware of the subject matter included in the curriculum.  It is hoped that the questions raised in these workshops will encourage teachers consciously to ask themselves, "What am I as a teacher including in my curriculum?" and "What am I excluding?"    These questions are particularly important to the Social Studies curriculum at every level of our educational system.

            The information contained in this guide is not meant to be inclusive. This is an effort to provide teachers with factual information about women and events.  Consequently, teachers are encouraged to provide students with additional information about the lives of these women.  Since the guide includes only a few of the many activities students can use to learn more about women in Tennessee's history, teachers also are encouraged to adapt and devise activities appropriate for their students.

Rationale:

            In most Tennessee schools, the fourth grade curriculum includes an extensive unit on Tennessee and again, a unit on Tennessee history is taught in junior high and often as an elective in high school.  This is an exciting unit for students as they are able to study the state in which they live.  Places that the students are familiar with "become alive" as students begin to understand the relationship of those historical places surrounding them  to the story of the state.

            Academic reviews of the most often used, current history textbooks show that less than 11% of the images of and references to specific persons deal with women.  This distorted version of history portrays women as passive non-participants in the events of the world. 

            Materials available for classroom teachers in Tennessee have little or no mention of women's activities. In 1990, Macmillan and Co. published a textbook as part of its  "The World Around Us" series entitled Tennessee for use by fourth grade students.  The first book on Tennessee published specifically for elementary students, this textbook was widely adopted across the state.  Presently, it is used by public and private school teachers when teaching one or more units on Tennessee.  This book is organized into 21 lessons which cover Tennessee's history, government, and geography.  The lesson which deals with the turn of the century describes Sergeant Alvin York's actions during World War I and then goes on to describe a new governor, Austin Peay, who was elected in 1922 and worked to extend education to all children of the state.  There is no mention of the passage of the 19th amend­ment by the Tennessee General Assembly in August of 1920 which gave women across the country the right to vote.  The biographi­cal dictionary in the back of the book lists only four women:  Dorothy Brown, Minnie Pearl, Catherine Sherrill, and Nancy Ward.  None of the women who worked for suffrage, Sue Shelton White, Charl Ormond Williams, Abbey Milton, or Anne Dallas Dudley, appears, nor do numerous other women who played significant roles in other periods of Tennessee's history.

            The passage of the suffrage amendment by the Tennessee General Assembly is often omitted entirely in social studies textbooks or is given only superficial treatment.    The story itself  is an interesting story for students of all ages to learn.  It embodies drama, humor, and local politics.  It is an excellent description of an event in Tennessee that was influenced by events taking place across the United States.  The passage of the suffrage amendment to the U. S. constitution shows the struggles of women as they attempt to become active politically.  The League of Women Voters was founded in 1920 by suffragists who had worked for suffrage.  After women  received the vote, they  gradually began to function  politically.

            The passage of the 19th amendment is only one example in Tennessee history of the significance of women's activities.  During the Civil War, while Nashville was occupied by the Union army, the women of Nashville worked to supply Confederate troops as well as to care for their families.   After the war was over, these same women founded the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Nashville to provide services for injured Confederate veterans who had returned home after the war.  Throughout Tennessee's history women can be seen identifying a problem and working as a group to provide a solution. 

            The material in this guide focuses on the roles women have played in the creation of organizations, in industry, and in politics, as well as  on the individual women.  The relationship of women to events within Tennessee history is emphasized.  It is important for teachers and their students to understand that many of the rights and freedoms that all Americans have today were denied to many segments of our population earlier in history.  The struggle for equality is one for which many groups in our history as a state and a nation have worked.

            Teachers have shown great interest in teaching more about women, but have expressed difficulty in obtaining materials and specific information. The workshops supported by this grant will provide teachers with concrete information as well as lesson plans and suggested activities to use in their classrooms.    These workshops will also provide teachers with suggestions that show students how events in Tennessee are often influenced by events outside the state.

            There are no resources  describing women's contributions to Tennessee presently available for teachers.  Biographical infor­mation about women throughout Tennessee history  has been provid­ed in the study guide to be used with existing classroom materi­als. This guide provides teachers with  a study of the relationship of women's activities throughout Tennessee's history to the broader study of American history.   The guide contains a bibli­ography  and a list of available materials.  A comprehensive set of the materials included in the bibliography will be retained by the League of Women Voters at its Nashville office and will be available by mail for use across the state.

            This guide originally was funded by a grant from the Tennessee Humanities Council and the League of Women Voters of Tennessee Education Fund to accompany a series of workshops for teachers conducted across the state in 1993.  The League continues to offer teacher workshops on women in Tennessee history as well as gender awareness.

Your Place in Tennessee's History

            Family history and local history are the two areas of history with which students can identify.  Family history provides relevance and students are able to see the relationship between ordinary people in their own families and mainstream events of American history.  Teaching a student's place in history is a good introduction to the year's curriculum and gets the students involved immediately  as they begin to learn about their own families' place in history.  It also shows the students how diverse the population of their class is with classmates or their families coming from a variety of places.

Where did you come from?

Family artifacts:

            Discuss  the significance of artifacts with your class.  What is an artifact?  Are there any artifacts that are important to your family?  "An artifact is an object produced or shaped by human workmanship; especially, a simple tool, weapon, or ornament of archaeological or historical interest."  (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

            Ask class members to bring a artifact to class that is important to their family.  Encourage them to ask a parent  or relative to tell them something about the item they have chosen.  Tell the students that they will describe their selected item to the class and tell the class why this particular item has value in their family.  Who did this item belong to?  How did it get to Tennessee?  Ask students to bring a photo of a grandparent or other ancestor if these are available.

            When the students bring their artifacts to class, as a class try to identify the period of time from which this item came?  (quilts - late 1890's; World War II, Vietnam War - memorabilia;  old magazines or books; a family Bible;  old photographs)

            Discuss the photographs.  What age do you think this person was in this picture?  What differences can you identify? 

            When all the class has shared  something of their own family, ask each student to try to locate that time period in their history book.  The purpose of this exercise is to show students their relationship with history.

Personal Timeline:

            Each class member will make a timeline for their life.  Their personal timelines should include their birthdate, as well as the birth date of their parents, and grand parents.  Students should then add significant events in their lives, the lives of your parents, and grandparents.  Students will need to have input from their parents to do this.  When this is introduced, the teacher can ask for a volunteer from the class whose timeline the class can design together  as an example.

            The purpose of this exercise is to show students that everyone has a history.  It may be long or short, interesting or uneventful, but everyone's life has its significant moments.

Birthplace Bar Graph:

            As a class, make a bar graph showing five categories of birthplaces - your town,  Tennessee,  a state that is contiguous with Tennessee, other states in the U. S., another country. 

As an example:

The purpose of this exercise is to help students extrapolate information and draw conclusions from the data. 

How many years has each family lived in your local area?

Prepare a class map showing where students were born.

Family History Interview:

The following questions are examples of questions students can be given to ask a parent or guardian during an interview.  A high school class may choose to prepare the questions for the interviews as a class.  Some of these questions will be too difficult for elementary students  to ask and should be adapted according to the age of a particular class.

l.  Where were you born?  When?

2.  Did you have sisters and brothers?  What kind of relationship did you have?

3.  What did you like to do when you were young?

4.  What are your happiest memories?

5.  Did your parents tell you stories about themselves or their parents?  What were those stories?

6.  Where did you go to school?  What did you like about your school?  What did you dislike about your school?

7.  What do you remember about your teachers?

8.  Who were your friends?  What did you do for fun?

9.  Describe a typical day when you were ten years old.

10.  What was the family structure?  Who lived with whom?  Who had authority within the home?

11.  Did you marry?  How old were you?

12.  Did you have children?  Was being a parent what you expected it to be?

13.  What kinds of paid work have you done?

14.  What experiences are you the most proud of?

15.  Who has been the greatest influence in your life?

16.  What historical events had a strong influence on your life?

17.  What major problems have you had to overcome in your life?

18.  How have ideas about women and women's roles changed since you were a child?  What do you think of these changes?

Comparing Family Traditions:

            Below are some general areas that families usually develop traditions around.  Ask students to describe any family traditions from their families on these topics.

Family Gatherings/Reunions

Food

Outings

Games

Stories

Holidays/Birthdays

Other traditions

Local History Research:

            How was your school named?  For whom or for what was it named?

Local Cemeteries:

            Tours of local cemeteries can bring history to life for students.  Find out what cemetery in your area is the oldest and find out who is buried there.   Notice how many children are buried.  Notice the ages of the women; many died before the age of fifty.

Tennessee's Earliest Women

            When the first European settlers arrived in the area now known as Tennessee, Indians had been living in settlements along Tennessee's rivers  for over 1000 years.  The earliest Indians of Tennessee were nomadic hunters who roamed the wooded areas of the state following animals for food, clothing.  By the time  Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto entered the territory in 1540 looking for gold, Native Americans in the area  had developed a complex tribal system  and lived in towns generally located along Tennessee’s rivers.  Work responsibilities were clearly divided between men and women with women assuming agricultural functions while men hunted and made war.  By the time Europeans began to explore the area, the Cherokee, found in the Appalachian Mountains, was the dominant tribe living in Tennessee.  The Chickasaws lived in northern Mississippi and the Creeks who were frequent rivals of the Cherokees lived in north Georgia.

            Each tribe had its own structure and organization.  Women held places of great importance among the Cherokees and sometimes served as spiritual leaders and advisors.  The Cherokees believed that the Great Being spoke to the people through the Beloved Woman of the tribe.  Nancy Ward who lived at the time the Euro­peans settled in Middle Tennessee was a Beloved Woman of the tribe.  This  was the highest honor in the tribe and gave Nancy Ward a voice in the Council of Chiefs which determined if there would be war or peace.  The Beloved Woman of the Cherokees arbi­trated quarrels within the tribe and was the head of a woman's council.

            As in other cultures, women were the central figures in the family life of the Indian tribes of Tennessee.  They cared for the children, raised the crops that were produced, made all the clothing, and cooked meals for the tribe.  In Indian society, women generally did their work  in groups rather than working independently.  Cherokee children were named after their mother's family rather than their father's family and became members of their mother's clan, a large extended family unit.  Hunting and war were the only areas of life from which Indian women were excluded.  Men would travel across the state to various hunting grounds without women.  Indians generally did not raise domesticated animals, preferring to hunt.  

            Women were responsible for every aspect of life within the villages or towns.  Each village had from 12 to 200 families.  They handed down their culture to the generations that followed.  The Indian women allowed their long, straight black hair to hang down their backs and often made decorative combs to hold their hair back.  They wore skirts, moccasins, and shoulder man­tles.  Generally, the clothing of the women  was not as bright and colorful as the clothing worn by the men.  The Indian males also wore considerably more jewelry than the women of their tribes. 

            Indian families negotiated with other families to make arrangements for marriages.  When the families reached agreement, the groom sent the bride a piece of venison as a promise that he would provide her an adequate food supply.  Then the bride sent the groom an ear of corn to symbol­ize the crops that she would be tending and the food she would prepare.  This represented the life of the Indian family.

            Women had a voice in Cherokee tribal  government until the arrival of the settlers into Tennessee.  Women were able to speak openly in Council meetings and the Beloved Woman determined the fate of captives held by the tribe.  Because the Cherokee society had a matrilineal kinship system, children belonged to the clan of their mother and their only relatives were those who could be traced from the mother's family.  The Cherokees were also matrilocal, which is to say that when a man and woman married, the man lived with his wife in a house which belonged to her, or perhaps more accurately, her family.  Cherokee women, married and single, had property rights.  If a marriage ended in separation, the women retained rights to property and the children.  The Cherokee understanding of property included agricultural produce since the women were the principal farmers.  Technically, the Cherokees held land in common, but improved fields did belong to specific matrilineal households.

            As the settlers moved westward, the roles of the Cherokee women diminished.  In 1785, Nancy Ward participated in a peace conference to negotiate the land holdings at Hopewell, South Carolina, but this was the last treaty negotiation in which women played an official role.  As relations with the English-speaking settlers became increasingly important to tribal welfare, women became less significant in the Cherokee economy and government.  In an effort to save themselves, the Cherokees converted into replicas of white pioneer farmers in the hopes that the government would cede land back to the tribe.  Protestant missionaries played a role in the changes in the gender roles of the tribe.  When the missionaries came into a Cherokee village, they implemented households where men farmed and headed households.  Cherokee males who had gained power in the 1700's in Cherokee society - hunters, warriors - followed this pattern in an effort to maintain their status.  These men began to farm and began to acquire African slaves.  By the 1800's, the inheritance laws and property rights of Cherokee women were lost and Cherokee women could not own property.  Again, this mirrored existing conditions  among the white settlers. 

            If women voiced opposition to such changes, that opposition was not recorded.  The only written documents about the Cherokee reflect the attitudes and concerns of the male Indian elite or of government agents and missionaries.  The only women about whom we have much information are those who conformed to expectations and those expectations were the same as for white women.   Nancy Ward, who advocated peace with the English and then later, the United Sates,  appears in the historical records, while other women who may have been less cooperative are unnamed.  Cherokee government became more centralized and power, both political and economic, rested in the hands of a few elite men who adopted the lifestyle of the antebellum South.  The ideal Cherokee woman became  one who confined herself to her home.    In 1826, the Council drew up a governing document for the Cherokee nation which stated, "No person but a free male citizen who is full grown shall be entitled to vote."

Nancy Ward, east Tennessee near Ft. Loudon/ Benton, TN (1738-1824)

            The only Native American woman in Tennessee  about whom much has been written is Nancy Ward.  Many legends about Nancy Ward, known as the "Wild Rose of Cherokee", that have been handed down still exist.  She lived in East Tennessee at the time the European settlers came across the Appalachian Mountains into the region and became the Beloved Woman of her tribe, the Cherokees.

            Nancy Ward was born sometime around 1738 and was the niece of Attakullakulla, the chief of the Overhill Cherokees.  Accord­ing to legend, she had beautiful, smooth skin and was married at an early aged to Kingfisher, a Cherokee.  While her tribe was fighting the Creek Indians in Georgia, Nancy  accompanied her husband to the battle.  After he was killed in battle, she took up his weapon and continued fighting the Creeks.  Her action inspired her people and ultimately they defeated the Creeks.  When the story of Nancy's bravery spread among the Cherokees, she was chosen  Aqiqaue, Beloved Woman of the Cherokees.

            Nancy Ward was from the Cherokee town of Chota.  In the Cherokee division of clans and towns into red/war and white/peace categories, Chota was the mother (oldest) white/peace town.  Therefore Nancy Ward was a Beloved Woman notable for her action in warfare against the Creeks and capable of preparing the sacred "Black Drink," but she was also a Beloved Woman who represented peace.   Nancy Ward wanted peace with the Anglo-Americans.   She may have seen herself as an instrument of peace between Cherokees and white settlers, both by her marriage and her intervention in the Fort Watauga attack.

            The Cherokees believed that the Great Being spoke to the people through the Beloved Woman, the highest honor within the tribe.  As Beloved Woman, Nancy was given a voice in the Council of Chiefs, the body of males who determined whether or not the tribe would go to war.  She also arbitrated quarrels among the various members of the tribe.

            After the death of her husband, Kingfisher, Nancy married Bryant Ward, a trader at Fort Loudoun.  James Robertson, founder of the city of Nashville, visited Nancy Ward's lodge and described her as "queenly and commanding".

            As settlers began to move westward into Cherokee territory, the Indians began to attack the settlers.  The Beloved Woman was responsible for the preparation of the Sacred "Black Drink", a holly tea drunk by Indian warriors prior to battle.  For this reason, she was also called the "War Woman" and knew in advance the details of any approaching attack. Because she was a member of the council that called for war, she was able to warn  John Sevier  and the settlers at Fort Watauga of the attack.  This warning enabled the settlers to reach the safety of the fort before the attack occurred.

            During one attack on the settlers, Lydia Bean, who had been one of the first European settlers, was captured and tied to a stake in a huge ceremonial mound.  According to legend, Nancy Ward said, "No woman shall be burned at the stake while I am Beloved Woman" and Lydia Bean was freed.  Lydia Bean then went with Nancy to her lodge and taught her many customs of the the Euro­peans.  Nancy  learned  to make butter and cheese from milk of "White Man's buffalo" from Lydia Bean.  Nancy later purchased cows and taught dairying to the Cherokees.

            Using native Tennessee roots as well as herbs and flowers found in abundance throughout the Tennesse countryside, the Cherokee women prepared and then shared with the settlers many of their remedies and secrets for curing a variety of diseases and injuries. 

            When the conflicts between the Native Americans and the settlers finally subsided, Nancy Ward lived for the remainder of her life in east Tennessee.  During her lifetime, the Cherokee nation emerged from its matrilineal society based on tribal groups, to a republican-based system of Government.  This change in the structure of the Cherokee nation led to the demise of the position of Beloved Woman.  When she lost  her own land under the Hiwassee Purchase, she moved to land on the Ocoee River where she operated an inn for travelers until her death in 1824.  Her grave can be found in Polk County south of Benton, Tennessee.

Trail of Tears

            When the decision was then made that the Cherokees would be removed to land west of the Mississippi River because the settlers in Northern Georgia, Western North Carolina, and Southeastern Tennessee needed more land, the women, a primary group that had opposed land cession to the whites, could no longer be heard.  Certainly, the silencing of the women and their exclusion from political life did not produce the removal crisis, but the women were unable to speak against it.  In 1838, most Cherokees had no intention of moving west, and in the Spring of that year, they planted their crops.  After the crops were planted soldiers arrived and rounded up the Cherokees, they were imprisoned in stockades in preparation for the deportation to the West.  Some stories survive.  The Cherokees were not allowed to pack their belongings and then had to march miles over rugged Tennessee mountain terrain to the stockades.  Cherokees from North Carolina were marched to the central depot in Tennessee.  Conditions in the stockades were horrifying.  

            The actual removal to the West did not get underway until October and those Cherokees who had been in the stockades since the Spring  had suffered greatly.  Shortly before the removal, the Cherokees obtained permission to manage their own removal and they divided their people into thirteen detachments of approximately one thousand each.  Most walked the entire way.  Women gave birth along side of the trail.  They were not dressed appropriately for the winter weather and many died.    By the time they arrived in Oklahoma, there was much tension and stress which some historians believe accounts for what has been described as "post-removal  domestic violence" of which women were usually the victims.  Men who had been helpless to prevent the seizure of their property and the assaults on themselves and their families, vented their frustrations by beating wives and children.

            The Cherokees had adopted the Anglo-American concept of power, with men dominant.  "The tragedy of the Trail of Tears lies not only in the suffering and death which the Cherokees experiences but also in the failure of many Cherokees to look critically at the political system which they had adopted - a political system dominated by wealthy, highly acculturated men and supported by an ideology that made women (as well as others defined as 'weak' or 'inferior') subordinate.  In the removal crisis of the 1830's, men learned an important lesson about power; it was a lesson women had learned well before the 'Trail of Tears'."  [See Theda Perdue,  "Cherokee Women and the Trail of Tears", Journal of Women's History, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring, 1989.]

Activities

Kindergarten through Grade Four

1. Dress as an Indian woman and tell  what a Native American woman's day would be like.

2.  Draw pictures of  Native American women working in the field or cooking the food for her family.

3.  Build a model of a house that a Native American woman and  her family might have lived in.

4.  Tell the story of Nancy Ward.

Grades Five Through Eight

1.  Identify the skills needed by  Native American women.

2.  Write a description of a Native American  woman's typical day.

3.  Using beads, articles from nature, and other materials, design a piece of jewelry that a Native American woman might have made for herself. 

4.  Compare the lives of the Native American women with the women who came as settlers.  How were they similar?  How were they different?  What could each group of women learn from the other group?

5. Visit a local museum in your area that has Native American artifacts.  Discuss what these artifacts tell us about the Native American women in Tennessee.  What is missing from the information provided us by the archaeologists?

6.  As a class, build a model of an Native American village.  Describe who would live in this town and what responsibilities women and men would have within the town.

7.  As a class, discuss Nancy Ward's responsibilities to her own people.

8.  Draw a map of the Trail of Tears from Tennessee to Oklahoma.

9.  Using role-playing, dramatize a meeting in which the Cherokees appealed to the Anglo-Americans not to take their land.

Grades Nine through Twelve

1.  Research the religion of the Tennessee Native Americans and write a description of the Beloved Woman of the Cherokees.

2.   Research the findings of archaeologists in Tennessee about Indian life.  What do these discoveries tell us about the lives of  Native American women?

3.  Read Tennessee Indian History:  Creativity and Power” by John R. Finger found in Tennessee History:  The Land, the People, and the Culture edited by Carroll Van West.  Why does Dr. Finger use the words “creativity” and “power” to describe the Indians.  Why does Dr. Finger question the benefits of trade with the Europeans for the Indians?

4.  Write a paper on the similarities and differences of the Indian women and the European women who came to Tennessee as  settlers.

5.  For class discussion:  did Nancy Ward betray her own people?  Why do you believe Nancy Ward warned the settlers?

6.  Have students read the article  by Clara Sue Kidwell in "Indian Women as Cultural Mediators," in Ethnohistory, vol. 39, Spring, 1992, page 97-107.  Consider whether Nancy Ward made a wise choice.  Was peace between Native Americans and white settlers possible?

7.  Research the Trail of Tears (High school students can read and understand the Theda Perdue article, "Cherokee Women and the Trail of Tears," in the Journal of Women's History, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring, 1989, page. 14-30.)    Compare it to the Holocaust. 

8.  For class discussion:  Why did the Cherokees adopt the ways of the Anglo-American settlers?  What was the result?  Could the Cherokees and the Anglo-Americans have lived together in Southeastern Tennessee?

9.    The Perdue article on the Trail of Tears [Theda Perdue,  "Cherokee Women and the Trail of Tears", Journal of Women's History, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring, 1989.] describes an increase in domestic violence  among  the Native Americans after they  were removed.  Discuss this.  Why did it happen?  How is this similar to some of the causes of domestic violence today?  How are the frustrations of men related to domestic violence?  What can be done about this problem?

European Settlers Come to Tennessee

            The  women who crossed the Appalachian Mountains and came with their families to Tennessee were women of great courage who were able to endure numerous hardships, losses, disease and violence to survive on the frontier.  They walked side by side with their husbands as partners and worked together to build the state.  Unlike the settlements of Spain and France, English settlements always included women.  It was the presence of these women in Tennessee that added the quality of permanence to life.  When the women arrived on the frontier as pioneers, homes were built, domesticated animals were confined, and crops were planted. Native Americans who lived in Tennessee when the settlers came realized that these settlers had come to Tennessee to live.  Violence between the Native Americans and the settlers increased as more settlements were built.    Lydia Russell Bean, who had spent time with Nancy Ward, was among the earliest of the pioneer women to settle in Tennes­see.

            Some of the earliest settlers in Tennessee were African-American women like Hagar, brought by white men and women as slaves rather than by choice.  While all women endured hardships in the earliest settlements, those who were members of slave-owning families, like Charlotte Robertson, did not have to perform the most tedious and dirtiest chores.

            The earliest European settlers were almost all Presbyterians who crossed the mountains to settle in the Holston valley where they were able to enjoy religious and civil liberty.  Most of the Tennessee settlers were better educated than those in other frontier  areas.  The women handed down reading and writing and, in the absence of the men, frequently planted, sowed, and har­vested crops. These women were resourceful in meeting medical emergencies as they arose within their families and also served as midwives for each other during childbirth.  Char­lotte Robertson gave birth to 12 children;  John Sevier's two successive wives had 18 children.  Large families of ten or more children were common among these pioneers.

            Most of the earliest settlers of Tennessee lived within forted stations for protection.  Harriette Simpson Arnow provides an excellent description of life in these stations on the fron­tier in her book Flowering of the Cumberland.  Women worked together within each station in a variety of tasks that included the spinning of fabric, the smoking of meats, the churning of butter, and the boiling of clothes in order to do the laundry.  Tennees­see's early farmers kept their farm animals such as calves, pigs, chickens, and horses within the walls of the forts for protec­tion.  The earliest families would not leave the safety of their stations to go to church.

            Wilma Dykeman  described the pioneer woman as "a total participating citizen in the total life around her", to a degree that would not be evident again for 200 years.  Harriette Arnow saw the father's increasing preoccupation with trade and the centralization of industry away from the family's cooperative effort as part of the reason for the changing nature of the home and the family.  "Marriage became a patriarchal dictatorship;  mother ceased to be a yoke-fellow, becoming instead only another subject moving in a separate and less important orbit, but always fixed around the head of the house, and he in turn orbiting around his occupation, usually business."

            After east Tennessee was settled, pioneer women came to middle Tennessee in 1780.  The 1818 treaty with the Chickasaws of west Tennessee opened the land between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers.  European settlers then came into west Tennessee on flatboats or in Conestoga wagons.  Audubon described these settlers,  "The looms are mounted, the spinning wheels soon furnish some yarn, and in a few weeks the family throw off their ragged clothes and array themselves in suits adapted to the climate."

            The women on the Tennessee frontier were practical women who were able to adapt to their environment.  They used whatever materials were available to benefit their families.  Patchwork quilts appeared when these frugal housewives used the scraps of fabric leftover from family clothing to make quilts.

Mary McKeehen Patton - Carter County (1751 - 1836)

            Mary Patton was an early settler who came to the area presently in Carter County with her husband, John.  She had learned how to make gun powder.  When Nathaniel Taylor, who had married Mary's cousin, settled in Carter County, he built a powder mill.  Here Mary Patton worked making gun powder.  When the men departed to fight the British at the Battle of King's Mountain, Mary fur­nished 500 pounds of gunpowder.  The men planned a surprise attack on the British to prevent the British from coming across the mountains and raiding Watauga and the other settlements.    The mountain men defeated the British at King's Mountain and returned to Watauga to protect their homes and families from the British and the Indians.  Although Mary Patton gave the expedition to King's Mountain the powder, she normally sold it in the East for one dollar a pound.  The powder was carried across the moun­tains by foot.

Charlotte Reeves Robertson - Nashville (1751-1843)

            Charlotte Robertson, followed her husband, James Robertson, into Middle Tennessee from the Watauga settlement in East Tennes­see and was among the earliest settlers to live in the region.  She helped to establish each of those two new communities in the wilderness.  She was able to survive Indian attacks as well as long separations from her husband, who was frequently called away on governmental business.  Two of her sons were killed by the Indi­ans and she nursed another son back to good health after he had been scalped by the Indians and left for dead on the day of the Battle of the Bluffs.  She lived to the age of 92.

            Charlotte Robertson's husband, James,  had explored with Daniel Boone the "Western Waters" as the land beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains was called.   When James Robertson went back to Wake County, North Carolina, he and Charlotte Robertson made the decision to move across the mountains along with ten other fami­lies.  (Boone later settled Kentucky)  When Charlotte and James Robertson moved to Watauga shortly after their marriage, the colonists had many difficulties with the British in western North Carolina and sought to move further west to escape the control of the British government. 

            At Watauga, Charlotte Robertson and the other women who lived there worked shoulder to shoulder with men, planting crops, tending livestock and defending themselves from the Indians.  These women on the frontier raised their children under difficult circumstances.  At Watauga, Charlotte Robertson's husband was a leader.  Because of his knowledge of the Cherokee language, he devoted much of his life to negotiating with the Indians to try to provide a permanent peace. Charlotte and James Robertson wanted to move further west to escape the British.  When James Robertson, a surveyor,  identified the spot of the Salt Lick on the Cumberland River, 40 families at Watauga decided to leave and move further westward into Middle Tennessee.  John and Kate Sevier decided to remain at Watauga.

            While James Robertson led a group of men by land to the site, Charlotte Robertson traveled with John Donelson and a group of women and children by flatboats down the Tennessee River and up the Cumberland.  During their journey on the flatboats, the women were attacked by Indians.  At one point, Charlotte and her slave, Hagar, fought off the Indians with their oars.  According to a Robertson family legend, the Robertson's toddler "had  hidden beneath her mother's skirts while the brave Charlotte beat off the savages with the oar".  When the women finally arrived, cabins had been built inside the fort for each family.    Within two months, Charlotte's young daughter who had survived the winter on the flatboat, died.

            Immediately there were conflicts with the Indians who resented the settlers moving into their common hunting grounds.  Charlotte and the other women had to stay inside the fort all of the time for safety.  In April, 1781, while the men were away from the fort, Charlotte heard the dogs growl­ing. With her infant son in her arms, she climbed the fort's look-out to see if she could identify the cause of the dogs' alarm and realized that an attack was about to occur.  Quickly she mounted a horse with the baby in her lap and warned the men of the approaching attack.  When she arrived back at the fort, she realized that the men were trapped and would not be able to get inside the walls of the fort since the Indians had positioned themselves between the men and the fort.  At this point, she unleashed the bloodhounds and the dogs chased the Indians creat­ing so much confusion that the men were able to return to the safety of the fort.  Charlotte Robertson has been remembered as the Heroine of the Battle of the Bluffs and is credited with saving Fort Nashboro in that battle. 

            Throughout the early years in Middle Tennessee, Charlotte cared for her growing family and gave birth to 12 children in 23 years.  She and her husband were leaders and pioneers in Middle Tennessee who worked together to create a lasting peace.  The city of Charlotte, Tennessee, and Charlotte Pike in Nashville are named for Charlotte Robertson, who lived in middle Tennessee until her death in 1843 at the age of 92.

Hagar, Charlotte Robertson's slave - middle Tennessee (unknown)

            Little is known about Hagar's family or private life other than that she came from Watauga with Charlotte Robertson on the flatboats and worked  side  by side with Mrs. Robertson doing whatever was needed at the time.  She and Mrs. Robertson fought off the Indians while journeying to Nashville and then continued to protect the family from the numerous Indian raids.  She slept on the floor by the bed of the Robertson children and was given the responsibility of hiding the children under the bed  for safety in the event of an Indian attack.

[Note:  The Blount Mansion historic site in Knoxville has interpretive programs on the lives of the African-American women who lived there in the first decades of its occupation.]

Catherine Sherrill Sevier (Bonnie Kate Sevier)  - Watauga (1754-1836)

            Catherine (Kate) Sherrill came to the Watauga valley with her father's family from North Carolina.  When the station was at­tacked by Indians, Kate had been outside the fort.  Kate was known for the speed with which she could run.  With the Indians blocking her direct entry into the fort, Kate made a circle to the back of the fort so that she could scale the walls of the fort.  Someone on the inside of the fort had attempted to pull her over the wall, but  both  fell to the ground on opposite sides of the enclosure.  Kate would later describe that day saying, "Their bullets and arrows came like hail:  it was now leap the wall or die, for I would not live a captive!"  She jumped, and found herself over the wall "by the side of one in uniform," Captain John Sevier whom she later married.

            Kate Sherrill Sevier devoted her energies to caring for a large household.  John Sevier and his first wife had had ten children.  Kate Sevier's first task after her marriage was to make the uniforms worn by her husband and his three sons at the battle of King's Mountain.  She later said, "Had his ten children been sons, and old enough to serve in that expedition, I could have fitted them out."  She  and John Sevier later had eight addition­al children.

            Kate Sevier's husband was a  military leader in Watauga and the newly created state of Tennessee.  During the early battles with the Indians, John Sevier took 30 Indians prisoner and brought them home for his wife, Kate Sevier, to oversee.  She was accustomed to saying, "The wife of John Sevier knows no fear." 

            During the American Revolution, when British soldiers ap­peared at the Sevier home to take John Sevier prisoner and hang him, Catherine Sevier refused to inform them of his location.  When they threatened to shoot her if she continued to remain silent, she was said to reply, "Shoot!  Shoot!  I am not afraid to die.  But remember, while there is a Sevier upon the earth, my blood will not be unavenged!"

            Catherine Sevier witnessed many changes in government during her lifetime.  In 1784, when the state of Franklin was created to give the people of East Tennessee a separate and independent government from North Carolina, John Sevier was the first and last governor of that state.  Her husband later served as gover­nor of Tennessee.

            Catherine Sevier was self-educated.  She said, "I picked up a good deal from observation of men and their acts, for that was a business with us in the early settlements."  She instructed her children and her daughter Ruth developed an interest in the history of the Cherokees and she later learned the language.  Ruth later married Shawtunk, a young captive and moved to Natchez, Missis­sippi.

Sally Ridley Buchanan - middle Tennessee (unknown)

            Sally Buchanan worked with  her husband, Major John Buchanan, at their home, Buchanan's Station,  a fort in Davidson County.  Like all the settlers in middle Tennessee, families initially lived together within the walls of these stations for protection from the Indians.

            When  400 Indians attacked Buchanan's Station in 1792, Sally Buchanan, a large  woman, was pregnant with her first child.   There were only 17 men inside the fort.  As the men began to run low on ammunition, Sally "came amidst the raking fire of bullets singing through the picketing" and with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and an apron filled with bullets, she began to distribute her supplies, making several rounds around the fort.  When one of the women at the station became hysterical and decided to take her children outside the walls of the fort to surrender to the Indians in an effort to save their lives, Sally ran out and brought her back convincing the woman  that she would see victory.  Some historians believe that had Buchanan's Station fallen, the victorious Indian army would have destroyed every­thing in Middle Tennessee.  [Note:   this view of the events at Buchanan's Station has been widely published.  While it does appear in numerous sources, it should be noted that this description as well as those of the Battle of the Bluffs reflects only the view of white settlers.]

Ann Robertson Johnston Cockrill - middle Tennessee (1757-1821 )

            On the frontier, school, like church, was often held at home and was conduct­ed by the women.  Ann Robertson Johnston  was a widow with three small daughters, when her brother and sister-in-law, James and Charlotte Robertson decided to leave Watauga and settle in middle Tennessee.  Like many of the early women of Tennessee, Ann Robertson had married as a teenager and  had given birth to her first child at the age of fifteen.  Her husband, a justice of the peace in the Washington district, had been killed in an accident and she had lived with another brother, Charles Robertson, near Johnson City.  At the Battle of Watauga which occurred on laundry day at the fort, she conceived  the idea of pouring scalding water over the walls of the fort on the attacking Indians and organized a bucket brigade of women to carry water.  She contin­ued her efforts during the attack in spite of being wounded.

            Ann decided to make the trip with Charlotte Robertson on the flatboats.  Because of her love of children and her ability to teach, she gave instruction to more than 50 children on the boats during the journey to Fort Nashboro.  According to tradition, she had small, wooden boxes made for the children and filled the boxes with sand from the banks of the river.  She then taught these children letters, spelling, and simple arithmetic using sticks to draw the letters and numbers in the sand.  She kept the children occupied during the long journey teaching them to read from their parents' Bibles.  "She had a great love for reading and enjoyed singing hymns and religious songs.  No doubt a children's choir could be heard as they rounded the bends of the winding river."    She probably continued her teaching after the group arrived at Fort Nashboro. 

            When the flotilla reached the mouth of the Tennessee and Ohio rivers, the flatboats had to be navigated against the river current to reach the mouth of the Cumberland.  Because of the spring rains, the river had risen and very fast.  Some of the group decided to turn South and go to Natchez, Mississippi.  Ann took a man's place as the pilot of the boat and steered the boat near the bank so that the remaining men might  pole the large boats upstream. 

            Upon her arrival at Fort Nashboro, she married John Cockrill and had 8 additional children.  In 1784, she was awarded a land grant with her husband in recognition of those who were "the advance guard of civilization".

Activities

Kindergarten through Grade Four

1.  Using popsicle sticks, milk cartons, small boxes,  or other materials, make a model of the flatboat upon which Charlotte Robertson traveled to Middle Tennessee.

2.  Pretend that you are Ann Robertson Johnston on the flatboats.  What would you teach the children?

3.  Pretend that you are one of the children of Charlotte Robert­son on the day of the Battle of the Bluffs.  How would you feel as you saw your mother riding off to warn the men of the Indian attack?

4.  Make a box similar to the boxes used by Ann Robertson Johnson to teach the children on the flatboats.  Practice writing your spelling words for the week in the sand.

5.  As a class, prepare a feast of celebration  to celebrate the arrival of the women and children with John Donelson at Fort Nashboro.

6.  Imagine that you are one of the Robertson children and that Charlotte Robertson is your mother.  You are living at Fort Nashboro and have no money or access to purchase things for gifts.  It is your mother's birthday.  What would you do for her to celebrate her birthday?  What could you give to your own mother that would not need to be bought? 

7.  Using a long pole, allow the ch