Page 249 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

FRONTIER PRODUCT: D I F FIC ULT LEGACY

had been exaggerated. Meanwhile, rather than being "good" or "bad,"
American Indians fr equently turned out to be curious, helpful, and
friendly. Consequently , white women got along f a r better with Indians
than they expected. Unfortunately , white women could not divest
themselves of colonialist ideas, especially white superiority , inferiority
of peoples of color, and whites' right to take the land of "inferior"
natives.
Even though white women gradually warmed to Indians, they con­
tinued to view them as lesser than themselves. The deep-seated nature
of white colonialism was demonstrated by women's shabby treatment
of such other groups as Mormons, or members of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the native people of Panama. This
occurred, at least in part, because women criticized the outcomes of
colonialism, or Manifest Destiny, in the American e st, but did not dis­
W
pute its underlying assumptions. Thus, even as white women opposed
men's violent ways of colonizing the bodies of indigenes, they colonized
their minds. I
Other negative product can also be teased out of largely white
sources. Taking the perspective ofVictorio, the Apache chief mentioned
earlier who resisted the white invasion of the Southwest between the
r
early 8 50s and his death in 8 80, shows how negative product is clouded
r
and even ignored. Around r 8 25,Victorio was born a W a rm Springs, or
Mimbres, Apache. As a boy , Victorio learned to hunt, fight, and hate
Mexicans, often f o r good reason. In r 8 35, f o r example, when Victorio
was about ten years of age, Mexican officials in Sonora and Chihuahua
reinstated a practice of their Spanish predecessors; they offered cash pay­
ments f o r Apache scalpS. 2
Soon, Victorio also learned to distrust and fe ar Anglos who came
to the Southwest with reductionist notions of Apache society and cul­
ture. Anglos seized land and slaughtered buffalo and other game fo r
amusement and to destroy the Apaches' livelihood. Mimbres Apaches
resisted, using the very firearms they obtained fr om unscrupulous white
traders.Victorio, who was capable and shrewd, rode with the Mimbres
r
Apaches' fabled leader, Mangas Coloradas. In 8 5 r , Mangas expressed his
disappointment with whites who proposed a treaty by saying that he
had once believed they "were fr iends . . . brothers,"3 but no more. T w o

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