• Prologue 1: Women in the Courts: Conformity and Dissonance before the War, 1821-1846 2: Women under Siege: Sexuality and the Gendered Economies of Colonization, 1840-1852 3: Women's Survival Strategies: Gifts and Giving as Methods of Resistance, 1846-1880 4: The Politics of Disidentification and Recuperation: Notations about the "New" Western American History Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

An eloquent exercise in micro-history ... The overall effect is a subtle picture which presents an essentially human history in all its eloquent and often contradictory detail. The idea of using the court records is exemplary, revealing much about women's social attitudes and status, their survival strategies and their ability and willingness to use the system to protect their rights. As a result, the research succeeds not just in rescuing a forgotten history, but also in challenging the accepted histories of the American West and the tendency to romanticize and generalize from the often badly used statistics ... micro-history at its best.