Women of the Pimería Alta

In the Pimería Alta, gender determined relationships and power in politics, economics, and social relationships. With the arrival of Spanish missionaries, O'odham women played an important role in navigating political and cultural interactions, especially in the initial establishment of Spanish missions.

Women were key facilitators, both symbolically and literally, in political negotiations and diplomacy between O'odham and Yoeme communities and European missionaries. See how missionaries used female symbolism to get them through the doors of O'odham diplomacy and the roles that women played in the unfolding of colonization.

Native women played an integral in developing botanical, herbal, and medicinal knowledge in their communities. They continued to provide healing expertise in mission communities. Native women also suffered disproportionately from diseases introduced by European colonists. Learn more about their triumphs and struggles with disease and health here.

Overlapping combinations of biases related to religion, race and gender meant that indigenous women had to face many intersectional layers of prejudice. These colonial European biases limited roles and opportunities of indigenous women.

Male honor or “machismo” played a big part in the Spanish conquest of the Pimería Alta. Machismo was often expressed through violence, especially against indigenous people, and particularly, women.

Indigenous women played important roles in mission communities by functioning as cultural brokers or mediators. They negotiated the many tensions that occurred as colonial and local indigenous societies blended.

Women were not passive victims of colonization or the mission system. They resisted pressures to conform to European and Spanish cultural norms and worked to preserve their traditions, while choosing to incorporate those new things that they found beneficial.