Page 154 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915
P. 154
C H APTER FOUR
When in 1846, Catherine Haun explained that her party lightened their
load by burying "the barrels of alcohol lest the Indians should drink it
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and, f r enzied thereby , might fo llow and attack us. 88 In 1 8 52, a white
woman who watched an Indian man attempt to trade a buffalo robe fo r
whiskey lamented "Why do we try to thrust our civilization on a people
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like this ? 89
White women believed their assertions. They failed to recognize
that they condemned a huge number of people on the basis of a fe w
and highly visible cases. Nor could they see that, at least during the early
stages of fr ontiering, they operated on white American and European
values. In addition, they seldom asked how white migration had affected
Indian standards ofliving, morality, and aggressiveness.9o They assumed
that whatever Indians were resulted fr om themselves rather than from
white actions. Thus, women's images of Indians do not provide useful
or accurate information regarding American Indians, but they do reveal
a tremendous amount about the thinking of the women themselves.
White women's reactions to a once proud and self-sufficient people now
appear intolerant and heartless.
As noted, white women's thinking came from anti-Indian preju
dices, as well as from beliefs about themselves as the moral reformers.
But f r ontierswomen's intolerance was also intensified by their need to
survive. They guarded their safety and that of their children closely. As
the primary providers of f o od and clothing f o r their families, they
resented incursions upon their limited supplies. Most western women
had to work very hard to maintain even an adequate level of provisions
f o r themselves and their dependents. While on the Oregon Trail in 1853,
Charlotte Pengra wrote plaintively, "I always have to improve every
moment of time when not traveling to provide enough to eat."91
Because women saw American Indians as potential threats to their safety
and their resources, they automatically thought of Indians as dangerous
and deadly f o es.92
White women were also ignorant of American Indian customs.
When they came to the fr ontier, women knew little about Indian stan
dards of hospitality that called f o r strangers traveling through an area to
offer token gifts to the inhabitants.93 White women were thus amazed
to find that Indians were, in Sarah Royce's words of 8 49, "desirous of
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