Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century by Brianna Theobold

Abstract

Reviewed by: Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century by Brianna Theobold Abigail Markwyn Brianna Theobold. Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. 288 pp. Paper, $29.95. Brianna Theobold's excellent new book, Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century, shows in vivid detail the effects of colonial policy on the reproductive lives of Indigenous women in the United States. The depth [End Page 302] and breadth of Theobold's research is extraordinary and is a significant contribution to both women's and Indigenous history. She deftly interweaves a comprehensive case study of reproductive health on the Crow reservation with the experiences of other Indigenous women across the United States to uncover the myriad ways that the long hand of the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) extended across the nation to affect the reproductive practices of Indigenous women both on, and off, the reservation. Reproduction on the Reservation convincingly argues that the regulation of reproductive health and family structure was fundamental to assimilation policy and must be understood as a key part of US colonialism. The imposition of the reservation system in the late nineteenth century put the bodies of Native women under increased surveillance and regulation, which ranged from the coerced (birthing in a hospital and scheduled breast feedings) to the forced (unwanted sterilization). Theobold reveals that, despite this surveillance, Native women remained agents of their own lives. Some women willingly embraced the opportunity to birth in a OIA hospital, for instance, while others resisted. Some women sought sterilization procedures, but far more woke up from childbirth to find themselves subject to this invasive and unwanted procedure. And throughout the twentieth century, Indigenous women worked together to combat abuses and to gain access to the medical care they wanted and needed. This innovative and thoroughly researched narrative reveals the deeply intertwined relationship between federal Indian policy and women's reproductive lives and demonstrates the longterm effects of colonialism on Indigenous communities. The book consists of six chronologically organized chapters, which trace Crow women's lives from the late nineteenth century to the present. It focuses on the time period from roughly 1880 to 1980, but the epilogue does an excellent job of pulling the story together, recounting the decision of Zintkala Mahpiya Wi Blackowl (Lakota), a water protector, to birth her baby at Standing Rock in 2016, as well as that of Nicolle Gonzales, a Navajo nurse-midwife dedicated to founding a birthing center for Native women. Although the core of the narrative traces the histories of Crow women, particularly those of the Yellowtail family, Theobold expands her view to include the experiences of women from across the country. Her narrative reveals that Native women experienced many of the same historical changes as did their non-Native [End Page 303] contemporaries, such as the medicalization of childbirth, the flourishing of women's clubs, debates about birth control and eventually abortion, but these issues played out in sometimes radically different ways when set within the confines of colonial policies. After a brief introduction, the first chapter explores the reproductive lives of Crow women after their removal to the reservation along the Little Bighorn River. Here, the author lays out some of the themes that will recur throughout the book: the significance of "flexible childrearing," in Crow society and the ways in which government employees viewed, and intervened in, Native women's reproductive practices. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the implementation of early-twentieth-century assimilation policy. Here, Theobold focuses on the significance of the OIA's "Save the Babies" campaign, and argues that it must be understood as "a cornerstone of early twentieth-century federal Indian policy" (45). Chapter 3 examines one goal of this policy, which was to transition Native women into giving birth in hospitals rather than at home. Theobold traces the uneven adoption of this policy through the life story of Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail, the first Crow registered nurse. Here we see the varieties of ways in which women navigated the OIA health system, at times acquiescing to...