"We Are Men": Native American and Euroamerican Projections of Masculinity During the Seven Years’ War

This chapter begins by describing the cultural background of warfare for Native Americans, before turning to their use of masculinity tropes in their dealings with the British during the Seven Years’ War. For Indian men, references to masculinity were often cloaked in generational and gendered terms. Their status as warriors and headmen separated them from boys and women, and they consequently used manly language to assert individual power and identity. Native Americans also utilized masculine discourse to differentiate one’s people from other indigenous groups as well as the British and their colonists. What did the British make of these masculinity tropes? Vast cultural differences divided Indians and Europeans, not only in their technologies, tactics, and motives in warfare, but also in a noticeably dissimilar gendered order of their respective societies. Despite these disparities, Native American expressions of masculinity were readily discernible to the British. Warfare was the near-exclusive domain of men for both peoples, which provided a common reference point for intercultural communication. Both Indian and British men used manly language to reinforce their own identity as warriors and to question the martial capabilities of each other. [Author]