Page 229 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915
P. 229

FRONTIER  P  L ACE:  COLONIALISM  TRIUMPHANT


              Mission  Society  and  the W o men's  National  Indian Association  had  a
              strong missionary bent.4 6
                  Moreover, as white women realized that American Indians were not
              stock characters-bestial, wanton, and licentious-they  hoped f o r the
              salvation of at least some Indians. Because these women's objectives were
              misguided  and  based  on  cultural  arrogance,  they  wanted  to  replace
              Indian culture, language, art, and crafts with white ways. After decades
              of absorbing colonialist  tenets  stating that white  culture  provided  the
              center f o r all Americans, these women failed to realize that such colo­
              nized peoples as American Indians did not believe in white superiority
              and  did  not want to  take  on  white  beliefs  and  behavior.47 Y e t white
              women had f a ith in Indians' ability to adapt, change, and learn. They did
              not argue, as did many male reformers, that natives were hopeless because
             they were dying out, obviously incapable oflearning, growing, and con­
              tributing to white society.48
                  These  women  extended  to  Indians  their  compassion,  respect,  or
              even affection. Because whites had prevailed, they were able to be altru­
              istic  and  solicitous.  White  women  no  longer  f a ced  a  threat  of
              disfigurement,  dismemberment,  or  death  at  the  hands  of rancorous
              Indians. Consequently, they could be gracious, kindhearted, and benev­
              olent. Indians had no such leeway. They were allowed to love nothing,
              neither their language nor their art nor their culture. As vanquished peo­
             ples, they had to remain largely silent, wearing the masks of compliance
              that whites prescribed fo r them. Because  colonial  racism was indirect,
             meaning that whites disavowed negative  f e elings  and said the problem
             was" over," the system leached away Indians' self-respect by denying them
             political  rights  and  economic  independence.  Those  on  reservations
              endured institutionalized racism, whereas those who went to cities f o und
             themselves shunned, impoverished, and marginalized. Both had to quash
              their emotions, at least when whites were around. They lived with two
             f r ames  of reference, one  Indian, one white. Whites  only  heard Indians
             when they acted as "wild" and as "savage" as whites thought them to be.
             Or, like the Indian reformer Sarah Winnemucca, Indians devoted to their
              cause could be heard by making public spectacles of themselves on the
             stages of white theaters.49
                  Consequently,  only  a  f e w  white  women  could  imagine  Indians



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