Page 151 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

FRON I E R P R O CESS: H U MANIZING
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believe that one of their own could actually love one of the " other." In
1 8 52, Frances Sawyer was astounded that the children of one marriage
seemed "playful and happy." Margaret Frink marveled that one trader's
native wife was not only "quite good-looking" but "dressed in true
American [meaning white] style."67 One f o und it "perfectly astonish­
ing" that "a man who has ever seen civilized people can intermarry with
the natives and be contented to settle down and live as they do." She was
amazed that Indian wives and daughters were spoken to "pleasantly, even
f o ndly" by their white husbands and f a thers, attained a certain amount
of status among Indians and sometimes whites, and became respected
cultural brokers, that is, go-betweens f o r white and Indian peoples. Books
such as that by Mourning Dove, a southern Okanogan woman, which
tried to give an inside picture of mixed-heritage Indians and of their
relations with whites, came too late to relieve these women's ignorance.68
White women who f o und intermarriage so counter to their own
notions of racial purity in marriage branded f r ontier intermarriages a
"shame and disgrace to our country." Given such attitudes, white women
rejected the very idea of marriage between a white man and an Indian
woman.69 Mollie Dorsey was astonished when she observed such a
f a mily living "like civilized people." She could not believe that a white
man could "live such a way." The most acrid remark of all came fr om
Maria Norton, who viewed intermarriage as an abomination. o her, it
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was "the greatest absurdity . . . f o r a white man to live with black dirty
squaws."70 In other words, Norton tried to control white men's behav­
ior, partially through disdain and partly through disregarding Indian
women as potential mates.
White women also derided native wedding rituals. From hasty,
superficial, and misguided observations, they concluded that men non­
chalantly traded ponies and other goods f o r as many wives as they desired.
Although bride gifts were meant to honor the girl and compensate her
parents f o r their loss, Mary Bailey declared that she "was somewhat
shocked to think of such a loose state of morals."7! Despite women's out­
rage over what they perceived as crass arrangements f o r procuring wives,
they thought it a joke if an Indian male attempted to trade ponies f o r
them.72 Sometimes, they even risked their safe ty by insulting and anger­
ing Indian men when they agreed to a trade as a prank. When an Indian

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