One of the most prevalent threads running through Little House on the Prairie is white settlers’ marked racism toward Indigenous Americans. Unlike their open gratitude and respect toward the book’s lone Black character, Dr. Tan, the settlers hold distrustful and prejudiced views toward the people whose land and homes they are usurping. The Scotts voice this prejudice the most bluntly when Mrs. Scott tells the Ingallses, “She did not know why the government made treaties with Indians. The only good Indian was a dead Indian. The very thought of Indians made her blood run cold” (211). As she alludes to the fact that she had relatives who were involved in conflicts with Indigenous Americans in Minnesota, her descriptions reveal the deep-seated fears and hostilities that both sides felt toward each other, but Wilder’s depiction of these attitudes is one-sided, showing no critique or awareness of the injustices that white settlers perpetrated against Indigenous people during this era. Crucially, when Pa knowingly chooses to situate the homestead within government-designated Indigenous territory, he bases the entire endeavor upon the presumption that this territory will eventually be opened up to white people . 

In the aftermath of encroaching upon the Indigenous people’s land, the Ingalls family vacillates between begrudging acceptance of the original inhabitants’ presence and fear that the Indigenous locals will harm them. Yet even amidst their uncertainties, they never question their assumption that the Indigenous people in the area will eventually be displaced by white settlers, and their most casual conversations reflect the depths of their ingrained prejudices. For example, Pa offhandedly remarks that the Indigenous man who comes to their house is “no common trash” but “an Osage” (229), casually using language that dehumanizes his Indigenous neighbors. Likewise, Ma consistently expresses fear or uneasiness, declaring, “Let the Indians keep to themselves […] and we will do the same. I don’t like Indians around underfoot” (229).

Pa, recognizing that he has settled in Indigenous territory, expresses more tolerance toward them than Ma, sometimes even defending the Indigenous people’s actions and presence. In Chapter 22, for example, Mr. Scott and Mr. Edwards tell Pa of their belief that Indigenous people may have started the prairie fire intentionally to burn down white settlers’ homes, but Pa dismisses this idea and says that the fire was part of the tribes’ habitual management of prairie grasses. He approves of this tactic because it aligns with his own purposes, and he acknowledges that “plowing would be easier” without the thick layer of grass (284). However, both parents believe that it is only a matter of time before the Indigenous people are driven out; Ma sings a song about Alfarata, an Indigenous character from the song “The Blue Juniata,” and Pa explains:

When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on. The government is going to move these Indians farther west, any time now. That’s why we’re here, Laura. White people are going to settle all this country, and we get the best land because we get here first and take our pick (237).

In Pa’s mind, the Indigenous people’s land is free for the taking, even though the Indigenous people still own it, and his statements depict the racist attitudes common among 19th-century white settlers. However, Wilder elides the underlying social crises at stake in this ongoing conflict, adding ambiguity to her portrayal of Indigenous people by implying that her family feels regret when the local groups finally leave. As the Ingalls family finishes watching the line of departing riders, Ma says that “she didn’t feel like doing anything, she was so let down” (311). In this way, Wilder attempts to portray the Ingalls family in a sympathetic light without interrogating the part that her family has played in the Indigenous people’s displacement.

Throughout the book, Laura experiences a mixture of fascination and fear when she considers the Indigenous people who live nearby. At first, she is curious to see a “papoose,” but she quickly becomes uneasy when Indigenous men start coming into the family’s house. By the end of the book, she describes the singing and “war-cries” from the Indigenous settlements as “savage voices shouting” (286), believing that they are “more terrible than the most dreadful nightmare” (295). At the end of the book, as Laura watches the line of Indigenous riders leaving the area, she portrays them almost as inhuman statues rather than people. Focusing on one particular person, she states:

It was a proud, still face. No matter what happened, it would always be like that. Nothing would change it. Only the eyes were alive in that face, and they gazed steadily far away to the west. They did not move. Nothing moved or changed, except the eagle feathers standing straight up from the scalplock on the shaved head (305).

Though Laura is merely noting her perception of the Indigenous people’s stoicism, the effect of the writing is to imply a sense of diminished humanity. She creates similar descriptions of the Indigenous children, although she thinks their eyes are more dynamic than the adults’: “Their straight black hair blew in the wind and their black eyes sparkled with joy. They sat on their ponies stiff and still like grown-up Indians” (307).