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Women Bound Westward

© Katie Anne Gustafsson

Women Bound Westwards

Do images of Caroline Ingalls sitting on the wagon next to husband Charles in the opening scenes of "Little House on the Prairie" come to mind when you picture the women who made the overland journey to the West? Until recently, I assumed that women did little more than care for their children, make supper, and shrink from any contact with the Native Americans they met on this journey which took approximately 5 months to make. However, my view has been radically changed by reading "Diaries of the Westward Journey" by Lillian Schlissel, in which various accounts are given by the women who travelled in these wagons. After I finished this book, I was left with a question - "So what exactly did the men do?"

The women that travelled west with the wagon trains had to be tough and resourceful. Those that weren't when they started out, soon learned to be so from necessity. To them fell the responsibility of not only their children, but also the wagon - and everything inside it. They prepared food, laundered clothes, dried out their belongings when the rains soaked the inside of the wagon, nursed the sick, and even delivered babies (many women were pregnant on starting West). Despite the lack of privacy, there were even those who managed to become pregnant during the miles travelled, and those women still kept up their share of the workload, despite their condition. Women learned that the Indians would trade, especially in the early years of the overland trails, and they therefore became proficient at bartering for fresh meat and fish in exchange for household goods that were originally intended for their new homes.

When rivers needed to be crossed, the wagons would first need to be emptied so that the contents could be floated across on rafts, and then the wagons followed. The task of emptying and then refilling was yet another chore designated to the women. They walked a good many miles alongside the wagons each day. Often collecting such things as buffalo chip that would help their fires come nightfall. Those women whose families slept outside of their wagons were responsible for the setting out of the camp each evening when the daily miles were covered, and for storing everything back in the wagon the next day in time for the morning start.

The strength and courage of these women was great for they came from all sections of society, and all of them had to learn to deal with adversity they found on the journey. Some of them began as newlywed wives, and some of them arrived in their destination as new widows - created by cholera and other diseases that tore through the wagon trains. One past-time that comes up over and over in the diaries of these women is that of a daily grave count. However, alongside death, romance also flourished on the trail and matches were made amongst the single people who had made the journey with their families.