Page 223 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

FRONT I E R PL A C E : C O LONIALISM TRI UMPHANT

resenting their demands on their f a milies' resources, these women f e lt
helpless and inadequate. For instance, when Lois Murray turned away a
hungry Indian f o r lack of f o od he coughed so hard that she later said,
"IfI could have called him back, I would have given him bread." Murray
claimed that she never again refused to aid a needy Indian. II
Many other women took the position that it was unjust and immoral
f o r whites to seize Indian lands, a loss that condemned native inhabitants
to a life of poverty and homelessness. Much as Indians who had no exis­
tence beyond the landscape, white women, especially of the late nine­
teenth and early twentieth centuries, increasingly f e lt a bond with land
that was, in their view, spiritual and f e male. As Indians saw land as the
center of their universe, women identified with Mother Earth and
Mother Nature. As a result, white women often f e ll somewhere between
Indians, who had tremendous empathy fo r land, and most white men,
who viewed land to be "developed," or in today's terms, exploited. 12
Beside blaming white people in general, other women specifically
censured white men. W o men complained that male swaggering and
braggadocio, petty meanness, and heartlessness in dealings with
American Indians caused upheaval. One Iowa settler of the 1 8 40S main­
tained that she pitied the Indians and expected whites to be as "mean"
as the Indians if they were driven out of their lands. 13 T w o decades later,
another Iowa woman criticized white men's ruthlessness, arguing that
"heaped up graves, filled with the victims of starvation, disease, or cru­
elty" proved that "the supposedly vindictive Indian had his counterpart
in white men."14
Other white women had additional complaints. Kate Furness, f o r
example, singled out f o r blame the trail men who created catastrophes
along their way. After a young man carelessly shot at some Native
American women to startle them, accidentally killing one woman, the
Indians seized him and skinned him. "From a peaceful tribe," Furness
commented, "these Indians had been turned into demons, a wild,
revengeful nation" simply because one young man had indulged in "a
f o olish, thoughtless act." Another occurrence in the Sierra Nevada area
made it even more clear to Furness that the usual male approach to
Indians was harmful. When a group of American Indians drew near on
horseback, the men of the party surrounded their stock and raised their

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