"Among the Vanguard: Women at War in the Borderlands of the Early American Northeast"

By Gina M. Martino, University of Akron. 

English, French, and Native women in the “northeastern borderlands” fulfilled essen-tial public, martial roles in the expansionist and colonial contests of the region’s Euro-pean and Native polities from approximately 1630-1763. Women from dozens of poli-ties lived on the front lines of these conflicts in fortified “vanguard” communities that served as bulwarks oriented in a variety of compass directions. Women throughout the region performed a wide range of martial activities because gender ideologies of the period supported public roles for women in war. This paper explores the memories of women’s war-making and their influence on the early nineteenth century.