of women at the mission was most likely a comfort to her, as shown in her letters while she was away from them in later years. In some ways, it resembled communities of Cherokee women in the society where she grew up. Cherokee women lived very separate lives from the men. They grew their crops together and performed their rituals apart from men. They had their children alone or with the help of other women. They even followed the Cherokee principle of secluding themselves from men during their menstrual period. They controlled everything surrounding the household while men spent very little time around. For the women at Brainerd, life was very much like that of the typical middle-class white women of the Northeast at that time. They were expected to be pious, chaste and submissive. They often sought each other’s company to reassure and affirm those values. The women distanced themselves from Cherokee women who did not necessarily share their views and developed very close ties to one another. Along with the female students they accomplished all the tasks of running the mission together. In addition to this they cared for each other, attended births and shared in responsibilities of child-care. Catharine lamented and mourned the loss of this sense of sisterhood while she was away from Brainerd. Teaching at Creek-Path The few years Catharine spent at Brainerd were very tumultuous within Cherokee society. The ever encroaching American settlers and increased pressure on the Cherokee to become “civilized” took its toll on the nation. Some pushed back against this change and kept to the “old ways”. Still others embraced the change and took steps towards “civilization.” Catharine’s family was one of those and for her the mission and school was a hope for the future of Cherokee society. During a time when the very fabric of Cherokee community was being shredded, the missions offered a sense of community. They incorporated women, although as subordinates, while the new Cherokee political position excluded women, a far contrast to the past when women held important roles within the town councils and communities. In February 1820, a request from Catharine’s father to start a mission for boys at Creek Path was heard and provisions to open the school were made. The Creek Path Mission was established in March 1820 by Rev. Daniel S. Butrick and John Arch, a young Cherokee man known as A-tsi.