Past, Present, Future: Violence Against Native American Women in the United States

Violence against Native American women has been an issue for centuries in the United States. Europeans arrived in the Americas in the 1400s and immediately changed the traditional way of Native American life. Because of this, Native American women were no longer respected in their communities and often subjected to violence. Before Europeans came to the Americas, Native women controlled everything in their communities. Indigenous communities operated under matrilineal culture. Under European influence, native tribes started operating under patrilineal culture, which also contributed to the way native women were treated differently over the years. As the respect for Native women started to dwindle, they experienced violence through boarding schools, sterilization, sexual violence, man camps, and murder