Colonization, Homelessness, and the Prostitution and Sex Trafficking of Native Women | National Indigenous Women's Resource Center
Colonization, Homelessness, and the Prostitution and Sex Trafficking of Native Women | National Indigenous Women's Resource Center
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Colonization, Homelessness, and the Prostitution and Sex Trafficking of Native Women
Published Date:
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Thursday, April 2, 2020
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Native American Warriorz Task Force plus END-IT-Miami
Shawnee Lazore HHD, PhD
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Purple Hearts Missions Possible & Healthy Horizons (The Original);
Native American Warriorz Task Force plus END-IT-Miami
Shawnee Lazore HHD, PhD
Heart Line 💜1-888-383-4838
~LIVE IN LOVE~
Historical Sex Trafficking of Native Women
Christopher Columbus and his men raped, enslaved, maimed, and
murdered the Taino people upon landing on their shores. This included
selling the Taino women and girls for rape--what is now called sex
trafficking. Columbus wrote in his journals,
A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a
farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go
about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand
(Columbus, 2003).
These abuses spread as Spanish and other European
countries colonized the continent, making sex trafficking
a central component of the colonization of Indigenous
people in Central and North America. During the American
Revolution George “Washington’s troops put to death
all the women and children, excepting some of the young
women, whom they carried away for the use of their soldiers
and were afterwards put to death in a more shameful
manner” (Sjursen, 2018). As European countries settled
the continent, Indigenous women and children were
bought and sold for sex and labor trafficking, including at
government and Christian-run boarding schools (Stark,
2019). From the beginning, Europeans scapegoated
Indigenous people, casting Indigenous women as
prostitutes that exist to be sexually used.
Christopher Columbus and his men raped, enslaved, maimed, and
murdered the Taino people upon landing on their shores. This included
selling the Taino women and girls for rape--what is now called sex
trafficking. Columbus wrote in his journals,
A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a
farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go
about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand
(Columbus, 2003).
These abuses spread as Spanish and other European
countries colonized the continent, making sex trafficking
a central component of the colonization of Indigenous
people in Central and North America. During the American
Revolution George “Washington’s troops put to death
all the women and children, excepting some of the young
women, whom they carried away for the use of their soldiers
and were afterwards put to death in a more shameful
manner” (Sjursen, 2018). As European countries settled
the continent, Indigenous women and children were
bought and sold for sex and labor trafficking, including at
government and Christian-run boarding schools (Stark,
2019). From the beginning, Europeans scapegoated
Indigenous people, casting Indigenous women as
prostitutes that exist to be sexually used.
The social, political, and cultural instability during the colonial era and American Revolution involved ongoing warfare, shifting allegiances among Indigenous and European nations, enslavement, and relocation of Indigenous people. Indigenous women and girls were particularly impacted “…as females during wartime, colonial expansion, and slavery… [are] especially vulnerable to the sexual violence that so often accompanied conquest…” (Miles, 2008).
This paper seeks to illustrate the impact of human trafficking on Native women and girls in our times, with particular attention to the historical context in the United States and the interconnection between trafficking and housing instability.
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