Women in the West (1867-1900)
Women of Color, European-Americans, Indigenous and Asian Women
By Cora Leland
After the Civil War, migration of women settlers grew. The Homestead Acts promised free land to all adults – or so it seemed.
But not all women reaped these benefits. Many Asian women were strictly excluded, with the Chinese Employment Act legally doing this. Undeterred, Asian families facing starvation allowed their daughters to travel to the American West and work in the rough, far-flung mining camps as cleaners and laundresses.
Very sadly, Asian women were often given no better choice than what kind of sex labor they’d accept. Dr. Margaret Chung’s mother was sold by her starving parents in China. (This was common, for girls to be sold to Western clearing houses.)
Dr. Chung was the first American-Asian woman physician. Her mother had been sold into prostitution, and Dr. Chung’s life, even as an educated Asian-American, depended upon her willingness to portray herself as a motherly Chinese woman, often ignoring her hard work as a physician. (She was known as “Mama” to 1,000 soldiers, for example.)
Dr. Margaret Chung
A great deal of emphasis is placed on splashy, entertaining figures like Elizabeth Custer, Poker Alice and Annie Oakley. Mrs. Custer’s famous husband and her own flamboyant personality made her famous. Their behavior within the army camps was notorious.
But actually, Ms. Oakley was a Mormon, who tried to keep her dress and behavior in line with her religious beliefs. Belle Starr, on the other hand, became a famous outlaw, often wearing men’s clothes and shooting, robbing, drinking hard. Cigar-smoking Poker Alice, from England, was a professional gambler from Colorado to California and North and South Dakota and back to Oklahoma.
Crede, CO (Poker Alice's home for awhile)
Women settlers in the West were not as restricted as they had been in the areas east of the Mississippi, if they were fortunate enough to come from middle class homes and/or to have some savings when they arrived in the West. As mentioned above, Asian women, especially Chinese, were not so fortunate; nor were Native American women.
In the case of Afro American women, the ‘Western Myth’ seems to have been more accurate. In the eastern part of America, women were not afforded such freedom to develop and expand. But Afro American women openly contributed to such causes as basic economic development, charitable causes, health, education and even the founding of towns.
Women such as Biddy Mason became examples for us all. A former slave, Ms. Mason was taken to California by her ‘owner.’ Because California was a free state – and she knew it – Ms. Mason took the matter to court, and won. She was not allowed to testify on her own or her children’s behalf. Still, the court awarded them freedom. She became a nurse and midwife in Los Angeles and continued to struggle for others’ freedom as long as she lived.
Biddy Mason
There were two waves of European immigration, from 1820-1890 and 1890 to 1920. Internal migration of this very significant group happened when children of the first immigrants, as I wrote about in my Mail Order Bride series of novels, moved from their parents’ farms in Illinois and neighboring areas to the mid-west and further toward the Pacific Ocean. From 1920-1899 (the ‘closing’ or complete settlement of the American frontier took place by 1899) the total of European settlers was 17,261,374.
Altogether, the settling of the vast American continent is a major achievement, made possible by courageous, curious and creative women. They were largely unrecognized for their sympathy for the population already in place, like the Native Americans (Indians and Latinos, among others). But women settlers were famous for the books and articles they wrote and published. Many of these works are just now being re-published as interest in the whole experience of westward expansion develops.
The US Army was seen, by the government, as keeper of the Wild West frontier. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote, “The frontier is the outer edge of the wave, the meeting-point between savagery and civilization…the line of most rapid and effective Americanization.”
However, the hundreds of Army wives who accompanied their husbands to these wild places were not always interested in ‘civilizing’ the peoples of the West. They did believe in the importance of providing good homes to their families, no matter where they were. But they also learned to respect and admire the indigenous people.
Army wives like all women who came to the harsh Wild West before 1890, had read everything produced about the indigenous people and the settlers, too.
Many changed their minds later -- they were shocked when they visited Native American women, saw the careful use of everything that came from the land, and their expanding use of the limited life on reservations. The reservations were very different from the open country they’d known all their lives and been trained to utilize as wives and mothers. The reservations were often places were economic life was not just challenging, but stark. The army wives saw that Native wives were shrewd in evaluating the ways they could make ends meet.
For example, the Choctaw and Cherokee Indians were removed from their homelands to Oklahoma Territory on ‘the trail of tears.’ The Trail of Tears was 2,200 miles long and crossed what is now 9 states. Over 2,500 Choctaw Indians and 4,000 Cherokees died. Other groups were the Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole.
The Choctaw farmers among them were not allowed to bring their livestock, including their valuable Choctaw ponies. (Today, the number of Choctaw ponies alive is 200. Before the forced march to Oklahoma, there were 2,300 Choctaw ponies, or horses, carefully bred and owned by the Choctaw Indians.) The Cherokees were not allowed any time to plan.
Challenges like these, plus making up for their losses, were some of the responsibilities the Native American wives accepted. It is interesting to note that in 1870 a good saddle horse in the western area of the country cost at least $250, a cow cost about $30, a bull was approximately $100, and a wagon cost about $60. All such things had to be bought again, after moving to the reservations, though much smaller things could be carried if the tribes were allowed to pack.
Another major influence on Native American wives and their families was the Allotment Act of 1887. This complicated congressional act gave 160 acres of reservation land to the head of each household. Beyond this, the land was sold by the government. Frequent changes to life, such as the Dawes Act and legislation before and after it, influenced Native American women to find methods for survival. It’s worth noting that most women had been brought up to utilize the animals and open lands of the continent, and that now they lived in reservations under very different circumstances.
The Army wives chronicled and described life in the American West carefully and accurately. Many members of the army left their wives and families in the East, and the entire number of army members never was over 2,000. However, these women, sometimes educated world-travelers with their husbands, had learned how to survive in many difficult locations. Most were ordinary citizens, not at all the dazzling figures that sometimes traveled with their husbands as earlier mentioned.
I feel that at New Year it’s well worth mentioning that the writers of Western fiction continue this development: creating and nourishing interest in every aspect of the Westward Expansion of America. Our novels are based in the history of these women pioneers, which is often very hard to locate, then to use.
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