Page 241 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

FRONTIER P L ACE: C O L O N IALISM TRIUMPHANT

marriage. She claimed that, under the " guise of women's rights," women
were coerced to "participate in their own oppression."II5
After Utah attained statehood and plural marriage was outlawed,
I
some women remained in or entered plural marriages. I 6 Although they
had to deny being married, skip around the country to elude authori­
ties, or exile themselves in such countries as England, unsanctioned
plural marriage existed. II 7 W e re these Mormon women accustomed to
plural marriage f r om childhoods spent with several mothers? Did they
believe that plural marriage prepared them f o r the afterlife?
Gentile women ignored such issues. They disdained Mormons f o r
engaging in plural marriage and refused to modifY their stance. They
did not pity Mormon women, castigating them instead f o r weak-mind­
edness. While these same fr ontierswomen extended understanding,
kindness, and even affection to American Indians, they refused to see
any good in Latter-day Saints. W o men's sympathies were selective,
directed toward American Indians and away f r om Mormons.
White women did not come to like all native peoples, however.
Collegial relationships that developed between white women and
Native Americans in the trans-Mississippi W e st involved a complex
process, one that did not occur elsewhere. In Panama, f o r example, white
women who encountered natives similar in appearance and culture to
American Indians heaped venom and disgust on them. W o men who
chose the Panama Trail as a f a st route to the California gold fields wanted
little to do with Panamanians. As they did with Mormons, migrant
women judged Panamanians as despicable when they reached the end
of the trail as when they began it.Women who carried anti-native pre j ­
udices into the eastern part of Panama also carried them, often in an
intensified f o rm, out of the western side of the country.
Even though there are no Panamanian voices to tell the story, white
women's writings reveal the underside of white-native contact in
Panama. l I S Because of the arduous nature of the crossing, f e male emi­
grants along the isthmus route were not numerous.The trip, which took
anywhere f r om twenty-one days to a month and a half, involved board­
ing a steamer in New Y o rk; crossing the isthmus on the back of a mule
led by a Panama native or, after 1 8 55, crossing by railroad; and boarding
another steamer to reach San Francisco. The isthmus portion included

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