“The Heart of the Nation”: The Roles of Female Leadership Networks in Mandan and Hidatsa Resistance and Resilience

Abstract

"’The Heart of the Nation’: The Roles of Female Leadership Networks in Mandan and Hidatsa Resistance and Resilience” is the long history of Mandan and Hidatsa female leadership networks. I contextualize contemporary leaders' experiences with their ancestors' historical leadership. This multidisciplinary project incorporates methods from history, Indigenous studies, and gender studies to intervene in the literature of Indigenous and Western history, gender studies, leadership studies, food studies, agricultural history, and religious studies. I place oral history interviews I conducted with current Mandan and Hidatsa leaders in conversation with the experiences of Mandan and Hidatsa women recorded in archival oral histories, ethnographic field notes, Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) correspondence, and missionary publications. By examining past and present leadership, I trace networks of female leadership in families, clans, communities, agricultural and economic systems, and interactions with the United States. The Mandan and Hidatsa Nations are not stuck in the past and are confined to a “pure” or “authentic” culture. They are people of the present whose lives are informed and shaped by their networks of leadership. Mandan and Hidatsa women have always engaged with their worlds and led through interactions with other Indigenous nations and settler nations, especially the United States of America. They adapt their material, social, and spiritual cultures to incorporate new contexts and materials and assert their place in the world. Whether by mobilizing agricultural networks in the 19th century, constructing an earth lodge on the North Dakota State Capitol Grounds in 1930, or adapting settler systems to support Mandan and Hidatsa resistance and resilience, women have always been leaders.