At the Alaska Native Women’s Conference in 2005, Jacqueline Agtuca said, “Sexual assault rates and violence against Native American women did not just drop from the sky. They are a process of history.” Out of all American women, Native American women today are the most vulnerable to sexual exploitation; this is a long term effect of the constant losses and trauma they experienced during and after the colonial era. In order to understand this problem of vulnerability, we must look at some historical events that paved the way to this issue. Throughout generations, Native American women’s early experiences have had a devastating effect on their self worth.

This history of abuse has a distinct start. Before colonization, Native American women frequently held respected positions in their tribes (Maze of Injustice). They managed their community's resources and had freedom in their sexual choices (Pierce). Violence against women was rare, and those who violated women were often gravely punished (Maze of Injustice). In the early 1600s, British colonists arrived in America. They viewed the sexual and marital norms of Native American communities through their own partiality (Maze of Injustice). These colonists didn’t try to understand the respect Native American men had for their women (Pierce). Instead, they interpreted Native Americans’ beliefs about sexual freedom and respect for women to be a sign of weakness (Maze of Injustice) The colonists used these attitudes to justify their assaults on Native American women and their lands (Pierce). Many of these rapes and assaults were done in the spirit of conquest and power. This was the beginning of decades of abuse against Native American women.

Mistreatment continued from colonization to the establishment of the United States government. In 1869, the US government funded boarding schools, usually ran by the Catholic Church (Pierce). Native American children were then forcibly taken from their family and sent to these schools to promote cultural assimilation (Maze of Injustice). Reports from these schools told of cruel and inhuman treatment from authority (Pierce). Many children were also physically and sexually abused (Pierce). Children died by the hundreds due to lack of necessities, such as food and medical care (Pierce). Abuse towards Native American women wasn’t stopping, but many women still had hope for the future.

The future wasn’t filled with the hope that many Native American women longed for. In the early 1900s, the US government started to expand westward. They created extermination policies to clear Native occupied land for settlement (“American Indian Treaties.”). The Indian Removal Act was signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1930, which was the first major step to relocate American Indians (Congress). This impacted Native American women’s traditional roles in their community as well as their safety (Pierce). These expansions may have led to learned helplessness in the Native American people, which is a psychological condition that can be passed down through generations. Learned helplessness means that an individual doesn’t believe that their future could be free of abuse because of what they have heard and/or experienced, and therefore lacking the motivation to escape it (Dale-Harris). Native women’s hope was running out, replaced by learned helplessness that would follow them for decades to come.

Even when Native women gained health services, sexual freedom was still taken from them. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Indian Health Service was the main health source for many Native Americans (Pierce). The IHS regularly conducted tubal ligations on unsuspecting Native women and girls. Often these procedures were done without their consent and sometimes knowledge (Maze of Injustice). But if they did know, women often agreed to the procedure after being threatened with having their children taken away or welfare benefits stopped (Maze of Injustice). Sometimes they agreed while sedated, or signed a consent form they couldn’t understand because of the high reading level (Pierce). The US government targeted Native American women because of their high birth rate, and decided that sterilization was an appropriate action (Pierce). By 1975, around 25,000 Native women had been sterilized by the IHS (Pierce). This forced sterilization stole these women’s sacred roles as givers of life and caused years of shame. It all started with Native American women’s homes being invaded during colonization and progressed to their sexual reproduction organs being invaded, too.

These events clearly prove why Native American women are most vulnerable to sexual exploitation. After many generations of sexual abuse, Native women still experience the highest rates of physical and sexual victimization compared to all American women (“The Facts on Violence Against American Indian/Alaskan Native Women.”). Data from the US Department of Justice reports that more than one third of Native American women will be raped in her lifetime, and those in the US are two and a half times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than the general population of women (“Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women and Men.”). Historical relations between Native women and the US government also affect how many women report sexual abuse (Maze of Injustice). Many of these women are afraid to report because they are aware of the history of abuse and mistreatment towards Native Americans from authority (Maze of Injustice).

For many Native women, prostitution feels like the only choice they have to survive. The average age Native American women enter prostitution is fourteen, and this statistic is reflected in the 1999 Minnesota Hofstede Report on juvenile sex trafficking (Pierce). They reported that the average age of women starting sex work in Minnesota was fourteen in 1999 (Pierce). Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center did a study in 2009 regarding sex work in Minnesota. Forty-two percent of Native women were younger than fifteen when they started sex work, usually in exchange for money, drugs, food or shelter (Pierce). Minnesota advocates from Duluth who are working with women in sex work have described pimps using violence to pressure younger women and girls into prostitution (Pierce). This act sounds eerily familiar, like the abuse Native American women experienced from colonists. Today, these women are being exploited in exchange for survival (Pierce).

The effects of such abuses still reflect through society and culture today. For example, a video game marketed in 1989 called “Custer’s Revenge” featured characters General Custard and a Native American woman. He was trying to have sex with her while she was tied to a post (Maze of Injustice). This was the objective of the game, and reeks of the past of sexual abuse Native American women experienced. This past of injustice has had a huge impact on Native women’s vulnerability to sexual exploitation. Some may ask, “Why does vulnerability matter?” It’s important because women in sex work experience high rates of sexual abuse and violence. These experiences make it very hard for them to go back to a healthy, beneficial lifestyle (Pierce).

These statistics and attitudes are the result of a past of injustice for Native American women. This past of abuse has caused Native Americans to suffer from internalized oppression, learned helplessness and the normalization of violence (“The Facts on Violence Against American Indian/Alaskan Native Women.”). The dehumanizing of Native American women throughout history has contributed greatly to present day attitudes, as well as fueled the high rates of sexual violence against them (Maze of Injustice). Sexual violence can have a huge impact on many women, especially on their sexual and reproductive health (Maze of Injustice). The United States has done very little to acknowledge this past of abuse or to ensure compensation for the victims, which should change (Maze of Injustice). Claudia Rankine, a poet, wrote, “The past is buried in you.” This is the kind of historical view we need to develop. We need to understand that decades of abuse since colonialism continues to harm Native American women today.

Works Cited

“American Indian Treaties.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration.

Congress, U.S. "Indian Removal Act of 1830." The Native American Experience, Primary Source Media, 1999. American Journey. Student Resources In Context. Accessed 6 Feb. 2019.

Dale-Harris, Mieke. “Graphics: Inheriting Poverty – Learned Helplessness and Empowerment in Development.” Development Roast, 10 Feb. 2013.

Maze of Injustice: the Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA. Amnesty International USA, 2007. (print source. Talks about how violence came to be on Native American women).

Pierce, Alexandra. Shattered Hearts: the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of American Indian Women and Girls in Minnesota: Summary Report, November 2009. Minnesota Indian Womens Resource Center, 2009. (print source. Facts and stories based off MN).

“The Facts on Violence Against American Indian/Alaskan Native Women.” PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2010, doi:10.1037/e602462012-001. (web document. Has statistics and perspectives).

“Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women and Men.” National Institute of Justice.