Chapter 18, The Tall Indian
Focus: attitudes to American Indians
- Chapter opens with Indians riding down the path next to the house
- Laura gives very detailed description of them
- "They saw red-brown skin against the blue sky"
- "Scalpolks wound with coloured string and feathers quivering"
- Seems to show the childlike wonder through which Laura and Mary see the Indians
- "The Indian's faces were like the red-brown wood that pa had carved to make a bracket for Ma"
- Objectification?
- Pa says "I wouldn't have built the the house so close to it if I'd known it was a highway"
- Shows acceptance towards the Indians
- Opposes Jack and Ma who hated the Indians
- "I declare Indians are getting so thick around here"
- Opinions continue
- When the tall Indian arrives and has dinner Pa protects him from Jack
- The two are silent but there is an understanding between them
- Pa is very open to sharing food and tobacco with the Indian
- Laura and Mary are fascinated by him
- "They couldn't take their eyes from that Indian"
- Also shown by the way they run to the window to watch him as he leaves
- Ma believes the Indians should stay away from them
- "Let the Indians keep themselves to themselves"
- Pa defends them
- "That Indian was perfectly friendly"
- Pa also shown as accepting and respectful when he keeps Jack chained up
- "Well it's his path. An Indian trail, long before we came"
- Indians come in to the house while Pa is hunting
- Take their food and tobacco, want to take furs
- "Killings, burnings, beatings, horse thefts and grave robberies – committed by white settlers, such as Charles Ingalls, against Osages living in villages not more than a mile or two away from the Ingalls’ little house"
Dennis McAuliffe Jr, Little House on the Osage Prairie
- Shown as rude and as thieves
- "Dirty and scowling and mean"
- Shown as intimidating
- "Ma held baby Carrie in her arms, and Mary and Laura stood close to her"
- Don't take furs in the end
- Chapter ends with Pa telling Laura that the Indians will be made to go west by the government
- "When white settlers come into a country the Indians have to move west"
- "White people are gonna settle all this country"
- Represents the attitude at that time - "manifest destiny"
- Laura asks "I thought this was Indian territory won't it make the Indians mad to-"
- Pa interrupts "no more questions"
- Shows how he doesn't want to think about the Indians and the effect their settlement will have on them
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