treatment of women, a happy female face is hardly ever seen
in the Sioux nation." Many become callous, and take a beating much as
a horse or ox does. "Suicide is very common among Indian women, and,
considering the treatment they receive, it is a wonder there is not
more of it."[214]

Burton attests (_C.S._, 125, 130, 60) that "the squaw is a mere slave,
living a life of utter drudgery." The husbands "care little for their
wives." "The drudgery of the tent and field renders the squaw cold and
unimpassioned." "The son is taught to make his mother toil for him."
"One can hardly expect a smiling countenance from the human biped
trudging ten or twenty miles under a load fit for a mule." "Dacotah
females," writes Neill (82, 85),

"deserve the sympathy of every tender heart. From early
childhood they lead worse than a dog's life.
Uncultivated and treated like brutes, they are prone to
suicide, and, when desperate, they act more like
infuriated beasts than creatures of reason."

Of the Crow branch of the Dakotas, Catlin wrote:[215] "They are,
_like all other Indian women, the slaves of their husbands_ ... and
not allowed to join in their religious rites and ceremonies, nor in
the dance or other amusements." All of which is delightfully
consistent with this writer's assertion that the Indians are "not in
the least behind us in conjugal affection."[216]

In his _Travels Through the Northwest Regions of the United States_
Schoolcraft thus sums up (231) his observations:

"Of the state of female society among the Northern Indians I
shall say little, because on a review of it I find very
little to admire, either in their collective morality, or
personal endowments.... Doomed to drudgery and hardships
from infancy ... without either mental resources or personal
beauty--what can be said in favor of the Indian women?"

A French author, Eugene A. Vail, writes an interesting summary
(207-14) of the realistic descriptions given by older writers of the
brutal treatment to which the women of the Northern Indians were
subjected. He refers, among other things, to the efforts made by
Governor Cass, of Michigan, to induce the Indians to treat their women
more humanely; but all persuasion was in vain, and the governor
finally had to resort to punishment. He also refers to the selfish
ingenuity with which the men succeeded in persuading the foolish
squaws that it would be a disgrace