Page 140 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915
P. 140

-- Chapter  Four --

                      FRONTIER  PROCESS:  HUMANIZING
                              AMERICAN  INDIANS











            Since the majority of Americans and Europeans were more receptive to
            the idea of the "bad" Indian than to that of the "good" Indian, migrants
            headed west with a view of American  Indians  that was more negative
            than positive. Because the existence of bad Indians confirmed the right­
            ness  of white  migration  and white  superiority, migrants who  turned
            westward during the early decades of the nineteenth century or started
            their treks later expected to meet barbarous savages. At the same time,
            most  of these  people  hoped that American  Indians might turn out to
            be  the  noble  savages  described  by Jean Jacques  Rousseau  and James
            Fenimore Cooper: "nice" Indians who would prove helpful rather than
            troublesome.
                These contradictory expectations resulted f r om the long, complex
            conditioning process that migrants experienced in regard to native peo­
            ples. Female emigrants had additional reasons f o r searching out despi­
            cable  Indians, to  whom they would  minister, and  ennobling  Indians,
            who  would  help  them  survive. These  women  presented  portraits  of
            Indians  that  overstated  their  undesirable  traits  and  exaggerated  their
            f a vorable qualities, thus giving a picture of Indians that was paradoxical
            and fr aught with ambivalence.
               Further complicating the inconsistency in women's views of west­
            ern  natives  was  f e male  migrants'  tendency  to  shift  toward  generous



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