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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Influential American studies scholars of the mid-twentieth century, such as R. W. B. Lewis, Henry Nash Smith, and Leslie A. Fiedler, focussed attention on a mythic American character, the frontiersman who penetrates the wilderness. These critics provided analyses of figures such as Daniel Boone and his fictional counterpart, Natty Bumppo, and discussed the power the romanticized western frontier had over the American imagination. Their observations were accurate, as far as they went. However, these critics did not acknowledge the many narratives in which a female character conquers the frontier. The assumption seemed to be that the literary female figure belonged in the parlor with her sewing basket and not in the forest with her weapon. Unfortunately, this incomplete assessment of the frontier adventure genre is still in evidence today. In this essay, I work towards the development of a more complete understanding of the American frontier story and point out that, even in the iconic John Filson/John Trumbull Boone tale, we find a mini-narrative involving a female hero who triumphs over the “savage” forces of the wilderness. This female figure became a cultural archetype, and similar versions of her story were repeated in countless captivity and western adventure anthologies, almanacs, and the like for the next seventy years. The popularity of this frontier narrative featuring a strong, violent female figure suggests that readers were accepting of the idea of an active, aggressive woman, at least while she was contending with chaotic forces in the wilderness. The popularity of this kind of narrative also undercuts the traditional gender paradigm (the nurturing passive female versus the active aggressive male) too often imposed by scholars on antebellum American letters and culture.
1 Annette Kolodny, The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975).
2 Baym, Nina, “Melodramas of Beset Manhood: How Theories of American Fiction Exclude Women Authors,” American Quarterly, 33 (1981), 123–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 131–32, 133.
3 Nina Baym, Woman's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, 1820–1870 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978).
4 Annette Kolodny, The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630–1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), xiii.
5 Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola and James Arthur Levernier, The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550–1900 (New York: Twayne, 1993). Christopher Castiglia, Bound and Determined: Captivity, Culture-Crossing, and White Womanhood from Mary Rowlandson to Patty Hearst (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 4.
6 Kolodny, The Land Before Her, 55.
7 Ibid., 55.
8 Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000; first published 1973), 323. Slotkin provides detailed analysis of the Boone narratives and the Boone myth.
9 John Filson, The Discovery and Settlement of Kentucke (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966; first published 1784), 60.
10 Ibid., 72.
11 I use the term “Indian” rather than “Native American” throughout this essay because it is the most common (least derogatory) term applied to native people in the texts that I explore.
12 Filson, 62, 67.
13 Ibid., 79.
14 Ibid., 80.
15 For a brief history of the publication of the Manheim anthology see Richard VanDerBeets, ed., Held Captive by Indians: Selected Narratives, 1642–1836 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973), 202–3. My own research indicates that the Manheim anthology was one of the most ubiquitous publications of the nineteenth century – all or parts of it being reprinted in virtually every captivity or western adventure anthology that I looked at, and the Experience Bozarth narrative was one of the most commonly reprinted tales. As late as 1915, a tale that originated in the Manheim anthology – a much embellished version of the Massey Herbeson (also spelled Massy Harbison) story – was published in Horace Kephart, ed., Captives among the Indians: First-Hand Narratives of Indian Wars, Customs, Tortures, and Habits of Life in Colonial Times (New York: Outing, 1915), 210–40.
16 Affecting History of the dreadful distresses of Frederic Manheim's family to which are added, the sufferings of John Corbly's family. An encounter between a white man and two savages. Extraordinary bravery of a woman. Adventures of Capt. Isaac Stewart. Deposition of Massey Herbeson. Adventures and sufferings of Peter Wilkinson. Remarkable adventures of Jackson Johonnot. Account of the destruction of the settlements at Wyoming (Philadelphia: Mathew Carey, 1794; first published 1793), 11–12.
17 Ibid., 12.
18 This narrative is reprinted in Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., The Garland Library of Narratives of North American Indian Captivities, 111 vols., vol. 25 (New York: Garland, 1977). The narrative has no pagination.
19 Archibald Loudon, Selection, of Some of the Most Interesting Narratives, of Outrages, committed by the Indians, in their Wars, with the White People. Also an Account of their Manners, Customs, Traditions, Religious Sentiments, Mode of Warfare, Military Tactics, Discipline and Encampments, Treatment of Prisoners, &c. which are better Explained, and more Minutely Related, than has been heretofore done, by any other Author on that subject. Many of the Articles have never before appeared in print. The whole Compiled from the best Authorities, 2 vols. (Carlisle, [Pennsylvania], 1808), 1, 205.
20 Incidents of Border Life, Illustrative of the Times and Condition of the First Settlements in Parts of the Middle and Western States, Comprising Narratives of Strange and Thrilling Adventure – Accounts of Battles – Skirmishes and Personal Encounters with the Indians – Descriptions of their Manners, Customs, Modes of Warfare, Treatment of Prisoners, &c. &c. – Also, The History of Several Remarkable Captivities and Escapes. To Which Are Added Brief Historical Sketches of the War in the North-West, Embracing the Expeditions Under Gens. Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne. With an Appendix and a Review (Chambersburg, PA: J. Pritts, 1839), 398.
21 Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 140.
22 Lucy Maddox, Removals: Nineteenth-Century American Literature and the Politics of Indian Affairs (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 24, original emphasis.
23 Ibid., 22–23.
24 Ibid., 32.
25 Ibid., 10.
26 John Mack Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 83.
27 Ibid., 90–91.
28 Welter, Barbara, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820–1860,” American Quarterly, 18 (1966), 151–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29 Mary P. Ryan, The Empire of the Mother: American Writing about Domesticity, 1830–1860 (New York: Haworth, 1982).
30 Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Redwood; A Tale (New York: Garret Press, 1969; first published 1824), 117.
31 E. D. E. N. Southworth, The Hidden Hand, ed. Nina Baym (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 242.
32 Ibid., 68.
33 Edward L. Wheeler, Deadwood Dick on Deck; or, Calamity Jane, the Heroine of Whoop-Up, in Dime Novels, ed. Philip Durham (New York: Odyssey, 1966), 101, 105.
34 Ibid., 34.
35 Ibid., 35.
36 Mark Twain, How Nancy Jackson Married Kate Wilson: And Other Tales of Rebellious Girls and Daring Young Women, ed. John Cooley (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 55, 56.
