Page 181 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

-- Chapter Five --

FRONTIER PLACE: GENDER MATTERS

Because interchanges between whites and American Indians go unex­
amined in terms of gender, the assumption stands that white women
and men played similar, if not identical, parts in dealings with American
Indians. Once gender is introduced into the study of migration and set­
tlement, it is apparent that women and men acted differently in virtu­
ally every facet of the western colonialist venture, including behavior
toward Indians. White women developed a collegial relationship with
Indians, whereas white men played an adversarial role.
Division of labor on the basis of gender caused this split. On the
trail and in f r ontier settlements, women primarily supervised the domes­
tic realm, children, gardens, and chickens, whereas men were charged
with care of equipment and livestock, as well as providing protection.
During migration and early stages of settlement, women and men f r e­
quently sharedjobs or overlapped f u nctions. Still, even among European
women who performed outside labor, the division of tasks along gender
lines was widely accepted, causing a gender differentiation between
workers within families. I
In this system, f e male migrants had numerous responsibilities. They
f e d and clothed family members, provided a home of sorts, and perhaps
bore additional children. As they had at home, f e male migrants also gave
continuity to their families and f r iends, meaning that women kept up

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