Page 253 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

FRONTIER PRODUCT: D I FFICULT LEGACY

Indians, has the white man told."9 Modern Mimbres Apaches and
Mescaleros choose to celebrate Victorio, Lozen, and the other Apaches
who f o ught f o r their people and their culture. But these people live
largely divided fr om the world around them, in a kind of Indian
apartheid. The loss oflives, the destruction of much Apache culture, and
present-day divisiveness are examples of negative product.
Had white women of the time f o reseen the outcome of colonial­
ism, they might have mourned and protested, yet it is unlikely that they
could have freed themselves from the shackles of colonialism. And if
they had accomplished that Herculean f e at, who would have listened?
Whites had f a r more interest in men's adventures on the f r ontier, and
newspaper editors ran male accounts in their newspapers, whereas pub­
lishing houses sought out male authors. Nor were women's diaries, let­
ters, and reminiscences collected by libraries and archives. Additionally,
f e w white people paid attention to what American Indians had to say.
Most whites viewed Indians as one-dimensional, cardboard-cut-out
W
characters who toured with Buffalo Bill Cody, other Wild e st shows,
circuses, and expositions. When serious, Indians garnered little atten­
tion, but when engaged in antics, whites did notice these eccentric rep­
resentatives of what most saw as a vanishing breed.
It was not until the I960s that white Americans questioned their
customary assumptions regarding women and Indians. W a r resisters,
second-wave fe minists, and African American, Latina, and Latino
activists posed questions that made possible in the United States the
emergence of a "multi-cultural" awareness. Moreover, environmentalists
pointed out that white disdain of Indian ways had encouraged serious
environmental damage. Although those protests occurred almost a half­
century ago, f e w whites have come to understand the psychic pain of
American Indians. As a result, twenty-first-century Indians continue to
suffer acute historical anguish.Victorio's goal, f o r example, was a simple
one. He wanted to take his people to their homeland at O j o Caliente
in New Mexico T e rritory. Whites, however, imposed their dominance
by denying his requests. Y e t Ojo Caliente, deep in the Mimbres
Mountains, was not a prize fo r whites. o day, it is sparsely populated. A
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tumbling-down adobe that stood briefly at the center of a short-lived
Apache agency is unmarked. Although archeologists and historians find

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