Lakhasly

Every country has a past that seems to be embraced within their contemporary character,
projected on both themselves and to the wider world.
For the Nordic nations of Sweden and Norway, it's their Viking ancestry.
For Japan, it's their feudal period with tales of the samurai.
For England, it's their history of kings and queens, with knights clad in armor.
All for the United States, it is their tales of the Wild West.
We all have an idea of what the Wild West was like, with visions of gunfights in the streets
between heroes and villains, cattle trains thundering across open plains, bandits leaping
on trains to rob its passengers, and enduring animosity between the white settlers and
the indigenous peoples.
All of it has been ingrained in the public consciousness after decades of movies, books,
and legends of the Old West portraying it as such.
But like all tall tales told throughout history, we have to question how much truth there is
in the popular perception of this fascinating and crucial period of American history.
In this documentary, we are going to examine the true history of the Old West and study
how its influence has helped define the culture of the modern American nation.
This is the story of the real Wild West.
In the early 1770s, Britain controlled swaths of territory along the eastern seaboard of
North America, organized into 13 distinct colonies.
These colonies enjoyed a high degree of self-determination and intercolonial cooperation
and trade, leading to the colonists losing their sense of identity as British and instead
identifying as Americans.
This naturally evolved into friction between the colonies in Britain until 1775, when the
American colonists weren't an open revolt.
On July 4th, 1776, the colonists formally declared themselves an independent nation and
a new country was born, the United States of America.
For the people of this new country, the dream of freedom extended beyond being tied to
the British Empire.
It was a promise of cultural reform where any man could seek to better his prospects
through hard work, under the protection of law, which granted justice for all.
The dream was infectious and immigration to the United States from Europe by people looking for a
better life saw the population skyrocket from just 5 million in 1800 to 23 million in 1850.
However, very quickly that dream began to sour.
The fact of the matter was that while the 13 states had political independence, culturally
they inherited many of the old class systems which made it all but impossible for the lower
classes to get a foothold in business and politics.
Disillusioned, they began to look to the largely unexplored territory to the west with the idea
of establishing new settlements which could one day grow into new cities and eventually
new states.
With their fresh start, the settlers believed they could finally find their fortunes.
However, the old world was still proving a hindrance to achieving this destiny.
Britain was not the only imperial power to seize land in North America, as both France
and Spain had legal claims to thousands of miles of land under laws recognized by the
Christian nations.
In 1801, Thomas Jefferson was elected the third president of the United States and recognized that
France's once ambitious plan for a French Empire and North America was slowly falling apart.
Dancing an opportunity, he entered into a series of negotiations to purchase French
territory to the west of the still and the United States.
This would allow France to withdraw from North America whilst maintaining a degree of honor rather
than lose it in a future military confrontation with Spain, Britain, or even the new United States.
Concluded in a ceremony on December 20, 1803, the impact of what history remembers as the Louisiana
Purchase on the North American Map was enormous.
And literally the stroke of the quill, the United States doubled in size and made westward
expansion possible without incurring the wrath of the French.
Included in the deal was the Mississippi River, which would become a major artery for American
commerce and provided a considerable boost to the economic development of the United States at a
time when the first American railroads were still almost 30 years away.
The door was opening to the west.
The acquisition of this huge area of land would help give rise to the concept of manifest
destiny amongst many Americans.
Coined in 1845, this was the philosophical notion that the people of the United States,
specifically those of a white, Christian denomination, were destined by God to expand their dominion
across the untamed land to the west, spreading democracy, capitalism, and of course Christianity,all the
way to the Pacific Ocean.
It was this belief that granted the American peoples the moral authority to disregard the
historical territorial claims of the Native American population who were regarded as inferior
savages standing in the way of American destiny.
First of course, the American government had to chart the new lands.
Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase, President Jefferson commissioned an expedition westward to
explore and map the new territory and find a practical route to the Pacific Ocean for future expeditions
and settlements.
Led by Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the expedition took over three years
to complete and gave the American people an idea of what awaited them to the west.
Meanwhile, to the south and west, the Spanish Empire, which occupied territories in Florida,
Texas, and California, saw the Lewis and Clark expedition as a real threat and even sent a
military force to apprehend them, but ultimately failing.
In response, 50 U.S. President James Monroe warned European nations not to interfere with
American expansion to the west, making a formal declaration that they intended to settle as
far as the Pacific Ocean and that further encroachment on the American continent by Europeans would
be seen as an act of war.
As well as the old empires, the threat was also aimed against Mexico, which had gained
its independence from Spain and taken Texas and California with it.
Texas would eventually gain its independence from Mexico in 1836 and petitioned to join
the United States in 1845.
Meanwhile, America and Great Britain sought to draw a border between the expanded U.S.
lands and British Canada, concluding in a treaty in 1846 which allowed President James
K. Polk to instead focus on acquiring California from Mexico after Florida was granted statehood in 1845.
Mexico and the United States erupted into war on April 25, 1846 and was a major military
victory for the Americans.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the fighting in 1848, added an additional 525,000 square
miles of territory to the U.S., including the modern-day states of California, Arizona,Colorado, New
Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming.
The map of the United States we know today was just now taking shape.
But of course, these weren't just empty areas of land meant for seizing.
When Europeans ventured to new lands such as Africa, Asia, and America, they employed
the doctrine of discovery, which disregarded territorial claims by the local populations
and instead granted immediate sovereignty of the new land to the European explorers.
In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Johnson v. McIntosh that this recognized international legal
principle, used by European settlers, was also applicable to the United States as a pushed west and
encountered native peoples.
It also meant that the local tribes' people were subjects of the U.S. government, albeit
in a purely administrative capacity, rather than becoming equal citizens.
This also prevented the native peoples from exercising any rights as an independent nation,
and could not have any more dealings with foreign nations without first sparking war
with the U.S.
While American settlers moved west, believing it was their god-given right to claim the
new lands, the indigenous populations didn't see it that way.
They sought for what it was, an invasion and the destruction of their way of life, and
armed conflict was inevitable, frequent, and bloody.
Recognizing the threat, some tribes even banded together to face the U.S. Army and
armed settlers who appeared hell-bent on destroying them, both militarily and culturally.
However, the technologically superior U.S. forces were victorious again and again.
Tribes that didn't resist found their hunting and farming lands being restricted, or in
some cases, were forced to relocate entirely, often because they lived on a patch of land
ideal for white settlers.
In short, the conflict and forced relocation was akin to ethnic cleansing.
The expansion of the American settlers, many of whom had themselves immigrated from Europe,also
greatly increased the exposure of diseases to native American populations, for which they did not have
any natural immunity.
Measles and smallpox especially devastated local tribes has not only were they fatal,
but highly infectious.
For some of the more cynical American settlers, they saw these diseases running rampant and killing
thousands as a sign from God, clearing the land for them to claim.
It is difficult to imagine what must have gone through the minds of those who chose to risk
it all for the dream of finding a better life in the untamed lands out west.
They would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that in the 19th century, those undertaking the
wagon trains were carrying out a journey akin to colonizing the moon today.
They would be almost totally alone, with little or no governmental, medical, or logistical
support.
After the first pioneers pushed through the lands largely on their own wits, or as a part
of exploratory expeditions such as that undertaken by Lewis and Clark, routes were established that
would lead them into the heart of the new territories before they would branch off into new areas to
establish their settlements.
Some of the most well-known routes included the Santa Fe Trail, which ran from the Missouri River
along the divide between the tribituaries of the Arkansas and Kansas rivers, to thesite of the G reat Bend
in Kansas, where it then turned along the Arkansas River before
branching southwest to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Another trail of great importance was the Oregon, California Trail.
No trail was ever considered easy, but the Oregon, California Trail was particularly difficult,
involving opposical-ridden terrain that included large territories still occupied by Native
Americans.
It began in Independence, Missouri before traversing northeastern Kansas, southern Nebraska, and
southern Wyoming.
It then crossed the first of three towering mountain ranges before heading across the
arid and desolate Great Divide Basin and stretching through Idaho before finally reaching the
territory of Oregon.
Even the danger involved, folks needed to experience frontiersmen who could teach and
lead sometimes thousands of settlers at a time, many of whom had grown up in American
or European cities and had little experience living off the land.
In addition, it became necessary for the settlers to form large wagon trains for cooperative
protection and support.
The types of people who joined the wagon trains varied greatly from wagon to wagon.
Some were sold on the tales of adventure, conceiving images of battling bears or the
native people and earning glory for themselves in the process.
Others were businessmen, hoping to take their skills and acumen to the new settlements wherethe c
ompetition was less fierce, and they could establish a monopoly before the settlements grew.
And of course, some were criminals escaping the law, or those who had accumulated debts
that they couldn't pay, and they were fleeing west to escape the sometimes violent debt collectors.
A wagon train would begin to form an early spring and an agreed-upon rendezvous point,
such as near the Missouri River.
Before setting out, the members of the train would start to form groups amongst their numbers to serve
vital functions during the course of the journey.
They would also establish a governing body.
They would elect leaders, and then decide on rules of conduct during the journey.
Those tasked with scouting ahead of the main train, or who were charged with protecting
it from attack, would travel on their own horses, allowing them to move about quickly.
The majority of the train's population would ride in the now iconic Conestoga wagons.
The wagons took their name from the Conestoga Creek region of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where
they originated and were ideally suited for hauling freight over rough terrain.
Pulled by up to six horses, the wagon had a carrying capacity of up to six tons, and
the floor curved up at each end to prevent the contents from shifting inside on uneven
ground, while a distinctive white canvas cover protected against rain and provided shade
from the heat.
Once organized and on their way, wagon trains tended to follow a fairly strict daily routine.
Typically, those embarking with the train would wake up at 4 a.m. for breakfast and
packing before setting off at 7 a.m.
Not stopping until around 4 p.m. where they would set up camp for the evening.
It was always rough going, too.
Some days, as little as just three miles would be traversed by the wagon trains, and often
depressing result, as everyone in the wagon train knew, with each passing day, winter
drew closer.
It was not just the terrain that hindered their progress, however.
Some wagon trains would have an excess of 100 wagons amongst them, and getting such
a huge convoy moving was an extraordinary challenge for their leaders.
Of course, there was also the threat from the Native American tribes, who often tracked
the long lines of wagons snaking through the territory that their ancestors had lived
on for millennia.
As the tribes would stop the wagon trains, and demand they pay tribute to them in the
form of food, mules, rifles, or other goods.
The wagon trains could pay, or decide to fight them off, but neither guaranteed their safety.
Some of the more aggressive tribes wouldn't even demand tribute.
They would just simply attack.
Defending the wagon trains was a difficult undertaking.
It was often so long that those charged with protecting it were spread thinly across its
length.
And when an attack did come, every able-bodied person was involved in the defense, even if
it was just by reloading the next rifle and allowing the shooter to keep firing at the
attacking tribesmen.
Some wagon trains adopted specialized tactics for dealing with attacks.
When traveling through an area known for attacks, the wagon trains would often travel in twocolumns
rather than a single file.
This way, when an attack came, they would quickly form a circular defensive line.
But finally, as if the terrain, the incoming winter weather, and the threat of attack weren't
enough, the populations of the wagon trains also had to contend with disease and hunger
as time went on.
On the Oregon California Trail, Colorado ravaged through many wagon trains and was all the
more frightening by the suddenness of the disease taking hold.
It was said that a man or woman could feel perfectly fine at breakfast and be dead by
supper.
The lack of fresh fruits on the trail also saw a marked degradation in overall health,
due to the lack of essential vitamins leading to some people even getting scurvy, a disease
more commonly associated with sailors along sea voyages.
For some wagon trains, hunger became such an issue that there was only one option left
open.
In 1846, a wagon train noticed the Donner party was trapped in the harsh winters of the
Sierra Nevada mountain range.
They would survive by eating the flesh of those who had already perished.
After all of these factors are considered, it comes as no surprise that those who completed
these trails were considered the toughest of men and women.
They embodied the American spirit that had led to the pilgrims colonizing North America
in the first place, and now they were expanding the reach of their country and their way of
life.
The legend of the Old West and the heroic frontier folk who forged it were already beginning
to form stories of the experiences on the trails, filtering back east and leading to
greater interest in moving out west amongst the remaining population.
But not everybody was cut out for the wagon trains.
In 1930, the first US railroad opened and over the coming decades, the number of miles
of railroad increased exponentially.
Out west, the earlier wagon trains established settlements, and the railroads were soon opening them
up to more travelers looking to find new, more prosperous lives.
The hundreds of people who went by wagon soon became thousands of people going by steam train,
especially after a gold was found in California in 1848.
Over the coming decades, the settlements swelled into towns and cities to serve the gold mines,or act as
rest stops for trains or cattle drives.
The stage was set for the period history would remember as the Wild West.
The choice of where to establish settlements varied from place to place, and the names of
some of these settlements would become ingrained in the wider legend of the Old West.
The real town of Deadwood, for example, was established in 1876 in an area of South Dakota previously
promised to the Lakota tribe.
However, when gold was found in the nearby Black Hills, American settlers disregarded
this treaty and founded the town, taking the name from a formation of dead trees found
nearby.
Meanwhile, the town of Tombstone was founded almost concurrently to Deadwood and Coachees
County, Arizona.
The town was centered around a series of silver mines around the area, and over the course
of ten years it produced somewhere in the region of $50 million of revenue, an extraordinary
figure for the day.
Some settlements would grow beyond small townships, and evolve over time to become some of
America's most prominent cities.
A small settlement established in 1858 on the banks of the South Platte River during the
Pikes Peak Gold Rush was the beginning of the city of Denver, Colorado.
Gold would also turn the small west coast town of San Francisco into a thriving city after
fortune hunters flocked there to capitalize on the California Gold Rush.
Beginning in 1849, the new citizens of San Francisco became known as 49ers, a name which
would later be adopted by the city's National Football League team in honor of this period
of the city's history.
Given America's state and federal legal systems, there was little in the way of regulation
to control many of these wild west towns, and anyone with the money to build a business
was usually free to do so.
During its heyday, the comparatively affluent town of Tombstone had no less than 110 saloons,
14 gambling halls, numerous dance halls, brothels, four churches, three newspapers, two banks,
an ice house, a school, and an ice cream parlor.
All of this, despite the fact that the town's population peaked at just around 10,000 people.
Given the backbreaking nature of mineworking or railroad construction, it comes as little
surprise then that the entertainment in the west was so highly sought after.
Alcohol and card games were by far the most prevalent forms of entertainment, but both
could bring out the worst in people, especially when the law was almost nonexistent in some
places.
The deadwood especially itself a town founded illegally, winning at a game of poker often
meant you were watching your back leaving the saloon or gambling hall.
Many towns were simply too small for there to be some form of permanent entertainment
hall, such as a theater, and this gave rise to the traveling theater companies.
Traveling from town to town, actors, singers, and dancers would always produce an air of
excitement when they would roll in off the trails.
Popular myths of the wild west often depict these shows as being less than cultured affairs,
and while there were less reputable companies touring the west, many of them worked hard
to bring the culture of the big cities on the east coast to the western frontier.
The Langreech Allen St. Joseph Theatre Company, for example, played to audiences in Missouri
and Kansas, enacting such productions as Ten Nights in a Bar Room, Toodles, Lady of
Lions, Hamlet, Inglemar the Barbarian, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Othello.
Often they would construct temporary, or in some cases even permanent buildings to carry
out their performances in the evenings.
To bring in extra money during the day, they would rent out the theater space to the town
for everything from dances to town meetings and even criminal trials.
However, one form of entertainment became especially sought after by the men, and they
were willing to pay top dollar for it.
Sex.
Life was tough for the men in mining towns, but it was arguably even tougher for single women.
There was no chance for a woman to go down to the mines where the money was being made,
and instead they had to rely on domestic types of jobs, such as laundry.
Sex barely provided them enough money to get by, and there were only two choices really
left open to them, either finding a husband quickly or working in the brothels.
As a prostitute, a woman could make the same money in a single night as they would in a
week of laundry.
Because they wanted financial independence, they took to becoming prostitutes.
Sex quickly became a big business in the West, and the railroad towns especially became hubs for the
prostitutes since there was a constant flow of men passing through.
Folklore tells of railroad workers hanging in the red lamps outside the brothels, while they had their time
inside, and this gave rise to the term Red Light District, which has since come to refer to an area of a
town or city embroiled in prostitution.
While this may have introduced many Americans to the term, red lights have actually been
used by prostitutes in Holland since the 17th century to advertise their services, and
its equally possible Dutch immigrants continued this practice in the United States.
Many women who faced in the brothels became shrewd business women, having recognized that
they faced tough competition from their rivals.
Business cards, poster advertisements, and even vouchers were all used to promote their
business, but perhaps the most useful policy adopted by the brothels was discretion.
Despite their often being little in the way of legislation, the church had made its way
out west along with the miners, and sex work was still seen as a sin.
Some of the more well-to-do members of society were expected to maintain a certain degree
of morality, and a visit to a brothel could destroy that image if discovered.
But of course, in nature, the act of sexual intercourse is not purely for recreation,
and many prostitutes fell pregnant.
As one popular rhyme from San Francisco put it, the miners came in 49, the women came
in 51, and when they got together, they made the nation's son.
Even if a woman chose to carry the child to term, their safety was not in any way guaranteed.
Birth in the West was a particularly dangerous affair, with their only being the most rudimentary
medical support.
One can argue on a case-by-case basis over whether women decided to become prostitutes
or were forced to by their circumstances.
Certainly, there are examples of both cases.
However, one group who certainly didn't have a choice were the thousands of Chinese sex
slaves purchased cheaply from their parents in China, where they were seen of little value
and shipped to the West.
Life for these poor women was exceptionally cruel.
Many of their white clientele were miners and railroad workers, who were increasingly
finding themselves being undercut by cheap Chinese laborers, and this meant they became
the focus of the men's frustrations with violence being a common occurrence.
But only the most foolish man would visit a brothel believing the risks were solely confined
to the ladies of the night.
Sexually transmitted diseases were common, and with so many men visiting brothels, it
could spread like wildfire amongst the community.
Even if the disease wasn't fatal in itself, it could often reduce or completely inhibit
a man's ability to work, and with no social care services in place, that could potentially
mean starving to death.
Chlamydia was one of the leading causes of urinary tract infections, causing problems
with passing urine and the onset of blindness.
When it came to any disease, illness, or injury in the Old West, often it was said that the
cure could be far worse than the disease.
Medical technology and understanding was advancing all the time in the second half of the 19th
century, in both Europe and the Eastern States of America, but it was a little slower making
it out to the West.
Treatments were often either traditions carried over from the Old Worlds, or were newly invented
based on experience in the untamed lands that were now considered home, but neither were
100% effective. Gotta cough?
Treatment in the 1860s West could be with onion soup, or a mixture of opium and camp for.
You could also find yourself ingesting a mixture of equal parts of linseed oil, honey, and
macaroon. Gotta fever?
Doctors would use coltar extracts to induce sleep while in 1866 a doctor recommended
a liniment mixture of sulfuric ether, aqua ammonia, and amiriate of ammonia.
Been scalped accidentally by a wagon, or intentionally by a disgruntled local?
Despite being considered fatal in the 1860s, there were some extraordinary stories of people
surviving the ordeal.
A four-year-old boy from Nebraska had his scalp reattached by a doctor, using 35 searchers,
and a wet skull cap on his head, which was kept wet with a solution of boric acid, the
child miraculously recovered.
But whether it was for the services of a doctor or a lady of the night, patience or patrons
had to pay somehow.
The economics of the West changed over time, as the presence of white settlers grew.
Before the mass migrations of the wagon trains, money in the West was of little value, being
of no use when dealing with the Native American tribes.
Instead, the early travelers traded with the locals and with each other, often including
defers, food, alcohol, and guns.
When the wagon trains set off, each wagon or wagon company would trade with one another.
In fact, most who joined the wagon trains would spend the last of their money on essential
items before setting off, meaning they had nothing to come back to, and thus offering
them an extra incentive to keep pushing West.
Prospectors and miners would trade in whatever they mined from the countryside, but the economics
of the West would change dramatically once their transcontinental railroads began to
open in the late 1860s.
These railroads crisscrossed the Western landscape, making the wagon trains obsolete.
Journeys that once took months now took days and was significantly less risk, leading to
an explosion of the Western population, and more importantly, linking the West with the
economy of the Eastern states.
Goods produced in the West were soon transported East, which sent the US dollar back Westward,
and money was soon displacing goods as the primary source of currency.
An oft-forgotten aspect of life in the West was that there were at times numerous currencies
being used.
Silver and gold coins often had different values from town to town, while some companies paid
their employees with private banknotes, or vouchers specific to a local bank or even
an individual.
The problem with this was not just that these wages couldn't be spent outside of the company
or town, but if the individual or the local bank went bankrupt, then in one quick swoop
all of those wages were rendered useless.
Eventually, workers and miners in the West began to realize that they had to take action
to protect themselves against the exploitation.
Thus, the Old West has an important place in the history of trade unionism in the United
States.
Again, the expansion of the railroads especially saw increased trade union activities through
the 1870s, but many of these trade unions were limited to specific jobs in the industry,
such as the train drivers, conductors, and maintenance personnel.
Even then, it was not uncommon for them to be limited to a specific region, all of which
conspired to inhibit their overall effectiveness.
By the 1880s, that began to change with larger organizations like the Knights of Labor growing
in prominence.
The Knights of Labor aimed to protect the interests of anyone who is considered a producer,
be they from the mining or agricultural sectors, and including those in the logistical chain,
such as the railroad workers.
The Knights of Labor were headed by Terrence V. Powderley, who believed that the traditional
strike by workers to get what they wanted should be a last resort as it was damaging
to all concerned.
Instead, under his leadership, the Knights of Labor adopted political and even business
methods to achieve their aims.
The Knights of Labor support grew quickly, as did their list of successes, until 1886
when during a strike in Chicago at Haymarket Square aimed at giving workers an eight-hour
working day, police shot and killed a peaceful protester and injured several others.
The next day, an extremist amongst the group threw a stick of dynamite at the line of police.
Seven police officers were killed and a stain was put upon the Knights of Labor, which began
to break up and join other national unions such as the American Federation of Labor.
The Ten Gallon Hat, the Horse Spurs, the Six-Shooter dangling from the hip.
These are the images popular culture has produced of the cowboy.
The term itself becoming a blanket for anyone who has lived in the West.
However, the story of the real cowboys isn't all what it was cracked up to be.
The vast, unspoiled land of the West was seen as ideal ground for expanding America's
agricultural base with the railroads allowing food produce to now be transported to markets
back East, as well as the shipping hubs on both coasts for exporting before any of its
spoiled, as would have been the case with horse-drawn wagons.
Even before the American population moved west, though, much of the land had been used
for farming and rearing cattle by the Spanish, and many of the practices, traditions, and
even words we now associate with the culture of the cowboy have its origins from Spain.
The word ranch, for example, which often describes a small farmhouse, comes from the
Spanish word Rancho.
Before the 1850s, there was little in the way of a market for cattle, as most farms
and settlements raised their own small herds for their own consumption.
Its meat and hides were sometimes sold or traded to neighbors, but after the American
Civil War concluded, it truly became a major industry.
During the Civil War, the Union army used the city of Chicago for supplying meat to
its soldiers thanks to its railings.
After the war, these same facilities were used to process meat from the West, and Chicago
became a major meatpacking hub before shipping off to the cities out east.
The meat became highly sought after and drove up demand for meat from the West, leading
to more and more farmers raising cattle for the meat industry.
By 1870, Chicago was already processing 3 million cattle and hogs, and this number would only
grow and grow over the coming years.
With the Transcontinental Railroad now joining both coasts of America, the West was now open
for business, and the era of cowboys of popular legend had arrived.
Many of the breeds farmed by the cowboys had been brought to America by Europeans and
were allowed to live semi-wild on the open ranges where they grazed for much of the year.
The main cattle breeds that dominated the industry on the open range was the Longhorn,
which was descended from the original Spanish Longhorns imported from the 16th century onwards.
Other breeds included the Meteor Heriford, which, as the name implies, originated from
Herodfordshire in England, but as the animals were left unsupervised, it was not uncommon
for the two types to cross breed.
But there often being few ways to separate their herds between owners, many ranchers
formed associations to keep track of the number and location of their animals.
In order to determine the ownership of individual animals, they were marked with a distinctive
brand applied with a hot iron, usually while the cattle were still young calves.
This required cowboys to rope the calf and restrain it while the brand was applied.
It was a tough and physically demanding job to do, and a certain degree of admiration
was placed upon those who had mastered the practice.
This, of course, led to competition amongst cowboys who wanted to prove their skills,
and this in turn led to the sport of the rodeo.
Again, the term has its origins in the earlier Spanish and Mexican farmers, with Rodéo being
Spanish for Roundup.
But the meat industry was dependent on getting the animals to their markets, and for that,
the cattle had to be driven from their grazing lands to the railroad towns that would then
transport them to the cities for slaughter and processing.
This too originated with the Spanish, who undertook cattle drives as their empire grew
in the Americas.
It was in 1836 that Americans began undertaking their own, initially small-scale cattle drives.
Ranchers in Texas began driving their cattle to New Orleans, and establishing the so-called
beef trail.
Other trails would follow as their demand grew, as did the numbers of cattle involved.
It was not without controversy, however.
In the confounding period when new settlers were staking claims to land all the time,
the herds would often be driven across newly owned lands.
This gave rise to America's open-range laws, where unless the landowner made efforts to
inform the cattle drives that they were not permitted on the land with either signs or
fencing, then the cattle drives could enter the lands, claimed or otherwise.
Another problem was the spreading of disease by the cattle.
The Longhorns reared in Texas often had ticks growing in their fur that carried Texas fever,
a malaria-like disease that is transferable to both humans and local cattle.
The Texas cattle were immune to the disease, but it would ravage other herds that came
into contact with as they passed through.
This was such a concern that many areas formed vigilante groups to warn off the cattle drives
to protect their own livestock until the federal government enacted laws preventing the transport
of infected animals.
The American Civil War between 1861 and 1865 severely restricted the movement of cattle
not intended to feed the soldiers, and without the matured animals being sold off, herd numbers
drew dramatically, leading to a fall in their price.
Cattle were being sold for just $2 per head, but with the opening of Chicago's meatpacking
facilities and the meat explosion post-war, the price would grow to over $40 ahead in
the following years.
Having unsecured cattle over open ranges inevitably invited criminals looking to steal cattle
either to sell, or in some cases, to simply feed their families.
The latter was especially true for Native American tribes who found their own food stocks, such
as the buffalo, increasingly diminished by American expansion west.
Cattle rustling was taken very seriously by farmers, and just the accusation of such activities
was enough to find an execution mob knocking at your door.
This frontier justice gave rise to a bloody conflict in Wyoming, now remembered as the
Johnson County War in 1889.
Cattle companies had been ruthlessly persecuting alleged wrestlers, often on flimsy evidence
gathered by so-called range detectives.
Many of those accused were merely new settlers who competed with the companies for land, livestock,
and water rights, at a time when the open range was in severe decline, seeing the cattle
companies become increasingly desperate.
Cattle had been brewing for quite some time with the way the big companies were behaving
towards the small ranchers that made up the local community, but it was the hanging of
Ella Watson and her husband that would prove the spark for the coming frontier war.
Ella Watson's farm was growing legally, and this threatened her neighbor, the wealthy
Albert John Bothwell, who was known to engage in such illegal activities as fencing off
public land for his use and sending his cowboys to threaten and intimidate anyone who complained.
When Bothwell decided to accuse her of rustling, an armed gang turned up at Ella's farm and
the two of them were hung from a tree, despite a friend attempting to rescue them by opening
fire on the mob.
Six men were arrested for their murder, but witnesses were intimidated, and one even
disappeared before they came to trial and Bothwell acquired Ella's land without legal
repercussions.
But there were other consequences.
The range detective who acted on Bothwell's claims was murdered soon after and triggered
a series of tit-for-tat killings until the wealthier ranchers hired gunmen to invade
Johnson County.
The gunmen's initial incursion in the territory aroused the small farmers and ranchers, as
well as the state law men, and together they formed a posse of around 200 armed men that
resulted in a bitter armed standoff.
Only the intervention of the United States Calvary on the orders of President Benjamin
Harrison did the standoff subside, but even then the violence continued sporadically
for months afterwards.
Cattle wrestling was by no means the only crime in the Old West.
The wild, rustic nature of life out west, particularly in the early period, were many
people were surviving on their own or in small communities, attracted many of the less scrupulous
characters in American society.
It is perhaps during this time that the popular myth of gunslingers and gun fighters was closest
to being true.
The U.S. Army initially took an active role in maintaining law and order, but was spread
too thin to be an effective law enforcement agency.
And they were more concerned with suppressing Native American uprisings or maintaining the
integrity of the border with Mexico, which at the time was still a major threat to the
United States.
As a result, many communities resorted to the age-old tribal mentality in that they looked
out for each other, resulting in vigilantes and armed posses pursuing known or suspected
criminals.
This was less than ideal, and without any form of investigation or due process, if a crime
occurred when a stranger was in town, then that stranger may find himself running for
his life.
Guilty or not?
Often funded by rich backers from the east, the railroads and mines employed gun hands
to protect their property from opportunistic thieves.
These were not simply private security guards, however.
Many of these men were experienced soldiers, or were themselves former outlaws, and with
almost no regulation governing them, as was the case with Johnson County, their tactics
were often heavy-handed and violent.
With the companies at times being the most influential factor in the lives of many people,
these armed protection squads were as close to law enforcement as was available, but they
only served the interests of their employer and not the public at large.
As towns grew and the lawmakers from Washington spread their influence further west, law
enforcement
became an increasingly higher priority.
Once legally recognized local governments began to take hold in the communities, they
began hiring town sheriffs to keep the peace.
Many of these crimes the sheriffs faced were misdemeanors, such as arresting people who
were drunk in disorderly, and for this they could be locked up in the local jail for the
night.
However, for more serious crimes they would have to go to trial, and that was itself a
problem since many towns didn't have a dedicated courthouse.
Therefore, the sheriff either had to take them to a larger town, which was a risky task,
because if the criminal was part of a gang, they could ambush him in route.
Or he would just have to keep the offender locked up until one of the number of travelling
judges arrived in town to hear the case.
Being a lawman on the frontier was always a dangerous profession, there often being
little in the way of assistance from other members of law enforcement.
And even if there was, there was almost no way to call upon them quickly in an emergency.
Given this, a mythos grew around the many sheriffs who found themselves the subject of stories
of their exploits, often with wild exaggerations thrown in, and usually fueled by a bottle
of whiskey consumed during the retelling.
Probably the name most famously associated with law enforcement in the Old West is Wyatt
Earp, whose exploits have been immortalized in books, TV shows, and movies.
Like many legends of the Old West though, his story has been skewered somewhat in many
retellings.
All around the western United States, it was easy for even the most minor disagreements
to turn into full-blown feuds, such as that between their Earps and Eitklanten or David
Tutten, Wild Bill Higog.
And this was to say nothing of the effect the Civil War had on American society.
Many Confederate soldiers couldn't stomach life under the Union, having fought them between
1861 and 1865, during which a great number of atrocities were carried out by both sides.
With restrictions placed on many Confederate soldiers and immediate aftermath, it is little
wonder that many of them turned to a life of crime.
Arguably the most famous of these outlaws was himself a former Confederate soldier, as
was his brother.
Jesse Woodson James was born on September 5, 1847, and Clay County, Missouri, the second
of two sons born to a Baptist minister.
Jesse's family had a number of slaves during his youth, and so when the Civil War erupted,
they naturally had sympathies for the Confederate side.
Jesse and his older brother Frank fought a guerilla-style campaign with the Confederate
soldiers, known as Bushwackers, which taught them how to conceal themselves, how to be
completely ruthless, and how to fund themselves through armed robbery.
Both the Confederates and Union soldiers performed shocking acts of brutality on one another
and civilians, and the hatred over such acts were not tempered by the end of the war.
The James gang became the most wanted outlaws in America in the immediate post-war period,
yet the two brothers managed to stay ahead of the authorities and bounty hunters for
over 15 years.
They garnered such loyalty or fear from other members of their gang that even when some
of them were captured, they refused to give them up, no matter what they were offered.
It is estimated they stole around $200,000, which amounts to over $6.2 million today.
Some told stories that the James brothers were modern-day Robinhoods, sharing the money
out to their community, while others say they stole purely out of greed.
Both the fictional and factual tales of Jesse James were symbolic of the law and order legends
as a whole in the Wild West, and are the defining aspects to our collective understanding of
the time period at large.
The story of the Old West is often dominated by tales of the American spirit taming the
wild lands, but a factor often overlooked in this narrative are the Native American peoples
who already occupied the land and had done so for centuries.
From their perspective, the arrival of Spaniards and then the Americans was an invasion not
just against their land, but against their very identity and culture, and many of them
chose to resist.
For this reason, the Native American population has often been perceived as the enemy in tales
of the West, who stand in the way of progress, a trait inherited from the opinions of the
first American settlers who viewed them as inferior savages.
However, as the American government increased their program of restriction on Native American
tribes, forcing many of them to resist violently, American military leaders would quickly
learn to respect their native foes.
The 19th century would produce a series of skilled war leaders against the North American
tribes who fought back against the white settlers, who were pillaging their lands themselves.
Many of these leaders' names would become ingrained in American culture and language,
such as Geronimo.
Geronimo, birth name Goyakla, was part of the Apache tribe residing in modern-day Arizona
when his wife and three children were butchered by Mexican troops.
During revenge, he waged a military campaign against white settlers where his courage and
tenacity became legend across the continent.
Against Mexican and American troops, he was known to charge into battle wielding only a
knife against a hail of bullets, and he was soon labeled the worst Native American to
ever live.
Despite many battles, Geronimo survived, but was ultimately forced to surrender to U.S.
troops on September 4, 1886, something he later regretted, inviting in family that he
should have kept fighting until he was killed.
Another great native war leader was Red Cloud of the Okla-la-Lakota Sioux in Nebraska.
In 1866, Red Cloud found himself leading his tribe in a bloody and brutal war against
the U.S. Army that is now remembered as Red Cloud's war.
By the war's conclusion, Red Cloud had defeated the U.S. Army and established control over
swaths of territories in Wyoming and Montana.
Red Cloud negotiated with the U.S. government for his tribe to retain ownership of the Black
Hills and the peace talks, which the U.S. granted.
However, Red Cloud's victory was short-lived, and when gold was discovered in the region,
white settlers ignored the agreement and moved in, establishing deadwood, among other
locales.
Such disregard for agreements made in good faith led to renewed hostilities, and in
1876 the great Sioux War erupted.
Several Native American tribes joined forces under two of the most revered Native American
leaders, namely Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.
The two leaders amassed nearly 10,000 of their people along the grassy grass river, known
to the white settlers as the Little Bighorn.
On June 25, after a previous U.S. Army force had been defeated, General George Custer's
7th Calvary was scouting ahead of their main force when they stumbled upon the encampment.
Missing an impending attack, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull organized their warriors and
attacked Custer's force.
Custer had 600 men at his command, but he faced a force of 3,000 warriors and was simply
overcome by his enemy's superior numbers.
268 U.S. soldiers were killed, but while it was a powerful symbolic victory for Crazy
Horse and Sitting Bull, the massacre outraged the U.S. government, who used the incident
to further justify their clampdowns on the Native American tribes.
The hunting of Buffalo, for example, a major source of food and clothing for the tribes
were hunted to near extinction in North America, making the plains almost unlivable for them.
Not all Native American leaders chose to wage war against the U.S. expansion.
The Nez Perce are an indigenous people who have lived in the Columbia River Plateau in
the Pacific Northwest region for at least 11,500 years before the white settlers came.
In the mid-to-late 19th century, they were led by Chief Joseph, who went to great efforts
to resolve his tribes issues with the U.S. government peacefully.
One major issue concerned the U.S. government.
Dismissing an agreement his father made over land ownership and demanding Joseph lead his
people to the Idaho reservation.
Joseph resisted and tried to negotiate, but when he saw a U.S. Army force amassing on
his people, he relented and led them to the reservation.
However, some of the younger members of his tribe retaliated against white settlers that
had moved into their lands, and Chief Joseph was therefore forced to lead his people in
a military campaign.
By 1877, Joseph could fight no more and he surrendered.
Yet, that wasn't the end of his resistance, for he frequently spoke at rallies where
he tried to tell the truth of the so-called Indian Wars.
There is no doubt that as the century entered its final quarter, a myth of life in the West
was already brewing, not just on the U.S. Eastern seaboard, but across the world.
Tales told by travelers who had crossed the West by railroad became highly sought after
in taverns, where a particularly exciting tale might earn the teller a free drink.
These stories would then be spread further and further afield, inspiring the imagination
of thousands.
Capitalizing on this were the introduction of dime novels, cheaply produced short books,
many of which used the western setting to tell dramatic, shocking and exciting stories
regardless of how close to reality they were.
But it would be one man more than any other who would be responsible for bringing the
myth of the Wild West to the masses.
His name was William Frederick Cody, but history remembers him as Buffalo Bill.
Cody grew up in Kansas at a time when violence between pro and anti-slavery factions was
at an all-time high, his father being killed after giving a speech calling for slavery
to be abolished.
This forced him to start work early to help his family survive, using his natural skill
as a horseman delivering freight and transporting cattle.
At just eleven he found himself in a gunfight with a Native American who attacked the cattle
train he was a part of.
This story quickly earned him a legendary status as the youngest indigenous fighter on
the prairie.
That same year he found himself on the wrong end of the fist of an older man, but was spared
a more serious beating by the intervention of none other than Wild Bill Hickock, the
same man who would go on to shoot David Tut in their famous duel.
During the Civil War, Cody undertook dangerous scouting missions for the Union Army, while
afterwards he was hired to hunt buffalo to feed construction crews working on the Union
Pacific Railroad.
He was so proficient at killing the animals that he earned the name Buffalo Bill.
His skills became so well known that he was hired by General Custer to help guide Russian
Grand Duke Alexis on a hunting trip.
He served with the U.S. Army during frequent wars with the Native American tribes in the
1870s and was awarded the Medal of Honor America's highest award for bravery.
Cody's exploits provided exciting material for newspapers and the dime novelists, and
he quickly found himself becoming a Western folk hero.
Sensing an opportunity to make his fortune based on his exploits, he tried his hand at
acting, starring in Ned Buntline's Son of the Prairie.
While hardly a gifted actor, he was a superb showman and knew how to work the crowd.
Over the next few years, he split his time between scouting and entertaining.
Somewhere along the line, the two worlds began to blur as he led hunting parties wearing his
flamboyant costumes he would wear in his shows.
In 1883, Cody, with the help of producer Nate Salisbury, organized his own Wild West show,
a spectacular outdoor entertainment extravaganza with a cast of hundreds, including Wild Bill
Hickok for a brief moment.
The show featured trick shooting, hard riding cowboys, and Native Americans, along with
recreations of a buffalo hunt, the capture of the Deadwood stagecoach and a Pony Express
ride.
During the course of the show's lifetime, it stars at times included the famous female
shooter Annie Oakley and in 1885, Chief Sitting Bull himself.
The reputation of the show was such that eventually it traveled to Europe, displaying their skills
at Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887 before traversing the continent.
By 1893, annual attendees numbered around 3 million people, and Buffalo Bill was one
of the modern world's first true international celebrities.
During his importance within the show, he continued to perform into his 70s, by which
time he needed help getting on his horse backstage.
Sadly, he invested his money in several unsuccessful business ventures, and when he died on January
10, 1917, he was close to bankruptcy.
Tributes came from far and wide after his passing, including from Britain's King George V.
Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II and US President Woodrow Wilson, such was the impact that he
had on the world.
While he left little in the way of fortune, his legacy was immeasurable.
He and others like him had created the legend of the Wild West, and it continued to inspire
millions.
A whole new generation was growing up in the 20th century, learning of the Wild West,
or at least how it was portrayed in the books and shows of the day.
The truth was soon unearthed, however, that the West was not as wild as it once was.
The arrival of a new century heralded the end of this unique and fascinating period of history.
In the end, it wasn't so much the American spirit that had won the West, but more so
the American civility.
Transport links were now better than ever thanks to the new railroads and the slow adoption
of motor vehicles, and there no longer seemed to be a frontier divide between the East and
the West.
Communication was also vastly improved, thanks to the widespread adoption of electrical
telegraphs and eventually, telephones and radio.
The United States was now feeling like one whole country, and with that, came a shared
civilization and culture.
The nature of life out West also changed.
The last of the great gold rushes had ended by 1900, and many of the towns that had sprung
up to support the mines were now being abandoned, creating numerous ghost towns dotted across
the landscape.
The cattle drives also declined as it was no longer necessary to move large herds as far
as they once had to, and even so, many landowners now prohibited the animals from being transported
across their land anyway.
Many of the towns and cities that did not survive adopted the new industries that were
cropping up, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, and soon they began to resemble the cities
back East.
By 1912, America's territorial expansion was largely over, and it was at this point that
many consider the actual period remembered as the Wild West to have ended.
Yet it left an enduring impression on American culture.
Clothes, stories, songs, symbols, much of what is considered to be American, has its origins
in the Wild West.
More than anything though, it gave the still relatively young country of America a history
where its people ventured out of their cradle to forge their destiny.
Their victory over the land was something they adored, and the spirit of those pioneers
was something many attained and embraced.
The arrival of motion pictures only further inflated the stories of the Old West, and the
Western movie genre was incredibly popular in the first half of the 20th century.
Sadly though, it came at a cost to the Native American population.
In California alone, the Native American population dropped from 2 million in 1830 to just 500,000
in 1910.
And today, the Native population in the United States stands at just around 1% of the total
population, and there are continuing issues over political representation, missing and
murdered women and children, and the protection of their culture and heritage.
In the second half of the 20th century, many Americans began to take a more negative view
of the West, particularly concerning the impact White Expansion had on the Native populations.
This led to a decline in the popularity of the Western genre and pop culture, with the
exceptions of major blockbuster films, such as 1993's Tombstone, which tells the fictionalized
account of the gunfight at the OK Corral, focusing on the battle between law and order
rather than between white settlers and Native Americans.
Many advocating for Native American rights claim that this is glossing over an unappealing
part of American history.
Nevertheless, the perceived spirit of the West remains alive and well in the United States,
and continues to reflect America's identity.
Words and words associated with this period continue to be adopted in reverence to this
unique part of American history, such as the US Army adopting tribal names for its helicopters,
like the AH-64 Apache gunship.
In recent years, the Wild West has seen something of a resurgence in popular culture, with the
success of movies and TV shows like Deadwood and Justified, and even video games like the
Red Dead Redemption series.
In the end, like those real pioneers in indigenous tribes who faced adversity in their way forging
the West, it seems the legend of the Wild West still endures and will continue to inspire
Americans in all respects of the word for many years to come.