Page 109 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

FRONT I E R P R O C E S S : VILIFYING

of noises."24 While moving fr om Iowa to California in 1862, another
woman remarked that "there is great tails about the Indians." During
years that f o llowed, yet another woman had difficulty in sleeping because
of constant reports of "depredations of the Indians."25
Such stories came fr om a bewildering variety of sources.The license
to purvey Indian intelligence was to be had simply by asserting that one
"knew" something, that one held a key piece of information that could
avert a disaster or save a life. All kinds of people became reporters, and
often their news was more alarming than helpful to those who received
it. In 1861, Lucy Fosdick pointed to the drivers of teams as the source
of her unease. "The teamsters, to be sure, generally ended their advice
by telling us that if we were well armed we should probably get through
all right," she explained. "But we naturally f e lt very uneasy," she added,
"and fr om that time dated my f e ar and hatred of'Lo, the poor Indian. " '26
Helen Carpenter mentioned trader's reports; Charles Robins cited the
tales carried by a priest; and James Miller, on his way to Virginia City,
identified a dragoon as the person who regaled him with stories of
Indian attacks.27 Other migrants were less specific. In 1 8 6 2, heading
toward California, one writer noted simply that "we hear many stories
of Indian depredations." In T e xas in 1 8 6 8 , another traveler mentioned
that "we hear ofIndians being seen at every f o ot." In 1875, in y oming
W
T e rritory, still another wrote that "the air is fu ll of Indian rumors."28
Because emigrants' nerves were honed to such a fine edge by
reports like these, they mistook an incredible variety of occurrences fo r
Indian raids.29 Expecting to see a native at every turn, to lose one's scalp
or to receive the f a tal blow at any time, a traveler's eyes and ears inter­
preted things in the context of Indian. They literally transformed the
landscape, their stock, and their own companions into threatening men­
aces. Images of Indians were evoked by a passing deer, a wandering dog
returning to camp, f o ur little pigs that had escaped, and some jittery
cattle. 30 W o lves were quite often the cause of terror in a camp. Maria
Schrode related that one man's wife thought "some wolves was Indians
and she screamed louder than the wolves howled and fr ightened some
of us considerably." Sometimes flocks of birds started the trouble, as in
the case of Mary Powers, who wrote that "the Indians that had so fr ight­
ened us were nothing but a flock of filthy bussards."31

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