Page 19 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

-- Chapter One --
FRONTIER PHILOSOPHY: NINETEENTH-CENTURY

AMERICAN DISCOURSE ON WHITE WOMANHOOD
AND ON THE AMERICAN INDIAN "OTHER"

Early nineteenth-century women did not have to think f o r themselves
about themselves. W o manhood was defined f o r them f r om pulpits,
f r om Chautauqua rostrums, and in a variety of print media. Primarily
male voices carried on a brisk discussion regarding the ways in which
white American women should f e el and behave. In a post-War of 8 1 2
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nation in the throes of an industrial revolution, a transportation rev­
olution, growing immigration, women entering the paid labor f o rce,
urbanization, and rising crime and divorce rates, male leaders f e lt com­
pelled to try to keep white womanhood "pure" and women in the
domestic realm.
No one specifically stated that these messages were intended fo r
white women, particularly of the middle and upper classes, but their
tenets were seldom applicable to women of color, especially black slave
women, and even to white women of the lower classes. It was also
unclear how useful such ideas would be to women about to join the
nation's expansionist phase, known as Manifest Destiny, by transplant­
ing their homes, their f a milies, and themselves to the vast and promis­
ing region that lay west of the Mississippi River. It turned out, however,
that American women who joined the westward movement were well
schooled as incipient colonialists. They were thoroughly indoctrinated
into the ideals of domesticity , also known as "true" womanhood or the

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