Little House on Native American Land
The Ingalls went to live on the Osage Indian Reservation in Kansas in 1869, under the impression that white settlers could make a home there. But upon arriving, they realized that they legally couldn’t claim the kand, and federal troops threatened to remove them and other illegal settlers. Meanwhile, Carrie, the daughter, was born there in 1870.
Ingalls depicts her father as more sympathetic to the Osage than the other intruders. Still, she is later criticized for describing and depicting the tribe as rude, uncivilized, and animal-like. Near the end of the book, the Osage are forced to leave Kansas, while Ingalls recalls crying to her father, demanding an Osage woman’s baby.
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