Content Warning: The novel contains anti-Indigenous biases and offensive stereotypes. The source text also uses racist slurs and offensive language about Black and Brown Americans.

“Beneath my thin nightgown a cold shiver traced its way down my backbone. Indians. Massacres. Stealing women. How could Father even think about making such a dangerous journey? And why would he want to move again? I wondered. It had been less than two years since we had packed up everything we owned into a wagon and made our way from Indiana to Arkansas. Back then it was the ague that had made us move. I could still remember that sickness, with its chills and fever, as if I had had it yesterday.”

Mary Ellen Todd is overcome by fear and doubt when her father Abbott Todd decides to move the family west. Mary Ellen is just eight years old, and she is attached to her home and community in Arkansas and can’t imagine leaving behind the people and places she loves. She has already experienced much change and loss in her childhood. The Oregon Trail promises to challenge her heart, mind, and body in new ways and to change her relationships with her family. This passage therefore establishes many of the novel’s primary conflicts regarding The Challenges of Migration.

“‘No,’ father agreed. ‘There is no ague here. But times are hard right now, and people are poor. They have no money even to buy one of my pitchers. Out in Oregon the land is rich and farming is easy. I have heard from people who have been there and seen it with their own eyes. And the government is giving away this rich land to anyone willing to settle it.’”

The way Father describes Oregon conveys his desire for The Pioneer Experience and Spirit and explains his reasons for wanting to migrate west. This scene of dialogue between him and Mary Ellen also illustrates the characters’ close relationship, captures Mary Ellen’s reliance on Father, and shows Father’s desire to keep Mary Ellen safe and to give her a good life.