Independence

Independence is the nearest town to the Ingalls family's little house on the High Prairie, and it functions as the story's distant hub of civilization, commerce, and rumor. Though the family rarely travels there, the town's presence shapes their year: it is where Pa intends to trade his carefully cured furs for a plough and seeds, where Mr Edwards obtains the Christmas presents that arrive by way of a heroic swim, and where the first word of the government's plan to remove white settlers from Indian Territory reaches the prairie. The town thus stands at the junction of the family's brightest hopes and the political forces that will drive them away.

A Distant Center of Trade and Promise

Pa's relationship with Independence is defined by trade. Throughout the winter, he hunts every day, catching small animals and shooting large ones for their fur, carefully drying the skins in the sun and softening them between his hands in the evenings. The bundle of furs on the floor grows bigger day by day, and Laura loves to feel the soft fur in her fingers. Pa is saving all these furs to trade next spring in Independence, and when winter ends at last, with the wind softer and the terrible cold gone, he announces that it is time to take his furs to the town. Ma objects that the Indians are so near, but Pa reassures her that they are very friendly and that he often meets them when hunting in the forest. The trip to Independence is thus the culmination of a season of labor, the moment when the family's work is converted into the tools of their future: a plough and lots of different seeds, which Pa promises will let them live like kings in the rich land.

The Christmas Connection

Independence also becomes the staging ground for the family's most memorable Christmas. When the creek rises too high for Santa Claus to cross, Mr Edwards walks to Independence and meets Santa coming up the street. Santa's first words to him are "Hello Edwards," and Santa explains that he knows two good little girls named Mary and Laura who live by the Verdigris River. Because the water is so high, Santa cannot cross the creek himself, so he asks Mr Edwards to carry the presents. Mr Edwards then swims across the flooded creek with his clothes on his head, arriving shaking with cold but bearing the gifts. When Laura asks if he saw Santa Claus in Independence, Mr Edwards confirms that he did, and he explains that Santa is too old and fat to make the crossing, while he himself is young. The town thus becomes the place where the magical and the practical meet, where Santa Claus is encountered as a figure walking up a real street, and where a neighbor's friendship bridges the gap between the family's isolation and the wider world.

The Source of Rumors and Political News

Independence is also where the family first hears the news that will end their time on the prairie. Pa reports that people in Independence say the government is going to move the white settlers out of Indian Territory. Ma reacts with dismay, saying "Oh, no! Not when we have done so much," but Pa initially dismisses the rumor, insisting that the government has always let settlers keep the land and that he thinks the Indians will be made to move west again. This confidence proves misplaced. Later, Mr Edwards and Mr Scott arrive with the news that the government in Washington is sending soldiers to make the settlers leave Indian Territory. Pa's response is immediate and defiant: he refuses to stay until the soldiers take him away like a criminal, declaring that the government told them it was all right to build their houses there, but if they are now wanted to go, they will go without waiting for the soldiers. The town of Independence, which had been the source of the family's hopes for a plough and seeds, thus becomes the source of the rumor that uproots them, and the family leaves the prairie rather than be removed by force.

The Town's Place in the Family's World

Independence never appears directly in the narrative; it exists only as a point of reference, a place spoken of by Pa and Mr Edwards, a destination for trade and a source of news. Yet this offstage presence gives it a peculiar power. It is the place where the family's labor is meant to be rewarded, where Santa Claus is said to be encountered, and where the political decisions of the U.S. government first become known to the settlers. The town is the boundary between the family's self-sufficient life on the prairie and the larger forces of commerce and government that ultimately determine their fate. In this sense, Independence is less a location than a threshold, the point where the family's private hopes meet the public world that will decide whether those hopes can be sustained.