1. The American West, Paper 2
Key Topic s and 1850s – the Indian Traditions and early travellers to the West.
Key Topic 1

2. What was living on the Plains like?
All members of an Indian’s family were important. Families lived in bands where most people were related to each other and looked after each other. This meant that often the care of children was shared. This was sensible in case a parent died.
The Great Plains were originally known as the Great American desert. There were a vast area of grassland in the centre of North America. With hot summers, cold winters and a lack of trees, the land was difficult to live on.
At the beginning of the 19th Century, all tribes had their own territory on the Plains. Some tribes were allies and some were enemies.
The Indians did not fight to conquer other tribes or to gain land. They made short, violent raids to steal horses or to kill men for revenge or honour.
Women owned the tipis and contents. Men owned the horses and weapons.
Plains Indians hunted buffalo. They were vitally important to the survival of the tribes. The Indians used every part of the buffalo they killed.
Plains Indian valued their horses above everything. They used horses to hunt buffalo, to move about the Plains, in war and for the sheer fun of exercising.
The Plains Indians were many different tribes, some large, like the Sioux Nation, others small. All had their own languages and customs.

3. The Medicine Men had two roles. He was very important to the tribe.
One was to help the sick, the other was to work with the Spirit World to help the tribe. This included interpreting visions and advising the chief. The Chief would be advised by his band’s council. This was important as he had to ensure everyone knew their jobs so that the band/tribe could survive. .
Indian tribes moved around a lot to follow the buffalo. This meant their tipis had to be easy to put up, take down and transport. It also meant that they were usually very fit and healthy, and did not suffer from illnesses that would come from being in one environment too long, i.e. human waste polluting the water supply.
Once the Indians had stolen horses from the Spanish in the 1600s, life on the Great Plains became easier, especially for hunting the buffalo. Horses were so important that by 1820, Indian wealth was measured in horses.
Tipis were made out of buffalo hide and were designed with an adjustable chimney hole at the top to make sure smoke was taken by the wind, the conical shape made it resistant to strong winds and even the bottoms could be rolled up in summer for ventilation.
Because keeping up with the buffalo heard was vital for survival, anyone who slowed the tribe down had to be left. Old people might take themselves off to die, whilst children who were difficult to carry may be killed.

4. What did the Plains Natives believe?
Dances were very important and whole tribes could take part. Some, such as the Sun Dance, were opportunities to get guidance from the spirit world on issues such as how to become better warriors, from the pain of torturing themselves.
Some land, particularly in high places, was very sacred, such as the Black Hills of Dakota. Medicine men went to these places for guidance and the dead were buried here.
The Indians believed that one Great Spirit ruled over the world. All natural things had spirits of their own and had to be treated with respect.
Indians believed they came from and went back to the earth, thus the earth was their mother and could not be owned, nor cut in to by farming or mining.
Indians did not need to keep Law and order. Everything was ruled by custom and tradition. If Indians did anything wrong, they would be publicly shamed, which they hated.
Indians contacted the spirit world through visions. Boys were given their adult names in a ceremony where they had their first vision by going in to a sweat lodge after days of fasting. In some tribes, the girls did this too. In others, her first period would be celebrated.
Circles were important as the plains Indians believed that the power of the earth always moved and worked in circles e.g. the sun was a circle, the seasons formed a circle, even life was a circle – starting as a child and with the old behaving like children.
All Plains Indians believed that people and nature should work together, and that people should not try to calm the Power of Nature. The Great Spirit, Waken Tanka created the world and ruled over it. The Great Spirit and the spirits of all things, even rivers and rocks, could influence their lives, so they had to respect them.

5. Why did people move West?
Push Factors
The banks in the East collapsed and many lost their savings and jobs in the 1840s’ economic depressions.
The farmers also suffered as the price of their produce plummeted.
Some people were beginning to feel “crowded”. They were simply not used to the new population density.
The Government helped set up the Oregon Trail.
Manifest Destiny; many Americans believed that it was their right and duty to populate all of America.
If you wanted land in the east, you had to buy it. In the West, a Pre-emption Bill applied which meant if you found some land, built a house and worked hard making it in to a farmstead, it was virtually free.
Pull Factors
The first to go across were looking for furs to make money from in the 1820s – 40s. “The Mountain men”
Between 1823 and 1832, new routes were found which allowed wagons and boats to get further West, through the mountain ranges. All the time, the trails to get to the West were hard, but they were getting easier and more people felt it was worth the risk.
The discovery of gold in 1848 led to a new influx of travellers hoping to make money.
The land in Oregon was supposed to be excellent for farming, in California for growing fruit.
Some wanted to spread Christianity.
Some, such as the Mormons, were hoping to escape religious persecution.

6. What problems did people face travelling?
The journey was long – 3800km to California.
It would take around 9 months.
Getting prepared could be expensive, buying or making a “Prairie Schooner” (a wagon), a horse or ox, enough food and water, carrying spare parts, medical supplies, cooking equipment as well as what possessions were seen as important.
Money would also be needed on the journey for fresh supplies, repairs, Indian guides and sometimes Indian transport across rivers.
The whole family would live out of the wagon.
The weather across the Great Plains and across the Rocky Mountains could be very harsh.
Travellers risked diseases such as cholera, which killed 5000 in 1848.
The Donnor Party 1846
One disastrous example of a trek West was the Donnor Party. More people were going to Oregon because it was a shorter journey, so a shorter route to California needed to be found.
A man called Hastings examined maps and reports and thought he had found a route which went past the Great Salt Lake and was hundreds of km shorter. He organised a party lead by the Donnor brothers. 88 people went with them.
The route turned out to be bad. They had to spend days moving boulders and leave 300 cattle and 4 wagons behind in order to cross the Salt Lake Desert. This was taking far too long and they were running out of food.
In October they managed to get food supplies thanks to some Indian guides and started to climb the mountains.
Disaster struck again, when the snow came a month early. Many froze or starved to death and the survivors ate the dead (in a respectful and organised way), including killing the 2 Indian guides who refused to eat human flesh.
The survivors of the party were rescued in February 1847.

7. Why was the west so important for the Mormons?
Why were they so unpopular in the East?
Joseph Smith was a very charismatic man who started the Mormon movement in America in 1820.
His book, the Book of Mormon, told a very different story from the Bible.
Other Christians attacked him and his followers.
He moved everyone to a “City of God” called Kirtland in Ohio.
The city contained lots of Mormons and was very successful, including having excellent banks.
When non-Mormon investors lost their savings in 1837, they blamed the Mormons and chased them out of Kirtland.
This religious hatred followed them wherever they moved to in the East.
They kept themselves to themselves which made people suspicious.
They were very successful in business, which made people jealous.
The men were allowed more than one wife. (polygamy) Even some Mormons did not like this.
Smith was arrested for destroying printing presses so that negative stories of his polygamy could not be published.
Once non-Mormons heard of his belief in polygamy, a mob went and shot Smith whilst he was in jail.
Other mobs roamed the countryside, hunting down Mormons.
Why did they succeed in the West?
Brigham Young, their new Leader, decided they’d all move West and set up a city at the Great Salt Lake in It was very isolated, and still in the hands of Mexico, not the US government.
The move of started in 1846 and was very well organised, more like an army.
The companies in the first section built “rest stations” or camps for the people following to use. They even planted crops and set up blacksmith’s shops.
The settlement which became Salt Lake City was very well organised by Young. Everyone worked according to their skills and was given the right amount of land to do so. There was to be no “ownership”.
The reason Young could get people to do this without argument or giving up was because he had complete control – they did what he said or risked displeasing God.
After the US beat Mexico in a war in 1848, they agreed to make the state of Utah, with some non-Mormons as officials but essentially with Young in charge.
The Mormons were very good at attracting new followers, over from England alone, and set up more cities.

8. How did the US Government start to control Indian lives?
The Permanent Indian Frontier 1832
The Bureau for Indian Affairs, established in 1832.
It decided that the Great Plains should be a reservation for all Indian tribes
On the reservation they could freely roam and hunt.
The 95th meridian became the ‘Permanent Indian Frontier’
By 1840, all tribes had been moved to the west of this line.

9. How did the US Government start to control Indian lives?
However, this settlement soon came under threat:
More Americans started to travel West.
It was replaced by the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1851 which gave tribes specific land and $ a year if they promised not to attack travellers. This meant travellers could travel more safely and that the Indians had even more limited lands.
This was similar to the 1851 Indian Appropriations Act which gave funds to move western tribes onto reservations were protected and enclosed by the US government. These were to “protect” the Native Americans from the growing encroachment of whites moving West.
Gold discovered in the Rockies in 1859 led to more travellers, who ignored the treaty and went through the Indian lands, so the Indians attacked.
This prompted the Fort Wise Treaty of 1861, putting Indians on even smaller reservations. They refused to accept this and went on the warpath.

10. What was life like for those arriving in the West?
Early gold mining
By 1849 when most people arrived, they found most of the good gold mining sites were taken.
They took back-breaking jobs for the mines earning as little as $3 a day.
This work might be scraping gold out of dried up stream beds using knives and spoons, or in streams sieving for gold.
The first Mining towns
Miners lived in shacks made of blankets draped over frames.
Food and hygiene were poor – scurvy, dysentery other diseases were common.
The streets and the floors of the shacks were mud, which was often very wet.
On their days off, many miners spent the whole day in a saloon bar, drinking and gambling.
Shopkeepers charged high prices because they knew the miners had no other choice.
Prostitution was common.
Law and Order
Crimes included “claim jumping” as well as normal crimes committed by desperate people.
There were no government officers to protect them, so people took law and order in to their own hands.
Sheriffs, courts and juries were set up to keep the “miner’s code”
Trials were often short and brutal.
Many (but not all) mining towns were racist, driving away blacks, Mexicans, Chinese etc. and killing Indians. Racial tensions grew all of the time.
In some towns there were “vigilante” groups who kept their own version of law. They were too far away for the US authorities to really do anything about.
Territories were established to try to keep law an order. These eventually developed in to states.
Later gold mining
By 1852 the surface gold was all gone. Many people went home.
Mines had to be dug and often explosives and heavy machinery used. This attracted more wealthy miners, who brought their families and invested.
Better, more permeant towns were set up.
This meant lawyers, doctors, teachers, farmers etc. were all needed to support the new towns.

11. What was law like in the West?
Why was there lawlessness and violence?
Geography – the West was far away and transport was slow.
Money – there were lots of people hoping to make money which meant there was lots to argue about, including land, mining and farming rights as well as the usual property and theft.
Attitudes – most Westerners kept a gun for protection. This meant many arguments ended in a shooting, which, provided the other man was armed, was perfectly legal.
There were lots of ethnic minorities who clashed with each other. This was made worse after the Civil War when old enemies were in the same areas. Just because the war was over did not mean they’d forgiven each other.
The US government did not have the time to invest in training and employing Police forces for the new towns because they sprang up too quickly.
The US government also did not really want to “waste” money on training such people.
As people spread to the Plains, these problems followed them.

12. Who were the law-breakers?
Billy the Kid
William Henry McCarty, better known as Billy the Kid, was one of the most famous gangsters. His life of crime started as early as 16, when he fled from the law in his home town and started stealing cattle. In 1877 he was arrested and sent to prison for killing Frank Cahill. He escaped and went to work for his friend, John Tunstall.
Tunstall was murdered, and Kid vowed revenge and joined the “Regulators”. The group killed at least 5 men they thought were involved with Tunstall’s murder. Although he was arrested and imprisoned again in 1878 for these crimes, he escaped and once again turned to cattle rustling, this time in Lincoln County.
In 1880, Sheriff Pat Garret tracked him down and put him back in prison. This time, Kid’s escape was bloody, killing two guards. Garret hunted him down and killed him in a shoot-out in 1881.
Wyatt Earp
Earp was elected constable of Lamar in Missouri in 1870, but was later sacked for horse theft. He escaped trial and hunted buffalo in Kansas before taking another job as a lawman and marrying the local prostitute in Wichita.
He was again sacked, this time for fighting, but within a few months had manage to get himself another job as deputy marshal in Dodge City. From here he joined the “family” business with his brothers in Arizona, basically employing positions of power and using them to organise crime.
There, a three-way fight started with two families called McLaurey and Clantons, over horse stealing, and the Sherriff over crime and the fact that Wyatt was after his wife.
There was a legendary shoot-out at OK Corral for 30 seconds involving the three families and 3 of the 4 Earp brothers were the only survivors. The Sherriff arrested all three, however, they escaped charge because the judge was a relative.
After more crime, fall-outs and shootings, only Wyatt survived in to the 20th century.
His story was published by an interviewer in His sister-in-law dismissed it as a “pack of lies”.
Belle Starr
Not all gangsters were men. Belle Starr was one of several notorious female law breakers. She lived with, and often married, a whole string of gangster as well as an Indian called Sam Starr. She planned and carried out robberies, rustled cattle and stole horses. She was the first woman in the West to be charged with horse theft and served a five year prison sentence. Her life ended messily when she was shot in the back, aged 41.
William Tilghman
Not all lawmen were corrupt. Men like Tilghman worked hard to make law and order work in the new states. Apart from annoying Indians by killing buffalo, he was a successful sherriff and later marshal of Dodge City, only ever killing two men in shoot outs and was largely responsible for wiping out organised crime in Oklahoma.

13. Were the problems of law and order solved after the 1850s?
Sheriffs
Were elected by the people of the county for two years. Often they had to cover a wide area which made them less effective at deterring crime or catching criminals.
Vigilante Justice
In Bannack, Montana, a vigilante group worked out that the reason the town was still being harassed by a gang was that their leader was their Sheriff. In 1865 he was captured, tried and lynched by vigilantes.
Vigilante justice continued until the turn of the century.
The Texas Rangers
Established in 1820, the Texas Rangers were a small army of lawmen employed to enforce the law in texas. There were also rangers in some other states/territories, such as Arizona.
Characters
Characters like Wyatt Earp were appointed to positions of power but were corrupt.
The Pinkerton Detective Agency
Was a private company often hired by banks, railway and stagecoach companies to protect them. Sometimes they would be paid to catch particular outlaws.. One example is the James-Younger gang.
US Marshalls
Were appointed by the president to oversee a state or territory. The marshals appointed deputies who worked on a more local level.
Judges
Judges were appointed by the president to try cases. There were two or three in each state or territory. This was too few and meant many waited a long time in prison before a trial; sometimes they were lynched before a trial could take place.
Town Marshals
These were man appointed by the people of the town, usually annually, to keep law and order.
Few men made a career out of being a lawman because it was badly paid and very dangerous. There was no vetting system, so the quality of lawmen ranged from excellent, to bad, to actually being criminals themselves.