Change and continuity is a big player when it comes to understanding how Natives were prior to colonial contact and how they changed or stayed the same due to that. In understanding change and continuity of Native groups one has to understand the different goals of the European groups they contacted. In this paper it mainly focuses on the French, who were more focused on trading, and partly the Spanish who were focused on conversion. These two European powers, inevitably shaped the lives of Native people and changed their religious practices and how the kinship ties operated, primarily around women. In The Berdache and the Illinois Indian Tribe during the Last Half of the Seventeenth Century, Hauser focused on berdache men who took on women’s roles in the Illinois tribe and how it affected the tribe. Berdache could not receive the same social status as men, but could achieve status the same way as women did. Despite this, Berdache were allowed to live alone or as a second wife, where as women did not have that option. Hauser describes how women were seen as inferior among the tribe, “ These women did not control their own sexuality, because their brother could force them into extra-marital liaisons.” This example shows the control that men had …show more content…
The trade of women to appease the Europeans was led by Indian groups along the South in order to obtain commodities they needed. Barr describes women being described as objects and men having the control in, “The exchange itself created relationships, binding men to each other in the act of giving and receiving.” Indian men would make a point to kidnap neighboring tribes women and the Spanish took note of this by doing the same with the Apache or other tribes to persuade Natives to agree to political treaties. When slavery was outlawed there was an abundance of baptismal and marriage records in order for Europeans to keep their enslaved