WWTBAM Bored

I am reading a book by a Woman's studies professor. Yes, I know what I am getting into. I talked about this here many years ago after a visit to some Laura Ingalls Wilder sites.

I have read far more frontier history than anyone here, so I know the Indians got the raw end of the deal-blah, blah, blah. But, I also know that horrific atrocities were committed against settlers-most applicably to my purposes during the 1862 Minnesota Massacre.

I posted this on Frontier Partisans a few days ago on a somewhat related topic.

>>>A few years ago, I read a little of the academic criticism of Laura Ingalls Wilder books. One aspect of this focused on Ma’s hatred and fear of Indians, couched in the usual “Racist, Xenophobic, Fear of the Other” stuff. It is indisputable that one of the themes of the series is that Ma hated and feared Indians and Pa gave off more of a “Indians are so cool” vibe.

I was really frustrated by the fact that none of the stuff that I read looked at it from Ma’s view and asked what may have lead to Ma’s views and I was tempted to respond in some way.

As I get older, I realize that women on the Indian frontiers had to know, to their very core, that they could wake up at any time to a dead husband, slaughtered children, raped and murdered daughters-etc.

Ma Ingalls was probably the beneficiary of decades/generations of “Kitchen Stories” that the women told about Indians-etc.

Then as a very young, married woman in Wisconsin in 1862, the Minnesota Massacre/Dakota War broke out and confirmed every fear that frontier women had to feel. She may have even had first-hand stories as Minnesota settlers pulled back from the frontier into Wisconsin and so forth.<<<<

To be continued:

Ever since the 2009 visits to Laura Ingalls Wilder sites, I have wanted to buy "Little House, Long Shadow" by Anita Clair Fellman. A professor of History and Women's Studies at Old Dominion University. However, I never wanted to give her the money.

The main theme of the book appears to be that Little House is bad because it lead to Reagan or something.

https://www.amazon.com/Little-House-Lon ... ong+Shadow

I drove through De Smet, SD, yesterday, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder gift shop was open, so I bought the book there-I figured I was supporting the on-site museum and so forth.

I bought the book solely to get the "Indian" stuff.

What I have picked out so far, is that per the author, Mrs. Scott holds very anti-Indian views. There is no thought given as to where these views might have come from. The Scotts were neighbors of the Ingalls in the book "Little House on the Prairie."

I am amused that, as a Women's Studies professor, Ms. Fellman does not give Mrs. Scott any agency.

What do we know about "Mrs. Scott?" Probably very little except from this passage taken from "Little House on the Prairie."
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>>>She said, “I can’t forget the Minnesota massacre. My Pa and my brothers went out with the rest of the settlers, and stopped them only fifteen miles west of us. I’ve heard Pa tell often enough how they—”

Ma made a sharp sound in her throat, and Mrs. Scott stopped. Whatever a massacre was, it was something that grown-ups would not talk about when little girls were listening.<<<<
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First off, this tells us that "Ma" had first-hand accounts of the Minnesota Massacre. Furthermore, it tells us that Mrs. Scott, and her family, were directly in danger during the Minnesota Massacre and she had first-hand accounts from her Pa of the atrocities committed by the Indians. Very likely, he found/buried/etc the bodies of settlers (Men, Women, Children) killed in the rush of atrocities following the outbreak of the war.

Can we maybe cut Mrs. Scott a little slack for her views?

The Dakota War was started by one young brave stealing eggs.

Bob Juch wrote:The Dakota War was started by one young brave stealing eggs.

It was more likely the five white settlers he killed than the eggs he stole...

Estonut wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:The Dakota War was started by one young brave stealing eggs.

It was more likely the five white settlers he killed than the eggs he stole...

He didn't want to leave witnesses.

I know nothing about the Minnesota massacre. I know a lot about the Meeker massacre, including that the Indians who were implicated in that farce perpetrated zero acts of violence. The women were brainwashed by people like Meeker into testifying otherwise, mostly because it was part of a larger push called (more or less) "The Utes Must Go!" which meant big money lining the pockets of European American settlers, miners, newspaper editors, arms dealers, other retailers, etc. etc. Anyway, whenever I hear about something called a massacre perpetrated by First Americans, I take it with a grain of salt until I can get hold of a reliable account.

I thought I knew what I was getting in a Women's Studies book, but I guess I can still be surprised.

>>>"And despite the strong bond between Laura and Pa described in the books, nothing suggests that there was an incestuous relationship between the two of them, or between Rose and her father, for that matter."

We play a lot of semantic games here and I love the author's use of the word "Despite."

So, does the author believe that most father-daughter relationships with a strong bond are incestuous in nature?