Page 221 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

F R O N T I E R P L A C E : C O L O N I ALISM TRIUMP HANT

-- Colonialism Critiqued --

Before considering women's relations with two of the above groups, it
is important to understand the extent of white women's dissatisfaction
with the results of white colonialism. They were not unique; women of
other eras have also opposed white imperialism. 2 Because white women
have long believed they are conservators of home, f a mily, and ethnic
culture, they are perhaps less likely than white men to destroy the homes,
f a milies, and cultures of native peoples. By the mid-nineteenth century,
such women as Susan Fenimore Cooper, daughter of James Fenimore
Cooper and author of the first American nature book, Rural Hours
( r 8 50), even argued that women were also conservators of their f a mily's
larger homes, the outdoors. This sentiment put white women at the core
of the environmental conservation movement emerging after the Civil
W a r.3 In other words, white women were taught to save rather than tear
down and build anew.
Destruction of Native American and western landscapes dismayed
a growing number of white women. They were especially upset by the
carnage they saw among Indians.White women placed blame on whites
in general, on white men, and on the f e deral government. Moreover,
women had ideas concerning solutions, but lacked unanimity.
W o men who developed amicable f e elings f o r Indians were espe­
cially vehement in their sentiments. While at Fort Laramie during the
r860s, Frances Carrington charged whites with being shortsighted and
unfair. She observed that "at the time of my arrival it had become appar­
ent to any sensible observer that the Indians of that country would fight
to the death fo r home and native land, with spirit akin to that of the
American soldier of our early history, and who could say that their spirit
was not commendable and to be respected?"4
Like Carrington, other women who blamed Indian problems on
whites called f o r an understanding of the human condition to be applied
to American Indians. One settler of the r880s agreed that Indians had
many faults, but pointed out that whites had character flaws as well. The
Indian "has also his trials," she added, so whites should "judge him not
harshly." A Kansas settler of the same decade also f e lt it was unfair of

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