Page 125 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

FRONTIER P R O C E S S : VI LIFYING

quite cooly . . . But soon the voice of our captain and the v a liant
.
Potts made us take to the rain to defend ourselves against those
.
grim savages . . . After walking round an hour or so, and listen­
ing to many valiant speeches . . . I was permitted to go to bed,
and I got a fine nap before day. 12 6

McKinstry thought that some white civilians were as silly as
Captain Potts. During one f a lse alarm, the women of the camp screamed
and swung their bonnets, convincing the men that Indians were killing
them. McKinstry wryly noted: "I don't expect that the poor souls will
get over their f r ight in a month, and I am not sure that all the men will.
If there had been Indians within hearing they certainly would have
fled " 127 McKinstry's record also reveals that it was not just women who
!
were inclined to allow their anxieties to overwhelm them. In f a ct, one
male migrant on his way to Montana in the r 8 60s fr ankly admitted that
he imagined that "every weed and bunch of grass" that stirred was an
American Indian. 128 Like the women, many men imagined all kinds of
people and things to be Indians. 129 In one case, three approaching Indian
warriors turned out, upon closer inspection, to appear more like Indian
women. In the final analysis, they were three emigrant women fr om that
very train.130 In another case, some distant objects thought to be war­
ring Indians caused the men to grab their weapons and to f a ll upon the
ground, concealing themselves fr om the advancing opponents. "Every
gun was charged & every eye gazed eagerly at the Indians," one partic­
ipant wrote, "when, 10, & behold, the Indians proved to be six large elk
crossing the river." 131
Men who behaved hysterically were the objects of derision, yet vir­
tually no woman criticized herself or other women fo r " cowardly" con­
duct. o men were expected and allowed to display emotions that were
W
not considered suitable f o r men. Charged with protecting train mem­
bers, wagons, and stock, and possessing a supposedly strong nature, men
were expected to demonstrate bravery and equanimity. They were to
stand unmoving in the f a ce of danger. When threatened by an Indian
offensive, they were not allowed to surrender to the luxury of panic that
the women were permitted.
Accordingly, most men tried to live up to dictates fo r their gender.
Although masculinist tenets were popular throughout the nineteenth

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