Page 139 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915
P. 139
FRONTIER P R O C E S S : VILIFYING
fr ontierswomen were apprehensive, at best, and filled with terror, at
worst, at the possibility of encountering real American Indians.
Between the stories they had heard before leaving home and the
rumors, scares, and alarmism they had been sub e cted to since leaving
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home, they were primed f o r a series of traumatic experiences.
Interestingly enough, women's mental states often had little or
nothing to do with real American Indians. Whites made no attempt to
learn about Indians and their cultures, nor did they send advance par
ties to inform and ready Indians.All that Indians had in the way of prepa
ration was exposure to white traders, trappers, and missionaries. Because
these people were f e w in number and usually civil, they gave Indians
inaccurate expectations about the hordes of pushy whites that would
f o llow. Nor did the u.s. government make an attempt to designate cer
tain lands f o r settlement and enforce those boundaries. Partly because
whites dismissed Indians and thought they had a right to Indians' land
and partly because no one envisioned the enormous number of migrants
who would go west, American Indians were left to deal with the situ
ation on their own. Consequently, a self-fulfilling prophecy was acti
vated. Anti-Indian sentiment in the "states," in Canada, and in Europe
prepared migrants to meet scurrilous natives and the migrants, taut with
fe ar, acted in ways that too often confirmed their fe ars.
How then would white women react when they met an Indian or
Indians personally? W o uld they see only the Indians whom they
expected to encounter, or would they prove to be flexible and open
enough to revise their views once they confronted real people? While
living with rumors and alarmism, would white women think and act in
a rational and independent f a shion? These questions have surprising and
significant answers.
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