Page 247 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

FRONTIER PLACE: C O LONIALISM TRIUMPHANT

American Indians demonstrates that the usual interpretation of women
and Indians as adversaries is neither accurate nor useful.
Still, white.women believed in the tenets of Manifest Destiny, espe­
cially white superiority . In white women's interactions with "others,"
women thought of themselves as occupying the top of a hierarchy.
Although they were willing to teach, nurse, and otherwise succor Native
Americans, they did so because superior people had a duty to help those
W
beneath them. Even though the American e st attracted disparate kinds
of people during its f r o ntier era, it did not become a melting pot. Instead,
fe deral policymakers, who often promised eventual incorporation of
groups into overall white culture, also institutionalized differences based
on race, ethnicity, gender, and social class. 155 Thus, the W e st's milieu­
based on colonialist principles-fostered a legacy that remains prob­
lematic today.

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