Page 163 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

F R ONTI E R P R O C E S S : HUMAN I Z I N G

soon regarded red men as fe arlessly as if! had been accustomed to them
all my life."They , too, were interested in her and paid long visits. Indian
observers would spend an entire day watching Boyd and her f a mily.
When she attended a native dance, however, she noticed that the dancers
returned to "their original savage natures." Because the dance was a reg­
ulated social f u nction, she could accept the Indians' f e rocity. Moreover,
she balanced their warlike behavior with their fr iendly demeanor, so
that she could not think of them as "savages." She did not see that
f r iendly Indians fulfilled the peaceful roles that whites prescribed f o r
them. Boyd was simply relieved that her positive attitude helped her
avoid the terror "which has made life so hard fo r many army ladies." 137
As f r ontierswomen recognized their humanity and f a llibility along
with those of Indians, their remarks about Native Americans became
more gentle and kind in tone. Also, as Indian tribes were controlled or
vanquished, the fr ontier became safer f o r white women. As a result,
women's contradictions and ambivalence gave way to warmth and even
expressions of affection. As women became more balanced and realistic
in their attitudes, they recognized that the white social construction of
"Indian" did not exist. Individually and gradually, women learned to
perceive the divergence between types ofIndians, to realize that different
groups possessed different qualities, and to reject the image of "Indian"
as one amorphous collection of people. Although women recorded the
sighting of their first "Indians," they eventually specified, f o r example,
that "we are now in the Pawnee nation" or that "we are now in the
Sioux nation." I 38
As women learned to discriminate between Indians, they grew to
dislike some groups and to react f a vorably to others. White women
thought the Pawnees of the Platte River country the most troublesome
of Indian tribes. Reputed to be beggars and thieves, the Pawnees were
considered by some women to be " one of the most dangerous of hostile
tribes." The Sioux, on the other hand, encountered f a rther along the
northern trails to California and Oregon, were characterized as the
most handsome and the cleanest of all American Indians. T o white
women, the Sioux were "a fine intelligent looking race"; tall and
athletic people who were "friendly to the whites."When traveling f r om
Iowa to California in r 8 5 2 , Lucy Cooke noted that the Sioux were "a
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