LANDSCAPES OF LOVE: WANDAT WOMEN AND THE POLITICS OF REMOVAL, 1795-1910

My dissertation is a community-engaged history guided by an Advisory Council of Wandat/Wendat women including Chief Emeritus Janith Atrondahwatee English (Kansas), Principal Chief Judith Trǫnyáęhk Manthe (Kansas), Second Chief Louisa Yarǫnyewáʔe Libby (Kansas), Faith Keeper Catherine Taǫmęʔšreʔ Tàmmaro (Ontario), Faith Keeper Sallie Tewatronyahkwa Cotter Andrews (Oklahoma), and Faith Keeper and lawyer Barbara Datǫgya’ha Aston (Oklahoma). This methodological approach built on direct collaboration with these women underscores the project’s commitment to authentically representing their perspectives on their shared history. \n It examines structures of power and control within North American Indigenous removal and diaspora, focusing on the responses of Indigenous women to the historic trauma of removal in nineteenth century America. I argue that Wandat women protested removal and erasure of the Wandat from their lands in Tsaʔⁿduskeh, Uhížuʔ (now Upper Sandusky, Ohio) and Wyandott City (now Kansas City, Kansas) in the wake of American expansion in the 1830s. These women fought for their land largely using petitions and letter-writing campaigns to preserve community culture and overcome generations of colonial threats. This research challenges pervasive Settler myths that portray Indigenous peoples as timeless entities confined to the edges of urban metropolises or isolated on reserves. My research demonstrates that Indigenous women maintained strong connections to their homeland(s), even after they were forced to leave.\n Contrary to narratives of destruction and erasure, this research reveals the continued presence and agency of Indigenous women in city spaces. It reimagines spaces traditionally seen as Settler or colonial, such as Kansas City, Kansas, as Indigenous ones highlighting the roles of Wandat women in land ownership, agricultural development, and the establishment of cultural institutions like churches and schools. These actions both resisted colonization as well as contributed to the making of cities, states, and countries. Thus, my work positions Indigenous women as central actors in the creation and maintenance of place.

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