Laura Ingalls Wilder and Native Americans on the Prairie
This essay evaluates Laura Ingalls Wilder's depiction of frontier life in the "Moving In" chapter of Little House on the Prairie, weighing its strengths against its significant omissions. The paper argues that while Wilder's narrative accurately conveys the vastness and loneliness of the Great Prairie, the physical hardship endured by settler families, and the simplicity of pioneer living conditions, it falls critically short in its treatment of Native Americans. The chapter nearly ignores the Indigenous peoples who inhabited these lands and entirely omits the hostility, displacement, and near-extinction that westward expansion brought upon them.
- Introduction: Overview of Wilder's accuracy and key omissions
- Frontier Life and the Great Prairie: Wilder's accurate portrayal of prairie vastness
- Hard Work and Hardship on the Prairie: Settler labor and physical hardship depicted
- Simple Living Conditions: Rough frontier housing and scarce supplies
- The Treatment of Native Americans: Wilder's near-erasure of Indigenous peoples
- Conclusion: Balanced verdict on Wilder's historical accuracy
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper establishes a clear evaluative framework in the introduction — identifying what Wilder gets right and what she omits — then systematically follows through on that structure.
- Direct quotations from the primary source (Little House on the Prairie) are used consistently and effectively to support each analytical claim.
- The essay connects textual evidence to broader historical scholarship (DuBois & Dumenil) to contextualize Wilder's narrative within documented history.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates source triangulation: it reads a literary primary source against a secondary historical text to assess accuracy and identify gaps. Rather than simply summarizing Wilder, the student uses the historical record as a measuring stick, producing genuine literary-historical analysis rather than plot summary.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a thesis that names both Wilder's strengths and her central failing. Three body sections each address a specific dimension of accuracy — the prairie landscape, the labor of settler life, and material living conditions — before a dedicated section examines the paper's central critical argument: the near-total erasure of Native Americans from the narrative. A brief conclusion restates the thesis and reinforces the stakes of that omission.
Laura Ingalls Wilder is famous for writing extensively about the life of a family that moved westward in the late 19th century. In some respects, her work is quite accurate and enhances our understanding of the Great Prairie during that era. In other respects, however, her work falls short — particularly in the way it glosses over the presence and lives of Native Americans, as well as the hostility and brutality of pioneers toward Indigenous peoples, violence that very nearly resulted in their extinction.
Wilder's work exemplifies life on the Great Prairie during the late 19th century in some ways, yet also falls far short of explaining that life in others. The Wilder family lived in Wisconsin, Kansas, and Minnesota during Laura's early childhood before moving to De Smet, South Dakota, when she was 11 or 12 years old (Brammer & Greetham, 2008). The chapter called "Moving In" in Little House on the Prairie describes their experiences and hard work after relocating to De Smet.
The "Moving In" chapter accurately conveys the Great Prairie's vastness, wildness, and loneliness (DuBois & Dumenil, 2016, pp. 351–3). After relocating to the land that would contain their new home and unloading the wagon, Laura's father left to retrieve a load of logs. "The land and the sky seemed too large, and Laura felt small. She wanted to hide and be still in the tall grass like a little prairie chicken" (Wilder, 1953, p. 54). A person living alone on the Prairie could certainly grow lonely for company (Wilder, 1953, p. 68). The chapter also speaks of settlers apprehensively hearing wolves howling in the distance (Wilder, 1953, p. 79). In these ways, the chapter effectively conveys both the grandeur and the potential dangers of life on the Great Plains.
The chapter accurately depicts the demanding labor that men, women, and children had to perform in order to survive on the Prairie (DuBois & Dumenil, 2016, pp. 361–2). The family lived in a tent or in their wagon on the property until the house was built (Wilder, 1953, p. 65). The father and mother were doing the heavy work of construction when the father let a log slip, badly spraining the mother's ankle. Even injured, she still hobbled around and prepared supper as usual — only more slowly — though she could no longer assist with the building (Wilder, 1953, p. 61). After the house was completed with a neighbor's help, the mother supervised the move-in, lifting and sweeping despite still limping on her sprained ankle (Wilder, 1953, p. 72). The children contributed as well, clearing wood chips from the house before their mother could sweep and the family could move in (Wilder, 1953, p. 72). Compared with the broader historical record, Wilder gives a faithful sense of the hardships endured by these settlers.
The simple life settlers led is also illustrated clearly in the chapter. Laura admired the roughly finished house because "Everything was so free and big and splendid" (Wilder, 1953, p. 75). Yet the realities were stark: the family used a quilt for a door (Wilder, 1953, p. 78), and the house had no windows; the floor was dirt and the roof was canvas stretched over logs (Wilder, 1953, p. 74). A solid roof, a "puncheon" floor (logs smoothed on one side), a fireplace, and proper furniture such as beds, tables, and chairs all had to wait for a later time (Wilder, 1953, p. 75). Supplies were so scarce and carefully rationed that the family saved sugar specifically for company (Wilder, 1953, p. 65). In these ways, the chapter accurately reflects the harshness of pioneer life for those who moved west.
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