Indians On the Trail

Being on the frontier trail kept settlers alert and anxious. The dangers kept them nervous and incapable of dealing effectively with Indian encounters. Overactive imaginations spread tales of uprisings and massacres that did more harm than the Indians themselves.

For instance, scalping was very much the stuff of Indian tales.  In 1861, Lucy Fosdick had heard so many tales by the time she decided to head west, that she shorn off all her hair before departing.  Scalping legends were apparently based on what whites living in the East and Europe believed rather than on what actually happened on the frontier.

Along the trails, settlers recorded alarms with bones as bulletin boards depicting the Indian encounters.  Later printed circulars were used and tacked up in a conspicuous place along the trail.

Word of mouth reports were constantly feeding the fears of the settlers.  One report said that Indians supposedly mounted a major offensive which turned out to be a ferry rope splashing in the river.  Reports of Indians circling camps turned out to be a passing deer, a lost dog, a few pigs, or some jittery cattle.  Tumbleweeds, or anything that moved became an Indian on the warpath. 

In actuality, wolves were far more a threat to the pioneers in the wagon trains than any Indian. 

Next time... more "Indian attack" stories.