A History of the Women from the Six Nations of Grand River, Ontario
This talk is sponsored by the Richmond Hill Mayor & Council
September 22, 2022 (10am to 12 noon)
This talk will provide an overview of the unique gender dynamics in traditional Haudenosaunee culture, and specifically, the economic and political power that these women held. It will then examine how colonial forces, including Christian missionaries and the colonial state, disrupted their traditions and how women responded to these challenges. It will end with a discussion of women at the Six Nations of Grand River reserve in southwestern Ontario in the early twentieth century, and how those women maintained power within their community.
Alison Norman is a historian, researcher and historical consultant. She is currently faculty in the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies & Indigenous Studies at Trent University. She worked in the Ontario Ministry of Indigenous Affairs as a historian for six years. Alison earned her Ph.D. and B.Ed. from OISE/University of Toronto, and her dissertation focused on Six Nations women's work in the early 20th Century. She held a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship at Trent University in which she researched the history of Indigenous teachers in 19th century southern Ontario, and she worked as a researcher for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She has published articles in Indigenous, culinary and commemoration history. Alison is currently the book review editor for Ontario History. She is also a member of the Mohawk Institute Research Group, and she is co-editing a book on the history of the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario.
