A War Against Vegetables, A War Against Women: Haudenosaunee Women and the American Revolution

Experts Next Door #22
A War Against Vegetables, A War Against Women: Haudenosaunee Women’s Experience of the American Revolution
Dr. Maeve Kane - University of Albany
Originally Aired April 26 2023, 7pm
When George Washington ordered the “total destruction and devastation” of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) territories in 1779, the offensive was to that date the largest and most expensive campaign of the American Revolution. What became known as the Sullivan-Clinton campaign aimed squarely at the agricultural heart of Haudenosaunee women’s diplomatic power, cultural status, and identity by burning cornfields and felling orchards. Dr. Kane’s talk will show how Continental soldiers constructed an American identity for themselves by destroying what they called Haudenosaunee women’s “homes of contentment,” and how Haudenosaunee women preserved their nations over the course of the war.