Off-campus University of Richmond users: To download campus access theses, please use the following link to log in to our proxy server with your university username and password.
Date of Award
2020
Document Type
Restricted Thesis: Campus only access
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
History
First Advisor
Dr. Samantha Seeley
Abstract
In 1826, a white, Christian, New England woman named Harriet Gold incited controversy within her New England community by marrying a Cherokee man named Elias Boudinot. Of particular concern were the ways in which this coupling disrupted the dual gender and racial hierarchies of patriarchy and whiteness. Following their marriage, Harriet relocated with Elias from New England to the capital of the Cherokee Nation, New Echota. There, she contributed to the politics of Indian acculturation through her role as a missionary and civilizing agent, working to transplant an Anglo-American gendered division of labor. This thesis analyzes Harriet’s changing relationship to antebellum gender and racial norms depending on her movement across cultural contexts. It explores how Harriet disrupted and promoted dominant social hierarchies of patriarchy and whiteness within different cultural spaces, as well as the ways in which her own identity as a white woman was simultaneously oppressed and empowered.
Recommended Citation
Hills, Alexis, "Crossing Cultures: The Negotiation of Gender and Racial Norms from New England to Cherokee Country" (2020). Honors Theses. 1430.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1430