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
                                                       j
              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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