West, American

US showman William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, in 1903. Cody earned his nickname as a result of killing several thousand buffalo in eight months to feed workers on the Kansas Pacific Railway, but it was his Wild West Show, travelling all over the USA and Europe, which made him a national figure.

Western frontier of the USA. Specifically the term refers to the period 1840–90, when the Pacific West and Great Plains to the west of the Mississippi were settled. This was the era of the gold rush, the homesteader, the cowboy, and the Plains Wars. Despite the resistance of the indigenous Plains Indians, by 1890 they were confined to Indian reservations, and US citizens had achieved their self-proclaimed manifest destiny to expand westwards.

The legends of the Wild West began during this period. Many of the figures of Western novels and films were real people, such as lawmen ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok and Wyatt Earp, and criminals such as Jesse James and Billy the Kid, although stories about them have on the whole been greatly exaggerated.

West of the Mississippi The American West, or ‘the West’ as it is normally referred to by Americans, represents the fulfilment of the white American dream for the USA. In 1800 the area to the west of the Mississippi River was a vast open wilderness, populated by nomadic American Indian peoples. The region was unknown to the citizens and government of the USA, and at the time was part of the French colonial empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1803, during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, France sold the Great Plains region to the USA under the Louisiana Purchase, which included the present-day states of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Oklahoma. The purchase, which doubled the size of the USA, gave it legal claim to the region and began the process of expansion.

In 1804 Jefferson sent a team of explorers led by Merriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore and map the Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clarke travelled across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains to reach the Pacific Ocean, before returning to the East. Later expeditions were led by explorers such as Major Stephen Long, who named the Great Plains the Great American Desert in his report of 1823, a labelling that deterred American settlers from considering the region for settlement for over 30 years. In the 1840s the government surveyor John Frémont was sent to map out a route from the Mississippi, through the Rocky Mountains, to California.

Settlement of the far West The settlement of the American West came in waves involving different groups over many decades. The first group of white Americans to move to the West were the beaver trappers, known as the mountain men, who made their living in the Rocky Mountains in the 1820s and 1830s. Although by the 1840s the market for beaver fur had declined, their maps of the region and skills as guides proved invaluable for the farming settlers who crossed the Great Plains in their wagons to settle in California and Oregon in the 1840s and 1850s.

In 1848 gold was discovered in California, setting off the first California gold rush (1848–56). In 1849 tens of thousands of prospectors, known as the 49ers, flooded into California from all over the world. Although most of the miners were male, women also entered the gold fields, where they found work as cooks, shopkeepers, hoteliers, and prostitutes. San Francisco, a former fishing village, swelled to become the largest city in the West.

Another group who moved to the American West in the 1840s were the Mormons, a Christian sect led by Brigham Young. The Mormons, who had faced persecution in the East, settled in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, Utah, where they intended to build Zion, their heavenly city on Earth; the city was later named Salt Lake City.

By the end of the 1840s, the USA had taken ownership of the rest of the territory of the American West through war, annexation, and further purchase. The USA now had control of the entire region from the Atlantic in the East to the Pacific in the West, and between Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. However settlement of the far West, between the Rockies and the Pacific, was not achieved easily. Migrants had to cross the Great Plains, a journey of six months or more. Hundreds died each year attempting to reach a better future in California or Oregon. Most gold miners made nothing in the 1848 gold rush, and left with less than they had arrived with. The Mormons faced immense hardship when they first arrived, but battled to become self-sufficient. Despite all these problems, by the 1850s the USA had succeeded in settling and controlling the region between the Rockies and the Pacific Ocean. The Great Plains was the only region where land was still available.

Plains Indians While the USA took over the far West, the Plains Indians continued to live their traditional nomadic existence on the Great Plains. Peoples such as the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho inhabited the vast open spaces, hunting the roaming buffalo herds on horseback. They were free to live by their centuries-old cultural and religious practices. Belief in the Great Spirit as the creator and controller of all things heavily influenced their lives. The buffalo was virtually their only source of food and raw materials. Gender roles in Plains Indian societies were clearly defined; men were the hunters and warriors, while women were responsible for the management of the community's needs. The Plains Indians lived in a complex social structure of nations, tribes, and bands spread out across the region, which met up during the summer months.

However, by the 1840s their way of life was coming under increasing threat. By 1845 the USA had adopted the concept of manifest destiny, through which American citizens believed that, as a superior people chosen by God, they had the right to settle and control all the West. To fulfil this manifest destiny, it was clear that the Plains Indians would have to be removed or destroyed, as the two groups would find it impossible to co-exist. The first evidence of this sentiment had already occurred in the East, with the US government's Indian Removal Act of 1830, which expelled all American Indians to Indian Territory on the Great Plains, and established a Permanent Indian Frontier along the Mississippi. Even the Cherokee people, who had adopted the culture, language, and religion of white Americans, were forced out; their journey was known as the Trail of Tears in which thousands died of starvation, exposure, and disease. By the 1840s the vision of the American West promoted in the USA would not permit the continued traditional existence of the Plains Indians.

Plains Wars The USA and the American Indian people attempted to reach an understanding over the future of the Plains region, but the treaties that were signed always ended in failure. The Permanent Indian Frontier established in 1830 gave the land to the west of the Mississippi to the American Indians ‘forever’, but this agreement was broken within 20 years. Further treaties, such as the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 and the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867, always restricted the lands available to the Plains Indians and took more of their territory to give to US settlers and railroad companies.

War raged across the Great Plains during the 1860s and 1870s, as the Plains Indians and the US Army fought for control. By the end of the 1870s, however, it was clear that the USA had won, and the Plains Indians were broken up and confined to small, economically unviable Indian reservations, dependent on handouts from the US government and unable to hunt the buffalo, which were being brought to near extinction by white hunters. Events such as the Sand Creek Massacre (1864), in which a peaceful camp of sleeping Cheyenne and Arapaho were slaughtered by the 3rd Colorado Volunteers under Col John Chivington; and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876), during which Lt-Col George Custer led his unit of the Seventh Cavalry to annihilation, mark turning points in the relationship between the USA and the Plains Indians. Significant figures among the Plains Indians at this time included chiefs Black Kettle, Sitting Bull, and Red Cloud. As the Indians retreated to their reservations, the Ghost Dance rituals began, calling on the spirits to help the Indians regain control of their lands. The movement created fear among white Americans, and brought swift reprisals. In December 1890 a band of Sioux led by Big Foot, who were fleeing their reservation for the safety of another, were massacred at Wounded Knee; over half the 150 killed were women or children. The ‘battle’ marked the end of the Plains Wars.

Cattle ranchers and homesteaders In the 1860s the lands taken from the Plains Indians were bought from the US government by the cattle ranchers of the early US cattle industry and the homesteaders. Following the end of the American Civil War in 1865, a cattle boom began in Texas. A huge market for beef had developed in New York and other expanding Eastern cities, which was eagerly exploited by Texan ranchers such as Charles Goodnight. Initially the cattle were driven over long trails to cow towns, such as Abilene and Dodge City in Kansas, which sprang up along the Kansas-Pacific and Santa Fe railroads. The cow towns acted as markets and shipping points at the end of the cattle drives up from Texas, and also gave the cowboys somewhere to relax after the long drive. When settlement by the homesteaders began to disrupt the trails, John Illif began the open-range cattle industry in 1867, keeping cattle all year round on his ranch in Colorado.

In 1869 the Transcontinental Railroad connected the East and West of the USA for the first time, and cut journey times from six months to a week. Railroad towns sprang up across the Great Plains to service its rapidly growing population.

Following the passage of the 1862 Homestead Act, giving 65 ha/160 acres of land to all US citizens who settled as farmers on the Great Plains, homesteaders began to flood in. During land-sale events such as the Oklahoma Land Run (1889), vast tracts of land were populated and cities of thousands grew up overnight. Once on the Plains, the work of both men and women was vital to the successful occupation of a homestead. While the men toiled to establish a living in the harsh agricultural environment, women had the role of managing the difficult and unhygienic conditions of the sod house, a dwelling made of blocks of the hard soil. Before the development of towns and communities on the Great Plains, homesteaders were only able to survive on the skills and knowledge that women brought to medical and household needs.

Taming the West The settlement of the West was not without problems for the Americans themselves. Law and order was poor in many parts of the ‘Wild West’, at least in the early years. The gold mining and cow towns were notorious for their gambling, alcohol, and prostitution. In the mining communities, disputes over the ownership of mining claims were constant. In the absence of proper government, miners were forced to establish their own methods of dealing with ‘criminals’. The concept of vigilante justice in the American West was born during the California gold rush, and spread to the Great Plains during the 1860s as new settlements grew up without sufficient law and order protection to keep the peace. Sharpshooters such as Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, and Wild Bill Hickok, and lawmen such as Pat Garret and Wyatt Earp became legendary.

By 1890, the vast uncharted wilderness of the American West had been brought under the control and settlement of US citizens. Millions lived in the West by 1890; in just 50 years the USA had achieved its ‘manifest destiny’. The cost was borne by those who had previously inhabited the region, the American Indians of the Great Plains and the Pacific West. These original inhabitants had their lands stolen and their way of life destroyed. Most of the indigenous population were killed either by war, massacre, or the appalling conditions on reservations. To enable the US citizens to win the West, the Indians had to lose it.

The Western myth From its earliest days, writers and the media mythologized the American West, a trend that continued as the film and television industries were born. Stories of the lives of the mountain men appeared in the newspapers of the East, as journalists reported stories told at the annual ‘rendezvous’ (markets) of the buyers and fur trappers. Their reports contained exaggerated tales of heroic acts, but were normally rooted in an element of truth. Prospective settlers and gold miners were encouraged by tales of fertile lands, where gateposts sprouted leaves; and hidden valleys, where precious metals scattered the surface of the ground. Other reports, however, discouraged settlement of certain regions for decades – maps of the Plains produced from 1823 labelled the area as the Great American Desert, and descriptions of the Plains as infertile and unsuitable for farming appeared in books and newspapers.

However, the real age of the Western myth was born after the 1860s, when stories about cowboys, gunfighters, and heroic sheriffs began to appear. Figures such as Annie Oakley, Billy the Kid, and Butch Cassidy were famous in their own lifetimes. ‘Dime novels’, cheap books published in the cities of the East, presented the American West as a place of adventure and lawlessness. Even military figures such as George Armstrong Custer were able to use newspapers to publicize their exploits. Newspaper reports of the US defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 focused on the heroic death of Custer and his ‘last stand’. The travelling shows of ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody encouraged this view of the West as a land of adventure. In the 20th century cinema further enhanced the myth; in its early days celebrities such as Wyatt Earp were hired to act as consultants to moviemakers. Nostalgia for the history of the West, and the life of the cowboy continued with the creation of comic book heroes and popular television series such as Rawhide. The American West has always been a place of dreams and adventure for the USA, although more recently greater historical accuracy has been sought in the media's depictions of the era.