Sehoy

Matriarch
Sehoy
DiedCirca 1730
NationalityMuscogee Confederacy
Other namesSehoy I
ChildrenSehoy Marchand, Red Shoes

Sehoy, or Sehoy I (died ca. 1730), was an 18th-century matriarch of the Muscogee Confederacy and a member of the Wind clan.[1][2]

She established a dynasty that became influential in the political and economic history of her nation and its relationship with the United States.[3] Because inheritance and property within the confederacy were controlled matrilineally in early Muscogee society, her daughters and their descendants became influential in shaping tribal membership and relations with people they enslaved.[3][4] In Muscogee culture, tribal affiliation was defined by clan membership and matrilineal descent. If the mother was part of a tribe, her children would also be part of that tribe, regardless of the father's ethnicity or citizenship.[5]

Some of her male descendants shaped policy with the United States through treaty-making[6][7] and through tribal leadership.[8][9]

  1. ^ Waselkov 2006, pp. 35–36.
  2. ^ Wright 2007, pp. 184–85.
  3. ^ a b Waselkov 2006, p. 41.
  4. ^ Wright 2022, pp. 42, 49.
  5. ^ Braund 1991, pp. 615–16.
  6. ^ Bartram 1955, p. 130.
  7. ^ Langley 2005, p. 237.
  8. ^ Langley 2005, p. 232.
  9. ^ Meserve 1938, p. 407.