Settler women: Hannah A. Reynolds, ‘”I just had to do most everything”: Colonial Implications of Settler Women’s Roles in Nineteenth-Century Oregon’, Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Conference, 2021 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler women: Hannah A. Reynolds, ‘”I just had to do most everything”: Colonial Implications of Settler Women’s Roles in Nineteenth-Century Oregon’, Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Conference, 2021

17Apr21

Abstract: Molly Gloss’s 1987 novel, The Jump-Off Creek, is considered a classic work of literature on settler history in Oregon. Her depiction of the main character, Lydia Sanderson, is one of grit and generosity in the face of remarkable challenges. Having read accounts of women homesteaders in preparation for writing the book, Gloss addresses several of the themes that come out of historical studies of such women, such as the opportunity for them to own land and the resulting empowerment that they experienced. Perhaps inadvertently, she also recognizes that by doing so, they contributed to a larger system of structural violence against indigenous peoples. By examining the historiography of settler women, then adding to the narrative with case studies from the North Coast of Oregon, there lies an opportunity to break ground on a new version of remembering homesteading women in a way that honors their considerable labor in search of “boundless possibilities,” while recognizing their foundational role in an oppressive system.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed

Settler colonialism is a global and transnational phenomenon, and as much a thing of the past as a thing of the present. Settlers 'come to stay': they are founders of political orders who carry with them a distinct sovereign capacity.
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