Gender Roles in the Frontier

When we read Indian Country we read alot about women on the frontier and how they had different personalities and responsibilites. I had always known that the settler women came out west and did some men work, but I just never really thought about how some of them had a eastern mind set and were weaker and less willing to do mens work. One other thing that I have never really thought about is the Indians keeping white women alive, let alone giving them back to the white men. In most stories and movies the Indians kill all of the women and children. One thing that I have read about is cavalry men being captured and stripped then forced to walk back to the camp and tortured, and because of this they were instructed to keep one round of their pistol for themselves.