The social, natural and political hardships of Plains living

Little House on the Prairie Chapter 26 Going Out

Introduction

Chapter twenty-six in the novel has been chosen because this text enables a retrospective examination of the hardships categorised as natural, social and political. Moreover, it points to what extent was the female experience of those hardships exacerbated by the pioneer qualities of Charles Ingalls. These traits and characteristics had been much vaunted by F. J. Turner in his Frontier Thesis (1893).

The precipitous decision taken to move meant a return to the vicissitudes of travel across the difficult and hostile terrain of flash floods, unexpected creek chasms and crumbling sand bluffs. 

The Ingalls knew well the importance of water having experienced the aridity of the Plains and the difficulties of extraction.  They would be more exposed to the chances of contaminated water and thus malaria. There is little sense of their having made a mutually considered departure to take account of known climate hazards of drought, heat, storms, hurricanes or prairie fires. 

Abandoned town in western Kansas as a result of 1890 drought

They have not taken one of the well documented and safer trail routes and as the text states there was ‘nothing to be seen but blowing grass.’ The isolation and scale of the Prairies also left them vulnerable to encounters with Native Americans who were being severely agitated by aggressive Federal policies towards ‘Free land.’

These same factors are demonstrated when the Ingalls find a couple, desolate and bewildered by the theft of their wagon team. 

The vast distances mitigated against effective law enforcement. The couple, perhaps persuaded by Government inducements and 'Boomer' literature to go west, have already been reduced by its potential for criminality, isolation and poor communication.

These last two factors contributed to the political hardships that the Ingalls faced and precipitated the decision to move. Charles Ingalls would not have been inspired to learn that in Turner’s words, ‘the legislation which most developed the powers of the National Government was conditioned on the frontier.’ The policy complexities of the Indian territories, managed in Turner’s view as ‘a series of experiments’ and the dispositions of public land with their concomitant commercial and railroad interests meant that federal interventions were neither standardised or methodical. (White, 1991, 172). Ingalls had made the original move to the West based on Government land settlement policies which were then reversed.

This reversal could be said to have exasperated the hardships for Caroline Ingalls. She had carried full responsibility for home, health and family in a harsh, isolated and demanding environment. Their situation, 40 miles away from the nearest town, had meant an extremely limited social life, rare contact with distant family and friends, and no circulating libraries, magazines and newspapers. There is no mention of the railways or other transport which would have bought ‘settlers, fairs and celebrations and provide ties with other regions.’ (Riley, 1989, 179) There were no schools for the children and in these early days of settlement, not even a Sunday school. Living in a single log cabin, there was no opportunity for Caroline to join in with the huge variety of social events that Glenda Riley has located in the diaries of women settlers. We do not read of opportunities for Caroline to bond or communicate with a network of other women for company, support and help in times of need - lifelines, which diaries reveal were of vital importance in sustaining mental well being on the Frontier, (Schiessel).

In this last chapter, Caroline Ingalls is virtually silent, although fully undertaking the tasks of trial preparation and travel. She continues to have full responsibility for the domestic side of the expedition. But she has played no part in the decision to move and must now undo all her efforts at homesteading. She will be leaving her well-built home, the garden she planted (and the plough), to the next wave of settlers. Her shepherdess memento of an earlier and cherished life is packed away as is the determination of her own life, reminding her of how the isolated frontier conditions have led to a more subservient dependence upon her husband’s will than she may have known back east.

As the book ends on the camp fire singing scene, it is appropriate to reflect to what extent did the archetypal pioneer qualities shown by Charles impose a further and significant hardship on the Ingalls family? 

References

Adams, James, Truslow, The Epic of America p214-221

Peck, John, Mason, A New Guide for Emigrants to the West http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27394/27394-h/27394-h.htm

Turner, Frederick, Jackson, “The significance of the frontier in American history” (1893)

White, Richard. The New History of the American West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Wilder, Laura, Ingalls. Little House on the Prairie. London: Methuen, 1957

http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/intro.html

Boomers http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.ii.003

https://www.apstudynotes.org/us-history/topics/end-of-the-frontier/

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/frontierlife/essay9.html

http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Extension/home.html

Riley, Glenda. "Women's Responses to the Challenges of Plains Living."

file:///Users/marilynkinnon/Downloads/Challenges%20of%20Plains%20Living.pdf

Schlissel,  Lillian.  “Women’s diaries on the western frontier”. https://winchester.instructure.com/courses/2521/files/289043?module_item_id=143267S

For further reading see:
Emptiness  - http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.ii.021