Page 137 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

F R O N T I E R P R O C E S S : VILIFYING

sympathy, understanding, and communication between Indians and
whites. Indians were as often puzzled by white behavior as whites were
by theirs. Had more positive f e elings existed, they might have made
white entry into Indian lands safer f o r everyone involved. Instead, mis­
communication after miscommunication occurred. During the Civil
W a r, f o r example, a Choctaw man who tried to help several Arkansas
women find their way could only stand and watch as the women
screamed and fled. Later, an amused white soldier told the women they
had no cause f o r alarm because the Choctaws "to the last man were
Southern." Far fr om intending to return with " a band of tomahawkers,"
as they had assumed, the man hoped to assist them. 187 During the 8 80s,
1
another pointless incident involved an Indian man wearing a top hat. A
white man hired to protect the women of a white f a mily bragged to a
companion that he could put a bullet hole through the Indian's hat with­
out touching his head. In f a ct, he grazed the old man's scalp. Indians
retaliated by burning the women's home, destroying the silver and other
items of value, and shooting the beloved dog. One of the women later
explained that white settlement "was all very kindly up to a point, but
beyond the kindness was a blank wall." In her view, the cruelties
exchanged between Indians and whites had destroyed "warmth" and
made Indians " cynical" toward whites. She added that the hardest lesson
she learned in Montana was not to expect any "affection" between
members of racial groups. 188
More recently, a number of Native American women supported
the latter viewpoint. One, a Y a vapai, born and reared on the San Carlos
reservation in Arizona, argued that Anglo-Indian relationships would
never work because white people disliked Indians, and Indians disliked
whites. According to her, such enmity was inevitable because the two
groups were "different tribes." She believed Native Americans were
"better off" living away f r om whites and f o llowing their own ways.
Other Indian women said they had so often witnessed whites' brutal­
ity to their people that the chasm between the two groups would
always exist. 189
During the f r ontier period, the inability or unwillingness oflndians
and whites to communicate led to the victimization of untold numbers
oflndians. The ingenuous, the curious, and even the most well-intended

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