Page 86 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

C H APT E R Two

drawings of Native Americans. Other artist-explorers, such as Charles
Bird King, produced highly idealized portraits of Indians that were more
hyperbole than truth. 1I4
At the same time, writers and travelers frequently lavished extrava­
gant and imaginative prose on how American Indians who inhabited the
American fr ontier looked, acted, and thought. These European inter­
pretations contributed significantly to the information about American
westerners that engulfed both European and American fe male migrants
prior to their departure f o r the fr ontier. Once again, writers' own con­
ceptions of colonialism and wish f u lfillment underlay their work. The
popular French writer Franyois Rene de Chateaubriand provided an
example of such blurred vision. Although he derived most of his ideas
about the American e st fr om other authors, he proceeded nonetheless
W
to write a series of highly stereotyped "Indian" novels as well as a detailed
commentary on his American experiences. lIS Like so many of his con­
temporaries, Chateaubriand responded more to his own needs and to
l
those of his audience than to the realities of western American life. I6
Similarly, discontented Germans looked toward potential colonies
and across the Atlantic Ocean f o r relief and hope. Especially after 1 8 17,
when a large number of Germans migrated to the American W e st,
German literature began to f o cus upon fr ontier people, who were now
the symbols of the land of the f u ture. 1I7 As in Poland, many popular
German novelists developed such fr ontier motifs as wilderness, violence,
and anything having to do with American Indians. Authors such as
Charles Sealsfield, Friedrich Gerstacker, Friedrich Armand Strubberg,
and Balduin M6llhausen presented adventure novels, fe aturing German­
born heroes, as authentic accounts of life on the American fr ontier. lIB
German enthusiasm f o r the American West reached its height with the
writings of Karl May , often called Germany's Cooper, who did not
visit the United States until after he wrote nearly all of his western
American adventures. He was expert at combining his own imagined
"facts" with bits and pieces of information to produce tales that well
served his readers' wishes and needs. May also inspired Germans to
organize "cowboy and Indian societies," much like the fr aternal organi­
zations in the United States whose members wore Indian-style clothing
and recreated Indian rituals. 1I9