The US Government's Intervention and Conclusion

In 1860 at Fort Laramie, Frances Carrington wrote, "at the time of any arrival it becomes apparent to any sensible observer that the Indians of that country would fight to the death for home and native land with spirit akin to that of the American soldier of our early history, and who could say that their spirit was not commendable and to be respected."

Military men were particulary reprehensible in their bargaining with Indians.  Greedy land politics, misguided and inadequate reservations, gross mismanagement of allotments and supplies were all a source of trouble.  Government agents, renegade Frenchmen, Catholic priests, and other religious groups were often accused of corrupting and agitating the Native American people.

On the topic of the reservation system, women could not agree and thought it provided a partial atonement for past mistakes, while others believed it was little more than the result of patronizing, arrogant whites, especially the US government.

As Elizabeth Custer (wife of General George Custer) wrote, "Doubtless the white men were right, but were the Indians entirely wrong? After all these broad prairies had belonged to them."

On a side note - the Mormons were expected to be more difficult than the Indians. Tales of their desire to conserve resources by refusing food and grass to the Gentiles and their willingness to join Indians in attacks on the settlers did not bode well for good relations.  Mormons were repeatedly blamed for inciting Indians to attack the whites in an effort to reduce the number of Gentiles and impair the progress and power they had in the West.

Polygamy was viewed as demoralizing, ignorant and wicked.  One settler said "this is a beautiful valley.  Too good to be possessed by a community of bigamists."  Mormons were hated as much or more so than the Indians...and as one Mormon wrote "last winter we killed one tribe of Indians off and will have to kill a few more before we can make them behave and convert to the Mormon faith"  (yeah, that should work!)
Note:  Polygamy was outlawed when Utah became a state.

Civilizing Indians apparently meant turning them into economically productive beings engaged in livelihoods acceptable to whites, educating them in white standards with most of those responsibilities falling to the women who tried to teach Native Americans to survive peacefully in the increasingly white world of the West.

Western women labored under one set of beliefs about 19th century females in American and then shaped their own views of the Indian people.  As they associated with the actual people, they came to realize that Indians were neither as good or as bad as tradition had presented them to be.

Next we set off across the continent with Joseph Walker, tracker, hunter and mountain man.