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Welcome to Our Generation USA!
Below, we cover
Best of the (Old) West
including not only Old West Icons and Events along with Western Expansion by Settlers ("Go West, Young Man!"), but also the many television shows and movies primarily covering the Old West of the 1800s
The Old West, including the following Lists about the Old West: YouTube Videos Below:
Top: (L) Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke; (R) Rooster Cogburn, True Grit
Center: (L) The Man With No Name, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; (R) Pike Bishop, The Wild Bunch
Bottom: Butch Cassidy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
- YouTube Video about the Best of the Gunsmoke Television Series
- YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "True Grit" (1969)
- YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"
Top: (L) Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke; (R) Rooster Cogburn, True Grit
Center: (L) The Man With No Name, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; (R) Pike Bishop, The Wild Bunch
Bottom: Butch Cassidy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Western is a genre of various arts which tell stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in the American Old West, often centering on the life of a nomadic cowboy or gunfighter armed with a revolver and a rifle who rides a horse.
Cowboys and gunslingers typically wear Stetson hats, bandannas, spurs, cowboy boots and buckskins.
Recurring characters include the aforementioned cowboys, Native Americans, bandits, lawmen, bounty hunters, outlaws, soldiers (especially mounted cavalry, such as buffalo soldiers), and settlers (farmers, ranchers, and townsfolk).
The ambience is usually punctuated with a Western music score, including American and Mexican folk music such as country, Native American music, New Mexico music, and rancheras.
Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape of deserts and mountains. Often, the vast landscape plays an important role, presenting a "...mythic vision of the plains and deserts of the American West".
Specific settings include ranches, small frontier towns, saloons, railways and isolated military forts of the Wild West.
Common plots include:
- The construction of a railroad or a telegraph line on the wild frontier.
- Ranchers protecting their family ranch from rustlers or large landowners or who build a ranch empire.
- Revenge stories, which hinge on the chase and pursuit by someone who has been wronged.
- Stories about cavalry fighting Native Americans.
- Outlaw gang plots.
- Stories about a lawman or bounty hunter tracking down his quarry.
Many Westerns use a stock plot of depicting a crime, then showing the pursuit of the wrongdoer, ending in revenge and retribution, which is often dispensed through a shootout or quick-draw duel.
The Western was the most popular Hollywood genre from the early 20th century to the 1960s. Western films first became well-attended in the 1930s. John Ford's landmark Western adventure Stagecoach became one of the biggest hits in 1939 and it made John Wayne a mainstream screen star.
Westerns were very popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the most acclaimed Westerns were released during this time, including High Noon (1952), Shane (1953), The Searchers (1956), and The Wild Bunch (1969).
Classic Westerns such as these have been the inspiration for various films about Western-type characters in contemporary settings, such as Junior Bonner (1972), set in the 1970s, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005), set in the 21st century.
Western Themes:
The Western genre sometimes portrays the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature in the name of civilization or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original, Native American, inhabitants of the frontier.
The Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor and personal, direct or private justice–"frontier justice"–dispensed by gunfights. These honor codes are often played out through depictions of feuds or individuals seeking personal revenge or retribution against someone who has wronged them (e.g., True Grit has revenge and retribution as its main themes).
This Western depiction of personal justice contrasts sharply with justice systems organized around rationalistic, abstract law that exist in cities, in which social order is maintained predominately through relatively impersonal institutions such as courtrooms.
The popular perception of the Western is a story that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter. A showdown or duel at high noon featuring two or more gunfighters is a stereotypical scene in the popular conception of Westerns.
In some ways, such protagonists may be considered the literary descendants of the knight errant which stood at the center of earlier extensive genres such as the Arthurian Romances.
Like the cowboy or gunfighter of the Western, the knight errant of the earlier European tales and poetry was wandering from place to place on his horse, fighting villains of various kinds and bound to no fixed social structures but only to his own innate code of honor. And like knights errant, the heroes of Westerns frequently rescue damsels in distress.
Similarly, the wandering protagonists of Westerns share many characteristics with the ronin in modern Japanese culture.
The Western typically takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, although some notable examples (e.g. the later Westerns of John Ford or Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, about an old hired killer) are more morally ambiguous. Westerns often stress the harshness and isolation of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape.
Western films generally have specific settings such as isolated ranches, Native American villages, or small frontier towns with a saloon. Often times, these settings appear deserted and without much structure. Apart from the wilderness, it is usually the saloon that emphasizes that this is the Wild West: it is the place to go for music (raucous piano playing), women (often prostitutes), gambling (draw poker or five card stud), drinking (beer or whiskey), brawling and shooting.
In some Westerns, where civilization has arrived, the town has a church, a general store, a bank and a school; in others, where frontier rules still hold sway, it is, as Sergio Leone said, "where life has no value".
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about The Old West:
- Film
- Characteristics
- Subgenres
- Classical Western
- Acid Western
- Charro, Cabrito or Chili Westerns
- Comedy Western
- Contemporary Western
- Electric Western
- Epic Western
- Euro-Western
- Fantasy Western
- Florida Western
- Horror Western
- Curry Westerns and Indo Westerns
- Martial arts Western (Wuxia Western)
- Meat pie Western
- Northwestern
- Ostern
- Pornographic Western
- Revisionist Western
- Science fiction Western
- Space Western
- Spaghetti Western
- Weird Western
- Genre studies
- Influences
- Literature
- Television
- Visual art
- Other media
- See also:
- 5-in-1 Blank Cartridges
- AFI'S 10 Top 10
- Boss of the plains
- Cowboy
- Dime Western
- Golden Boot Awards
- History of Movie Ranches
- History of United States continental expansion
- Native American History
- Native American history of California
- Sombrero
- TV Western
- List of film genres
- List of genres
- List of Western computer and video games
- List of Western fiction authors
- Western lifestyle
- Western Writers of America
- Earl W. Bascom
- Frederic Remington
- Charles Russell
- 500 Classic Western Films on DVD
- Most Popular Westerns at Internet Movie Database
- Western Writers of America website
- The Western, St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, 2002
- I Watch Westerns, Ludwig von Mises Institute
- Film Festival for the Western Genre website
The Wild West: the American Frontier
YouTube Video: Top 5 Old West Facts by WatchMojo
Pictured below: Women of the Wild West
YouTube Video: Top 5 Old West Facts by WatchMojo
Pictured below: Women of the Wild West
The American frontier comprises the geography, history, folklore, and cultural expression of life in the forward wave of American expansion that began with English colonial settlements in the early 17th century and ended with the admission of the last mainland territories as states in 1912.
"Frontier" refers to a contrasting region at the edge of a European–American line of settlement. American historians cover multiple frontiers but the folklore is focused primarily on the conquest and settlement of Native American lands west of the Mississippi River, in what is now the Midwest, Texas, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Southwest, and the West Coast.
In 19th- and early 20th-century media, enormous popular attention was focused on the Western United States in the second half of the 19th century, a period sometimes called the "Old West" or the "Wild West".
Such media typically exaggerated the romance, anarchy, and chaotic violence of the period for greater dramatic effect. This eventually inspired the Western genre of film, which spilled over into comic books, and children's toys, games and costumes.
This era of massive migration and settlement was particularly encouraged by President Thomas Jefferson following the Louisiana Purchase, giving rise to the expansionist philosophy known as "Manifest destiny".
As defined by Hine and Faragher, "frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the land, the development of markets, and the formation of states." They explain, "It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging of peoples and cultures that gave birth and continuing life to America."
Through treaties with foreign nations and native tribes; political compromise; military conquest; establishment of law and order; the building of farms, ranches, and towns; the marking of trails and digging of mines; and the pulling in of great migrations of foreigners, the United States expanded from coast to coast, fulfilling the dreams of Manifest Destiny.
Historian Frederick Jackson Turner in his "Frontier Thesis" (1893) theorized that the frontier was a process that transformed Europeans into a new people, the Americans, whose values focused on equality, democracy, and optimism, as well as individualism, self-reliance, and even violence. Thus, Turner's Frontier Thesis proclaimed the westward frontier to be the defining process of American history.
As the American frontier passed into history, the myths of the West in fiction and film took a firm hold in the imagination of Americans and foreigners alike. In David Murdoch's view, America is "exceptional" in choosing its iconic self-image: "No other nation has taken a time and place from its past and produced a construct of the imagination equal to America's creation of the West."
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Wild West
"Frontier" refers to a contrasting region at the edge of a European–American line of settlement. American historians cover multiple frontiers but the folklore is focused primarily on the conquest and settlement of Native American lands west of the Mississippi River, in what is now the Midwest, Texas, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Southwest, and the West Coast.
In 19th- and early 20th-century media, enormous popular attention was focused on the Western United States in the second half of the 19th century, a period sometimes called the "Old West" or the "Wild West".
Such media typically exaggerated the romance, anarchy, and chaotic violence of the period for greater dramatic effect. This eventually inspired the Western genre of film, which spilled over into comic books, and children's toys, games and costumes.
This era of massive migration and settlement was particularly encouraged by President Thomas Jefferson following the Louisiana Purchase, giving rise to the expansionist philosophy known as "Manifest destiny".
As defined by Hine and Faragher, "frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the land, the development of markets, and the formation of states." They explain, "It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging of peoples and cultures that gave birth and continuing life to America."
Through treaties with foreign nations and native tribes; political compromise; military conquest; establishment of law and order; the building of farms, ranches, and towns; the marking of trails and digging of mines; and the pulling in of great migrations of foreigners, the United States expanded from coast to coast, fulfilling the dreams of Manifest Destiny.
Historian Frederick Jackson Turner in his "Frontier Thesis" (1893) theorized that the frontier was a process that transformed Europeans into a new people, the Americans, whose values focused on equality, democracy, and optimism, as well as individualism, self-reliance, and even violence. Thus, Turner's Frontier Thesis proclaimed the westward frontier to be the defining process of American history.
As the American frontier passed into history, the myths of the West in fiction and film took a firm hold in the imagination of Americans and foreigners alike. In David Murdoch's view, America is "exceptional" in choosing its iconic self-image: "No other nation has taken a time and place from its past and produced a construct of the imagination equal to America's creation of the West."
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Wild West
- Terms "West" and "Frontier"
- Colonial frontier
- New nation
- The Antebellum West
- The Civil War in the West
- The Postbellum West
- Indian Wars
- Social history
- Conservation and environmentalism
- American frontier in popular culture
- End of the frontier
- Historiography
- See also:
- American frontier portal
- General
- Timeline of the American Old West
- Territories of the United States.
- Indian massacre, list of massacres of Indians by whites and vice versa.
- National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum: museum and art gallery, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, housing one of the largest collections in the world of Western, American cowboy, American rodeo, and American Indian art, artifacts, and archival materials.
- Rodeo: demonstration of cattle wrangling skills.
- The Oregon-California Trails Association preserves, protects and shares the histories of emigrants who followed these trails westward.
- Wanted poster: a poster, popular in mythic scenes of the west, let the public know of criminals whom authorities wish to apprehend.
- Western lifestyle
- Wild West Shows: a following of the wild west shows of the American frontier.
- The West As America.
- March (territorial entity) Medieval European term with some similarities
- People:
- List of American Old West outlaws: list of known outlaws and gunfighters of the American frontier popularly known as the "Wild West".
- List of cowboys and cowgirls
- Schoolmarm: A female teacher that usually works in a one-room schoolhouse
- List of Western lawmen: list of notable law enforcement officials of the American frontier. They occupied positions as sheriff, marshal, Texas Rangers, and others.
- Gunfighter
- Category:Gunslingers of the American Old West
- Category:Lawmen of the American Old West
- Category:Outlaws of the American Old West
- Study:
- Fiction:
- Chris Enss: author of historical nonfiction that documents the forgotten women of the Old West.
- Zane Grey: author of many popular novels on the Old West
- Karl May: best selling German writer of all time, noted chiefly for wild west books set in the American West.
- Winnetou: American-Indian hero of several novels written by Karl May.
- Games:
- Boot Hill: One of the early alternative RPGs from TSR and using a similar system to Dungeons & Dragons.
- Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier: an award-winning alternate history western role-playing gaming.
- Deadlands: an alternate history western horror role-playing game.
- Dust Devils: a western role-playing game modeled after Clint Eastwood films and similar darker Westerns.
- The Red Dead series takes place in the days of the Wild West. Revolver focuses on the prime of the American frontier, while its spiritual successors Redemption and Redemption II focus on the waning years of the Western frontier and the introduction of industrialization to the western United States.
- List of Western computer and video games: a list of computer and video games patterned after Westerns.
- Culture:
- History:
- Autry National Center of the American West – Los Angeles, California
- American West History
- New Perspectives on 'The West'. The West Film Project, WETA-TV, 2001
- Fort Dodge, Kansas History by Ida Ellen Rath, 1964 w/ photos
- Old West Kansas
- Tombstone Arizona History
- "The American West", BBC Radio 4 discussion with Frank McLynn, Jenni Calder and Christopher Frayling (In Our Time, June 13, 2002)
- Media:
- The Frontier: A Frontier Town Three Months Old by Ward Platt—1908 book on the real West. Free to read and full text search.
- 161 photographs of frontier geography and personalities; these are pre-1923 and out of copyright
The Gateway Arch: "Gateway to the West" Pictured below: "Visiting the Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis"
The Gateway Arch is a 630-foot (192 m) monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States.
Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch, and the tallest man-made monument in the Western Hemisphere, and Missouri's tallest accessible building.
Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States, and officially dedicated to "the American people," it is the centerpiece of the Gateway Arch National Park and has become an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, as well as a popular tourist destination.
The Arch was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in 1947; construction began on February 12, 1963, and was completed on October 28, 1965, for $13 million (equivalent to $77.5 million in 2018).
The monument opened to the public on June 10, 1967. It is located at the site of St. Louis's founding on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Gateway Arch:
Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch, and the tallest man-made monument in the Western Hemisphere, and Missouri's tallest accessible building.
Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States, and officially dedicated to "the American people," it is the centerpiece of the Gateway Arch National Park and has become an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, as well as a popular tourist destination.
The Arch was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in 1947; construction began on February 12, 1963, and was completed on October 28, 1965, for $13 million (equivalent to $77.5 million in 2018).
The monument opened to the public on June 10, 1967. It is located at the site of St. Louis's founding on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Gateway Arch:
- Historical background
- Construction
- Characteristics
- Public access
- Symbolism and culture
- Maintenance
- See also:
Custer's Last Stand
YouTube Video: Little Big Horn full version
Pictured below: What Really Happened at Custer’s Last Stand?
YouTube Video: Little Big Horn full version
Pictured below: What Really Happened at Custer’s Last Stand?
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army.
The battle, which resulted in the defeat of US forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory.
The fight was an overwhelming victory for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, who were led by several major war leaders, including Crazy Horse and Chief Gall, and had been inspired by the visions of Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake).
The US 7th Cavalry, including the Custer Battalion, a force of 700 men led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, suffered a major defeat. Five of the 7th Cavalry's 12 companies were annihilated and Custer was killed, as were two of his brothers, a nephew and a brother-in-law. The total US casualty count included 268 dead and 55 severely wounded (six died later from their wounds), including four Crow Indian scouts and at least two Arikara Indian scouts.
Public response to the Great Sioux War varied in the immediate aftermath of the battle. Custer's widow soon worked to burnish her husband's memory, and during the following decades Custer and his troops came to be considered iconic, even heroic, figures in American history, a status that lasted into the 1960s. The battle, and Custer's actions in particular, have been studied extensively by historians.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "The Battle of the Little Bighorn:
The battle, which resulted in the defeat of US forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory.
The fight was an overwhelming victory for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, who were led by several major war leaders, including Crazy Horse and Chief Gall, and had been inspired by the visions of Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake).
The US 7th Cavalry, including the Custer Battalion, a force of 700 men led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, suffered a major defeat. Five of the 7th Cavalry's 12 companies were annihilated and Custer was killed, as were two of his brothers, a nephew and a brother-in-law. The total US casualty count included 268 dead and 55 severely wounded (six died later from their wounds), including four Crow Indian scouts and at least two Arikara Indian scouts.
Public response to the Great Sioux War varied in the immediate aftermath of the battle. Custer's widow soon worked to burnish her husband's memory, and during the following decades Custer and his troops came to be considered iconic, even heroic, figures in American history, a status that lasted into the 1960s. The battle, and Custer's actions in particular, have been studied extensively by historians.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "The Battle of the Little Bighorn:
- Background
- Battle including Last stand
- Aftermath
- Participants
- Order of battle
- Casualties
- Legacy
- Controversies
- Weapons
- Survivor claims
- Battlefield preservation
- In popular culture
- See also:
- Battle of the Little Bighorn reenactment
- Battle of the Rosebud
- St. Clair's Defeat, an earlier overwhelming defeat of the U.S. military by Native Americans
- Account of Custer's fight on Little Bighorn, MSS SC 860 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University
- Custer Battlefield Museum, Garryowen, Montana
- Map of Battle of Little Bighorn, Part III.
- Map of Battle of Little Bighorn, Part IV. Indians.
- Map of Battle of Little Bighorn, Part V.
- Map of Battle of Little Bighorn, Part VI.
- Map of Battle of Little Bighorn, Part VII. Custer's Last Stand.
- Map of Indian battles and skirmishes after the Battle of Little Bighorn. 1876–1881.
- Battle field related:
- Portals
- The Little Big Horn Associates – includes a bibliography and articles, as well as many general and commercial links
- custerwest.org – site for traditional scholarship with sources and videos
- First-person accounts
- The Battle of Little Bighorn: An Eyewitness Account by the Lakota Chief Red Horse
- An eyewitness account by Tantanka Iyotake (Lakota Chief Sitting Bull), New York Times archive pdf.
- Complete transcript of the Reno Court of Inquiry
- 100 Voices: Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Arikara and American eyewitness accounts of the Battle of the Little Bighorn
- Lists of participants
- Friends Of The Little Bighorn Battlefield – Battle information, including names of 7th Cavalry soldiers and warriors who fought in the battle.
- Muster Rolls of 7th U.S. Cavalry, June 25, 1876
- Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association
- Kenneth M. Hammer Collection on Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Harold G. Andersen Library, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater)
- Charles Kuhlman collection on the Battle of the Little Big Horn, MSS 1401 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
- "Custer's Last Stand" — An American Experience Documentary
- Verdict at the Little Bighorn — The American Surveyor (October 2009)
Battle of the Alamo (1836)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Battle of the Alamo" (1960)
Pictured below: Battle of the Alamo (click here for slideshow)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Battle of the Alamo" (1960)
Pictured below: Battle of the Alamo (click here for slideshow)
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar (modern-day San Antonio, Texas, United States), killing the Texas defenders.
Santa Anna's cruelty during the battle inspired many Texans—both Texas settlers and adventurers from the United States—to join the Texas Army. Buoyed by a desire for revenge, the Texans defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, ending the revolution.
Several months previously, Texans had driven all Mexican troops out of Mexican Texas. About 100 Texans were then garrisoned at the Alamo. The Texan force grew slightly with the arrival of reinforcements led by eventual Alamo co-commanders James Bowie and William B. Travis.
On February 23, approximately 1,500 Mexicans marched into San Antonio de Béxar as the first step in a campaign to retake Texas. For the next 10 days, the two armies engaged in several skirmishes with minimal casualties. Aware that his garrison could not withstand an attack by such a large force, Travis wrote multiple letters pleading for more men and supplies, but the Texans were reinforced by fewer than 100 men.
In the early morning hours of March 6, the Mexican Army advanced on the Alamo. After repelling two attacks, the Texans were unable to fend off a third attack. As Mexican soldiers scaled the walls, most of the Texan soldiers withdrew into interior buildings. Defenders unable to reach these points were slain by the Mexican cavalry as they attempted to escape.
Between five and seven Texans may have surrendered; if so, they were quickly executed. Most eyewitness accounts reported between 182 and 257 Texans died, while most historians of the Alamo agree that around 600 Mexicans were killed or wounded.
Several noncombatants were sent to Gonzales to spread word of the Texan defeat. The news sparked both a strong rush to join the Texan army and a panic, known as "The Runaway Scrape", in which the Texian army, most settlers, and the new Republic of Texas government fled eastward toward the United States ahead of the advancing Mexican Army.
Within Mexico, the battle has often been overshadowed by events from the Mexican–American War of 1846–48. In 19th-century Texas, the Alamo complex gradually became known as a battle site rather than a former mission. The Texas Legislature purchased the land and buildings in the early part of the 20th century and designated the Alamo chapel as an official Texas State Shrine.
The Alamo has been the subject of numerous non-fiction works beginning in 1843. Most Americans, however, are more familiar with the myths and legends spread by many of the movie and television adaptations, including the 1950s Disney mini-series Davy Crockett and John Wayne's 1960 film The Alamo.
Click on the blue hyperlinks below for more about the Battle of the Alamo:
Santa Anna's cruelty during the battle inspired many Texans—both Texas settlers and adventurers from the United States—to join the Texas Army. Buoyed by a desire for revenge, the Texans defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, ending the revolution.
Several months previously, Texans had driven all Mexican troops out of Mexican Texas. About 100 Texans were then garrisoned at the Alamo. The Texan force grew slightly with the arrival of reinforcements led by eventual Alamo co-commanders James Bowie and William B. Travis.
On February 23, approximately 1,500 Mexicans marched into San Antonio de Béxar as the first step in a campaign to retake Texas. For the next 10 days, the two armies engaged in several skirmishes with minimal casualties. Aware that his garrison could not withstand an attack by such a large force, Travis wrote multiple letters pleading for more men and supplies, but the Texans were reinforced by fewer than 100 men.
In the early morning hours of March 6, the Mexican Army advanced on the Alamo. After repelling two attacks, the Texans were unable to fend off a third attack. As Mexican soldiers scaled the walls, most of the Texan soldiers withdrew into interior buildings. Defenders unable to reach these points were slain by the Mexican cavalry as they attempted to escape.
Between five and seven Texans may have surrendered; if so, they were quickly executed. Most eyewitness accounts reported between 182 and 257 Texans died, while most historians of the Alamo agree that around 600 Mexicans were killed or wounded.
Several noncombatants were sent to Gonzales to spread word of the Texan defeat. The news sparked both a strong rush to join the Texan army and a panic, known as "The Runaway Scrape", in which the Texian army, most settlers, and the new Republic of Texas government fled eastward toward the United States ahead of the advancing Mexican Army.
Within Mexico, the battle has often been overshadowed by events from the Mexican–American War of 1846–48. In 19th-century Texas, the Alamo complex gradually became known as a battle site rather than a former mission. The Texas Legislature purchased the land and buildings in the early part of the 20th century and designated the Alamo chapel as an official Texas State Shrine.
The Alamo has been the subject of numerous non-fiction works beginning in 1843. Most Americans, however, are more familiar with the myths and legends spread by many of the movie and television adaptations, including the 1950s Disney mini-series Davy Crockett and John Wayne's 1960 film The Alamo.
Click on the blue hyperlinks below for more about the Battle of the Alamo:
Wyatt Earp, Lawman (1848-1929) and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1881)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral featuring Wyatt Earp (1957)
Pictured below: (L) Early photo of Wyatt Earp; (R) Scene from the movie “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (1957)
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp ("Wyatt Earp": March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American Old West lawman and gambler in Cochise County, Arizona Territory, and a deputy marshal in Tombstone. He worked in a wide variety of trades throughout his life and took part in the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cochise County Cowboys.
Earp is often erroneously regarded as the central figure in the shootout, although his brother Virgil was Tombstone city marshal and deputy U.S. marshal that day and had far more experience as a sheriff, constable, marshal, and soldier in combat.
Earp was also a professional gambler, teamster, and buffalo hunter, and he owned several saloons, maintained a brothel, mined for silver and gold, and refereed boxing matches. He spent his early life in Pella, Iowa.
In 1870, Earp married Urilla Sutherland who contracted typhoid fever and died shortly before their first child was to be born. During the next two years, Earp was arrested for stealing a horse, escaped from jail, and was sued twice. He was arrested and fined three times in 1872 for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame". His third arrest was described at length in the Daily Transcript, which referred to him as an "old offender" and nicknamed him the "Peoria Bummer", another name for loafer or vagrant.
By 1874, he arrived in the boomtown of Wichita, Kansas where his reputed wife opened a brothel. On April 21, 1875, he was appointed to the Wichita police force and developed a solid reputation as a lawman, but he was fined and dismissed from the force after getting into a fistfight with a political opponent of his boss.
Earp immediately left Wichita, following his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas where he became an assistant city marshal. In the winter of 1878, he went to Texas to track down an outlaw, and he met John "Doc" Holliday whom Earp credited with saving his life.
Earp moved constantly throughout his life from one boomtown to another. He left Dodge City in 1879 and moved with brothers James and Virgil to Tombstone, where a silver boom was underway.
The Earps clashed with an informal community of outlaws known as the Cowboys. Wyatt, Virgil, and their younger brother Morgan held various law-enforcement positions which put them in conflict with Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, Ike Clanton, and Billy Clanton who threatened to kill the Earps on several occasions.
The conflict escalated over the next year, culminating in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881 in which the Earps and Doc Holliday killed three of the Cowboys. In the next five months, Virgil was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan was assassinated.
Wyatt, Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, and others formed a federal posse which killed three of the Cowboys whom they thought responsible. Wyatt was never wounded in any of the gunfights, unlike his brothers Virgil and Morgan or his friend Doc Holliday, which only added to his mystique after his death.
Earp was a lifelong gambler and was always looking for a quick way to make money. After leaving Tombstone, he went to San Francisco where he reunited with Josephine Earp and she became his common-law wife. They joined a gold rush to Eagle City, Idaho where they owned mining interests and a saloon. They left there to race horses and open a saloon during a real estate boom in San Diego, California.
Back in San Francisco, Wyatt raced horses again, but his reputation suffered irreparably when he refereed the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey boxing match and called a foul which led many to believe that he fixed the fight. They moved briefly to Yuma, Arizona before joining the Nome Gold Rush in 1899.
Earp and Charlie Hoxie paid $1,500 (about $51,000 in 2018) for a liquor license to open a two-story saloon called the Dexter and made an estimated $80,000 (about $2 million in 2017 dollars). The couple then left Alaska and opened another saloon in Tonopah, Nevada, the site of a new gold find.
Around 1911, Earp began working several mining claims in Vidal, California, retiring in the hot summers with Josephine to Los Angeles. He made friends among early Western actors in Hollywood and tried to get his story told, but he was only portrayed very briefly in one film produced during his lifetime: Wild Bill Hickok (1923).
Click here for more about Wyatt Earp.
___________________________________________________________________________
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a 30-second shootout between lawmen and members of a loosely organized group of outlaws called the Cowboys that took place at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. It is generally regarded as the most famous shootout in the history of the American Wild West.
The gunfight was the result of a long-simmering feud, with Cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury on one side and town Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Policeman Morgan Earp, Special Policeman Wyatt Earp (above), and temporary policeman Doc Holliday on the other side.
All three Earp brothers had been the target of repeated death threats made by the Cowboys, who objected to the Earps' interference in their illegal activities. The four law men faced five Cowboys. Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were killed. Ike Clanton claimed that he was unarmed and ran from the fight, along with Billy Claiborne and Wes Fuller. Virgil, Morgan, and Doc Holliday were wounded, but Wyatt Earp was unharmed.
The shootout has come to represent a period of the American Old West when the frontier was virtually an open range for outlaws, largely unopposed by law enforcement officers who were spread thin over vast territories.
The gunfight was not well known to the American public until 1931, when Stuart Lake published the initially well-received biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal two years after Earp's death. The book was the basis for the 1946 film My Darling Clementine, directed by John Ford, and the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, after which the shootout became known by that name.
Since then, the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books, and has become an archetype for much of the popular imagery associated with the Old West.
Despite its name, the gunfight did not take place within or next to the O.K. Corral, which fronted Allen Street and had a rear entrance lined with horse stalls on Fremont Street. The shootout actually took place in a narrow lot on the side of C. S. Fly's Photographic Studio on Fremont Street, six doors west of the O.K. Corral's rear entrance.
Some members of the two opposing parties were initially only about 6 feet (1.8 m) apart. About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds. Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were killed. Ike Clanton subsequently filed murder charges against the Earps and Doc Holliday.
The lawmen were exonerated by a local justice of the peace after a 30-day preliminary hearing and then by a local grand jury.
Click here for more about the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral".
Earp is often erroneously regarded as the central figure in the shootout, although his brother Virgil was Tombstone city marshal and deputy U.S. marshal that day and had far more experience as a sheriff, constable, marshal, and soldier in combat.
Earp was also a professional gambler, teamster, and buffalo hunter, and he owned several saloons, maintained a brothel, mined for silver and gold, and refereed boxing matches. He spent his early life in Pella, Iowa.
In 1870, Earp married Urilla Sutherland who contracted typhoid fever and died shortly before their first child was to be born. During the next two years, Earp was arrested for stealing a horse, escaped from jail, and was sued twice. He was arrested and fined three times in 1872 for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame". His third arrest was described at length in the Daily Transcript, which referred to him as an "old offender" and nicknamed him the "Peoria Bummer", another name for loafer or vagrant.
By 1874, he arrived in the boomtown of Wichita, Kansas where his reputed wife opened a brothel. On April 21, 1875, he was appointed to the Wichita police force and developed a solid reputation as a lawman, but he was fined and dismissed from the force after getting into a fistfight with a political opponent of his boss.
Earp immediately left Wichita, following his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas where he became an assistant city marshal. In the winter of 1878, he went to Texas to track down an outlaw, and he met John "Doc" Holliday whom Earp credited with saving his life.
Earp moved constantly throughout his life from one boomtown to another. He left Dodge City in 1879 and moved with brothers James and Virgil to Tombstone, where a silver boom was underway.
The Earps clashed with an informal community of outlaws known as the Cowboys. Wyatt, Virgil, and their younger brother Morgan held various law-enforcement positions which put them in conflict with Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, Ike Clanton, and Billy Clanton who threatened to kill the Earps on several occasions.
The conflict escalated over the next year, culminating in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881 in which the Earps and Doc Holliday killed three of the Cowboys. In the next five months, Virgil was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan was assassinated.
Wyatt, Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, and others formed a federal posse which killed three of the Cowboys whom they thought responsible. Wyatt was never wounded in any of the gunfights, unlike his brothers Virgil and Morgan or his friend Doc Holliday, which only added to his mystique after his death.
Earp was a lifelong gambler and was always looking for a quick way to make money. After leaving Tombstone, he went to San Francisco where he reunited with Josephine Earp and she became his common-law wife. They joined a gold rush to Eagle City, Idaho where they owned mining interests and a saloon. They left there to race horses and open a saloon during a real estate boom in San Diego, California.
Back in San Francisco, Wyatt raced horses again, but his reputation suffered irreparably when he refereed the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey boxing match and called a foul which led many to believe that he fixed the fight. They moved briefly to Yuma, Arizona before joining the Nome Gold Rush in 1899.
Earp and Charlie Hoxie paid $1,500 (about $51,000 in 2018) for a liquor license to open a two-story saloon called the Dexter and made an estimated $80,000 (about $2 million in 2017 dollars). The couple then left Alaska and opened another saloon in Tonopah, Nevada, the site of a new gold find.
Around 1911, Earp began working several mining claims in Vidal, California, retiring in the hot summers with Josephine to Los Angeles. He made friends among early Western actors in Hollywood and tried to get his story told, but he was only portrayed very briefly in one film produced during his lifetime: Wild Bill Hickok (1923).
Click here for more about Wyatt Earp.
___________________________________________________________________________
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a 30-second shootout between lawmen and members of a loosely organized group of outlaws called the Cowboys that took place at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. It is generally regarded as the most famous shootout in the history of the American Wild West.
The gunfight was the result of a long-simmering feud, with Cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury on one side and town Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Policeman Morgan Earp, Special Policeman Wyatt Earp (above), and temporary policeman Doc Holliday on the other side.
All three Earp brothers had been the target of repeated death threats made by the Cowboys, who objected to the Earps' interference in their illegal activities. The four law men faced five Cowboys. Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were killed. Ike Clanton claimed that he was unarmed and ran from the fight, along with Billy Claiborne and Wes Fuller. Virgil, Morgan, and Doc Holliday were wounded, but Wyatt Earp was unharmed.
The shootout has come to represent a period of the American Old West when the frontier was virtually an open range for outlaws, largely unopposed by law enforcement officers who were spread thin over vast territories.
The gunfight was not well known to the American public until 1931, when Stuart Lake published the initially well-received biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal two years after Earp's death. The book was the basis for the 1946 film My Darling Clementine, directed by John Ford, and the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, after which the shootout became known by that name.
Since then, the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books, and has become an archetype for much of the popular imagery associated with the Old West.
Despite its name, the gunfight did not take place within or next to the O.K. Corral, which fronted Allen Street and had a rear entrance lined with horse stalls on Fremont Street. The shootout actually took place in a narrow lot on the side of C. S. Fly's Photographic Studio on Fremont Street, six doors west of the O.K. Corral's rear entrance.
Some members of the two opposing parties were initially only about 6 feet (1.8 m) apart. About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds. Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were killed. Ike Clanton subsequently filed murder charges against the Earps and Doc Holliday.
The lawmen were exonerated by a local justice of the peace after a 30-day preliminary hearing and then by a local grand jury.
Click here for more about the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral".
Daniel Boone (1734-1820)
YouTube Video from the Television Show "Daniel Boone" (NBC: 1964-1970)
Pictured below: Daniel Boone was a hunter, fur trapper and trailblazing American frontiersman...
[Your Webhost: While Daniel Boone is primarily known for settling Kentucky and adjacent areas in the mid 1700s, he also contributed to early exploration of the Old West when he relocated to Missouri in 1779]
Daniel Boone (November 2, 1734 [O.S. October 22] – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer, explorer, woodsman, and frontiersman, whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States.
Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky. It was still considered part of Virginia but was on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains from most European-American settlements.
As a young adult, Boone supplemented his farm income by hunting and trapping game, and selling their pelts in the fur market. Through this occupational interest, Boone first learned the easy routes to the area.
Despite some resistance from American Indian tribes such as the Shawnee, in 1775, Boone blazed his Wilderness Road from North Carolina and Tennessee through Cumberland Gap in the Cumberland Mountains into Kentucky. There, he founded the village of Boonesborough, Kentucky, one of the first American settlements west of the Appalachians.
Before the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 Americans migrated to Kentucky/Virginia by following the route marked by Boone.
Boone served as a militia officer during the Revolutionary War (1775–83), which, in Kentucky, was fought primarily between the American settlers and British-allied Indians, who hoped to expel the Americans.
Boone was captured by Shawnee warriors in 1778. He escaped and alerted Boonesborough that the Shawnee were planning an attack. Although heavily outnumbered, Americans repelled the Shawnee warriors in the Siege of Boonesborough. Boone was elected to the first of his three terms in the Virginia General Assembly during the Revolutionary War, and he fought in the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782. Blue Licks, a Shawnee victory over the Patriots, was one of the last battles of the Revolutionary War, coming after the main fighting ended in October 1781.[3]
Following the war, Boone worked as a surveyor and merchant, but fell deeply into debt through failed Kentucky land speculation. Frustrated with the legal problems resulting from his land claims, in 1799, Boone emigrated to eastern Missouri, where he spent most of the last two decades of his life (1800–20).
Boone remains an iconic figure in American history. He was a legend in his own lifetime, especially after an account of his adventures was published in 1784, framing him as the typical American frontiersman. After his death, he was frequently the subject of heroic tall tales and works of fiction.
His adventures—real and legendary—were influential in creating the archetypal frontier hero of American folklore. In American popular culture, he is remembered as one of the foremost early frontiersmen. The epic Daniel Boone mythology often overshadows the historical details of his life.
Click here for more about Daniel Boone.
Daniel Boone (November 2, 1734 [O.S. October 22] – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer, explorer, woodsman, and frontiersman, whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States.
Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky. It was still considered part of Virginia but was on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains from most European-American settlements.
As a young adult, Boone supplemented his farm income by hunting and trapping game, and selling their pelts in the fur market. Through this occupational interest, Boone first learned the easy routes to the area.
Despite some resistance from American Indian tribes such as the Shawnee, in 1775, Boone blazed his Wilderness Road from North Carolina and Tennessee through Cumberland Gap in the Cumberland Mountains into Kentucky. There, he founded the village of Boonesborough, Kentucky, one of the first American settlements west of the Appalachians.
Before the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 Americans migrated to Kentucky/Virginia by following the route marked by Boone.
Boone served as a militia officer during the Revolutionary War (1775–83), which, in Kentucky, was fought primarily between the American settlers and British-allied Indians, who hoped to expel the Americans.
Boone was captured by Shawnee warriors in 1778. He escaped and alerted Boonesborough that the Shawnee were planning an attack. Although heavily outnumbered, Americans repelled the Shawnee warriors in the Siege of Boonesborough. Boone was elected to the first of his three terms in the Virginia General Assembly during the Revolutionary War, and he fought in the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782. Blue Licks, a Shawnee victory over the Patriots, was one of the last battles of the Revolutionary War, coming after the main fighting ended in October 1781.[3]
Following the war, Boone worked as a surveyor and merchant, but fell deeply into debt through failed Kentucky land speculation. Frustrated with the legal problems resulting from his land claims, in 1799, Boone emigrated to eastern Missouri, where he spent most of the last two decades of his life (1800–20).
Boone remains an iconic figure in American history. He was a legend in his own lifetime, especially after an account of his adventures was published in 1784, framing him as the typical American frontiersman. After his death, he was frequently the subject of heroic tall tales and works of fiction.
His adventures—real and legendary—were influential in creating the archetypal frontier hero of American folklore. In American popular culture, he is remembered as one of the foremost early frontiersmen. The epic Daniel Boone mythology often overshadows the historical details of his life.
Click here for more about Daniel Boone.
Davy Crockett (1786-1836)
YouTube Video: Davy Crockett 1954 - 1955 (Miniseries) Full Custom Ballad and Theme
Pictured below: 10 Things You May Not Know About Davy Crockett
David "Davy" Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was a 19th-century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives and served in the Texas Revolution.
Crockett grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling. He was made a colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee and was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821.
In 1827, he was elected to the U.S. Congress where he vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, especially the Indian Removal Act.
Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies led to his defeat in the 1831 elections. He was re-elected in 1833, then narrowly lost in 1835, prompting his angry departure to Texas (then the Mexican state of Tejas) shortly thereafter. In early 1836, he took part in the Texas Revolution and was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in March.
Crockett became famous during his lifetime for larger-than-life exploits popularized by stage plays and almanacs. After his death, he continued to be credited with acts of mythical proportion. These led in the 20th century to television and movie portrayals, and he became one of the best-known American folk heroes.
Click here for more about Davy Crockett.
Crockett grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling. He was made a colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee and was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821.
In 1827, he was elected to the U.S. Congress where he vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, especially the Indian Removal Act.
Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies led to his defeat in the 1831 elections. He was re-elected in 1833, then narrowly lost in 1835, prompting his angry departure to Texas (then the Mexican state of Tejas) shortly thereafter. In early 1836, he took part in the Texas Revolution and was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in March.
Crockett became famous during his lifetime for larger-than-life exploits popularized by stage plays and almanacs. After his death, he continued to be credited with acts of mythical proportion. These led in the 20th century to television and movie portrayals, and he became one of the best-known American folk heroes.
Click here for more about Davy Crockett.
Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876)
YouTube Video of Movie Trailer for Wild Bill (1995 film)*
* -- Wild Bill (1995 Film)
Pictured below: Wild Bill Hickok was an American frontiersman, army scout and lawman who helped bring order to the frontier West
YouTube Video of Movie Trailer for Wild Bill (1995 film)*
* -- Wild Bill (1995 Film)
Pictured below: Wild Bill Hickok was an American frontiersman, army scout and lawman who helped bring order to the frontier West
James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his work across the frontier as a drover, wagon master, soldier, spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor.
Hickok earned a great deal of notoriety in his own time, much of it bolstered by the many outlandish and often fabricated tales that he told about his life. Some contemporaneous reports of his exploits are known to be fictitious, but they remain the basis of much of his fame and reputation, along with his own stories.
Hickok was born and raised on a farm in northern Illinois at a time when lawlessness and vigilante activity were rampant because of the influence of the "Banditti of the Prairie".
Hickok was drawn to this ruffian lifestyle and headed west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, working as a stagecoach driver and later as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought and spied for the Union Army during the American Civil War and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler.
Over the course of Hickok's life, he was involved in several notable shoot-outs.
In 1876, Hickok was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota) by Jack McCall, an unsuccessful gambler. The hand of cards which he supposedly held at the time of his death has become known as the dead man's hand: two pairs, aces and eights.
Hickok remains a popular figure in frontier history. Many historic sites and monuments commemorate his life, and he has been depicted numerous times in literature, film, and television. He is chiefly portrayed as a protagonist, though historical accounts of his actions are often controversial and most of his career was exaggerated by both himself and various mythmakers.
While Hickok claimed to have killed numerous named and unnamed gunmen in his lifetime, according to Joseph G. Rosa, Hickok's biographer and the foremost authority on Wild Bill, Hickok killed only six or seven men in gunfights.
Click here for more about Wild Bill Hickok.
Hickok earned a great deal of notoriety in his own time, much of it bolstered by the many outlandish and often fabricated tales that he told about his life. Some contemporaneous reports of his exploits are known to be fictitious, but they remain the basis of much of his fame and reputation, along with his own stories.
Hickok was born and raised on a farm in northern Illinois at a time when lawlessness and vigilante activity were rampant because of the influence of the "Banditti of the Prairie".
Hickok was drawn to this ruffian lifestyle and headed west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, working as a stagecoach driver and later as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought and spied for the Union Army during the American Civil War and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, actor, and professional gambler.
Over the course of Hickok's life, he was involved in several notable shoot-outs.
In 1876, Hickok was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (present-day South Dakota) by Jack McCall, an unsuccessful gambler. The hand of cards which he supposedly held at the time of his death has become known as the dead man's hand: two pairs, aces and eights.
Hickok remains a popular figure in frontier history. Many historic sites and monuments commemorate his life, and he has been depicted numerous times in literature, film, and television. He is chiefly portrayed as a protagonist, though historical accounts of his actions are often controversial and most of his career was exaggerated by both himself and various mythmakers.
While Hickok claimed to have killed numerous named and unnamed gunmen in his lifetime, according to Joseph G. Rosa, Hickok's biographer and the foremost authority on Wild Bill, Hickok killed only six or seven men in gunfights.
Click here for more about Wild Bill Hickok.
Timeline of the American Old West
YouTube Video: "The Making of a Stagecoach Photo Shoot: Building the Coach"
YouTube Video: Stagecoach horse chase (from the 1939 Movie Stagecoach -- see below link)
Pictured below: (L) from the 1939 Movie "Stagecoach"; (R) Railroad History, An Overview Of The Past
This timeline of the American Old West is a chronology ordered list of events significant to the development of the American West as a region of the United States prior to 1912. The term "American Old West" refers to a vast geographical area and lengthy time period of imprecise boundaries, and historians' definitions vary.
The events in this timeline occurred primarily in the contiguous portion of the modern United States west of the Mississippi River, and mostly in the period between the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the admission of the last mainland states into the Union in 1912.
A small section summarizing early exploration and settlement prior to 1803 is included to provide a foundation for later developments. Rarely, events significant to the history of the West but which occurred within the modern boundaries of Canada and Mexico are included as well.
Western North America was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Native Americans, and later served as a frontier to European powers, beginning with Spanish colonization in the 16th century. British, French, and Russian claims followed in the 18th and 19th centuries.
After the American Revolution, the newly independent United States began securing its own frontier from the Appalachian Mountains westward for settlement and economic investment by American citizens.
The long history of American expansion into these lands has played a central role in shaping American culture, iconography, and the modern national identity, and remains a popular topic for study by scholars and historians.
Events listed below are notable developments for the region as a whole, not just for a particular state or smaller subdivision of the region; as historians Hine and Faragher put it, they "tell the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the lands, the development of markets, and the formation of states.... It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging of peoples and cultures."
Below, by decade, is the timeline of the history of the American Old West. For each decade, we will highlight significant events of that decade. Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about each decade along with any significant events:
Early exploration and settlement: from 1540 through 1792:
For almost three centuries after Columbus' voyages to the New World, much of western North America remained unsettled by European colonists, despite various territorial claims made by imperialist nations.
Europeans interest in the vast territory was motivated by the search for precious metals, especially gold, and the fur trade, with miners, trappers, and hunters among the first people of European descent to permanently settle in the West.
The early years were also a period of scientific exploration and survey, such that by 1830 the rough outline of the western half of the continent had been mapped to the Pacific Ocean.
1800s (1800-1809)
1810s (1810-1819)
1820s (1820-1829)
1830s (1830-1839)
1840s (1840-1849)
1850s (1850-1859)
1860s (1860-1869)
1870s (1870-1879)
1880s (1880-1889)
1890s (1890-1899)
1900s (1900-1909)
1910s (1910-1919)
The events in this timeline occurred primarily in the contiguous portion of the modern United States west of the Mississippi River, and mostly in the period between the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and the admission of the last mainland states into the Union in 1912.
A small section summarizing early exploration and settlement prior to 1803 is included to provide a foundation for later developments. Rarely, events significant to the history of the West but which occurred within the modern boundaries of Canada and Mexico are included as well.
Western North America was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Native Americans, and later served as a frontier to European powers, beginning with Spanish colonization in the 16th century. British, French, and Russian claims followed in the 18th and 19th centuries.
After the American Revolution, the newly independent United States began securing its own frontier from the Appalachian Mountains westward for settlement and economic investment by American citizens.
The long history of American expansion into these lands has played a central role in shaping American culture, iconography, and the modern national identity, and remains a popular topic for study by scholars and historians.
Events listed below are notable developments for the region as a whole, not just for a particular state or smaller subdivision of the region; as historians Hine and Faragher put it, they "tell the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the lands, the development of markets, and the formation of states.... It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging of peoples and cultures."
Below, by decade, is the timeline of the history of the American Old West. For each decade, we will highlight significant events of that decade. Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about each decade along with any significant events:
Early exploration and settlement: from 1540 through 1792:
For almost three centuries after Columbus' voyages to the New World, much of western North America remained unsettled by European colonists, despite various territorial claims made by imperialist nations.
Europeans interest in the vast territory was motivated by the search for precious metals, especially gold, and the fur trade, with miners, trappers, and hunters among the first people of European descent to permanently settle in the West.
The early years were also a period of scientific exploration and survey, such that by 1830 the rough outline of the western half of the continent had been mapped to the Pacific Ocean.
1800s (1800-1809)
- The Louisiana Purchase: The Lewis and Clark expedition sets out to explore and chart the territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase.
1810s (1810-1819)
- Carrying word of the fate of the Tonquin to Saint Louis, seven men of the Pacific Fur Company, led by Robert Stuart, become the first European Americans to cross the Continental Divide at South Pass, in present-day Wyoming. Later in the century, the pass will be used by half a million westward migrants as part of the main route of several emigrant trails.
1820s (1820-1829)
- Congress passes the Missouri Compromise, prohibiting slavery in the unorganized territory north of 36.5° latitude and west of the Mississippi River, except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri, while permitting the admission of Maine as a free state. Largely devised by Henry Clay, it is a landmark agreement in the debate over slavery in the West.
1830s (1830-1839)
- Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under Santa Anna storm the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, killing all but a handful of its more than 200 Texian defenders, including Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett.
1840s (1840-1849)
- Brigham Young and his vanguard company of Mormons first arrive in the Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah.
- James W. Marshall discovers gold at Sutter's Mill near Coloma, California, precipitating the California Gold Rush.
- The United States and Mexico sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican–American War. The agreement results in the cession of nearly all of the present-day Southwest, including California, to the U.S., as well as the designation of the Rio Grande as the boundary between Texas and Mexico.
1850s (1850-1859)
- California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.
- The phrase "Go West, young man" first appears in an editorial by Indiana newspaper writer John B.L. Soule in the Terre Haute Express. The saying is later popularized by Horace Greeley, editor of the New-York Tribune.
- The first permanent bridge across the Mississippi River opens for traffic in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
- Gold is discovered in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The resulting gold rush draws nearly 100,000 people to the Pike's Peak Country of present-day Colorado over the next three years.
- The Comstock Lode, the first major discovery of silver ore in the country, provokes a silver rush in present-day Nevada that funds boomtowns including Virginia City and Gold Hill. Over the next 30 years, hundreds of mines extract more than $320 million in gold and silver from the region, making millionaires of investors such as George Hearst and the Bonanza Kings.
1860s (1860-1869)
- The Pony Express completes its first westbound and eastbound deliveries between St. Joseph, Missouri and San Francisco, California.
- 250 Confederate troops led by John R. Baylor engage Union forces under Isaac Lynde at Mesilla, New Mexico, resulting in Lynde's troops retreating into the Organ Mountains, toward Fort Stanton. Lynde is relieved of duty after abandoning his post.
- The first transcontinental telegraph line is completed near Fort Bridger in present-day Wyoming, the result of an effort by Hiram Sibley and Western Union to connect California to the telegraph networks of the east. The ability to instantaneously send messages from coast to coast immediately makes the Pony Express obsolete.
- The Homestead Act of 1862 is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. It aims to encourage settlement in the West by simplifying the process of land acquisition: homesteaders need only claim, occupy for five years, and improve a minimum of 160 acres of unappropriated land to be granted full ownership. Alternatively, settlers have the option of purchasing the land outright after six months of residency.
- Colonel Kit Carson accepts the surrender of most of the Navajo nation after the final two years of the bloody Navajo Wars.
- Union General Samuel R. Curtis' Army of the Border decisively defeats Confederate General Sterling Price's Army of Missouri at the Battle of Westport, near Kansas City. The battle ends the last major Confederate offensive west of the Mississippi River. The largest engagement in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, with over 30,000 men involved, it is sometimes called the "Gettysburg of the West".
- The Battle of Palmito Ranch is fought near Brownsville, Texas. It is the final armed engagement of the American Civil War.
- Ex-Confederate bushwhackers Frank and Jesse James rob their first bank, the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri.
1870s (1870-1879)
- Following the completion of the Santa Fe Railroad across the border of the Colorado Territory, the use of the Santa Fe Trail begins to decline, although Dodge City remains a major cattle town for the next decade. The Santa Fe Railroad also completes a rail line at Wichita, Kansas, causing a major population boom in the town over the next several years.
- Yellowstone is designated America's first national park by President Ulysses S. Grant.
- The Colt Single Action Army revolver is first manufactured. It later becomes known as "The Gun That Won the West".
- The James–Younger Gang commits the first train robbery in the history of the West by derailing a locomotive of the Rock Island Line west of Adair, Iowa and stealing $3,000 from the express safe and passengers on board.
- An expedition led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer embarks from Fort Abraham Lincoln to explore the previously uncharted Black Hills of present-day South Dakota. The expedition discovers placer gold, prompting a gold rush which draws thousands of settlers to the region over the next few years and thereby antagonizes the native Sioux inhabitants.
- While leading an attack into a Sioux village in the Montana Territory, the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment under Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer is ambushed and massacred by over 2,000 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (see topic at top of this web page).
1880s (1880-1889)
- Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. He is buried the next day between his friends Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre in the town's old military cemetery.
- The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral takes place in the street behind a saloon in Tombstone, Arizona, pitting the Earps and Doc Holliday against Ike and Billy Clanton, Frank and Tom McLaury, and Billy Claiborne. Billy Clanton and the McLaurys are killed, and Virgil and Morgan Earp, along with Holliday, are wounded.
- The Northern Pacific Railroad is completed near Independence Creek in western Montana Territory, connecting St. Paul, Minnesota with the Washington Territory.
- An estimated 50,000 homesteaders rush to claim nearly two million acres of unoccupied land appropriated for public settlement from ceded Native American territory in what is now central Oklahoma. It is the first of several major land runs in the region.
- Outlaw Butch Cassidy robs his first bank in Telluride, Colorado before fleeing to the remote hideout of Robbers Roost.
1890s (1890-1899)
- Data collected for the Eleventh United States Census indicate that the spread of the population into unsettled areas has resulted in the disappearance of the American frontier. The U.S. Census Bureau declares that it will no longer monitor westward migration in the country.
- In the most violent episode of the Johnson County War, wealthy cattle barons of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and hired mercenaries invade the Powder River Country to persecute local ranchers on allegations of cattle rustling. A series of deadly stand-offs ensues before President Benjamin Harrison orders the 6th Cavalry Regiment to intervene. The conflict forces a reorganization of the cattle industry in Wyoming and becomes one of the most well-known range wars in the history of the West.
- Butch Cassidy, Elzy Lay, Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan, and Bob Meeks rob a bank in Montpelier, Idaho.
- Crude oil is discovered for the first time in the Indian Territory, near present-day Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
- Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch rob an Overland Flyer passenger train near Wilcox, Wyoming, resulting in a massive but ultimately futile manhunt.
1900s (1900-1909)
- A dust explosion at the Winter Quarters Mine near Scofield, Utah kills at least 200 coal miners in the Scofield Mine disaster, the deadliest mining accident in American history to date.
- An oil well on the Spindletop dome near Beaumont, Texas strikes crude oil, becoming the first major gusher in the state and triggering the Texas oil boom.
- Butch Cassidy, Harry Longabaugh, and Etta Place depart the United States for Buenos Aires, Argentina aboard a British steamer.
- The city of Las Vegas is founded in Nevada.
- An earthquake and resulting fires devastate the city of San Francisco and neighboring communities, killing at least 3,000 people and leaving nearly three-fourths of the Bay Area's population homeless.
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are reportedly found dead following a shootout with police in the town of San Vicente, Bolivia.
1910s (1910-1919)
- New Mexico is admitted as the 47th U.S. state.
- Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state. It is the last state to be admitted in the contiguous United States, marking the complete political incorporation of U.S. territorial acquisitions west of the Mississippi River.
- The last stagecoach robbery in American history occurs at Jarbidge Canyon, Nevada, when three robbers hold up a U.S. Post Office Department stagecoach, shoot the driver, and steal $4,000 in cash. The criminals are captured without incident soon after.
Spanish Missions in California
YouTube Video about 10 California Mission Spots to Visit Along El Camino Real
Pictured below: Mission San Luis Obispo
YouTube Video about 10 California Mission Spots to Visit Along El Camino Real
Pictured below: Mission San Luis Obispo
The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of 21 religious outposts or missions established between 1769 and 1833 in today's U.S. State of California.
Founded by Catholic priests of the Franciscan order to evangelize the Native Americans, the missions led to the creation of the New Spain province of Alta California and were part of the expansion of the Spanish Empire into the most northern and western parts of Spanish North America.
Following long-term secular and religious policy of Spain in Spanish America, the missionaries forced the native Californians to live in settlements called reductions, disrupting their traditional way of life. The missionaries introduced European fruits, vegetables, cattle, horses, ranching, and technology.
The missions have been accused by critics, then and now, of various abuses and oppression. In the end, the missions had mixed results in their objectives: to convert, educate, and transform the natives into Spanish colonial citizens.
By 1810, Spain's king had been imprisoned by the French, and financing for military payroll and missions in California ceased. In 1821, Mexico achieved independence from Spain, although Mexico did not send a governor to California until 1824, and only a portion of payroll was ever reinstated (ibid.).
The 21,000 Mission Indians produced hide and tallow and wool and textiles at this time, and the leather products were exported to Boston, South America, and Asia which sustained the colonial economy from 1810 until 1830, but tended to give British or New England merchant captains importance.
The missions began to lose control over land in the 1820s, as unpaid military men unofficially encroached, but officially missions maintained authority over native neophytes and control of land holdings until the 1830s.
At the peak of its development in 1832, the coastal mission system controlled an area equal to approximately one-sixth of Alta California. The Alta California government secularized the missions after the passage of the Mexican secularization act of 1833.
This divided the mission lands into land grants, in effect legitimizing and completing the transfer of Indian congregation lands to military commanders and their most loyal men; these became many of the Ranchos of California.
The surviving mission buildings are the state's oldest structures and its most-visited historic monuments. They have become a symbol of California, appearing in many movies and television shows, and are an inspiration for Mission Revival architecture.
The oldest cities of California formed around or near Spanish missions, including the four largest: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Spanish Missions in California:
Founded by Catholic priests of the Franciscan order to evangelize the Native Americans, the missions led to the creation of the New Spain province of Alta California and were part of the expansion of the Spanish Empire into the most northern and western parts of Spanish North America.
Following long-term secular and religious policy of Spain in Spanish America, the missionaries forced the native Californians to live in settlements called reductions, disrupting their traditional way of life. The missionaries introduced European fruits, vegetables, cattle, horses, ranching, and technology.
The missions have been accused by critics, then and now, of various abuses and oppression. In the end, the missions had mixed results in their objectives: to convert, educate, and transform the natives into Spanish colonial citizens.
By 1810, Spain's king had been imprisoned by the French, and financing for military payroll and missions in California ceased. In 1821, Mexico achieved independence from Spain, although Mexico did not send a governor to California until 1824, and only a portion of payroll was ever reinstated (ibid.).
The 21,000 Mission Indians produced hide and tallow and wool and textiles at this time, and the leather products were exported to Boston, South America, and Asia which sustained the colonial economy from 1810 until 1830, but tended to give British or New England merchant captains importance.
The missions began to lose control over land in the 1820s, as unpaid military men unofficially encroached, but officially missions maintained authority over native neophytes and control of land holdings until the 1830s.
At the peak of its development in 1832, the coastal mission system controlled an area equal to approximately one-sixth of Alta California. The Alta California government secularized the missions after the passage of the Mexican secularization act of 1833.
This divided the mission lands into land grants, in effect legitimizing and completing the transfer of Indian congregation lands to military commanders and their most loyal men; these became many of the Ranchos of California.
The surviving mission buildings are the state's oldest structures and its most-visited historic monuments. They have become a symbol of California, appearing in many movies and television shows, and are an inspiration for Mission Revival architecture.
The oldest cities of California formed around or near Spanish missions, including the four largest: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Spanish Missions in California:
- Alta California mission planning, structure and culture
- History
- Mission administration, locations and military districts
- Present-day California missions
- Gallery of missions
- See also:
- On California Missions:
- On California history:
- On general missionary history:
- On colonial Spanish American history:
- The California Frontier Project: Dedicated the early California, including the Spanish missions
- California Mission Studies Association
- California's Spanish Missions
- Library of Congress: American Memory Project: Early California History, The Missions
- Tricia Anne Weber: The Spanish Missions of California
- Album of Views of the Missions of California, Souvenir Publishing Company, San Francisco, Los Angeles, 1890's.
- The Missions of California, by Eugene Leslie Smyth, Chicago: Alexander Belford & Co., 1899.
- California Historical Society
- California Mission Visitors Guide
- California Missions: A Journey Along the El Camino Real (exhibit at The California Museum)
- National Register of Historic Places: Early History of the California Coast: List of Sites
- California Mission Sketches by Henry Miller, 1856 and Finding Aid to the Documents relating to Missions of the Californias : typescript, 1768–1802 at The Bancroft Library
- Howser, Huell (December 8, 2000). "Art of the Missions (110)". California Missions. Chapman University Huell Howser Archive.
Gene Autry (1907-1998)
YouTube Video: Gene Autry - South of the Border (from South of the Border 1939)
Pictured below: Gene Autry's Cowboy Code
YouTube Video: Gene Autry - South of the Border (from South of the Border 1939)
Pictured below: Gene Autry's Cowboy Code
Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998) was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician and rodeo performer who gained fame as a singing cowboy in a crooning style on radio, in films, and on television for more than three decades beginning in the early 1930s.
Autry was the owner of a television station, several radio stations in Southern California, and the Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels Major League Baseball team from 1961 to 1997.
From 1934 to 1953, Autry appeared in 93 films, and between 1950 and 1956 hosted The Gene Autry Show television series. During the 1930s and 1940s, he personified the straight-shooting hero—honest, brave, and true—and profoundly touched the lives of millions of Americans.
Autry was also one of the most important pioneering figures in the history of country music, considered the second major influential artist of the genre's development after Jimmie Rodgers.
Autry's singing cowboy films were the first vehicle to carry country music to a national audience. In addition to his signature song, "Back in the Saddle Again", and his hit "At Mail Call Today", Autry is still remembered for his Christmas holiday songs, most especially his biggest hit "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as well as "Frosty the Snowman", "Here Comes Santa Claus", and "Up on the House Top".
Autry is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and is the only person to be awarded stars in all five categories on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for film, television, music, radio, and live performance. The town of Gene Autry, Oklahoma was named in his honor, as was the Gene Autry precinct in Mesa, Arizona.
Click here for more about Gene Autry.
Autry was the owner of a television station, several radio stations in Southern California, and the Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels Major League Baseball team from 1961 to 1997.
From 1934 to 1953, Autry appeared in 93 films, and between 1950 and 1956 hosted The Gene Autry Show television series. During the 1930s and 1940s, he personified the straight-shooting hero—honest, brave, and true—and profoundly touched the lives of millions of Americans.
Autry was also one of the most important pioneering figures in the history of country music, considered the second major influential artist of the genre's development after Jimmie Rodgers.
Autry's singing cowboy films were the first vehicle to carry country music to a national audience. In addition to his signature song, "Back in the Saddle Again", and his hit "At Mail Call Today", Autry is still remembered for his Christmas holiday songs, most especially his biggest hit "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as well as "Frosty the Snowman", "Here Comes Santa Claus", and "Up on the House Top".
Autry is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and is the only person to be awarded stars in all five categories on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for film, television, music, radio, and live performance. The town of Gene Autry, Oklahoma was named in his honor, as was the Gene Autry precinct in Mesa, Arizona.
Click here for more about Gene Autry.
Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye, November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998) was an American singer and actor. He was one of the most popular Western stars of his era.
Known as the "King of the Cowboys", Rogers appeared in over 100 films and numerous radio and television episodes of The Roy Rogers Show. In many of his films and television episodes, he appeared with his wife, Dale Evans; his golden palomino, Trigger; and his German shepherd dog, Bullet.
His show was broadcast on radio for nine years and then on television from 1951 through 1957. His productions usually featured a sidekick, often Pat Brady, Andy Devine, George "Gabby" Hayes, or Smiley Burnette.
In his later years, Rogers lent his name to the franchise chain of Roy Rogers Restaurants.
Click here for more about Roy Rogers.
Known as the "King of the Cowboys", Rogers appeared in over 100 films and numerous radio and television episodes of The Roy Rogers Show. In many of his films and television episodes, he appeared with his wife, Dale Evans; his golden palomino, Trigger; and his German shepherd dog, Bullet.
His show was broadcast on radio for nine years and then on television from 1951 through 1957. His productions usually featured a sidekick, often Pat Brady, Andy Devine, George "Gabby" Hayes, or Smiley Burnette.
In his later years, Rogers lent his name to the franchise chain of Roy Rogers Restaurants.
Click here for more about Roy Rogers.
Annie Oakley (1860-1926)
YouTube Video:Annie Oakley - Folk Hero | Biography
Pictured below: Since today has unfortunately been dominated by Americans’ obsession with guns and violence, might as well make tonight’s film perhaps the first gun scene ever placed on film, a demonstration by Annie Oakley in 1894.
YouTube Video:Annie Oakley - Folk Hero | Biography
Pictured below: Since today has unfortunately been dominated by Americans’ obsession with guns and violence, might as well make tonight’s film perhaps the first gun scene ever placed on film, a demonstration by Annie Oakley in 1894.
Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter.
Her talent first came to light when at age 15 she won a shooting match against traveling-show marksman Frank E. Butler, whom she later married. The couple joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show a few years later.
Oakley became a renowned international star, performing before royalty and heads of state.
Oakley also was variously known as "Miss Annie Oakley", "Little Sure Shot", "Little Miss Sure Shot", "Watanya Cicilla", "Phoebe Anne Oakley", "Mrs. Annie Oakley", "Mrs. Annie Butler", and "Mrs. Frank Butler". Her death certificate gives her name as "Annie Oakley Butler".
Click here for more about Annie Oakley.
Her talent first came to light when at age 15 she won a shooting match against traveling-show marksman Frank E. Butler, whom she later married. The couple joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show a few years later.
Oakley became a renowned international star, performing before royalty and heads of state.
Oakley also was variously known as "Miss Annie Oakley", "Little Sure Shot", "Little Miss Sure Shot", "Watanya Cicilla", "Phoebe Anne Oakley", "Mrs. Annie Oakley", "Mrs. Annie Butler", and "Mrs. Frank Butler". Her death certificate gives her name as "Annie Oakley Butler".
Click here for more about Annie Oakley.
Gunsmoke TV Series (CBS: 1955-1975)
- YouTube Video: GUNSMOKE (THE BEST FIGHT EVER) [CBS Series)
- YouTube Video: Gunsmoke-Matt Dillon Takes On Mexican Bandidos (The Jackals) 1967
- YouTube Video: Gunsmoke - S18E07 - Festus Crosses The Cimmeron River
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston.
The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by James Arness on television. When aired in the UK, the television series was initially titled Gun Law, later reverting to Gunsmoke.
The television series ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, and lasted for 635 episodes.
At the end of its run in 1975, Los Angeles Times columnist Cecil Smith wrote: "Gunsmoke was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. Our own Iliad and Odyssey, created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp Western as romanticized by [Ned] Buntline, [Bret] Harte, and [Mark] Twain. It was ever the stuff of legend."
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Gunsmoke TV Series:
The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by James Arness on television. When aired in the UK, the television series was initially titled Gun Law, later reverting to Gunsmoke.
The television series ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, and lasted for 635 episodes.
At the end of its run in 1975, Los Angeles Times columnist Cecil Smith wrote: "Gunsmoke was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. Our own Iliad and Odyssey, created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp Western as romanticized by [Ned] Buntline, [Bret] Harte, and [Mark] Twain. It was ever the stuff of legend."
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Gunsmoke TV Series:
- Television series (1955–1975)
- Awards
- Miscellaneous
- Notable guest stars
- Spin-off
- Notable directors
- Music
- Products
- Episodes
- Reruns and syndication
- See also:
"Doc" Holliday (1851-1887)
- YouTube Video of Doc Holliday, the Dentist with a Death Wish | Gunslingers
- YouTube Video: Doc Holliday - Tombstone (Three Funny Scenes)*
- YouTube Video: Tombstone - Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Scene*
John Henry "Doc" Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887) was an American gambler, gunfighter, and dentist, and a good friend of Wyatt Earp.
He is best known for his role in the events leading up to and following the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. He developed a reputation as having killed more than a dozen men in various altercations, but modern researchers have concluded that, contrary to popular myth-making, Holliday killed only one or two men.
Holliday's colorful life and character have been depicted in many books and portrayed by well-known actors in numerous movies and television series.
At age 21 Holliday earned a degree in dentistry from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. He set up practice in Atlanta, Georgia, but he was soon diagnosed with tuberculosis, the same disease that had claimed his mother when he was 15, having acquired it while tending to her needs while she was still in the contagious phase of the illness.
Hoping the climate in the American Southwest would ease his symptoms, he moved to that region and became a gambler, a reputable profession in Arizona in that day. Over the next few years, he reportedly had several confrontations. While in Texas, he saved Wyatt Earp's life and they became friends.
In 1879, he joined Earp in Las Vegas, New Mexico and then rode with him to Prescott, Arizona, and then Tombstone. In Tombstone, local members of the outlaw Cochise County Cowboys repeatedly threatened him and spread rumors that he had robbed a stage.
On October 26, 1881, Holliday was deputized by Tombstone city marshal Virgil Earp. The lawmen attempted to disarm five members of the Cowboys near the O.K. Corral on the west side of town, which resulted in the 30-second shootout.
Following the Tombstone shootout, Virgil Earp was maimed by hidden assailants and Morgan Earp was murdered. Unable to obtain justice in the courts, Wyatt Earp took matters into his own hands.
As the recently appointed deputy U.S. marshal, Earp formally deputized Holliday, among others. As a federal posse, they pursued the outlaw Cowboys they believed were responsible.
They found Frank Stilwell lying in wait as Virgil boarded a train for California and killed him. The local sheriff issued a warrant for the arrest of five members of the federal posse, including Holliday.
The federal posse killed three other Cowboys during late March and early April 1882, before they rode to the New Mexico Territory. Wyatt Earp learned of an extradition request for Holliday and arranged for Colorado Governor Frederick Walker Pitkin to deny Holliday's extradition. Holliday spent the few remaining years of his life in Colorado, and died of tuberculosis in his bed at the Glenwood Springs Hotel at age 36.
Click here for more about "Doc" Holliday.
He is best known for his role in the events leading up to and following the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. He developed a reputation as having killed more than a dozen men in various altercations, but modern researchers have concluded that, contrary to popular myth-making, Holliday killed only one or two men.
Holliday's colorful life and character have been depicted in many books and portrayed by well-known actors in numerous movies and television series.
At age 21 Holliday earned a degree in dentistry from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. He set up practice in Atlanta, Georgia, but he was soon diagnosed with tuberculosis, the same disease that had claimed his mother when he was 15, having acquired it while tending to her needs while she was still in the contagious phase of the illness.
Hoping the climate in the American Southwest would ease his symptoms, he moved to that region and became a gambler, a reputable profession in Arizona in that day. Over the next few years, he reportedly had several confrontations. While in Texas, he saved Wyatt Earp's life and they became friends.
In 1879, he joined Earp in Las Vegas, New Mexico and then rode with him to Prescott, Arizona, and then Tombstone. In Tombstone, local members of the outlaw Cochise County Cowboys repeatedly threatened him and spread rumors that he had robbed a stage.
On October 26, 1881, Holliday was deputized by Tombstone city marshal Virgil Earp. The lawmen attempted to disarm five members of the Cowboys near the O.K. Corral on the west side of town, which resulted in the 30-second shootout.
Following the Tombstone shootout, Virgil Earp was maimed by hidden assailants and Morgan Earp was murdered. Unable to obtain justice in the courts, Wyatt Earp took matters into his own hands.
As the recently appointed deputy U.S. marshal, Earp formally deputized Holliday, among others. As a federal posse, they pursued the outlaw Cowboys they believed were responsible.
They found Frank Stilwell lying in wait as Virgil boarded a train for California and killed him. The local sheriff issued a warrant for the arrest of five members of the federal posse, including Holliday.
The federal posse killed three other Cowboys during late March and early April 1882, before they rode to the New Mexico Territory. Wyatt Earp learned of an extradition request for Holliday and arranged for Colorado Governor Frederick Walker Pitkin to deny Holliday's extradition. Holliday spent the few remaining years of his life in Colorado, and died of tuberculosis in his bed at the Glenwood Springs Hotel at age 36.
Click here for more about "Doc" Holliday.
Bartholemew William Barclay "Bat" Masterson (November 26, 1853 – October 25, 1921) was a U.S. Army scout, lawman, professional gambler, and journalist known for his exploits in the 19th-century American Old West.
Born to a working-class Irish family in Quebec, Masterson moved to the Western frontier as a young man and quickly distinguished himself as a buffalo hunter, civilian scout, and Indian fighter on the Great Plains. He later earned fame as a gunfighter and sheriff in Dodge City, Kansas, during which time he was involved in several notable shootouts.
By the mid-1880s, Masterson moved to Denver, Colorado and established himself as a "sporting man" (or gambler). He took an interest in prizefighting and became a leading authority on the sport, attending almost every important match and title fight in the United States from the 1880s until his death in 1921.
He moved to New York City in 1902 and spent the rest of his life there as a reporter and columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph; Masterson's column not only covered boxing and other sports, but frequently gave his opinions on crime, war, politics, and other topics as well.
He became a close friend of President Theodore Roosevelt and was one of the "White House Gunfighters" who received federal appointments from Roosevelt, along with Pat Garrett and Ben Daniels.
By the time of his death in 1921, Masterson was known throughout the country as a leading sports writer and celebrity. He is remembered today for his connection to many of the Wild West's most iconic people, places, and events, and his life and likeness are frequently depicted in American popular culture.
Click here for more about Bat Masterson.
Born to a working-class Irish family in Quebec, Masterson moved to the Western frontier as a young man and quickly distinguished himself as a buffalo hunter, civilian scout, and Indian fighter on the Great Plains. He later earned fame as a gunfighter and sheriff in Dodge City, Kansas, during which time he was involved in several notable shootouts.
By the mid-1880s, Masterson moved to Denver, Colorado and established himself as a "sporting man" (or gambler). He took an interest in prizefighting and became a leading authority on the sport, attending almost every important match and title fight in the United States from the 1880s until his death in 1921.
He moved to New York City in 1902 and spent the rest of his life there as a reporter and columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph; Masterson's column not only covered boxing and other sports, but frequently gave his opinions on crime, war, politics, and other topics as well.
He became a close friend of President Theodore Roosevelt and was one of the "White House Gunfighters" who received federal appointments from Roosevelt, along with Pat Garrett and Ben Daniels.
By the time of his death in 1921, Masterson was known throughout the country as a leading sports writer and celebrity. He is remembered today for his connection to many of the Wild West's most iconic people, places, and events, and his life and likeness are frequently depicted in American popular culture.
Click here for more about Bat Masterson.
Jesse James (1847-1882)
- YouTube Video: Jesse Woodson James: Outlaw or Hero?
- YouTube Video Jesse James at Civil War based on the Movie "American Outlaws" (2001)
- YouTube Video about The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) Official Movie Trailer
Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla, and leader of the James–Younger Gang.
Raised in the "Little Dixie" area of western Missouri, James and his family maintained strong Southern sympathies.
He and his brother Frank James joined pro-Confederate guerrillas known as "bushwhackers" operating in Missouri and Kansas during the American Civil War.
As followers of William Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, they were accused of participating in atrocities against Union soldiers and civilian abolitionists, including the Centralia Massacre in 1864.
After the war, as members of various gangs of outlaws, Jesse and Frank robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains across the Midwest, gaining national fame and often popular sympathy despite the brutality of their crimes.
The James brothers were most active as members of their own gang from about 1866 until 1876, when as a result of their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, several members of the gang were captured or killed. They continued in crime for several years afterward, recruiting new members, but came under increasing pressure from law enforcement seeking to bring them to justice.
On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford, a new recruit to the gang who hoped to collect a reward on James' head and a promised amnesty for his previous crimes. Already a celebrity in life, James became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death.
Despite popular portrayals of James as an embodiment of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there is no evidence that he and his gang shared any loot from their robberies with anyone outside their close kinship network.
Scholars and historians have characterized James as one of many criminals inspired by the regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the Civil War, rather than as a manifestation of alleged economic justice or of frontier lawlessness.
James continues to be one of the most iconic figures from the era, and his life has been dramatized and memorialized numerous times.
Click here for more about Jesse James.
Raised in the "Little Dixie" area of western Missouri, James and his family maintained strong Southern sympathies.
He and his brother Frank James joined pro-Confederate guerrillas known as "bushwhackers" operating in Missouri and Kansas during the American Civil War.
As followers of William Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, they were accused of participating in atrocities against Union soldiers and civilian abolitionists, including the Centralia Massacre in 1864.
After the war, as members of various gangs of outlaws, Jesse and Frank robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains across the Midwest, gaining national fame and often popular sympathy despite the brutality of their crimes.
The James brothers were most active as members of their own gang from about 1866 until 1876, when as a result of their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, several members of the gang were captured or killed. They continued in crime for several years afterward, recruiting new members, but came under increasing pressure from law enforcement seeking to bring them to justice.
On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford, a new recruit to the gang who hoped to collect a reward on James' head and a promised amnesty for his previous crimes. Already a celebrity in life, James became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death.
Despite popular portrayals of James as an embodiment of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there is no evidence that he and his gang shared any loot from their robberies with anyone outside their close kinship network.
Scholars and historians have characterized James as one of many criminals inspired by the regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the Civil War, rather than as a manifestation of alleged economic justice or of frontier lawlessness.
James continues to be one of the most iconic figures from the era, and his life has been dramatized and memorialized numerous times.
Click here for more about Jesse James.
Billy the Kid (born Henry McCarty September 17 or November 23, 1859 – July 14, 1881, also known as William H. Bonney) was an American Old West outlaw and gunfighter who killed eight men before he was shot and killed at age 21. He took part in New Mexico's Lincoln County War, during which he allegedly committed three murders.
McCarty was orphaned at age 14. The owner of a boarding house gave him a room in exchange for work. His first arrest was for stealing food at age 16 in late 1875. Ten days later, he robbed a Chinese laundry and was arrested, but he escaped only two days later.
He tried to stay with his stepfather, and then fled from New Mexico Territory into neighboring Arizona Territory, making him both an outlaw and a federal fugitive. In 1877, McCarty began to refer to himself as "William H. Bonney".
After murdering a blacksmith during an altercation in August 1877, Bonney became a wanted man in Arizona Territory and returned to New Mexico, where he joined a group of cattle rustlers.
He became a well-known figure in the region when he joined the Regulators and took part in the Lincoln County War. In April 1878, the Regulators killed three men, including Lincoln County Sheriff William J. Brady and one of his deputies. Bonney and two other Regulators were later charged with killing all three men.
Bonney's notoriety grew in December 1880 when the Las Vegas Gazette in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and The Sun in New York City carried stories about his crimes. Sheriff Pat Garrett captured Bonney later that month.
In April 1881, Bonney was tried and convicted of the murder of Brady, and was sentenced to hang in May of that year. He escaped from jail on April 28, 1881, killing two sheriff's deputies in the process and evading capture for more than two months.
Garrett shot and killed Bonney—aged 21—in Fort Sumner on July 14, 1881. During the following decades, legends that Bonney had survived that night grew, and a number of men claimed to be him.
Click here for more about Billy the Kid.
McCarty was orphaned at age 14. The owner of a boarding house gave him a room in exchange for work. His first arrest was for stealing food at age 16 in late 1875. Ten days later, he robbed a Chinese laundry and was arrested, but he escaped only two days later.
He tried to stay with his stepfather, and then fled from New Mexico Territory into neighboring Arizona Territory, making him both an outlaw and a federal fugitive. In 1877, McCarty began to refer to himself as "William H. Bonney".
After murdering a blacksmith during an altercation in August 1877, Bonney became a wanted man in Arizona Territory and returned to New Mexico, where he joined a group of cattle rustlers.
He became a well-known figure in the region when he joined the Regulators and took part in the Lincoln County War. In April 1878, the Regulators killed three men, including Lincoln County Sheriff William J. Brady and one of his deputies. Bonney and two other Regulators were later charged with killing all three men.
Bonney's notoriety grew in December 1880 when the Las Vegas Gazette in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and The Sun in New York City carried stories about his crimes. Sheriff Pat Garrett captured Bonney later that month.
In April 1881, Bonney was tried and convicted of the murder of Brady, and was sentenced to hang in May of that year. He escaped from jail on April 28, 1881, killing two sheriff's deputies in the process and evading capture for more than two months.
Garrett shot and killed Bonney—aged 21—in Fort Sumner on July 14, 1881. During the following decades, legends that Bonney had survived that night grew, and a number of men claimed to be him.
Click here for more about Billy the Kid.
William L. "Buffalo Bill" Brooks (1832-1874)
YouTube Video: Buffalo Bill Center of the West - Cody, Wyoming*
* -- Marguerite House of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West tells us all about the legendary American hero and the legacy that he left behind which the museum carries on today. By museum we mean five museums dedicated respectively to Natural History, Plains Indians, Western Art, Firearms and William F. Brooks himself - Buffalo Bill. http://centerofthewest.org/
Pictured below: See YouTube video (above)
YouTube Video: Buffalo Bill Center of the West - Cody, Wyoming*
* -- Marguerite House of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West tells us all about the legendary American hero and the legacy that he left behind which the museum carries on today. By museum we mean five museums dedicated respectively to Natural History, Plains Indians, Western Art, Firearms and William F. Brooks himself - Buffalo Bill. http://centerofthewest.org/
Pictured below: See YouTube video (above)
William L. "Buffalo Bill" Brooks (c. 1832 – July 29, 1874) was a western lawman and later outlaw.
Brooks was born in Ohio around 1832 where he later became a buffalo hunter in the late-1840s or early-1850s whose success equaled fellow buffalo hunter William F. Cody earning the same nickname of Buffalo Bill.
During the late 1860s, Brooks had killed several men in various gunfights, and was briefly hired as a stage driver for the Southwestern Stage Co., before becoming the marshal of Newton, Kansas in 1872. Although he was reported to have been around 40 years old, several biographers have claimed Brooks was in his 20s.
With Brooks success in Newton he was soon offered a position in Dodge City as town marshal where he was later involved in 15 gunfights during his first month. In one case one of the men killed had four brothers who came after Brooks in revenge.
As the brothers arrived in town Brooks was said to have killed all four men with four shots each. By the following year Brooks had cleared the city of most major criminals. Brooks however killed several men in questionable circumstances including one incident where he killed a man over an argument with a local dance hall girl. After backing down from gunfighter Kirk Jordan, Brooks left town shortly after.
According to legend, Brooks went to Butte, Montana where he attempted to become the city marshal but, in part because of Brook's reputation, was instead passed over in favor of Morgan Earp. Confronting Earp over his defeat, Brooks was shot in the stomach and Morgan was shot in the shoulder.
Records show however that, shortly after leaving Dodge City, Brooks returned to his old position as a stage driver for the Southwestern Stage Co. in early 1874. Several months later however the company had lost a mail contract to a rival company and Brooks lost his job.
In June several mules and horses owned by the rival company had been stolen and Brooks, with two other men, were arrested the next month. It was charged that Brooks had apparently attempted to weaken the rival company and win back the mail contract for the Southwestern Stage Company. Brooks was lynched while awaiting trial on July 29, 1874.
Brooks was born in Ohio around 1832 where he later became a buffalo hunter in the late-1840s or early-1850s whose success equaled fellow buffalo hunter William F. Cody earning the same nickname of Buffalo Bill.
During the late 1860s, Brooks had killed several men in various gunfights, and was briefly hired as a stage driver for the Southwestern Stage Co., before becoming the marshal of Newton, Kansas in 1872. Although he was reported to have been around 40 years old, several biographers have claimed Brooks was in his 20s.
With Brooks success in Newton he was soon offered a position in Dodge City as town marshal where he was later involved in 15 gunfights during his first month. In one case one of the men killed had four brothers who came after Brooks in revenge.
As the brothers arrived in town Brooks was said to have killed all four men with four shots each. By the following year Brooks had cleared the city of most major criminals. Brooks however killed several men in questionable circumstances including one incident where he killed a man over an argument with a local dance hall girl. After backing down from gunfighter Kirk Jordan, Brooks left town shortly after.
According to legend, Brooks went to Butte, Montana where he attempted to become the city marshal but, in part because of Brook's reputation, was instead passed over in favor of Morgan Earp. Confronting Earp over his defeat, Brooks was shot in the stomach and Morgan was shot in the shoulder.
Records show however that, shortly after leaving Dodge City, Brooks returned to his old position as a stage driver for the Southwestern Stage Co. in early 1874. Several months later however the company had lost a mail contract to a rival company and Brooks lost his job.
In June several mules and horses owned by the rival company had been stolen and Brooks, with two other men, were arrested the next month. It was charged that Brooks had apparently attempted to weaken the rival company and win back the mail contract for the Southwestern Stage Company. Brooks was lynched while awaiting trial on July 29, 1874.
Ten of the Most Notorious Women of the Wild West by InsideHook (6/16/2018) Pictured below (L-R): Pearl Heart, Cathay Williams, Mary Fields, and Annie Oakley
BY REBECCA GIBIAN
Most of the time, when we think about the Wild Wild West, we think of cowboys and bandits and corrupt sheriffs. Hollywood depicts the west as a crime-filled zone made up of bearded men fighting for their land, searching for gold, or protecting women.
But some of the most badass people in the wild west were, in fact, women who rose up and made a name for themselves as some of the best shooters or meanest criminals. Others spent their days saving lives and helping others. Below we take a look at some of the women of the wild west you wouldn’t want to mess with.
Annie Oakley (Pictured above on Far right)
When Annie was 15-years-old, she won a shooting match against traveling-show marksman Frank E. Butler. The two were later married and they joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show a few years later.
Oakley became renowned for her sharpshooting skills and performed before royalty and heads of state. She encouraged the service of women in combat operation for the U.S. armed forces and penned a letter to President William McKinley offering “the government the services of a company of 50 ‘lady sharpshooters’ who would provide their own arms and ammunition should the U.S. go to war with Spain.”
Mary Fields (Pictured above: Third from Left
Would-be mail thieves didn’t stand a chance against Stagecoach Mary, who sported men’s clothing, a bad attitude and two guns.
Mary Fields was the first African American woman, and the second woman in the U.S., to carry mail, and she was known for hard-drinking and quick-shooting. She was born into slavery and freed after the Civil War, which is when she started working as a groundskeeper at the Ursuline Convent of the Sacred Heart in Toledo, Ohio. But she got in an argument and was kicked out. In 1895, she got a contract from the postal service to become a star route carrier. Her job was to protect mail on her route from thieves and bandits and to deliver mail.
Sonora Webster Carver (not pictured)
Born in Waycross, Georgia, she was one of the first female horse divers. Her job was to mount a running horse as it reached the top of a forty-foot (sometimes sixty-foot) tower, and ride it as the horse plunged into an 11-foot pool of water below. She became the lead diving girl for William “Doc” Carver’s team. She traveled the country performing. She was blinded by a retinal detachment due to hitting the water off-balance with her eyes open while diving her horse in 1931. She continued to dive horses until 1942. The popular movie Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken is based on her life, though she was quoted being disappointed with how she was depicted.
Belle Starr (not pictured)
Known as the “Bandit Queen,” Belle Starr was born in 1848 as Myra Maybelle Shirley, but she soon grew into a rebellious spirit. She mingled with outlaws and became a horse thief. As her fame grew, she stayed a genteel lady: She drank whiskey and would gallop her horse at breakneck speeds, but always while riding sidesaddle. She threatened men who harassed her with a gun. She once told the Dallas Morning News that she was “a friend to any brave and gallant outlaw.” Starr was mysteriously murdered in 1889.
Cathay Williams (Pictured above: Second from Left)
She was the first African-American woman to enlist in the army, and did so by disguising herself as a man. Though she was hospitalized five times, no one ever discovered her secret. She called herself William Cathay and was deemed fit for duty. After the war, she moved to Colorado and got married, but then her husband stole her money and a team of horses. Williams had him arrested. There are rumors that she owned a boarding house during her time in the west as well.
Pearl Heart (Pictured above: Left)
Pearl Heart was inspired by Annie Oakley, but instead of using her sharpshooting skills for show and entertainment, Heart used them for a life of crime. The Canadian-born outlaw is said to have been a cook in a boardinghouse, while others say she ran a tent brothel near a local mine. When she was low on money, Heart met up with a man named Joe Boot and the two of them robbed a stagecoach.
Heart dressed as a man, and ultimately, they got lost when they ran away. This is one of the last recorded stagecoach robberies in the U.S. They were caught and during her sentencing, she said, “I shall not consent to be tried under a law in which my sex had no voice in making.” She served some of her sentence, but became pregnant in prison and was quickly pardoned by the governor. After that, her life becomes a mystery.
Eleanor Dumont (Not Pictured):
Also known as Madame Moustache, Dumont was a notorious gambler on the American Western Frontier, mainly during the California Gold Rush. No one knows quite where she is originally from, some say France, others say New Orleans. She turned up in San Francisco in 1849 and worked as a card dealer.
After a few years, she opened up her own elegant gambling parlor. She refused to let in dirty, unclean men and served champagne over whiskey. She was so successful that she bought a ranch and started raising cattle. But then she met a man named Jack McKnight, who she thought she loved and could trust.
She signed her property over to him so he could manage it. McKnight was a con man, and he took all her money and left her in serious debt. According to Ranker, she did not take this well. She hunted him down and killed him with two blasts from a shotgun. There are many stories of her foiling robbers and threatening steamboats at gunpoint. Unfortunately, she killed herself when her debts became too large.
Laura Bullion (not pictured):
Bullion may have always been destined for a life of crime, as her father was a Native American bank robber. While she was working as a prostitute in Texas, she joined the Wild Bunch gang, where she ran with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. She became known as “Rose of the Wild Bunch” and helped the gang out with their robberies. She would help sell the stolen items, forge checks, and it is rumored she disguised herself as a man to help with heists.
Bridget Mason (not pictured)
She started life as a slave, but after winning her freedom in court in 1856, she moved to Los Angeles and became a nurse and midwife. Ten years later, she bought her own land for $250, making her one of the first black women to own land in Los Angeles. She was a savvy businesswoman and sold part of the land for $1500. She built a rental space on the remaining section.
She eventually had over $300,000 to her name, but she donated to charities and made it her mission to help out the poor and needy. She established the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1872, which continued to help people even after she died.
Katherine Haroney (not pictured)
She was known as “Big Nose Kate” because she worked as a prostitute and didn’t want to be confused with another prostitute named “Kate.” She was known for her stubbornness and toughness. She spent the 1880s moving around the Midwest, and claimed that she worked as a prostitute because she liked not belonging to any one man or one house.
She met Doc Holliday in Kansas and the two started a relationship. One time when he was arrested and locked up for killing a man in self-defense, Kate set fire to an old building. The fire threatened to burn down the entire town, and while the town was busy dealing with that, she held the guard who was watching Holliday at gunpoint while she freed her lover. They escaped and remained together until Holliday died.
Susan Anderson (not pictured)
Anderson was known as “Doc Susie” for her dedication to her medical practice. She was born in 1870 in Indiana and went to medical school before starting her own practice. She became famous when she successfully saved a miner’s arm after he was told by another doctor it would have to be cut off. Anderson practiced medicine for 47 years and didn’t retire until she was 84.
Most of the time, when we think about the Wild Wild West, we think of cowboys and bandits and corrupt sheriffs. Hollywood depicts the west as a crime-filled zone made up of bearded men fighting for their land, searching for gold, or protecting women.
But some of the most badass people in the wild west were, in fact, women who rose up and made a name for themselves as some of the best shooters or meanest criminals. Others spent their days saving lives and helping others. Below we take a look at some of the women of the wild west you wouldn’t want to mess with.
Annie Oakley (Pictured above on Far right)
When Annie was 15-years-old, she won a shooting match against traveling-show marksman Frank E. Butler. The two were later married and they joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show a few years later.
Oakley became renowned for her sharpshooting skills and performed before royalty and heads of state. She encouraged the service of women in combat operation for the U.S. armed forces and penned a letter to President William McKinley offering “the government the services of a company of 50 ‘lady sharpshooters’ who would provide their own arms and ammunition should the U.S. go to war with Spain.”
Mary Fields (Pictured above: Third from Left
Would-be mail thieves didn’t stand a chance against Stagecoach Mary, who sported men’s clothing, a bad attitude and two guns.
Mary Fields was the first African American woman, and the second woman in the U.S., to carry mail, and she was known for hard-drinking and quick-shooting. She was born into slavery and freed after the Civil War, which is when she started working as a groundskeeper at the Ursuline Convent of the Sacred Heart in Toledo, Ohio. But she got in an argument and was kicked out. In 1895, she got a contract from the postal service to become a star route carrier. Her job was to protect mail on her route from thieves and bandits and to deliver mail.
Sonora Webster Carver (not pictured)
Born in Waycross, Georgia, she was one of the first female horse divers. Her job was to mount a running horse as it reached the top of a forty-foot (sometimes sixty-foot) tower, and ride it as the horse plunged into an 11-foot pool of water below. She became the lead diving girl for William “Doc” Carver’s team. She traveled the country performing. She was blinded by a retinal detachment due to hitting the water off-balance with her eyes open while diving her horse in 1931. She continued to dive horses until 1942. The popular movie Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken is based on her life, though she was quoted being disappointed with how she was depicted.
Belle Starr (not pictured)
Known as the “Bandit Queen,” Belle Starr was born in 1848 as Myra Maybelle Shirley, but she soon grew into a rebellious spirit. She mingled with outlaws and became a horse thief. As her fame grew, she stayed a genteel lady: She drank whiskey and would gallop her horse at breakneck speeds, but always while riding sidesaddle. She threatened men who harassed her with a gun. She once told the Dallas Morning News that she was “a friend to any brave and gallant outlaw.” Starr was mysteriously murdered in 1889.
Cathay Williams (Pictured above: Second from Left)
She was the first African-American woman to enlist in the army, and did so by disguising herself as a man. Though she was hospitalized five times, no one ever discovered her secret. She called herself William Cathay and was deemed fit for duty. After the war, she moved to Colorado and got married, but then her husband stole her money and a team of horses. Williams had him arrested. There are rumors that she owned a boarding house during her time in the west as well.
Pearl Heart (Pictured above: Left)
Pearl Heart was inspired by Annie Oakley, but instead of using her sharpshooting skills for show and entertainment, Heart used them for a life of crime. The Canadian-born outlaw is said to have been a cook in a boardinghouse, while others say she ran a tent brothel near a local mine. When she was low on money, Heart met up with a man named Joe Boot and the two of them robbed a stagecoach.
Heart dressed as a man, and ultimately, they got lost when they ran away. This is one of the last recorded stagecoach robberies in the U.S. They were caught and during her sentencing, she said, “I shall not consent to be tried under a law in which my sex had no voice in making.” She served some of her sentence, but became pregnant in prison and was quickly pardoned by the governor. After that, her life becomes a mystery.
Eleanor Dumont (Not Pictured):
Also known as Madame Moustache, Dumont was a notorious gambler on the American Western Frontier, mainly during the California Gold Rush. No one knows quite where she is originally from, some say France, others say New Orleans. She turned up in San Francisco in 1849 and worked as a card dealer.
After a few years, she opened up her own elegant gambling parlor. She refused to let in dirty, unclean men and served champagne over whiskey. She was so successful that she bought a ranch and started raising cattle. But then she met a man named Jack McKnight, who she thought she loved and could trust.
She signed her property over to him so he could manage it. McKnight was a con man, and he took all her money and left her in serious debt. According to Ranker, she did not take this well. She hunted him down and killed him with two blasts from a shotgun. There are many stories of her foiling robbers and threatening steamboats at gunpoint. Unfortunately, she killed herself when her debts became too large.
Laura Bullion (not pictured):
Bullion may have always been destined for a life of crime, as her father was a Native American bank robber. While she was working as a prostitute in Texas, she joined the Wild Bunch gang, where she ran with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. She became known as “Rose of the Wild Bunch” and helped the gang out with their robberies. She would help sell the stolen items, forge checks, and it is rumored she disguised herself as a man to help with heists.
Bridget Mason (not pictured)
She started life as a slave, but after winning her freedom in court in 1856, she moved to Los Angeles and became a nurse and midwife. Ten years later, she bought her own land for $250, making her one of the first black women to own land in Los Angeles. She was a savvy businesswoman and sold part of the land for $1500. She built a rental space on the remaining section.
She eventually had over $300,000 to her name, but she donated to charities and made it her mission to help out the poor and needy. She established the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1872, which continued to help people even after she died.
Katherine Haroney (not pictured)
She was known as “Big Nose Kate” because she worked as a prostitute and didn’t want to be confused with another prostitute named “Kate.” She was known for her stubbornness and toughness. She spent the 1880s moving around the Midwest, and claimed that she worked as a prostitute because she liked not belonging to any one man or one house.
She met Doc Holliday in Kansas and the two started a relationship. One time when he was arrested and locked up for killing a man in self-defense, Kate set fire to an old building. The fire threatened to burn down the entire town, and while the town was busy dealing with that, she held the guard who was watching Holliday at gunpoint while she freed her lover. They escaped and remained together until Holliday died.
Susan Anderson (not pictured)
Anderson was known as “Doc Susie” for her dedication to her medical practice. She was born in 1870 in Indiana and went to medical school before starting her own practice. She became famous when she successfully saved a miner’s arm after he was told by another doctor it would have to be cut off. Anderson practiced medicine for 47 years and didn’t retire until she was 84.
The Big Country (1958 Western Movie)
- YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for The Big Country (1958)
- YouTube Video: The Big Country - Shall I Go On?
- YouTube Video: The Big Country - Fighting Words
The Big Country is a 1958 American epic Western film directed by William Wyler and starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston and Burl Ives. The supporting cast features Charles Bickford and Chuck Connors.
Filmed in Technicolor and Technirama, the picture was based on the serialized magazine novel Ambush at Blanco Canyon by Donald Hamilton and was co-produced by Wyler and Peck. The opening title sequence was created by Saul Bass.
Ives won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his performance, as well as the Golden Globe Award. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for the musical score, composed by Jerome Moross.
The film is one of very few in which Heston plays a major supporting role rather than the lead.
Plot:
Retired sea captain James McKay (Gregory Peck) travels to the American West to join his fiancée Patricia (Carroll Baker) at the enormous ranch owned by her father, Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford), referred to by all as "The Major".
After a meeting with Patricia's friend, schoolteacher Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons), McKay and Patricia are accosted by a group of drunks led by Buck Hannassey (Chuck Connors), the son of the Major's ardent and implacable enemy Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives). In spite of the harassment and mockery, McKay surprises Patricia by standing his ground and allowing the group to leave without further incident.
The next morning, McKay declines an invitation from the Major's foreman Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) to ride an indomitable bronco stallion named "Old Thunder". McKay then brings a pair of dueling pistols to the Major as a gift.
When the Major learns of Buck's pestering of his daughter and future son-in-law, he gathers his men and goes to raid the Hannassey ranch despite McKay's attempts to defuse the situation. The Major's group finds neither Rufus nor Buck, so they settle for terrorizing the Hannassey women and children, as well as capturing and punishing the members of Buck's posse.
Meanwhile, McKay privately tames and rides Old Thunder after many unsuccessful attempts, and swears his only witness, the ranch hand Ramon (Alfonso Bedoya), to secrecy.
A gala is held on the Terrill ranch in honor of Patricia and McKay's upcoming wedding. At the height of the festivities, Rufus, carrying a shotgun, crashes the party and accuses the Major of being a hypocrite. The next day, McKay sets out to explore the country around the Terrill ranch. He tells Ramon to tell Pat that he is perfectly safe - given his navigating skills as a sea-captain. He chances upon the Maragon's deserted ranchhouse, on the "Big Muddy", as the ranch is known.
The Big Muddy's territory is the location of the area's sole river, and as such it is a vital source of water for both the Terrill and Hannassey cattle during times of drought. McKay persuades Julie Maragon to sell the ranch to him thereby securing a wedding gift for Patricia.
He assures her that both ranchers will continue to have unrestricted access to the river, continuing her policy of even-handedness.
On his return McKay rides into the camp of a search party organised by Terrill and led by Leech. Ramon has attempted to tell the Major and Pat of McKay's message but they ignore him. The party ride back to the ranch where Leech calls McKay a liar when McKay explains to the Terrills that he was never lost, but McKay again refuses to be goaded into a fight, disappointing Pat enough to make the pair reconsider their engagement.
He leaves the ranch the next morning - but only after fulfilling Leech's challenge of the previous evening. He asks Leech to keep the encounter secret. At dawn the two walk on to the prairie and fight until they both agree to end the encounter. The next morning, Julie tells Pat of McKay's purchase of the Big Muddy for her, which initially persuades her into considering making up with McKay. However, when she learns of McKay's plan to allow the Hannasseys equal access to the water, she once again turns against McKay.
Meanwhile Buck has persuaded Rufus that he and Julie are courting. Buck brings Julie to the Hannessey's but Rufus realizes her interest is in McKay. However, he knows that the Major will attempt to rescue Julie so he takes her hostage, wishing to lure the Major into an ambush in the canyon leading to his homestead.
Although McKay personally promises Rufus equal access to the water, he finds himself in a clash with Buck, which is ultimately settled with a duel. Buck fires before the signal, but misses, his bullet grazing McKay's forehead and leaving him open to be shot by McKay. He merely shoots his round into the dust upon seeing Buck's craven response to the prospect of being shot. Seeing an opportunity to kill McKay, Buck snatches another gun from a nearby cowboy.
Disgusted by his dishonourable action Rufus shoots his son. Rufus goes to the canyon for a final confrontation with the Major and challenges him to a one-on-one showdown. Armed with rifles, the two old men advance and kill one another. McKay, along with Julie and Ramon, ride off to start life together.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "The Big Country":
Filmed in Technicolor and Technirama, the picture was based on the serialized magazine novel Ambush at Blanco Canyon by Donald Hamilton and was co-produced by Wyler and Peck. The opening title sequence was created by Saul Bass.
Ives won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his performance, as well as the Golden Globe Award. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award for the musical score, composed by Jerome Moross.
The film is one of very few in which Heston plays a major supporting role rather than the lead.
Plot:
Retired sea captain James McKay (Gregory Peck) travels to the American West to join his fiancée Patricia (Carroll Baker) at the enormous ranch owned by her father, Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford), referred to by all as "The Major".
After a meeting with Patricia's friend, schoolteacher Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons), McKay and Patricia are accosted by a group of drunks led by Buck Hannassey (Chuck Connors), the son of the Major's ardent and implacable enemy Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives). In spite of the harassment and mockery, McKay surprises Patricia by standing his ground and allowing the group to leave without further incident.
The next morning, McKay declines an invitation from the Major's foreman Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) to ride an indomitable bronco stallion named "Old Thunder". McKay then brings a pair of dueling pistols to the Major as a gift.
When the Major learns of Buck's pestering of his daughter and future son-in-law, he gathers his men and goes to raid the Hannassey ranch despite McKay's attempts to defuse the situation. The Major's group finds neither Rufus nor Buck, so they settle for terrorizing the Hannassey women and children, as well as capturing and punishing the members of Buck's posse.
Meanwhile, McKay privately tames and rides Old Thunder after many unsuccessful attempts, and swears his only witness, the ranch hand Ramon (Alfonso Bedoya), to secrecy.
A gala is held on the Terrill ranch in honor of Patricia and McKay's upcoming wedding. At the height of the festivities, Rufus, carrying a shotgun, crashes the party and accuses the Major of being a hypocrite. The next day, McKay sets out to explore the country around the Terrill ranch. He tells Ramon to tell Pat that he is perfectly safe - given his navigating skills as a sea-captain. He chances upon the Maragon's deserted ranchhouse, on the "Big Muddy", as the ranch is known.
The Big Muddy's territory is the location of the area's sole river, and as such it is a vital source of water for both the Terrill and Hannassey cattle during times of drought. McKay persuades Julie Maragon to sell the ranch to him thereby securing a wedding gift for Patricia.
He assures her that both ranchers will continue to have unrestricted access to the river, continuing her policy of even-handedness.
On his return McKay rides into the camp of a search party organised by Terrill and led by Leech. Ramon has attempted to tell the Major and Pat of McKay's message but they ignore him. The party ride back to the ranch where Leech calls McKay a liar when McKay explains to the Terrills that he was never lost, but McKay again refuses to be goaded into a fight, disappointing Pat enough to make the pair reconsider their engagement.
He leaves the ranch the next morning - but only after fulfilling Leech's challenge of the previous evening. He asks Leech to keep the encounter secret. At dawn the two walk on to the prairie and fight until they both agree to end the encounter. The next morning, Julie tells Pat of McKay's purchase of the Big Muddy for her, which initially persuades her into considering making up with McKay. However, when she learns of McKay's plan to allow the Hannasseys equal access to the water, she once again turns against McKay.
Meanwhile Buck has persuaded Rufus that he and Julie are courting. Buck brings Julie to the Hannessey's but Rufus realizes her interest is in McKay. However, he knows that the Major will attempt to rescue Julie so he takes her hostage, wishing to lure the Major into an ambush in the canyon leading to his homestead.
Although McKay personally promises Rufus equal access to the water, he finds himself in a clash with Buck, which is ultimately settled with a duel. Buck fires before the signal, but misses, his bullet grazing McKay's forehead and leaving him open to be shot by McKay. He merely shoots his round into the dust upon seeing Buck's craven response to the prospect of being shot. Seeing an opportunity to kill McKay, Buck snatches another gun from a nearby cowboy.
Disgusted by his dishonourable action Rufus shoots his son. Rufus goes to the canyon for a final confrontation with the Major and challenges him to a one-on-one showdown. Armed with rifles, the two old men advance and kill one another. McKay, along with Julie and Ramon, ride off to start life together.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "The Big Country":
The Rifleman (ABC: 1958-1963)
- YouTube Video: The Rifleman's Rifle demonstration
- YouTube Video from the Rifleman: "I Take This Woman"
- YouTube Video: The Rifleman S5 E07 The Assailants
The Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the fictional town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory.
The show was filmed in black and white, in half-hour episodes. The Rifleman aired on ABC from September 30, 1958, to April 8, 1963, as a production of Four Star Television.
It was one of the first prime time series on US television to show a single parent raising a child.
The program was titled to reflect McCain's use of a Winchester Model 1892 rifle, customized to allow repeated firing by cycling its lever action (an anachronism, because the model wasn't manufactured until after the period of the show's setting).
He demonstrated this technique in the opening credits of every episode, as well as a second modification that allowed him to cycle the action with one hand using a technique known as spin-cocking.
Overview:
Main article: List of The Rifleman episodes
The series centers on Lucas McCain, a Union Civil War veteran and widower. McCain had been a lieutenant in the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment, and he had received a battlefield commission at the Battle of Five Forks just before the end of the war. (This conflicts with Episode 3/25, "The Prisoner," in which a former Confederate cavalry major states that he was Lieutenant McCain's prisoner after the Battle of Fort Donelson.)
Having previously been a homesteader, McCain buys a ranch outside the fictitious town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory, in the pilot episode. He and his son Mark had come from Enid, Oklahoma, following the death of his wife, Margaret (nee Gibbs), when his son was six years old.
The series was set during the 1880s; a wooden plaque next to the McCain home states that the home was rebuilt by Lucas McCain and his son Mark in August 1881.
A common thread in the series is that people deserve a second chance; Marshal Micah Torrance is a recovering alcoholic, and McCain gives a convict a job on his ranch in "The Marshal". Royal Dano appeared in "The Sheridan Story" as a former Confederate soldier who is given a job on the McCain ranch and encounters General Philip Sheridan, the man who cost him his arm in battle. Learning why the man wants him dead, Sheridan arranges for medical care for his wounded former foe, quoting Abraham Lincoln's last orders to "... bind up the nation's wounds".
Despite his status as the series' protaganist, Lucas McCain is not without fault; he has his flaws. Throughout the series, he is extremely protective of his son to the point of being over-protective at times. He also has a tendency to be stubborn, bossy, and has a bit of an inflated ego.
In "Death Trap", an episode with Philip Carey as former gunman (and old adversary) Simon Battles, he is unwilling to believe the man has changed and become a doctor. It takes a gunfight (with Battles fighting alongside him) to make him admit he is wrong.
In "Two Ounces Of Tin", with Sammy Davis Jr. as Tip Corey (a former circus trick-shot artist turned gunman), McCain angrily orders him off the ranch when he finds him demonstrating his skills to Mark. Corey suggests he is a hypocrite, because McCain has an equally deadly reputation in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma, where he first acquired the nickname "the Rifleman", and where his wife had died in a smallpox epidemic
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "The Rifleman":
The show was filmed in black and white, in half-hour episodes. The Rifleman aired on ABC from September 30, 1958, to April 8, 1963, as a production of Four Star Television.
It was one of the first prime time series on US television to show a single parent raising a child.
The program was titled to reflect McCain's use of a Winchester Model 1892 rifle, customized to allow repeated firing by cycling its lever action (an anachronism, because the model wasn't manufactured until after the period of the show's setting).
He demonstrated this technique in the opening credits of every episode, as well as a second modification that allowed him to cycle the action with one hand using a technique known as spin-cocking.
Overview:
Main article: List of The Rifleman episodes
The series centers on Lucas McCain, a Union Civil War veteran and widower. McCain had been a lieutenant in the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment, and he had received a battlefield commission at the Battle of Five Forks just before the end of the war. (This conflicts with Episode 3/25, "The Prisoner," in which a former Confederate cavalry major states that he was Lieutenant McCain's prisoner after the Battle of Fort Donelson.)
Having previously been a homesteader, McCain buys a ranch outside the fictitious town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory, in the pilot episode. He and his son Mark had come from Enid, Oklahoma, following the death of his wife, Margaret (nee Gibbs), when his son was six years old.
The series was set during the 1880s; a wooden plaque next to the McCain home states that the home was rebuilt by Lucas McCain and his son Mark in August 1881.
A common thread in the series is that people deserve a second chance; Marshal Micah Torrance is a recovering alcoholic, and McCain gives a convict a job on his ranch in "The Marshal". Royal Dano appeared in "The Sheridan Story" as a former Confederate soldier who is given a job on the McCain ranch and encounters General Philip Sheridan, the man who cost him his arm in battle. Learning why the man wants him dead, Sheridan arranges for medical care for his wounded former foe, quoting Abraham Lincoln's last orders to "... bind up the nation's wounds".
Despite his status as the series' protaganist, Lucas McCain is not without fault; he has his flaws. Throughout the series, he is extremely protective of his son to the point of being over-protective at times. He also has a tendency to be stubborn, bossy, and has a bit of an inflated ego.
In "Death Trap", an episode with Philip Carey as former gunman (and old adversary) Simon Battles, he is unwilling to believe the man has changed and become a doctor. It takes a gunfight (with Battles fighting alongside him) to make him admit he is wrong.
In "Two Ounces Of Tin", with Sammy Davis Jr. as Tip Corey (a former circus trick-shot artist turned gunman), McCain angrily orders him off the ranch when he finds him demonstrating his skills to Mark. Corey suggests he is a hypocrite, because McCain has an equally deadly reputation in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma, where he first acquired the nickname "the Rifleman", and where his wife had died in a smallpox epidemic
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "The Rifleman":
The Real Life Butch Cassidy (1866–1908) and The Sundance Kid (1867-1908)
- YouTube Video of the Real-life Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Based on a True Story
- YouTube Video: "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" - "Flat Nose Curry" remembers! with Charles Dierkop
- YouTube Video: The Making of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid | Full Feature Documentary
Introduction to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:
Many of you saw the great movie covered later below:
What may surprise you was that movie was largely based on the exploits of the real Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, covered below:
Butch Cassidy:
Robert LeRoy Parker (April 13, 1866 – November 7, 1908), better known as Butch Cassidy, was an American train and bank robber and the leader of a gang of criminal outlaws known as the "Wild Bunch" in the Old West.
Parker engaged in criminal activity for more than a decade at the end of the 19th century, but the pressures of being pursued by law enforcement, notably the Pinkerton detective agency, forced him to flee the country.
He fled with his accomplice Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, known as the "Sundance Kid" (below), and Longabaugh's girlfriend Etta Place. The trio traveled first to Argentina and then to Bolivia, where Parker and Longabaugh are believed to have been killed in a shootout with the Bolivian Army in November 1908; the exact circumstances of their fate continue to be disputed.
Parker's life and death have been extensively dramatized in film, television, and literature, and he remains one of the most well-known icons of the "Wild West" mythos in modern times.
Click here for more about Butch Cassidy.
___________________________________________________________________________
Sundance Kid:
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (1867 – November 7, 1908), better known as the Sundance Kid, was an outlaw and member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch in the American Old West.
He likely met Butch Cassidy (real name Robert Leroy Parker) after Cassidy was released from prison around 1896. "The Wild Bunch" gang performed the longest string of successful train and bank robberies in American history.
Longabaugh fled the United States along with his consort Etta Place and Butch Cassidy in order to escape the dogged pursuit of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The trio fled first to Argentina and then to Bolivia, where Cassidy and Longabaugh were killed in a shootout in November 1908.
Click here for more about the Sundance Kid.
Many of you saw the great movie covered later below:
What may surprise you was that movie was largely based on the exploits of the real Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, covered below:
Butch Cassidy:
Robert LeRoy Parker (April 13, 1866 – November 7, 1908), better known as Butch Cassidy, was an American train and bank robber and the leader of a gang of criminal outlaws known as the "Wild Bunch" in the Old West.
Parker engaged in criminal activity for more than a decade at the end of the 19th century, but the pressures of being pursued by law enforcement, notably the Pinkerton detective agency, forced him to flee the country.
He fled with his accomplice Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, known as the "Sundance Kid" (below), and Longabaugh's girlfriend Etta Place. The trio traveled first to Argentina and then to Bolivia, where Parker and Longabaugh are believed to have been killed in a shootout with the Bolivian Army in November 1908; the exact circumstances of their fate continue to be disputed.
Parker's life and death have been extensively dramatized in film, television, and literature, and he remains one of the most well-known icons of the "Wild West" mythos in modern times.
Click here for more about Butch Cassidy.
___________________________________________________________________________
Sundance Kid:
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (1867 – November 7, 1908), better known as the Sundance Kid, was an outlaw and member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch in the American Old West.
He likely met Butch Cassidy (real name Robert Leroy Parker) after Cassidy was released from prison around 1896. "The Wild Bunch" gang performed the longest string of successful train and bank robberies in American history.
Longabaugh fled the United States along with his consort Etta Place and Butch Cassidy in order to escape the dogged pursuit of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The trio fled first to Argentina and then to Bolivia, where Cassidy and Longabaugh were killed in a shootout in November 1908.
Click here for more about the Sundance Kid.
Impact of American Civil War on Western States: YouTube Videos:
- Western Theater of the Civil War in Four Minutes
- California in the Civil War
- Ten Minute History - Westward Expansion and the American Civil War
Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War:
The Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War consists of the major military operations west of the Mississippi River. The area is often thought of as excluding the states and territories bordering the Pacific Ocean, which formed the Pacific Coast Theater of the American Civil War (1861-1865) (See next topic below).
The campaign classification established by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior is more fine-grained than the one used in this article. Some minor NPS campaigns have been omitted and some have been combined into larger categories. Only a few of the 75 major battles the NPS classifies for this theater are described. Boxed text in the right margin show the NPS campaigns associated with each section.
Activity in this theater in 1861 was dominated largely by the dispute over the status of the border state of Missouri. The Missouri State Guard, allied with the Confederacy, won important victories at the Battle of Wilson's Creek and the First Battle of Lexington.
However, they were driven back at the First Battle of Springfield. A Union army under Samuel Ryan Curtis defeated the Confederate forces at the Battle of Pea Ridge in northwest Arkansas in March 1862, solidifying Union control over most of Missouri.
The areas of Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma) were marked by extensive guerrilla activity throughout the rest of the war, the most well-known incident being the infamous Lawrence massacre in the Unionist town of Lawrence, Kansas of August 1863.
In the spring of 1862, Confederate forces pushed north along the Rio Grande River from El Paso, Texas through the New Mexico Territory, but were stopped at the Battle of Glorieta Pass (March 26–28, 1862).
In 1863, General Edmund Kirby Smith took command of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, and unsuccessfully tried to relieve the Siege of Vicksburg by Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on the opposite eastern banks of the Mississippi River in the state of Mississippi.
As a result of the long campaign / siege and surrender in July 1863 by Gen. John C. Pemberton, the Union gained control of the entire Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy.
This left the Trans-Mississippi Department almost completely isolated from the rest of the Confederate States to the east. It became nicknamed and known as "Kirby Smithdom", emphasizing the Confederate Government's lack of direct control over the region.
In the 1864 Red River Campaign, a U.S. force under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks tried to gain control over northwestern Louisiana, but was thwarted by Confederate troops commanded by Richard Taylor. Price's Raid, an attempt led by Major General Sterling Price to recapture Missouri for the Confederacy, ended when Price's troops were defeated in the Battle of Westport that October.
On June 2, 1865, after all other major Confederate armies in the field to the east had surrendered, Kirby Smith officially surrendered his command in Galveston, Texas. On June 23, Stand Watie, who commanded Southern troops in the Indian Territory, became the last Confederate general to surrender.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War:
Pacific Coast Theater of the American Civil War:
The Pacific Coast Theater of the American Civil War consists of major military operations in the United States on the Pacific Ocean and in the states and Territories west of the Continental Divide. The theater was encompassed by the Department of the Pacific that included the states of California, Oregon, and Nevada, the territories of Washington, Utah, and later Idaho.
The operations of Union volunteer troop detachments, primarily from California, some from Oregon, and a few companies from Washington Territory, were directed mostly against Indigenous Americans in the theater.
Union and Confederate regular forces did not meet directly within the Pacific Department except in New Mexico Territory. Operations were directed against Confederate irregulars in California and strong garrisons were placed in Southern California and southern New Mexico Territory to control the region which had strong secessionist sympathies.
Confederate States Navy warships operated in the Pacific Ocean, but the naval operations did not succeed in interrupting commerce to the Eastern United States. The last of these commerce raiders, CSS Shenandoah, fired the last shot of the War in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. Attempts by the Confederacy to buy or seize ships for commerce raiding on the West Coast were thwarted by alert Union officials and the Pacific Squadron.
Secession Crisis on the West Coast:
During the secession crisis following Lincoln's election as President of the United States in 1860, a group of Southern sympathizers in California made plans to secede with Oregon to form a "Pacific Republic".
Their plans rested on the cooperation of Colonel (Brevet Brigadier General) Albert Sidney Johnston, headquartered in Benicia, California, who commanded all the Federal troops of the Department of the Pacific.
Johnston met with some of these Southern men, but before they could propose anything to him he told them that he had heard rumors of an attempt to seize the San Francisco forts and arsenal at Benicia, that he had prepared for that, and would defend the facilities under his command with all his resources and to the last drop of his blood. He told them to tell this to their friends.
Deprived of his aid, the plans for California and Oregon to secede from the United States never came to fruition. Meanwhile, Union men feared Johnston would aid such a plot and telegraphed Washington asking for his replacement. Brig. Gen. Edwin Vose Sumner was soon sent west via Panama to replace Johnston in March 1861. Johnston resigned his commission on 9 April, and after Sumner arrived on 25 April, Johnston turned over his command and moved with his family to Los Angeles.
On 28 March 1861, the newly formed Arizona Territory voted to separate from New Mexico Territory and join the Confederacy. This increased Union officials' fears of a secessionist movement to separate Southern California from the rest of California and join the Confederacy.
This fear was based on the demonstrated Southern Californian desire for separation from the rest of California in the overwhelming vote for the 1859 Pico Act, the strength of secessionists in the area, and their declared intentions and activities, especially in forming militia companies.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Pacific Coast Theater of the American Civil War:
The Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War consists of the major military operations west of the Mississippi River. The area is often thought of as excluding the states and territories bordering the Pacific Ocean, which formed the Pacific Coast Theater of the American Civil War (1861-1865) (See next topic below).
The campaign classification established by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior is more fine-grained than the one used in this article. Some minor NPS campaigns have been omitted and some have been combined into larger categories. Only a few of the 75 major battles the NPS classifies for this theater are described. Boxed text in the right margin show the NPS campaigns associated with each section.
Activity in this theater in 1861 was dominated largely by the dispute over the status of the border state of Missouri. The Missouri State Guard, allied with the Confederacy, won important victories at the Battle of Wilson's Creek and the First Battle of Lexington.
However, they were driven back at the First Battle of Springfield. A Union army under Samuel Ryan Curtis defeated the Confederate forces at the Battle of Pea Ridge in northwest Arkansas in March 1862, solidifying Union control over most of Missouri.
The areas of Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma) were marked by extensive guerrilla activity throughout the rest of the war, the most well-known incident being the infamous Lawrence massacre in the Unionist town of Lawrence, Kansas of August 1863.
In the spring of 1862, Confederate forces pushed north along the Rio Grande River from El Paso, Texas through the New Mexico Territory, but were stopped at the Battle of Glorieta Pass (March 26–28, 1862).
In 1863, General Edmund Kirby Smith took command of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, and unsuccessfully tried to relieve the Siege of Vicksburg by Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on the opposite eastern banks of the Mississippi River in the state of Mississippi.
As a result of the long campaign / siege and surrender in July 1863 by Gen. John C. Pemberton, the Union gained control of the entire Mississippi River, splitting the Confederacy.
This left the Trans-Mississippi Department almost completely isolated from the rest of the Confederate States to the east. It became nicknamed and known as "Kirby Smithdom", emphasizing the Confederate Government's lack of direct control over the region.
In the 1864 Red River Campaign, a U.S. force under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks tried to gain control over northwestern Louisiana, but was thwarted by Confederate troops commanded by Richard Taylor. Price's Raid, an attempt led by Major General Sterling Price to recapture Missouri for the Confederacy, ended when Price's troops were defeated in the Battle of Westport that October.
On June 2, 1865, after all other major Confederate armies in the field to the east had surrendered, Kirby Smith officially surrendered his command in Galveston, Texas. On June 23, Stand Watie, who commanded Southern troops in the Indian Territory, became the last Confederate general to surrender.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War:
- Principal Union Commanders of the Trans-Mississippi Theater
- Principal Confederate Commanders of the Trans-Mississippi Theater
- Trans-Mississippi Department
- Confederate Territory of Arizona and Federal New Mexico Territory
- Missouri, Arkansas, and Kansas
- Texas and Louisiana
- Indian Territory
- See also:
Pacific Coast Theater of the American Civil War:
The Pacific Coast Theater of the American Civil War consists of major military operations in the United States on the Pacific Ocean and in the states and Territories west of the Continental Divide. The theater was encompassed by the Department of the Pacific that included the states of California, Oregon, and Nevada, the territories of Washington, Utah, and later Idaho.
The operations of Union volunteer troop detachments, primarily from California, some from Oregon, and a few companies from Washington Territory, were directed mostly against Indigenous Americans in the theater.
Union and Confederate regular forces did not meet directly within the Pacific Department except in New Mexico Territory. Operations were directed against Confederate irregulars in California and strong garrisons were placed in Southern California and southern New Mexico Territory to control the region which had strong secessionist sympathies.
Confederate States Navy warships operated in the Pacific Ocean, but the naval operations did not succeed in interrupting commerce to the Eastern United States. The last of these commerce raiders, CSS Shenandoah, fired the last shot of the War in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. Attempts by the Confederacy to buy or seize ships for commerce raiding on the West Coast were thwarted by alert Union officials and the Pacific Squadron.
Secession Crisis on the West Coast:
During the secession crisis following Lincoln's election as President of the United States in 1860, a group of Southern sympathizers in California made plans to secede with Oregon to form a "Pacific Republic".
Their plans rested on the cooperation of Colonel (Brevet Brigadier General) Albert Sidney Johnston, headquartered in Benicia, California, who commanded all the Federal troops of the Department of the Pacific.
Johnston met with some of these Southern men, but before they could propose anything to him he told them that he had heard rumors of an attempt to seize the San Francisco forts and arsenal at Benicia, that he had prepared for that, and would defend the facilities under his command with all his resources and to the last drop of his blood. He told them to tell this to their friends.
Deprived of his aid, the plans for California and Oregon to secede from the United States never came to fruition. Meanwhile, Union men feared Johnston would aid such a plot and telegraphed Washington asking for his replacement. Brig. Gen. Edwin Vose Sumner was soon sent west via Panama to replace Johnston in March 1861. Johnston resigned his commission on 9 April, and after Sumner arrived on 25 April, Johnston turned over his command and moved with his family to Los Angeles.
On 28 March 1861, the newly formed Arizona Territory voted to separate from New Mexico Territory and join the Confederacy. This increased Union officials' fears of a secessionist movement to separate Southern California from the rest of California and join the Confederacy.
This fear was based on the demonstrated Southern Californian desire for separation from the rest of California in the overwhelming vote for the 1859 Pico Act, the strength of secessionists in the area, and their declared intentions and activities, especially in forming militia companies.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Pacific Coast Theater of the American Civil War:
- Operations against secessionists and the Confederacy
- Indian Wars in the Department of the Pacific
- See also:
- West Point Atlas map of principal Civil War campaigns
- National Park Service Civil War at a Glance
- California in the American Civil War
- California Genocide
- Oregon in the American Civil War
- Washington Territory in the American Civil War:
- Utah Territory in the American Civil War:
- New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War
Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803-1806)Pictured below: Louisiana Territory as explored by Lewis and Clark
The Lewis and Clark Expedition from August 31, 1803, to September 25, 1806, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase.
In the 1970s, the federal government memorialized the winter assembly encampment, Camp Dubois, as the start of the Lewis and Clark voyage of discovery and in 2019 it recognized Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as the start of the expedition.
The expedition made its way westward, and crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas before reaching the Pacific Coast. The Corps of Discovery was a select group of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark.
President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the expedition shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to explore and to map the newly acquired territory, to find a practical route across the western half of the continent, and to establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it.
The campaign's secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area's plants, animal life, and geography, and to establish trade with local American Indian tribes. The expedition returned to St. Louis to report its findings to Jefferson, with maps, sketches, and journals in hand.
Overview:
One of Thomas Jefferson's goals was to find "the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce." He also placed special importance on declaring US sovereignty over the land occupied by the many different Indian tribes along the Missouri River, and getting an accurate sense of the resources in the recently completed Louisiana Purchase.
The expedition made notable contributions to science, but scientific research was not the main goal of the mission.
During the 19th century, references to Lewis and Clark "scarcely appeared" in history books, even during the United States Centennial in 1876, and the expedition was largely forgotten.
Lewis and Clark began to gain attention around the start of the 20th century. Both the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis and the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon showcased them as American pioneers. However, the story remained relatively shallow until mid-century as a celebration of US conquest and personal adventures, but more recently the expedition has been more thoroughly researched.
In 2004, a complete and reliable set of the expedition's journals was compiled by Gary E. Moulton. In the 2000s, the bicentennial of the expedition further elevated popular interest in Lewis and Clark. As of 1984, no US exploration party was more famous, and no American expedition leaders are more recognizable by name.
Timeline:
Main article: Timeline of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
The timeline covers the primary events associated with the expedition, from January 1803 through January 1807.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Lewis & Clark Expedition:
In the 1970s, the federal government memorialized the winter assembly encampment, Camp Dubois, as the start of the Lewis and Clark voyage of discovery and in 2019 it recognized Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as the start of the expedition.
The expedition made its way westward, and crossed the Continental Divide of the Americas before reaching the Pacific Coast. The Corps of Discovery was a select group of U.S. Army and civilian volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark.
President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the expedition shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to explore and to map the newly acquired territory, to find a practical route across the western half of the continent, and to establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it.
The campaign's secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area's plants, animal life, and geography, and to establish trade with local American Indian tribes. The expedition returned to St. Louis to report its findings to Jefferson, with maps, sketches, and journals in hand.
Overview:
One of Thomas Jefferson's goals was to find "the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce." He also placed special importance on declaring US sovereignty over the land occupied by the many different Indian tribes along the Missouri River, and getting an accurate sense of the resources in the recently completed Louisiana Purchase.
The expedition made notable contributions to science, but scientific research was not the main goal of the mission.
During the 19th century, references to Lewis and Clark "scarcely appeared" in history books, even during the United States Centennial in 1876, and the expedition was largely forgotten.
Lewis and Clark began to gain attention around the start of the 20th century. Both the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis and the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon showcased them as American pioneers. However, the story remained relatively shallow until mid-century as a celebration of US conquest and personal adventures, but more recently the expedition has been more thoroughly researched.
In 2004, a complete and reliable set of the expedition's journals was compiled by Gary E. Moulton. In the 2000s, the bicentennial of the expedition further elevated popular interest in Lewis and Clark. As of 1984, no US exploration party was more famous, and no American expedition leaders are more recognizable by name.
Timeline:
Main article: Timeline of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
The timeline covers the primary events associated with the expedition, from January 1803 through January 1807.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Lewis & Clark Expedition:
- Preparations
- Journey
- Geography and science
- Encounters with American Indians
- Accomplishments
- Aftermath
- Legacy and honors
- Prior discoveries
- See also:
- The Far Horizons, a film of the expedition
- Gateway Arch National Park
- Lewis and Clark Pass (Montana) – the only non-motorized pass on the expedition's route
- Lewis and Clark's Keelboat
- The Red River Expedition (1806) and the Pike Expedition were also commissioned by Jefferson
- Full text of the Lewis and Clark journals online – edited by Gary E. Moulton, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
- "National Archives photos dating from the 1860s–1890s of the Native cultures the expedition encountered". Archived from the original on February 12, 2008.
- Lewis and Clark Expedition, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
- "History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark: To the Sources of the Missouri, thence Across the Rocky Mountains and down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean" published in 1814; from the World Digital Library
- Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation: Discovering Lewis & Clark
- Corps of Discovery Online Atlas, created by Watzek Library, Lewis & Clark College
- Lewis and Clark Expedition Maps and Receipt. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
- William Clark Field Notes. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
- Louis Starr Collection Concerning the Field Notes of William Clark. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The Indian Territory along with Native Americans in the United States, including the Casinos they own
- YouTube Video: A Conversation With Native Americans on Race (NY Times)
- YouTube Video: 6 Misconceptions About Native American People | Teen Vogue
- YouTube Video: The People of the Horse | National Geographic
[Your Webhost: Note that Native American tribes are found, not only in the Western United States, but are also indigenous to all Lower 48 states]
The Indian Territories:
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally describe an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign independent state.
In general, the tribes ceded land they occupied in exchange for land grants in 1803. The concept of an Indian Territory was an outcome of the US federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the US government was one of assimilation.
The term Indian Reserve describes lands the British government set aside for Indigenous tribes between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River in the time before the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).
Indian Territory later came to refer to an unorganized territory whose general borders were initially set by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834, and was the successor to the remainder of the Missouri Territory after Missouri received statehood.
The borders of Indian Territory were reduced in size as various Organic Acts were passed by Congress to create incorporated territories of the United States. The 1907 Oklahoma Enabling Act created the single state of Oklahoma by combining Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory, ending the existence of an unorganized unincorporated independent Indian Territory as such.
Indian reservations remain within the boundaries of US states, but largely exempt from state jurisdiction. The term Indian country is used to signify lands under the control of Native nations, including Indian reservations, trust lands on tribal jurisdictional areas, or, more casually, to describe anywhere large numbers of Native Americans live.
Description and geography:
Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land within the United States of America reserved for the forced re-settlement of Native Americans.
Therefore, it was not a traditional territory for the tribes settled upon it. The general borders were set by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. The territory was located in the Central United States.
While Congress passed several Organic Acts that provided a path for statehood for much of the original Indian Country, Congress never passed an Organic Act for the Indian Territory. Indian Territory was never an organized incorporated territory of the United States.
In general, tribes could not sell land to non-Indians (Johnson v. M'Intosh). Treaties with the tribes restricted entry of non-Indians into tribal areas; Indian tribes were largely self-governing, were suzerain nations, with established tribal governments and well established cultures. The region never had a formal government until after the American Civil War.
After the Civil War, the Southern Treaty Commission re-wrote treaties with tribes that sided with the Confederacy, reducing the territory of the Five Civilized Tribes and providing land to resettle Plains Indians and tribes of the Midwestern United States. These re-written treaties included provisions for a territorial legislature with proportional representation from various tribes.
In time, the Indian Territory was reduced to what is now Oklahoma. The Organic Act of 1890 reduced Indian Territory to the lands occupied by the Five Civilized Tribes and the Tribes of the Quapaw Indian Agency (at the borders of Kansas and Missouri). The remaining western portion of the former Indian Territory became the Oklahoma Territory.
The Oklahoma organic act applied the laws of Nebraska to the incorporated territory of Oklahoma Territory, and the laws of Arkansas to the still unincorporated Indian Territory, since for years the federal U.S. District Court on the eastern borderline in Ft. Smith, Arkansas had criminal and civil jurisdiction over the Territory.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Indian Territories:
Native Americans in the United States:
Native Americans, also known as American Indians, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States, except Hawaii and territories of the United States.
There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations.
The term "American Indian" excludes Native Hawaiians and some Alaskan Natives, while "Native Americans" (as defined by the United States Census) are American Indians, plus Alaska Natives of all ethnicities.
The US Census does not include Native Hawaiians, Samoans, or Chamorros, instead being included in the Census grouping of "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander".
The ancestors of living Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago, possibly much earlier, from Asia via Beringia.
A vast variety of peoples, societies and cultures subsequently developed. European colonization of the Americas, which began in 1492, resulted in a precipitous decline in Native American population through introduced diseases, warfare, ethnic cleansing, and slavery.
After its formation, the United States, as part of its policy of settler colonialism, continued to wage war and perpetrated massacres against many Native American peoples, removed them from their ancestral lands, and subjected them to one-sided treaties and to discriminatory government policies, later focused on forced assimilation, into the 20th century.
Since the 1960s, Native American self-determination movements have resulted in changes to the lives of Native Americans, though there are still many contemporary issues faced by Native Americans. Today, there are over five million Native Americans in the United States, 78% of whom live outside reservations.
When the United States was created, established Native American tribes were generally considered semi-independent nations, as they generally lived in communities separate from white settlers.
The federal government signed treaties at a government-to-government level until the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 ended recognition of independent native nations, and started treating them as "domestic dependent nations" subject to federal law.
This law did preserve the rights and privileges agreed to under the treaties, including a large degree of tribal sovereignty. For this reason, many (but not all) Native American reservations are still independent of state law and actions of tribal citizens on these reservations are subject only to tribal courts and federal law.
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States who had not yet obtained it. This emptied the "Indians not taxed" category established by the United States Constitution, allowed natives to vote in state and federal elections, and extended the Fourteenth Amendment protections granted to people "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.
However, some states continued to deny Native Americans voting rights for several decades. Bill of Rights protections do not apply to tribal governments, except for those mandated by the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Background:
Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas has led to centuries of population, cultural, and agricultural transfer and adjustment between Old and New World societies, a process known as the Columbian exchange. As most Native American groups had historically preserved their histories by oral traditions and artwork, the first written sources of the contact were written by Europeans.
Ethnographers commonly classify the indigenous peoples of North America into ten geographical regions with shared cultural traits, called cultural areas. Some scholars combine the Plateau and Great Basin regions into the Intermontane West, some separate Prairie peoples from Great Plains peoples, while some separate Great Lakes tribes from the Northeastern Woodlands.
The ten cultural areas are as follows:
At the time of the first contact, the indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the proto-industrial and mostly Christian immigrants. Some Northeastern and Southwestern cultures, in particular, were matrilineal and operated on a more collective basis than that with which Europeans were familiar.
The majority of indigenous American tribes maintained their hunting grounds and agricultural lands for use of the entire tribe. Europeans at that time had cultures that had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were extremely different.
The differences in cultures between the established Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations in times of war, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence, and social disruption.
Even before the European settlement of what is now the United States, Native Americans suffered high fatalities from contact with new European diseases, to which they had not yet acquired immunity; the diseases were endemic to the Spanish and other Europeans, and spread by direct contact and likely through pigs that escaped from expeditions. Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused the greatest loss of life for indigenous populations.
William M. Denevan, noted author and Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said on this subject in his essay "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492"; "The decline of native American populations was rapid and severe, probably the greatest demographic disaster ever. Old World diseases were the primary killer. In many regions, particularly the tropical lowlands, populations fell by 90 percent or more in the first century after the contact. "
Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the U.S. vary significantly, ranging from William M. Denevan's 3.8 million in his 1992 work The Native Population of the Americas in 1492, to 18 million in Henry F. Dobyns' Their Number Become Thinned (1983). Henry F. Dobyns' work, being the highest single point estimate by far within the realm of professional academic research on the topic, has been criticized for being "politically motivated".
Perhaps Dobyns' most vehement critic is David Henige, a bibliographer of Africana at the University of Wisconsin, whose Numbers From Nowhere (1998) is described as "a landmark in the literature of demographic fulmination". "Suspect in 1966, it is no less suspect nowadays,"
Henige wrote of Dobyns's work. "If anything, it is worse."
After the thirteen colonies revolted against Great Britain and established the United States, President George Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox conceived of the idea of "civilizing" Native Americans in preparation for assimilation as U.S. citizens.
Assimilation (whether voluntary, as with the Choctaw, or forced) became a consistent policy through American administrations. During the 19th century, the ideology of manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Expansion of European-American populations to the west after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native American lands, warfare between the groups, and rising tensions.
In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of the Mississippi River, accommodating European-American expansion. This resulted in the ethnic cleansing of many tribes, with the brutal, forced marches coming to be known as The Trail of Tears.
Contemporary Native Americans have a unique relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes, or bands with sovereignty and treaty rights.
Cultural activism since the late 1960s has increased political participation and led to an expansion of efforts to teach and preserve indigenous languages for younger generations and to establish a greater cultural infrastructure: Native Americans have founded independent newspapers and online media, recently including First Nations Experience, the first Native American television channel; established Native American studies programs, tribal schools, and universities, and museums and language programs; and have increasingly been published as authors in numerous genres.
The terms used to refer to Native Americans have at times been controversial. The ways Native Americans refer to themselves vary by region and generation, with many older Native Americans self-identifying as "Indians" or "American Indians", while younger Native Americans often identify as "Indigenous" or "Aboriginal".
The term "Native American" has not traditionally included Native Hawaiians or certain Alaskan Natives, such as Aleut, Yup'ik, or Inuit peoples. By comparison, the indigenous peoples of Canada are generally known as First Nations
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Native Americans:
Native American gaming:
Native American gaming comprises casinos, bingo halls, and other gambling operations on Indian reservations or other tribal land in the United States. Because these areas have tribal sovereignty, states have limited ability to forbid gambling there, as codified by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.
As of 2011, there were 460 gambling operations run by 240 tribes, with a total annual revenue of $27 billion.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Native American Gambling:
The Indian Territories:
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally describe an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign independent state.
In general, the tribes ceded land they occupied in exchange for land grants in 1803. The concept of an Indian Territory was an outcome of the US federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the US government was one of assimilation.
The term Indian Reserve describes lands the British government set aside for Indigenous tribes between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River in the time before the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).
Indian Territory later came to refer to an unorganized territory whose general borders were initially set by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834, and was the successor to the remainder of the Missouri Territory after Missouri received statehood.
The borders of Indian Territory were reduced in size as various Organic Acts were passed by Congress to create incorporated territories of the United States. The 1907 Oklahoma Enabling Act created the single state of Oklahoma by combining Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory, ending the existence of an unorganized unincorporated independent Indian Territory as such.
Indian reservations remain within the boundaries of US states, but largely exempt from state jurisdiction. The term Indian country is used to signify lands under the control of Native nations, including Indian reservations, trust lands on tribal jurisdictional areas, or, more casually, to describe anywhere large numbers of Native Americans live.
Description and geography:
Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land within the United States of America reserved for the forced re-settlement of Native Americans.
Therefore, it was not a traditional territory for the tribes settled upon it. The general borders were set by the Indian Intercourse Act of 1834. The territory was located in the Central United States.
While Congress passed several Organic Acts that provided a path for statehood for much of the original Indian Country, Congress never passed an Organic Act for the Indian Territory. Indian Territory was never an organized incorporated territory of the United States.
In general, tribes could not sell land to non-Indians (Johnson v. M'Intosh). Treaties with the tribes restricted entry of non-Indians into tribal areas; Indian tribes were largely self-governing, were suzerain nations, with established tribal governments and well established cultures. The region never had a formal government until after the American Civil War.
After the Civil War, the Southern Treaty Commission re-wrote treaties with tribes that sided with the Confederacy, reducing the territory of the Five Civilized Tribes and providing land to resettle Plains Indians and tribes of the Midwestern United States. These re-written treaties included provisions for a territorial legislature with proportional representation from various tribes.
In time, the Indian Territory was reduced to what is now Oklahoma. The Organic Act of 1890 reduced Indian Territory to the lands occupied by the Five Civilized Tribes and the Tribes of the Quapaw Indian Agency (at the borders of Kansas and Missouri). The remaining western portion of the former Indian Territory became the Oklahoma Territory.
The Oklahoma organic act applied the laws of Nebraska to the incorporated territory of Oklahoma Territory, and the laws of Arkansas to the still unincorporated Indian Territory, since for years the federal U.S. District Court on the eastern borderline in Ft. Smith, Arkansas had criminal and civil jurisdiction over the Territory.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Indian Territories:
- History
- Tribes in Indian Territory
- Government
- See also:
- Twin Territories: Oklahoma Territory – Indian Territory
- Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Indian Territory
- High resolution maps and other items at the National Archives
- See 1890s photographs of Native Americans in Oklahoma Indian Territory hosted by the Portal to Texas History
- TREATIES BY TRIBE NAME Vol. II (Treaties) in part. Compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904
- Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
- Hawes, J. W. (1879). "Indian Territory" . The American Cyclopædia.
- Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Benjamin Harrison: "Proclamation 295 - Sioux Nation of Indians," February 10, 1890". The American Presidency Project. University of California - Santa Barbara. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
- Peters, Gerhard; Woolley, John T. "Benjamin Harrison: "Proclamation 298 - Extinguishing Indian Title to Certain Lands," October 23, 1890". The American Presidency Project. University of California - Santa Barbara. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
- Historic regions of the United States
- Missouri Compromise
- Territorial evolution of the United States
- Territories of Spain that encompassed land that would later become part of Indian Territory:
- U.S. territories that encompassed land that would later become part of Indian Territory:
- District of Louisiana, 1804–1805
- Territory of Louisiana, 1805–1812
- List of federally recognized tribes by state and List of federally recognized tribes alphabetic
- Treaties
- Treaty of Fort Clark with the Osage.
- Osage Treaty (1825)
- Cherokee Commission
- Northwest Indian War the battle for Ohio
- Former Indian Reservations in Oklahoma
Native Americans in the United States:
Native Americans, also known as American Indians, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States, except Hawaii and territories of the United States.
There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations.
The term "American Indian" excludes Native Hawaiians and some Alaskan Natives, while "Native Americans" (as defined by the United States Census) are American Indians, plus Alaska Natives of all ethnicities.
The US Census does not include Native Hawaiians, Samoans, or Chamorros, instead being included in the Census grouping of "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander".
The ancestors of living Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago, possibly much earlier, from Asia via Beringia.
A vast variety of peoples, societies and cultures subsequently developed. European colonization of the Americas, which began in 1492, resulted in a precipitous decline in Native American population through introduced diseases, warfare, ethnic cleansing, and slavery.
After its formation, the United States, as part of its policy of settler colonialism, continued to wage war and perpetrated massacres against many Native American peoples, removed them from their ancestral lands, and subjected them to one-sided treaties and to discriminatory government policies, later focused on forced assimilation, into the 20th century.
Since the 1960s, Native American self-determination movements have resulted in changes to the lives of Native Americans, though there are still many contemporary issues faced by Native Americans. Today, there are over five million Native Americans in the United States, 78% of whom live outside reservations.
When the United States was created, established Native American tribes were generally considered semi-independent nations, as they generally lived in communities separate from white settlers.
The federal government signed treaties at a government-to-government level until the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 ended recognition of independent native nations, and started treating them as "domestic dependent nations" subject to federal law.
This law did preserve the rights and privileges agreed to under the treaties, including a large degree of tribal sovereignty. For this reason, many (but not all) Native American reservations are still independent of state law and actions of tribal citizens on these reservations are subject only to tribal courts and federal law.
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States who had not yet obtained it. This emptied the "Indians not taxed" category established by the United States Constitution, allowed natives to vote in state and federal elections, and extended the Fourteenth Amendment protections granted to people "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.
However, some states continued to deny Native Americans voting rights for several decades. Bill of Rights protections do not apply to tribal governments, except for those mandated by the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Background:
Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas has led to centuries of population, cultural, and agricultural transfer and adjustment between Old and New World societies, a process known as the Columbian exchange. As most Native American groups had historically preserved their histories by oral traditions and artwork, the first written sources of the contact were written by Europeans.
Ethnographers commonly classify the indigenous peoples of North America into ten geographical regions with shared cultural traits, called cultural areas. Some scholars combine the Plateau and Great Basin regions into the Intermontane West, some separate Prairie peoples from Great Plains peoples, while some separate Great Lakes tribes from the Northeastern Woodlands.
The ten cultural areas are as follows:
- Arctic, including Aleut, Inuit, and Yupik peoples
- Subarctic
- Northeastern Woodlands
- Southeastern Woodlands
- Great Plains
- Great Basin
- Northwest Plateau
- Northwest Coast
- California
- Southwest (Oasisamerica)
At the time of the first contact, the indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the proto-industrial and mostly Christian immigrants. Some Northeastern and Southwestern cultures, in particular, were matrilineal and operated on a more collective basis than that with which Europeans were familiar.
The majority of indigenous American tribes maintained their hunting grounds and agricultural lands for use of the entire tribe. Europeans at that time had cultures that had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were extremely different.
The differences in cultures between the established Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations in times of war, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence, and social disruption.
Even before the European settlement of what is now the United States, Native Americans suffered high fatalities from contact with new European diseases, to which they had not yet acquired immunity; the diseases were endemic to the Spanish and other Europeans, and spread by direct contact and likely through pigs that escaped from expeditions. Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused the greatest loss of life for indigenous populations.
William M. Denevan, noted author and Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said on this subject in his essay "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492"; "The decline of native American populations was rapid and severe, probably the greatest demographic disaster ever. Old World diseases were the primary killer. In many regions, particularly the tropical lowlands, populations fell by 90 percent or more in the first century after the contact. "
Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the U.S. vary significantly, ranging from William M. Denevan's 3.8 million in his 1992 work The Native Population of the Americas in 1492, to 18 million in Henry F. Dobyns' Their Number Become Thinned (1983). Henry F. Dobyns' work, being the highest single point estimate by far within the realm of professional academic research on the topic, has been criticized for being "politically motivated".
Perhaps Dobyns' most vehement critic is David Henige, a bibliographer of Africana at the University of Wisconsin, whose Numbers From Nowhere (1998) is described as "a landmark in the literature of demographic fulmination". "Suspect in 1966, it is no less suspect nowadays,"
Henige wrote of Dobyns's work. "If anything, it is worse."
After the thirteen colonies revolted against Great Britain and established the United States, President George Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox conceived of the idea of "civilizing" Native Americans in preparation for assimilation as U.S. citizens.
Assimilation (whether voluntary, as with the Choctaw, or forced) became a consistent policy through American administrations. During the 19th century, the ideology of manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Expansion of European-American populations to the west after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native American lands, warfare between the groups, and rising tensions.
In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of the Mississippi River, accommodating European-American expansion. This resulted in the ethnic cleansing of many tribes, with the brutal, forced marches coming to be known as The Trail of Tears.
Contemporary Native Americans have a unique relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes, or bands with sovereignty and treaty rights.
Cultural activism since the late 1960s has increased political participation and led to an expansion of efforts to teach and preserve indigenous languages for younger generations and to establish a greater cultural infrastructure: Native Americans have founded independent newspapers and online media, recently including First Nations Experience, the first Native American television channel; established Native American studies programs, tribal schools, and universities, and museums and language programs; and have increasingly been published as authors in numerous genres.
The terms used to refer to Native Americans have at times been controversial. The ways Native Americans refer to themselves vary by region and generation, with many older Native Americans self-identifying as "Indians" or "American Indians", while younger Native Americans often identify as "Indigenous" or "Aboriginal".
The term "Native American" has not traditionally included Native Hawaiians or certain Alaskan Natives, such as Aleut, Yup'ik, or Inuit peoples. By comparison, the indigenous peoples of Canada are generally known as First Nations
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Native Americans:
- History
- Demographics
- Tribal sovereignty
- Civil rights movement
- Contemporary issues
- Societal discrimination and racism
- Native American mascots in sports
- Historical depictions in art
- Terminology differences
- Gambling industry
- Financial services
- Crime on reservations
- Barriers to economic development
- Discourse in Native American economic development
- Landownership challenges
- Land ownership and bureaucratic challenges in historical context
- Geographic poverty
- Trauma
- Society, language, and culture
- Interracial relations
- Racial identity
- See also:
- Alcohol and Native Americans
- Indian Actors Association
- Indigenous peoples of the Americas
- Indigenous peoples of Canada
- Indigenous peoples of Mexico
- List of Alaska Native tribal entities
- List of federally recognized tribes
- List of historical Indian reservations in the United States
- List of Indian reservations in the United States
- List of Native Americans of the United States (notable Native Americans)
- List of Native American firsts
- List of unrecognized tribes in the United States
- List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
- Mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas
- Native American civil rights
- Native American Heritage Sites (National Park Service)
- Native Americans in popular culture
- Outline of United States federal Indian law and policy
- Sexual victimization of Native American women
- State recognized tribes in the United States
- Suicide among Native Americans in the United States
- Official website of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior
- Official website of the National Congress of American Indians
- American Indian Records from the National Archives and Records Administration
- Official website of the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institution
- National Indian Law Library of the Native American Rights Fund – a law library of federal Indian and tribal law
Native American gaming:
Native American gaming comprises casinos, bingo halls, and other gambling operations on Indian reservations or other tribal land in the United States. Because these areas have tribal sovereignty, states have limited ability to forbid gambling there, as codified by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.
As of 2011, there were 460 gambling operations run by 240 tribes, with a total annual revenue of $27 billion.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Native American Gambling:
- History
- Pacific Northwest gambling
- Industry
- Impact on Native American economics
- In popular culture
- See also:
California Gold Rush (1848-1855)
- YouTube Video about the California Gold Rush
- YouTube Video: The California Gold Rush in 3 Minutes
- YouTube Video: The Start of the California Gold Rush (1849)
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California.
The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy, and the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood, in the Compromise of 1850.
The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from disease, starvation and the California Genocide. By the time it ended, California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory, to having one of its first two U.S. Senators, John C. Frémont, selected to be the first presidential nominee for the new Republican Party, in 1856.
The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called "forty-niners" (referring to 1849, the peak year for Gold Rush immigration).
Outside of California, the first to arrive were from Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), and Latin America in late 1848. Of the approximately 300,000 people who came to California during the Gold Rush, about half arrived by sea and half came overland on the California Trail and the Gila River trail; forty-niners often faced substantial hardships on the trip.
While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the gold rush attracted thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852.
Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. In 1849 a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by referendum vote, and the future state's interim first governor and legislature were chosen. In September 1850, California became a state.
At the beginning of the Gold Rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of "staking claims" was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning.
Although the mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service.
By 1869, railroads were built from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners.
Gold worth tens of billions of today's US dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few, though many who participated in the California Gold Rush earned little more than they had started with.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the California Gold Rush:
The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy, and the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood, in the Compromise of 1850.
The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from disease, starvation and the California Genocide. By the time it ended, California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory, to having one of its first two U.S. Senators, John C. Frémont, selected to be the first presidential nominee for the new Republican Party, in 1856.
The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called "forty-niners" (referring to 1849, the peak year for Gold Rush immigration).
Outside of California, the first to arrive were from Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), and Latin America in late 1848. Of the approximately 300,000 people who came to California during the Gold Rush, about half arrived by sea and half came overland on the California Trail and the Gila River trail; forty-niners often faced substantial hardships on the trip.
While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the gold rush attracted thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852.
Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. In 1849 a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by referendum vote, and the future state's interim first governor and legislature were chosen. In September 1850, California became a state.
At the beginning of the Gold Rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of "staking claims" was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning.
Although the mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service.
By 1869, railroads were built from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners.
Gold worth tens of billions of today's US dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few, though many who participated in the California Gold Rush earned little more than they had started with.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the California Gold Rush:
- History
- Forty-niners
- Legal rights
- Development of gold-recovery techniques
- Profits
- Near-term effects
- Longer-term effects
- Cultural references
- See also:
- California Gold Rush at Curlie
- California Gold Rush chronology at The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
- Gold at the website of United States Geological Survey
- Gold Country Museum in Placer County, California
- "California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849–1900 Library of Congress American Memory Project
- University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library
- The University of California, Calisphere, 1848–1865: The Gold Rush Era
- California State Library, "California As We Saw It": Exploring the California Gold Rush, online exhibit
- Map of North America during the California Gold Rush at omniatlas.com
- Lewis B. Rush diary, diary of a gold rush miner, MSS SC 161 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University
- Gold Rush Collection. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
- Barbary Coast
- California Mining and Mineral Museum
- Colorado Gold Rush
- Klondike Gold Rush
- Witwatersrand Gold Rush
Transportation by Stagecoach, Covered Wagon, Steamship or Railroad In the Old West Pictured below: Clockwise from upper left:, Stage Coach, Covered Wagon crossing a River; Steamship; and Rail Transport
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses.
Widely used before steam-powered, rail transport was available, a stagecoach made long scheduled trips using stage stations or posts where the stagecoach's horses would be replaced by fresh horses. The business of running stagecoaches or the act of journeying in them was known as staging.
Familiar images of the stagecoach are that of a Royal Mail coach passing through a turnpike gate, a Dickensian passenger coach covered in snow pulling up at a coaching inn, and a highwayman demanding a coach to "stand and deliver". The yard of ale drinking glass is associated by legend with stagecoach drivers, though it was mainly used for drinking feats and special toasts
Description:
The stagecoach was a closed four-wheeled vehicle drawn by horses or hard-going mules. It was used as a public conveyance on an established route usually to a regular schedule. Spent horses were replaced with fresh horses at stage stations, posts, or relays. In addition to the stage driver or coachman who guided the vehicle, a shotgun messenger armed with a coach gun might travel as a guard beside him.
A simplified and lightened vehicle known as a stage wagon, mud-coach, or mud-wagon, was used in the United States under difficult conditions. A canvas-topped wagon had a lower center of gravity, and it could not be loaded on the roof with heavy freight or passengers as an enclosed coach so often was.
Speed:
Up until the late 18th Century, a stagecoach traveled at an average speed of about 5 miles per hour (8.0 km/h), with the average daily mileage covered being around 60 to 70 miles (97 to 113 km), but with improvements to the roads and the development of steel springs, the speed increased, so that by 1836 the scheduled coach left London at 19:30, travelled through the night (without lights) and arrived in Liverpool at 16:50 the next day, a distance of about 220 miles (350 km), doubling the overall average speed to about 10 miles per hour (16 km/h), including stops to change horses.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Stagecoach Travel in the 1800s:
History
The covered wagon was long the dominant form of transport in pre-industrial America. With roots in the heavy Conestoga wagon developed for the rough, undeveloped roads and paths of the colonial East, the covered wagon spread west with American migration.
The Conestoga wagon was far too heavy for westward expansion. Typical farm wagons were merely covered for westward expansion. Heavily relied upon along such travel routes as the Great Wagon Road, the Mormon Trail and the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails, covered wagons carried settlers seeking land, gold, and new futures ever further west.
With its ubiquitous exposure in 20th century media, the covered wagon grew to become an icon of the American West. The fanciful nickname prairie schooner and romantic depiction in wagon trains only served to embellish the legend.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Covered Wagons:
A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships came into practical usage during the early 1800s; however, there were exceptions that came before. Steamships usually use the prefix designations of "PS" for paddle steamer or "SS" for screw steamer (using a propeller or screw).
As paddle steamers became less common, "SS" is assumed by many to stand for "steamship". Ships powered by internal combustion engines use a prefix such as "MV" for motor vessel, so it is not correct to use "SS" for most modern vessels.
As steamships were less dependent on wind patterns, new trade routes opened up. The steamship has been described as a "major driver of the first wave of trade globalization (1870–1913)" and contributor to "an increase in international trade that was unprecedented in human history".
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about a Steamship:
History of rail transportation in the United States:
Wooden railroads, called wagonways, were built in the United States starting from the 1720s. A railroad was reportedly used in the construction of the French fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia, in New France (now Canada) in 1720.
Between 1762 and 1764, at the close of the French and Indian War (1756–1763), a gravity railroad (mechanized tramway) (Montresor's Tramway) is built by British military engineers up the steep riverside terrain near the Niagara River waterfall's escarpment at the Niagara Portage (which the local Senecas called "Crawl on All Fours.") in Lewiston, New York.
Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the industrial revolution in the Northeast (1810–1850) to the settlement of the West (1850–1890).
The American railroad mania began with the founding of the first passenger and freight line in the nation of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827 and the "Laying of the First Stone" ceremonies and beginning of its long construction heading westward over the obstacles of the Appalachian Mountains eastern chain the following year of 1828, and flourished with continuous railway building projects for the next 45 years until the financial Panic of 1873 followed by a major economic depression bankrupted many companies and temporarily stymied and ended growth.
Although the antebellum South started early to build railways, it concentrated on short lines linking cotton regions to oceanic or river ports, and the absence of an interconnected network was a major handicap during the Civil War (1861–1865).
The North and Midwest constructed networks that linked every city by 1860 before the war.
In the heavily settled Midwestern Corn Belt, over 80 percent of farms were within 5 miles (8 km) of a railway, facilitating the shipment of grain, hogs, and cattle to national and international markets. A large number of short lines were built, but thanks to a fast developing financial system based on Wall Street and oriented to railway bonds, the majority were consolidated into 20 trunk lines by 1890. State and local governments often subsidized lines, but rarely owned them.
The system was largely built by 1910, but then trucks arrived to eat away the freight traffic, and automobiles (and later airplanes) to devour the passenger traffic. After 1940, the use of diesel electric locomotives made for much more efficient operations that needed fewer workers on the road and in repair shops.
A series of bankruptcies and consolidations left the rail system in the hands of a few large operations by the 1980s. Almost all long-distance passenger traffic was shifted to Amtrak in 1971, a government-owned operation.
Commuter rail service is provided near a few major cities such as New York City, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the District of Columbia.
Computerization and improved equipment steadily reduced employment, which peaked at 2.1 million in 1920, falling to 1.2 million in 1950 and 215,000 in 2010. Route mileage peaked at 254,251 miles (409,177 km) in 1916 and fell to 139,679 miles (224,792 km) in 2011.
Freight railroads continue to play an important role in the United States' economy, especially for moving imports and exports using containers, and for shipments of coal and, since 2010, of oil. According to the British news magazine The Economist, "They are universally recognized in the industry as the best in the world." Productivity rose 172% between 1981 and 2000, while rates rose 55% (after accounting for inflation). Rail's share of the American freight market rose to 43%, the highest for any rich country.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the History of Rail in the United States:
Widely used before steam-powered, rail transport was available, a stagecoach made long scheduled trips using stage stations or posts where the stagecoach's horses would be replaced by fresh horses. The business of running stagecoaches or the act of journeying in them was known as staging.
Familiar images of the stagecoach are that of a Royal Mail coach passing through a turnpike gate, a Dickensian passenger coach covered in snow pulling up at a coaching inn, and a highwayman demanding a coach to "stand and deliver". The yard of ale drinking glass is associated by legend with stagecoach drivers, though it was mainly used for drinking feats and special toasts
Description:
The stagecoach was a closed four-wheeled vehicle drawn by horses or hard-going mules. It was used as a public conveyance on an established route usually to a regular schedule. Spent horses were replaced with fresh horses at stage stations, posts, or relays. In addition to the stage driver or coachman who guided the vehicle, a shotgun messenger armed with a coach gun might travel as a guard beside him.
A simplified and lightened vehicle known as a stage wagon, mud-coach, or mud-wagon, was used in the United States under difficult conditions. A canvas-topped wagon had a lower center of gravity, and it could not be loaded on the roof with heavy freight or passengers as an enclosed coach so often was.
Speed:
Up until the late 18th Century, a stagecoach traveled at an average speed of about 5 miles per hour (8.0 km/h), with the average daily mileage covered being around 60 to 70 miles (97 to 113 km), but with improvements to the roads and the development of steel springs, the speed increased, so that by 1836 the scheduled coach left London at 19:30, travelled through the night (without lights) and arrived in Liverpool at 16:50 the next day, a distance of about 220 miles (350 km), doubling the overall average speed to about 10 miles per hour (16 km/h), including stops to change horses.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Stagecoach Travel in the 1800s:
History
- Origins
- Royal Mail stagecoaches
- Improved coach design
- Improved roads
- Decline and evolution
- Spread elsewhere
- In popular culture
- See also:
- Carriage
- Charabanc
- Charley Parkhurst
- Coach (carriage)
- Coaching inn
- Cobb and Co
- Cobb & Co. (New Zealand)
- Highwayman
- Horsebus
- Jesse James
- Mail coach
- Mail robbery
- Omnibus
- Riding shotgun
- Stage Coaches Act 1788
- Stage Coaches Act 1790
- Turnpike road
- Wagonette
- Wickenburg Massacre
- Jarbidge Stage Robbery
- Horseless carriage
- Sherman & Smiths Railroad, Steam boat & Stage route map of New England, New-York, and Canada
- The Overland Trail:Stage Coach Vocabulary- Last Updated 19 April 1998
- Stagecoach Westward - Frontier Travel, Expansion, United States
- Felix Riesenberg, Jr., The Golden Road The Story Of Californias Spanish Mission Trail, Mcgraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1962
- Stagecoach History: Stage Lines to California
- Wild West Tales: Stories by R. Michael Wilson; Stagecoach
- Robert Glass Cleland, A history of California: the American period, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1922 Chapter XXIV, The Overland Mail and the Pony Express, pp. 359-368
The covered wagon was long the dominant form of transport in pre-industrial America. With roots in the heavy Conestoga wagon developed for the rough, undeveloped roads and paths of the colonial East, the covered wagon spread west with American migration.
The Conestoga wagon was far too heavy for westward expansion. Typical farm wagons were merely covered for westward expansion. Heavily relied upon along such travel routes as the Great Wagon Road, the Mormon Trail and the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails, covered wagons carried settlers seeking land, gold, and new futures ever further west.
With its ubiquitous exposure in 20th century media, the covered wagon grew to become an icon of the American West. The fanciful nickname prairie schooner and romantic depiction in wagon trains only served to embellish the legend.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Covered Wagons:
- History
- See also:
A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships came into practical usage during the early 1800s; however, there were exceptions that came before. Steamships usually use the prefix designations of "PS" for paddle steamer or "SS" for screw steamer (using a propeller or screw).
As paddle steamers became less common, "SS" is assumed by many to stand for "steamship". Ships powered by internal combustion engines use a prefix such as "MV" for motor vessel, so it is not correct to use "SS" for most modern vessels.
As steamships were less dependent on wind patterns, new trade routes opened up. The steamship has been described as a "major driver of the first wave of trade globalization (1870–1913)" and contributor to "an increase in international trade that was unprecedented in human history".
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about a Steamship:
- History
- Screw-propeller steamers
- Name prefix
- First ocean-going steamships
- Long-distance commercial steamships
- Era of the ocean liner
- Decline of the steamship
- 1970–present day
- See also:
- Steamboat
- Paddle steamer
- History of the steam engine
- International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)#Travel
- List of steam frigates of the United States Navy
- Bibliography of early American naval history
- Lake steamers of North America
- Media related to Steamships at Wikimedia Commons
- Transportation Photographs Collection - University of Washington Library
History of rail transportation in the United States:
Wooden railroads, called wagonways, were built in the United States starting from the 1720s. A railroad was reportedly used in the construction of the French fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia, in New France (now Canada) in 1720.
Between 1762 and 1764, at the close of the French and Indian War (1756–1763), a gravity railroad (mechanized tramway) (Montresor's Tramway) is built by British military engineers up the steep riverside terrain near the Niagara River waterfall's escarpment at the Niagara Portage (which the local Senecas called "Crawl on All Fours.") in Lewiston, New York.
Railroads played a large role in the development of the United States from the industrial revolution in the Northeast (1810–1850) to the settlement of the West (1850–1890).
The American railroad mania began with the founding of the first passenger and freight line in the nation of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827 and the "Laying of the First Stone" ceremonies and beginning of its long construction heading westward over the obstacles of the Appalachian Mountains eastern chain the following year of 1828, and flourished with continuous railway building projects for the next 45 years until the financial Panic of 1873 followed by a major economic depression bankrupted many companies and temporarily stymied and ended growth.
Although the antebellum South started early to build railways, it concentrated on short lines linking cotton regions to oceanic or river ports, and the absence of an interconnected network was a major handicap during the Civil War (1861–1865).
The North and Midwest constructed networks that linked every city by 1860 before the war.
In the heavily settled Midwestern Corn Belt, over 80 percent of farms were within 5 miles (8 km) of a railway, facilitating the shipment of grain, hogs, and cattle to national and international markets. A large number of short lines were built, but thanks to a fast developing financial system based on Wall Street and oriented to railway bonds, the majority were consolidated into 20 trunk lines by 1890. State and local governments often subsidized lines, but rarely owned them.
The system was largely built by 1910, but then trucks arrived to eat away the freight traffic, and automobiles (and later airplanes) to devour the passenger traffic. After 1940, the use of diesel electric locomotives made for much more efficient operations that needed fewer workers on the road and in repair shops.
A series of bankruptcies and consolidations left the rail system in the hands of a few large operations by the 1980s. Almost all long-distance passenger traffic was shifted to Amtrak in 1971, a government-owned operation.
Commuter rail service is provided near a few major cities such as New York City, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the District of Columbia.
Computerization and improved equipment steadily reduced employment, which peaked at 2.1 million in 1920, falling to 1.2 million in 1950 and 215,000 in 2010. Route mileage peaked at 254,251 miles (409,177 km) in 1916 and fell to 139,679 miles (224,792 km) in 2011.
Freight railroads continue to play an important role in the United States' economy, especially for moving imports and exports using containers, and for shipments of coal and, since 2010, of oil. According to the British news magazine The Economist, "They are universally recognized in the industry as the best in the world." Productivity rose 172% between 1981 and 2000, while rates rose 55% (after accounting for inflation). Rail's share of the American freight market rose to 43%, the highest for any rich country.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the History of Rail in the United States:
- Chronological history
- Technology
- Labor relations and worker safety
- Impact on American economy and society
- Environmental history of railways
- Impact on buffalo population
- Historiography
- Railroad active mileage by region
- See also:
Manifest Destiny
- YouTube Video: Manifest Destiny Explained in 5 Minutes: US History Review
- YouTube Video: Westward Expansion: Crash Course US History #24
- YouTube Video: Manifest Destiny | Period 5: 1844-1877 | AP US History | Khan Academy
Manifest destiny was a widely held American imperialist cultural belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America.
There are three basic themes to manifest destiny:
Historian Frederick Merk says this concept was born out of "a sense of mission to redeem the Old World by high example ... generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven". However, in contemporary culture many have condemned manifest destiny as an ideology that was used to justify genocide against Native Americans.
Historians have emphasized that "manifest destiny" was a contested concept--Democrats endorsed the idea but many prominent Americans (such as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and most Whigs) rejected it.
Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes, "American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity ... Whigs saw America's moral mission as one of democratic example rather than one of conquest."
Historian Frederick Merk likewise concluded: "From the outset Manifest Destiny—vast in program, in its sense of continentalism—was slight in support. It lacked national, sectional, or party following commensurate with its magnitude. The reason was it did not reflect the national spirit. The thesis that it embodied nationalism, found in much historical writing, is backed by little real supporting evidence."
Newspaper editor John O'Sullivan is generally credited with coining the term manifest destiny in 1845 to describe the essence of this mindset; however, the unsigned editorial titled "Annexation" in which it first appeared was arguably written by journalist and annexation advocate Jane Cazneau.
The term was used by Democrats in the 1840s to justify the Mexican–American War and it was also used to negotiate the Oregon boundary dispute. However, manifest destiny always limped along because of its internal limitations and the issue of slavery in the United States, says Merk, and never became a national priority.
By 1843, former U.S. President John Quincy Adams, originally a major supporter of the concept underlying manifest destiny, had changed his mind and repudiated expansionism because it meant the expansion of slavery in Texas.
According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia, Adolf Hitler's Lebensraum was the "Manifest Destiny" for Germany's romanticization and imperial conquest of Eastern Europe. Hitler compared Nazi expansion to American expansion westward, saying, “there's only one duty: to Germanize this country [Russia] by the immigration of Germans and to look upon the natives as Redskins.”
Context:
There was never a set of principles defining manifest destiny, therefore it was always a general idea rather than a specific policy made with a motto. Ill-defined but keenly felt, manifest destiny was an expression of conviction in the morality and value of expansionism that complemented other popular ideas of the era, including American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism.
Andrew Jackson, who spoke of "extending the area of freedom", typified the conflation of America's potential greatness, the nation's budding sense of Romantic self-identity, and its expansion.
Yet Jackson would not be the only president to elaborate on the principles underlying manifest destiny. Owing in part to the lack of a definitive narrative outlining its rationale, proponents offered divergent or seemingly conflicting viewpoints.
While many writers focused primarily upon American expansionism, be it into Mexico or across the Pacific, others saw the term as a call to example. Without an agreed upon interpretation, much less an elaborated political philosophy, these conflicting views of America's destiny were never resolved.
This variety of possible meanings was summed up by Ernest Lee Tuveson: "A vast complex of ideas, policies, and actions is comprehended under the phrase "Manifest Destiny". They are not, as we should expect, all compatible, nor do they come from any one source."
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks below for more about Manifest Destiny:
There are three basic themes to manifest destiny:
- The special virtues of the American people and their institutions
- The mission of the United States to redeem and remake the west in the image of the agrarian East
- An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty.
Historian Frederick Merk says this concept was born out of "a sense of mission to redeem the Old World by high example ... generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven". However, in contemporary culture many have condemned manifest destiny as an ideology that was used to justify genocide against Native Americans.
Historians have emphasized that "manifest destiny" was a contested concept--Democrats endorsed the idea but many prominent Americans (such as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and most Whigs) rejected it.
Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes, "American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity ... Whigs saw America's moral mission as one of democratic example rather than one of conquest."
Historian Frederick Merk likewise concluded: "From the outset Manifest Destiny—vast in program, in its sense of continentalism—was slight in support. It lacked national, sectional, or party following commensurate with its magnitude. The reason was it did not reflect the national spirit. The thesis that it embodied nationalism, found in much historical writing, is backed by little real supporting evidence."
Newspaper editor John O'Sullivan is generally credited with coining the term manifest destiny in 1845 to describe the essence of this mindset; however, the unsigned editorial titled "Annexation" in which it first appeared was arguably written by journalist and annexation advocate Jane Cazneau.
The term was used by Democrats in the 1840s to justify the Mexican–American War and it was also used to negotiate the Oregon boundary dispute. However, manifest destiny always limped along because of its internal limitations and the issue of slavery in the United States, says Merk, and never became a national priority.
By 1843, former U.S. President John Quincy Adams, originally a major supporter of the concept underlying manifest destiny, had changed his mind and repudiated expansionism because it meant the expansion of slavery in Texas.
According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia, Adolf Hitler's Lebensraum was the "Manifest Destiny" for Germany's romanticization and imperial conquest of Eastern Europe. Hitler compared Nazi expansion to American expansion westward, saying, “there's only one duty: to Germanize this country [Russia] by the immigration of Germans and to look upon the natives as Redskins.”
Context:
There was never a set of principles defining manifest destiny, therefore it was always a general idea rather than a specific policy made with a motto. Ill-defined but keenly felt, manifest destiny was an expression of conviction in the morality and value of expansionism that complemented other popular ideas of the era, including American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism.
Andrew Jackson, who spoke of "extending the area of freedom", typified the conflation of America's potential greatness, the nation's budding sense of Romantic self-identity, and its expansion.
Yet Jackson would not be the only president to elaborate on the principles underlying manifest destiny. Owing in part to the lack of a definitive narrative outlining its rationale, proponents offered divergent or seemingly conflicting viewpoints.
While many writers focused primarily upon American expansionism, be it into Mexico or across the Pacific, others saw the term as a call to example. Without an agreed upon interpretation, much less an elaborated political philosophy, these conflicting views of America's destiny were never resolved.
This variety of possible meanings was summed up by Ernest Lee Tuveson: "A vast complex of ideas, policies, and actions is comprehended under the phrase "Manifest Destiny". They are not, as we should expect, all compatible, nor do they come from any one source."
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks below for more about Manifest Destiny:
- Origin of the term
- Themes and influences
- Alternative interpretations
- Era of continental expansion
- Beyond mainland North America
- Legacy and consequences
- See also:
- Thomas Hart Benton—Missouri senator, proponent of western expansion
- Stephen A. Douglas—prominent spokesman of "Young America"
- Duff Green—writer, politician, and prominent manifest destiny advocate
- Frances Fuller Victor—prominent western historian and fiction writer who captured the spirit of western expansion
- Young America movement—a political and literary movement with connections to manifest destiny
- Angary: during wars
- Confiscation
- Individual reclamation
- Land bonds
- Legal plunder
- Navigable servitude: waterways regulation
- Public use
- Water law
- Eminent domain
- President Polk's Inaugural Address
- Gayle Olson-Raymer, "The Expansion of Empire", 15-page teaching guide for high school students, Zinn Education Project/Rethinking Schools
American Indian Wars, including a List of American Indian Wars
- YouTube Video about the History American Indian Wars
- YouTube Video: The U.S. Cavalry during The Plains Indian Wars Pt 1)
- YouTube Video: What did Native Americans do during the Civil War?
The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, the First Nations Wars in Canada (French: Guerres des Premières Nations) and the Indian Wars is the collective name for the various armed conflicts that were fought by European governments and colonists, and later by the United States and Canadian governments and American and Canadian settlers, against various American Indian and First Nation tribes.
These conflicts occurred in North America from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the early 20th century. The various wars resulted from a wide variety of factors, including cultural clashes, land disputes, and criminal acts committed.
The European powers and their colonies also enlisted Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; some entailed cycles of violent reprisal.
As settlers spread westward across North America after 1780, armed conflicts increased in size, duration, and intensity between settlers and various Indian and First Nation tribes. The climax came in the War of 1812, when major Indian coalitions in the Midwest and the South fought against the United States and lost.
Conflict with settlers became much less common and was usually resolved by treaty, often through sale or exchange of territory between the federal government and specific tribes.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the American government to enforce the Indian removal from east of the Mississippi River to the west on the American frontier, especially Oklahoma. The federal policy of removal was eventually refined in the West, as American settlers kept expanding their territories, to relocate Indian tribes to specially designated and federally protected and subsidized reservations.
Click on the blue hyperlinks for more about the American Indian Wars:
List of American Indian Wars
American Indian Wars are the numerous armed conflicts between European empires or colonists, and later by the American and Canadian settlers or American and Canadian governments, and the indigenous peoples of North America.
These conflicts occurred across the country beginning with the Tiguex War in 1540 within present-day New Mexico and ending with the Renegade period during the Apache Wars in 1924 within the Southwestern United States.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for the List of American Indian Wars by Century:
These conflicts occurred in North America from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the early 20th century. The various wars resulted from a wide variety of factors, including cultural clashes, land disputes, and criminal acts committed.
The European powers and their colonies also enlisted Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; some entailed cycles of violent reprisal.
As settlers spread westward across North America after 1780, armed conflicts increased in size, duration, and intensity between settlers and various Indian and First Nation tribes. The climax came in the War of 1812, when major Indian coalitions in the Midwest and the South fought against the United States and lost.
Conflict with settlers became much less common and was usually resolved by treaty, often through sale or exchange of territory between the federal government and specific tribes.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the American government to enforce the Indian removal from east of the Mississippi River to the west on the American frontier, especially Oklahoma. The federal policy of removal was eventually refined in the West, as American settlers kept expanding their territories, to relocate Indian tribes to specially designated and federally protected and subsidized reservations.
Click on the blue hyperlinks for more about the American Indian Wars:
- Colonial period (1609–1774)
- East of the Mississippi (1775–1842)
- West of the Mississippi (1811–1924)
- Background
- Texas
- Pacific Northwest
- Southwest
- California
- Great Basin
- Great Plains
- Dakota War
- Colorado War, Sand Creek Massacre, and the Sioux War of 1865
- Sheridan's campaigns
- Red Cloud's War and the Treaty of Fort Laramie
- Black Hills War
- Last conflicts
- Effects on Indian populations
- Historiography
- List
- See also:
- Captives in American Indian Wars
- Cultural assimilation of American Indians
- French and Indian Wars
- History of the United States
- History of Canada
- Canadian Indian Act of 1876
- Indian Campaign Medal
- List of American Indian Wars weapons
- List of Indian massacres
- List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Indian Wars
- North-West Rebellion
- Pueblo Revolt
- Red River Rebellion
- United States Army Indian Scouts
- Comparable and related events:
- Australian frontier wars
- Apache–Mexico Wars
- Comanche–Mexico Wars
- Conquest of the Desert
- Dungan Revolt (1862–1877)
- Dungan revolt (1895–96)
- Mexican Indian Wars
- New Zealand Wars
- Occupation of Araucanía
- Pacification of Algeria
- Sino-Tibetan War
- Xinjiang Wars
- Zulu War
- Indian Wars National Association
- Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas by John Henry Brown, published 1880, hosted by the Portal to Texas History.
- The Indian Wars and African American Soldiers, US Army
- Increase Mather, A Brief History of the War with the Indians in New-England, (1676) Online Edition
- www.history.com; American-Indian Wars
List of American Indian Wars
American Indian Wars are the numerous armed conflicts between European empires or colonists, and later by the American and Canadian settlers or American and Canadian governments, and the indigenous peoples of North America.
These conflicts occurred across the country beginning with the Tiguex War in 1540 within present-day New Mexico and ending with the Renegade period during the Apache Wars in 1924 within the Southwestern United States.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for the List of American Indian Wars by Century:
- 16th century wars
- 17th century wars
- 18th century wars
- 19th century wars
- 20th century wars
- See also:
- List of historical Indian reservations in the United States
- List of Indian massacres
- List of traditional territories of the indigenous peoples of North America
- U.S.–Native American treaties
- Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas
- Territorial evolution of the United States
- Territorial evolution of Canada
- Numbered Treaties
Shadow Wolves (Native American Trackers)
- YouTube Video: The Shadow Wolves are an Elite group of Native American officers combat drug smuggling
- YouTube Video: SHADOW WOLVES Movie Trailer
- YouTube Video: Shadow Wolves: ICE's Native American Manhunters - Episode 1: Walk The Line
The "Shadow Wolves" is a unit of Native American trackers. The law enforcement unit is part of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Shadow Wolves' primary task is tracking smugglers through a 76-mile (122 km) stretch of the Tohono O'odham Nation territory that runs along the Mexico–United States border in the state of Arizona.
History:
Further information: United States Army Indian Scouts and Eskimo Scouts
The "Shadow Wolves" law enforcement unit was created in 1972 by an Act of Congress, after the U.S. federal government agreed to the Tohono O'odham Nation's demand that the officers have at least one fourth Native American ancestry. The Shadow Wolves became the first federal law enforcement agents allowed to operate on Tohono land.
The unit is congressionally authorized to have as many as 21 members but, as of March, 2007, it consisted of only 15 members. Members of the unit come from nine different tribes, including the Tohono O'odham, Blackfeet, Lakota, Navajo, Omaha, Sioux, and Yaqui.
In 2003, the Shadow Wolves became part of the Department of Homeland Security when ICE was merged into Homeland Security. ICE officials are also considering creating a sister unit of the Shadow Wolves to patrol the Blackfeet reservation in Montana, on the U.S. border with Canada.
Overview:
The Shadow Wolves comprise an Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactical patrol unit based on the Native American Tohono O'odham Nation in southern Arizona. Shadow Wolf officers are known for their ability to track aliens and drug smugglers as they attempt to smuggle their illegal commodities across the border. The unit boasts an esteemed history of tracking passed down from generation to generation. The name "Shadow Wolves" refers to the way the unit hunts like a wolf pack.
The Shadow Wolves were founded in 1972 as an initiative undertaken by the U.S. Congress to track drug smugglers on Native American lands in the American Southwest.
Despite possession of high-tech equipment, the unit relies mainly on traditional methods of tracking, primarily a technique called "cutting for sign". "Cutting" is searching for and analyzing "sign", which includes any kind of physical evidence (footprints, tire tracks, thread, clothing, etc.).
Officers may spend hours or days tracking in the field following a "sign" until arrests and seizures are made, or it has been determined that the contraband has been loaded into a vehicle and transported from the area.
Key facts:
Global training missions:
In addition to tracking smugglers on the U.S. border, the Shadow Wolves have also been asked to train border guards and customs agents around the world tracking smugglers, in nations including Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Estonia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
The unit is also being used in the effort to hunt terrorists along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan by training regional border guards in Native American ancestral tracking methods.
In popular culture:
See also:
History:
Further information: United States Army Indian Scouts and Eskimo Scouts
The "Shadow Wolves" law enforcement unit was created in 1972 by an Act of Congress, after the U.S. federal government agreed to the Tohono O'odham Nation's demand that the officers have at least one fourth Native American ancestry. The Shadow Wolves became the first federal law enforcement agents allowed to operate on Tohono land.
The unit is congressionally authorized to have as many as 21 members but, as of March, 2007, it consisted of only 15 members. Members of the unit come from nine different tribes, including the Tohono O'odham, Blackfeet, Lakota, Navajo, Omaha, Sioux, and Yaqui.
In 2003, the Shadow Wolves became part of the Department of Homeland Security when ICE was merged into Homeland Security. ICE officials are also considering creating a sister unit of the Shadow Wolves to patrol the Blackfeet reservation in Montana, on the U.S. border with Canada.
Overview:
The Shadow Wolves comprise an Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactical patrol unit based on the Native American Tohono O'odham Nation in southern Arizona. Shadow Wolf officers are known for their ability to track aliens and drug smugglers as they attempt to smuggle their illegal commodities across the border. The unit boasts an esteemed history of tracking passed down from generation to generation. The name "Shadow Wolves" refers to the way the unit hunts like a wolf pack.
The Shadow Wolves were founded in 1972 as an initiative undertaken by the U.S. Congress to track drug smugglers on Native American lands in the American Southwest.
Despite possession of high-tech equipment, the unit relies mainly on traditional methods of tracking, primarily a technique called "cutting for sign". "Cutting" is searching for and analyzing "sign", which includes any kind of physical evidence (footprints, tire tracks, thread, clothing, etc.).
Officers may spend hours or days tracking in the field following a "sign" until arrests and seizures are made, or it has been determined that the contraband has been loaded into a vehicle and transported from the area.
Key facts:
- The Shadow Wolves' methodical approach has enabled them to track and apprehend smugglers in parts of the Southwestern U.S. across arduous desert terrain and rugged mountainous areas where tracks left by smugglers may be no more than an overturned pebble or an almost indistinguishable impression in the sand.
- An experienced Shadow Wolf can spot small items snagged on branches, twigs bent or broken, or even a single fiber of cloth or burlap from a sack or bag that could be filled with drugs. They can read faint footprints in the dust and determine when they were made, where they came from and whether or not traffickers are carrying additional weight such as backpacks filled with drugs.
- The Shadow Wolves are the Department of Homeland Security's only Native American tracking unit.
- The Tohono O'odham Nation, patrolled by the Shadow Wolves, covers 2,800,000 acres (11,000 km2) and is mainly made up of small, scattered villages.
- The current unit consists of 15 Native American Patrol Officers representing nine Native American tribes (Tohono O'odham, Navajo, Kiowa, Sioux, Blackfeet, Yurok, Omaha, Yaqui, and Pima) who employ traditional tracking skills combined with modern law enforcement technology to enforce immigration and customs laws on the 76-mile (122 km) stretch of land the Tohono O'odham Nation shares with Mexico.
- The unit was transferred back to ICE from CBP's Border Patrol in October 2006 and is being utilized to enhance ICE investigations and operations on the Tohono O'odham Nation.
- Since transferring back to ICE in October 2006, the fifteen-member unit is responsible for the seizure of over 31,000 pounds of marijuana, over forty-three criminal arrests of smugglers, and the seizure of 16 vehicles.
- Officers estimate in recent years they have seized an average of 60,000 pounds of illegal drugs a year.
- In 2007, the Shadow Wolves intercepted less than 20% of illicit Mexican cargo passing through their territory, which spans both sides of the US Mexico Border.
Global training missions:
In addition to tracking smugglers on the U.S. border, the Shadow Wolves have also been asked to train border guards and customs agents around the world tracking smugglers, in nations including Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Estonia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
The unit is also being used in the effort to hunt terrorists along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan by training regional border guards in Native American ancestral tracking methods.
In popular culture:
- A film about the Shadow Wolves began production in southern Arizona in October 2009. Call of the Shadow Wolves centers on a story of the Shadow Wolves' work in protecting the U.S. borders from criminals and terrorists. Director Brian Kosisky said in a news release, "Most people know very little about the Shadow Wolves. This is a tremendous opportunity for a storyteller to create a present-day Western where Native Americans are the heroes."
- A documentary film about the Shadow Wolves, Shadow Wolves: Tracking of a Documentary, was directed by Jack Kohler and produced by Joseph Arthur. The documentary profiles an intertribal group of Native Americans.
- The Shadow Wolves were featured in the National Geographic Channel show Border Wars in the episode titled "Walk the Line".
- Shadow Wolves television film was aired in 2019.
- In the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog film, Dr. Robotnik remarks that he learned tracking skills from Shadow Wolves.
- The Steven Segal novel, The Way of the Shadow Wolves: The Deep State and the Hijacking of America has the Shadow Wolves as a major part of the plot.
See also:
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement Fact sheet
- Shadow-Wolves - unofficial tribute website
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969 Film)
- YouTube Video: Trailer for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Film
- YouTube Video: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Going over the Waterfall
- YouTube Video: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid • Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head
Further above @ The Real Life of Butch Cassidy (1866–1908) and The Sundance Kid (1867-1908) is the background about the real life Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The following topic covers what I believe is the best Western movie ever made!
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman. Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman), and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid" (Robert Redford), who are on the run from a crack US posse after a string of train robberies. The pair and Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), flee to Bolivia to escape the posse.
In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
The American Film Institute ranked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as the 73rd-greatest American film on its "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)" list. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were ranked 20th-greatest heroes on "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains".
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was selected by the American Film Institute as the 7th-greatest Western of all time in the AFI's 10 Top 10 list in 2008.
Plot:
In 1899 Wyoming, Butch Cassidy is the affable, clever, talkative leader of the outlaw Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. His closest companion is the laconic dead-shot "Sundance Kid". The two return to their hideout at Hole-in-the-Wall (Wyoming) to discover that the rest of the gang, irked at Cassidy's long absences, have selected Harvey Logan as their new leader.
Logan challenges Cassidy to a knife fight over the gang's leadership. Cassidy defeats him using trickery, but embraces Logan's idea to rob the Union Pacific Overland Flyer train on both its eastward and westward runs, agreeing that the second robbery would be unexpected and likely reap even more money than the first.
The first robbery goes well. To celebrate, Cassidy visits a favorite brothel in a nearby town and watches, amused, as the town marshal unsuccessfully attempts to organize a posse to track down the gang, only to have his address to the townsfolk hijacked by a friendly bicycle salesman (he calls it "the future"). Sundance visits his lover, schoolteacher Etta Place, and they spend the night together. Cassidy joins up with them early the next morning and takes Place for a ride on his new bike.
On the second train robbery, Cassidy uses too much dynamite to blow open the safe, which is much larger than the safe on the previous job. The explosion demolishes the baggage car in the process. As the gang scrambles to gather up the money, a second train arrives carrying a six-man team of lawmen. The crack squad doggedly pursues Cassidy and Sundance, who try various ruses to get away, all of which fail. They try to hide out in the brothel, and then to seek amnesty from the friendly Sheriff Bledsoe, but he tells them their days are numbered and all they can do is flee.
As the posse remains in pursuit, despite all attempts to elude them, Cassidy and Sundance determine that the group includes renowned Indian tracker "Lord Baltimore" and relentless lawman Joe Lefors, recognizable by his white skimmer. They finally elude their pursuers by jumping from a cliff into a river far below. They learn from Place that the posse has been paid by Union Pacific head E. H. Harriman to remain on their trail until they are both killed.
Cassidy convinces Sundance and Place that the three should go to Bolivia, which he envisions as a robber's paradise. On their arrival there, Sundance is dismayed by the living conditions and regards the country with contempt, but Cassidy remains optimistic.
They discover that they know too little Spanish to pull off a bank robbery, so Place attempts to teach them the language. With her as an accomplice, they become successful bank robbers known as Los Bandidos Yanquis. However, their confidence drops when they see a man wearing a white hat (the signature of determined lawman Lefors) and fear that Harriman's posse is still after them.
Cassidy suggests "going straight", and he and Sundance land their first honest job as payroll guards for a mining company. However, they are ambushed by local bandits on their first run and their boss, Percy Garris, is killed.
They kill the bandits, the first time Cassidy has ever shot someone. Place recommends farming or ranching as other lines of work, but they conclude the straight life isn't for them. Sensing they will be killed should they return to robbery, Place decides to go back to the United States.
Cassidy and Sundance steal a payroll and a burro used to carry it, and arrive in a small town. A boy recognizes the burro's livestock branding and alerts the local police, leading to a gunfight with the outlaws. Cassidy has to make a desperate run to the burro to get ammunition, while Sundance provides covering fire.
Wounded, the two men take cover inside a nearby building. Cassidy suggests the duo's next destination should be Australia. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the two of them, the local police have called on the Bolivian Army to deal with the two outlaws. Confident of their ability to escape, the pair charge out of the building, guns blazing, directly into a hail of bullets from the massed troops who have occupied all of the surrounding vantage points. The film ends on a freeze-frame, as sounds of the Bolivian troops firing on the doomed outlaws are heard.
Cast:
Production:
Screenplay:
William Goldman first came across the story of Butch Cassidy in the late 1950s and researched intermittently for eight years before starting to write the screenplay. Goldman says he wrote the story as an original screenplay because he did not want to do the research to make it as authentic as a novel. Goldman later stated:
"The whole reason I wrote the ... thing, there is that famous line that Scott Fitzgerald wrote, who was one of my heroes, "There are no second acts in American lives." When I read about Cassidy and Longabaugh and the super-posse coming after them—that's phenomenal material. They ran to South America and lived there for eight years and that was what thrilled me: they had a second act.
They were more legendary in South America than they had been in the old West ... It's a great story. Those two guys and that pretty girl going down to South America and all that stuff. It just seems to me it's a wonderful piece of material.
The characters' flight to South America caused one executive to reject the script, as it was then unusual in Western films for the protagonists to flee.
Development:
According to Goldman, when he first wrote the script and sent it out for consideration, only one studio wanted to buy it—and that was with the proviso that the two lead characters did not flee to South America. When Goldman protested that that was what had happened, the studio head responded, "I don't give a shit. All I know is John Wayne don't run away."
Goldman rewrote the script, "didn't change it more than a few pages, and subsequently found that every studio wanted it."
The role of Sundance was offered to Jack Lemmon, whose production company, JML, had produced the film Cool Hand Luke (1967) starring Newman. Lemmon, however, turned down the role because he did not like riding horses and felt that he had already played too many aspects of the Sundance Kid's character before.
Other actors considered for the role of Sundance were Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty, who both turned it down, with Beatty claiming that the film was too similar to Bonnie and Clyde. According to Goldman, McQueen and Newman both read the scripts at the same time and agreed to do the film.
McQueen eventually backed out of the film due to disagreements with Newman. The two actors would eventually team up in the 1974 disaster film The Towering Inferno. Jacqueline Bisset was a top contender for the role of Etta Place.
Filming locations include the ghost town of Grafton, Zion National Park, Snow Canyon State Park, and the city of St. George. These areas remain popular film tourism destinations, including the Cassidy Trail in Reds Canyon.
Soundtrack:
Personnel:
Release:
Premieres:
The world premiere of the film was on September 23, 1969, at the Roger Sherman Theater, in New Haven, Connecticut. The premiere was attended by Paul Newman, his wife Joanne Woodward, Robert Redford, George Roy Hill, William Goldman, and John Foreman, among others. It opened the next day in New York City at the Penthouse and Sutton theatres.
Home media:
The film became available on DVD on May 16, 2000, in a Special Edition that is also available on VHS.
Reception:
Box office:
The film grossed $82,625 in its opening week from two theatres in New York City. The following week it expanded and became the number one film in the United States and Canada for two weeks.
It went on to earn $15 million in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada by the end of 1969.
According to Fox records the film required $13,850,000 in rentals to break even and by December 11, 1970, had made $36,825,000 so made a considerable profit to the studio. It eventually returned $45,953,000 in rentals.
With a final US gross of over $100 million, it was the top-grossing film released in 1969.
It was the eighth-most-popular film of 1970 in France.
Critical response:
Early reviews gave the film mediocre grades, and New York and national reviews were "mixed to terrible" though better elsewhere, screenwriter William Goldman recalled in his book Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade.
Time magazine said the film's two male stars are "afflicted with cinematic schizophrenia. One moment they are sinewy, battered remnants of a discarded tradition. The next, they are low comedians whose chaffing relationship—and dialogue—could have been lifted from a Batman and Robin episode."
Time also criticized the film's score as absurd and anachronistic.
Roger Ebert's review of the movie was a mixed 2.5 out of 4 stars. He praised the beginning of the film and its three lead actors, but felt the film progressed too slowly and had an unsatisfactory ending.
But after Harriman hires his posse, Ebert thought the movie's quality declined: "Hill apparently spent a lot of money to take his company on location for these scenes, and I guess when he got back to Hollywood he couldn't bear to edit them out of the final version.
So the Super-posse chases our heroes unceasingly, until we've long since forgotten how well the movie started.”
Over time, major American movie reviewers have been widely favorable. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 88% approval rating based on 52 reviews and an average score of 8.3/10.
The site's critical consensus reads: "With its iconic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, jaunty screenplay and Burt Bacharach score, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has gone down as among the defining moments in late-'60s American cinema."
The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #11 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.
Accolades: click on chart below for details:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman. Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman), and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid" (Robert Redford), who are on the run from a crack US posse after a string of train robberies. The pair and Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), flee to Bolivia to escape the posse.
In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
The American Film Institute ranked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as the 73rd-greatest American film on its "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)" list. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were ranked 20th-greatest heroes on "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains".
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was selected by the American Film Institute as the 7th-greatest Western of all time in the AFI's 10 Top 10 list in 2008.
Plot:
In 1899 Wyoming, Butch Cassidy is the affable, clever, talkative leader of the outlaw Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. His closest companion is the laconic dead-shot "Sundance Kid". The two return to their hideout at Hole-in-the-Wall (Wyoming) to discover that the rest of the gang, irked at Cassidy's long absences, have selected Harvey Logan as their new leader.
Logan challenges Cassidy to a knife fight over the gang's leadership. Cassidy defeats him using trickery, but embraces Logan's idea to rob the Union Pacific Overland Flyer train on both its eastward and westward runs, agreeing that the second robbery would be unexpected and likely reap even more money than the first.
The first robbery goes well. To celebrate, Cassidy visits a favorite brothel in a nearby town and watches, amused, as the town marshal unsuccessfully attempts to organize a posse to track down the gang, only to have his address to the townsfolk hijacked by a friendly bicycle salesman (he calls it "the future"). Sundance visits his lover, schoolteacher Etta Place, and they spend the night together. Cassidy joins up with them early the next morning and takes Place for a ride on his new bike.
On the second train robbery, Cassidy uses too much dynamite to blow open the safe, which is much larger than the safe on the previous job. The explosion demolishes the baggage car in the process. As the gang scrambles to gather up the money, a second train arrives carrying a six-man team of lawmen. The crack squad doggedly pursues Cassidy and Sundance, who try various ruses to get away, all of which fail. They try to hide out in the brothel, and then to seek amnesty from the friendly Sheriff Bledsoe, but he tells them their days are numbered and all they can do is flee.
As the posse remains in pursuit, despite all attempts to elude them, Cassidy and Sundance determine that the group includes renowned Indian tracker "Lord Baltimore" and relentless lawman Joe Lefors, recognizable by his white skimmer. They finally elude their pursuers by jumping from a cliff into a river far below. They learn from Place that the posse has been paid by Union Pacific head E. H. Harriman to remain on their trail until they are both killed.
Cassidy convinces Sundance and Place that the three should go to Bolivia, which he envisions as a robber's paradise. On their arrival there, Sundance is dismayed by the living conditions and regards the country with contempt, but Cassidy remains optimistic.
They discover that they know too little Spanish to pull off a bank robbery, so Place attempts to teach them the language. With her as an accomplice, they become successful bank robbers known as Los Bandidos Yanquis. However, their confidence drops when they see a man wearing a white hat (the signature of determined lawman Lefors) and fear that Harriman's posse is still after them.
Cassidy suggests "going straight", and he and Sundance land their first honest job as payroll guards for a mining company. However, they are ambushed by local bandits on their first run and their boss, Percy Garris, is killed.
They kill the bandits, the first time Cassidy has ever shot someone. Place recommends farming or ranching as other lines of work, but they conclude the straight life isn't for them. Sensing they will be killed should they return to robbery, Place decides to go back to the United States.
Cassidy and Sundance steal a payroll and a burro used to carry it, and arrive in a small town. A boy recognizes the burro's livestock branding and alerts the local police, leading to a gunfight with the outlaws. Cassidy has to make a desperate run to the burro to get ammunition, while Sundance provides covering fire.
Wounded, the two men take cover inside a nearby building. Cassidy suggests the duo's next destination should be Australia. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the two of them, the local police have called on the Bolivian Army to deal with the two outlaws. Confident of their ability to escape, the pair charge out of the building, guns blazing, directly into a hail of bullets from the massed troops who have occupied all of the surrounding vantage points. The film ends on a freeze-frame, as sounds of the Bolivian troops firing on the doomed outlaws are heard.
Cast:
- Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy
- Robert Redford as the Sundance Kid
- Katharine Ross as Etta Place
- Strother Martin as Percy Garris
- Henry Jones as Bike Salesman
- Jeff Corey as Sheriff Bledsoe
- George Furth as Woodcock
- Cloris Leachman as Agnes
- Ted Cassidy as Harvey Logan
- Kenneth Mars as Marshal
- Donnelly Rhodes as Macon
- Timothy Scott as "News" Carver
- Charles Dierkop as Flat Nose Curry
- Paul Bryar as Card Player #1
- Sam Elliott as Card Player #2
- Jody Gilbert as Large Woman on Train
Production:
Screenplay:
William Goldman first came across the story of Butch Cassidy in the late 1950s and researched intermittently for eight years before starting to write the screenplay. Goldman says he wrote the story as an original screenplay because he did not want to do the research to make it as authentic as a novel. Goldman later stated:
"The whole reason I wrote the ... thing, there is that famous line that Scott Fitzgerald wrote, who was one of my heroes, "There are no second acts in American lives." When I read about Cassidy and Longabaugh and the super-posse coming after them—that's phenomenal material. They ran to South America and lived there for eight years and that was what thrilled me: they had a second act.
They were more legendary in South America than they had been in the old West ... It's a great story. Those two guys and that pretty girl going down to South America and all that stuff. It just seems to me it's a wonderful piece of material.
The characters' flight to South America caused one executive to reject the script, as it was then unusual in Western films for the protagonists to flee.
Development:
According to Goldman, when he first wrote the script and sent it out for consideration, only one studio wanted to buy it—and that was with the proviso that the two lead characters did not flee to South America. When Goldman protested that that was what had happened, the studio head responded, "I don't give a shit. All I know is John Wayne don't run away."
Goldman rewrote the script, "didn't change it more than a few pages, and subsequently found that every studio wanted it."
The role of Sundance was offered to Jack Lemmon, whose production company, JML, had produced the film Cool Hand Luke (1967) starring Newman. Lemmon, however, turned down the role because he did not like riding horses and felt that he had already played too many aspects of the Sundance Kid's character before.
Other actors considered for the role of Sundance were Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty, who both turned it down, with Beatty claiming that the film was too similar to Bonnie and Clyde. According to Goldman, McQueen and Newman both read the scripts at the same time and agreed to do the film.
McQueen eventually backed out of the film due to disagreements with Newman. The two actors would eventually team up in the 1974 disaster film The Towering Inferno. Jacqueline Bisset was a top contender for the role of Etta Place.
Filming locations include the ghost town of Grafton, Zion National Park, Snow Canyon State Park, and the city of St. George. These areas remain popular film tourism destinations, including the Cassidy Trail in Reds Canyon.
Soundtrack:
Personnel:
- Marvin Stamm − trumpet
- Pete Jolly − piano
- Hubert Laws − flute
- Bob Bain, Bill Pitman − guitar
- Tommy Tedesco − ukelele
- Carol Kaye − electric bass
- Emil Richards − percussion
Release:
Premieres:
The world premiere of the film was on September 23, 1969, at the Roger Sherman Theater, in New Haven, Connecticut. The premiere was attended by Paul Newman, his wife Joanne Woodward, Robert Redford, George Roy Hill, William Goldman, and John Foreman, among others. It opened the next day in New York City at the Penthouse and Sutton theatres.
Home media:
The film became available on DVD on May 16, 2000, in a Special Edition that is also available on VHS.
Reception:
Box office:
The film grossed $82,625 in its opening week from two theatres in New York City. The following week it expanded and became the number one film in the United States and Canada for two weeks.
It went on to earn $15 million in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada by the end of 1969.
According to Fox records the film required $13,850,000 in rentals to break even and by December 11, 1970, had made $36,825,000 so made a considerable profit to the studio. It eventually returned $45,953,000 in rentals.
With a final US gross of over $100 million, it was the top-grossing film released in 1969.
It was the eighth-most-popular film of 1970 in France.
Critical response:
Early reviews gave the film mediocre grades, and New York and national reviews were "mixed to terrible" though better elsewhere, screenwriter William Goldman recalled in his book Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade.
Time magazine said the film's two male stars are "afflicted with cinematic schizophrenia. One moment they are sinewy, battered remnants of a discarded tradition. The next, they are low comedians whose chaffing relationship—and dialogue—could have been lifted from a Batman and Robin episode."
Time also criticized the film's score as absurd and anachronistic.
Roger Ebert's review of the movie was a mixed 2.5 out of 4 stars. He praised the beginning of the film and its three lead actors, but felt the film progressed too slowly and had an unsatisfactory ending.
But after Harriman hires his posse, Ebert thought the movie's quality declined: "Hill apparently spent a lot of money to take his company on location for these scenes, and I guess when he got back to Hollywood he couldn't bear to edit them out of the final version.
So the Super-posse chases our heroes unceasingly, until we've long since forgotten how well the movie started.”
Over time, major American movie reviewers have been widely favorable. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 88% approval rating based on 52 reviews and an average score of 8.3/10.
The site's critical consensus reads: "With its iconic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, jaunty screenplay and Burt Bacharach score, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has gone down as among the defining moments in late-'60s American cinema."
The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #11 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.
Accolades: click on chart below for details:
Legacy:
The film inspired the television series Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy as outlaws trying to earn an amnesty.
A parody titled "Botch Casually and the Somedunce Kid" was published in Mad. It was illustrated by Mort Drucker and written by Arnie Kogen in issue No. 136, July 1970.
In 1979 Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, a prequel, was released starring Tom Berenger as Butch Cassidy and William Katt as the Sundance Kid. It was directed by Richard Lester and written by Allan Burns. William Goldman, the writer of the original film, was an executive producer. Jeff Corey was the only actor to appear in the original and the prequel.
See also:
The film inspired the television series Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy as outlaws trying to earn an amnesty.
A parody titled "Botch Casually and the Somedunce Kid" was published in Mad. It was illustrated by Mort Drucker and written by Arnie Kogen in issue No. 136, July 1970.
In 1979 Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, a prequel, was released starring Tom Berenger as Butch Cassidy and William Katt as the Sundance Kid. It was directed by Richard Lester and written by Allan Burns. William Goldman, the writer of the original film, was an executive producer. Jeff Corey was the only actor to appear in the original and the prequel.
See also:
- List of American films of 1969
- Antihero (Cassidy and Sundance are considered "antiheroes".)
The Greatest Westerns of All Time
The Herald Weekly
Dec 23, 2022 | by Zoe Karbe
[Note that the following movie compilation of the greatest westerns of all time has each movie identified by name and year, a YouTube Video Movie Trailer as well as a link to that movie's Wikipedia description, and a image for giving you maximum content in just a few links. These movies were cited by The Herald Weekly online website as the greatest Western movies of all time!]
True Grit (Henry Hathaway, 1969)
There is no doubt that Rooster Cogburn is one of John Wayne’s most identifiable roles. He is, after all, the quintessential John Wayne character that the two are basically synonymous with each other. Might we add, the role also earned Wayne an Oscar!
The film is the very first of a book adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel of the same name. According to historians, Cogburn was based on Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas, one of the toughest lawmen of the time. No doubt that makes Cogburn one iconic character. In fact, there is even a Coen Brothers remake that some say is even better.
The Herald Weekly
Dec 23, 2022 | by Zoe Karbe
[Note that the following movie compilation of the greatest westerns of all time has each movie identified by name and year, a YouTube Video Movie Trailer as well as a link to that movie's Wikipedia description, and a image for giving you maximum content in just a few links. These movies were cited by The Herald Weekly online website as the greatest Western movies of all time!]
True Grit (Henry Hathaway, 1969)
There is no doubt that Rooster Cogburn is one of John Wayne’s most identifiable roles. He is, after all, the quintessential John Wayne character that the two are basically synonymous with each other. Might we add, the role also earned Wayne an Oscar!
The film is the very first of a book adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel of the same name. According to historians, Cogburn was based on Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas, one of the toughest lawmen of the time. No doubt that makes Cogburn one iconic character. In fact, there is even a Coen Brothers remake that some say is even better.
Death Rides a Horse (Giulio Petroni, 1967)
In this 1967’s cinematically triumphant picture, "Death Rides a Horse," director Giulio Petroni follows a man's thirst for vengeance after witnessing his entire family killed at the hands of violent outlaws. All he has is a spur, the only relic left to remind him of the traumatic event.
Pairing up with the mysterious Ryan (Lee Van Cleef), the film takes us on an incredible journey until we reach the cathartic end, inevitably filled with a lot of rage and fury.
In this 1967’s cinematically triumphant picture, "Death Rides a Horse," director Giulio Petroni follows a man's thirst for vengeance after witnessing his entire family killed at the hands of violent outlaws. All he has is a spur, the only relic left to remind him of the traumatic event.
Pairing up with the mysterious Ryan (Lee Van Cleef), the film takes us on an incredible journey until we reach the cathartic end, inevitably filled with a lot of rage and fury.
Ride Lonesome (Budd Boetticher, 1959)
A plot to avenge the murder of a steely Lonewolf's wife. The breathtakingly beautiful visuals are all thanks to the settings of Sierra Nevada locations.
Also, who can forget the legendary line, “There are some things a man just can’t ride around on.”
A plot to avenge the murder of a steely Lonewolf's wife. The breathtakingly beautiful visuals are all thanks to the settings of Sierra Nevada locations.
Also, who can forget the legendary line, “There are some things a man just can’t ride around on.”
The Lone Ranger (2003, Gore Verbinski)
Johnny Depp was one of the most popular Hollywood stars during the success of his "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. His success as Jack Sparrow prompted him to attempt a more serious role. Unfortunately, it had to be "The Lone Ranger." This western film was a commercial failure, but you can't resist Johnny galloping through the desert in a crazy costume.
Depp really believed in this film and wanted it to work. One of the things he did to ensure authenticity was to insist on doing some of the action scenes himself. This is quite commendable when you consider that he wears a mask throughout most of the film, which made it very easy for a stuntman to impersonate him.
Unfortunately, Johnny Depp was almost killed during production. He was doing his own horse-riding scene when he was thrown off a moving horse and was nearly trampled.
Johnny Depp was one of the most popular Hollywood stars during the success of his "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. His success as Jack Sparrow prompted him to attempt a more serious role. Unfortunately, it had to be "The Lone Ranger." This western film was a commercial failure, but you can't resist Johnny galloping through the desert in a crazy costume.
Depp really believed in this film and wanted it to work. One of the things he did to ensure authenticity was to insist on doing some of the action scenes himself. This is quite commendable when you consider that he wears a mask throughout most of the film, which made it very easy for a stuntman to impersonate him.
Unfortunately, Johnny Depp was almost killed during production. He was doing his own horse-riding scene when he was thrown off a moving horse and was nearly trampled.
Rancho Deluxe (1975, Frank Perry)
The ’70s wave of westerns typically featured the forgotten cowboy trope. In the fantastic film ‘Rancho Deluxe,’ we see a couple of small-time rustlers from Montana.
The duo played by Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston make this Western a surprisingly odd and sweet little film that depicts the west as a place of refuge.
The ’70s wave of westerns typically featured the forgotten cowboy trope. In the fantastic film ‘Rancho Deluxe,’ we see a couple of small-time rustlers from Montana.
The duo played by Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston make this Western a surprisingly odd and sweet little film that depicts the west as a place of refuge.
Winchester ’73 (Anthony Mann, 1950)
James Stewart proved to us that not only could he saddle up, but he could also shoot’em up. The daring and adventurous quest to retrieve his stolen rifle makes this without a doubt one of the most iconic westerns in history.
Dan Duryea, as the sickenly cruel Waco Johnnie Deam, also makes for one great on-screen villain.
James Stewart proved to us that not only could he saddle up, but he could also shoot’em up. The daring and adventurous quest to retrieve his stolen rifle makes this without a doubt one of the most iconic westerns in history.
Dan Duryea, as the sickenly cruel Waco Johnnie Deam, also makes for one great on-screen villain.
One-Eyed Jacks (Marlon Brando, 1961)
It turns out Marlon Brando wasn't only an incredible actor, but he was one impressive director as he ended up making of the greatest westerns in history (he starred in it too, of course.) The project was originally supposed to be directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, but Brando stepped in and took over after some creative disagreements.
The film notoriously turned into a typical Brando production with its excessive running of over four hours. Supposedly all that paid off in the end and is now considered a slow burn masterpiece. The Monterrey and Big Sur scenic locations also add to the beautifully aesthetic film.
It turns out Marlon Brando wasn't only an incredible actor, but he was one impressive director as he ended up making of the greatest westerns in history (he starred in it too, of course.) The project was originally supposed to be directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, but Brando stepped in and took over after some creative disagreements.
The film notoriously turned into a typical Brando production with its excessive running of over four hours. Supposedly all that paid off in the end and is now considered a slow burn masterpiece. The Monterrey and Big Sur scenic locations also add to the beautifully aesthetic film.
Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)
In true western tradition, our favorite sheriff, John Wayne, faces a gang of baddies with only a rookie gun-slinger, a cripple, and a drunk to help him. Does he succeed? Well, he is John Wayne.
Did we mention that Dean Martin stars in this too? He even gets to sing! It's a real good time flick, and Walter Brennan is simply a delight to boot!
In true western tradition, our favorite sheriff, John Wayne, faces a gang of baddies with only a rookie gun-slinger, a cripple, and a drunk to help him. Does he succeed? Well, he is John Wayne.
Did we mention that Dean Martin stars in this too? He even gets to sing! It's a real good time flick, and Walter Brennan is simply a delight to boot!
My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)
This is considered to be a super romanticized version of events involving Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral. Henry Fonda stars as Earp in this highly stylized and even poetic western.
The film is filled with long iconic scenes such as a Fonda on his porch surveying the surroundings, as well as his stiff-legged dance with the "lady fair."
This is considered to be a super romanticized version of events involving Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral. Henry Fonda stars as Earp in this highly stylized and even poetic western.
The film is filled with long iconic scenes such as a Fonda on his porch surveying the surroundings, as well as his stiff-legged dance with the "lady fair."
The Ox-Bow Incident (William A Wellman, 1943)
Henry Fonda is back again in this Wellman-directed western. This time he stars as a powerless hero trying to intervene as three men are set to be lynched for a crime they did not commit.
Why does this affect Fonda more than the average person? Unfortunately, our hero witnessed a lynching as a kid. There's heaps of social commentary in this one.
Henry Fonda is back again in this Wellman-directed western. This time he stars as a powerless hero trying to intervene as three men are set to be lynched for a crime they did not commit.
Why does this affect Fonda more than the average person? Unfortunately, our hero witnessed a lynching as a kid. There's heaps of social commentary in this one.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969)
A buddy film that's laden with Oscars depicts the great "bromance" between these two legendary western characters played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
William Goldman's writing shines, and Burt Bacharach's soundtrack makes this an irresistibly cool 60s Western.
A buddy film that's laden with Oscars depicts the great "bromance" between these two legendary western characters played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
William Goldman's writing shines, and Burt Bacharach's soundtrack makes this an irresistibly cool 60s Western.
The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950)
In essence, this is a Greek tragedy dressed up as a western. Not surprisingly, the film went on to pave the way for the western trope of the aging gunslinger for years to come.
The film follows Gregory Peck as he tries to bury his ugly past. Unfortunately, his effort proves futile when he discovers that there is one more kid to outdraw.
In essence, this is a Greek tragedy dressed up as a western. Not surprisingly, the film went on to pave the way for the western trope of the aging gunslinger for years to come.
The film follows Gregory Peck as he tries to bury his ugly past. Unfortunately, his effort proves futile when he discovers that there is one more kid to outdraw.
Ride the High Country (Sam Peckinpah, 1962)
A mournful lament for the loss of the old West, this film follows the retired lawman Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) and his journey of transporting gold from a faraway small mine to a bank.
Enter the restless Gil and a young drifter who intends to rob Judd of the gold during his journey.
A mournful lament for the loss of the old West, this film follows the retired lawman Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) and his journey of transporting gold from a faraway small mine to a bank.
Enter the restless Gil and a young drifter who intends to rob Judd of the gold during his journey.
The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960)
This western's got it all. From a thrilling knife/gun duel to Steve Mcqueen, a great soundtrack and killer storyline.
This 1960 western by John Sturges cannot disappoint even if it tried.
This western's got it all. From a thrilling knife/gun duel to Steve Mcqueen, a great soundtrack and killer storyline.
This 1960 western by John Sturges cannot disappoint even if it tried.
Red River (Howard Hawks, 1948)
This epic western stars the one and only John Wayne as a no-nonsense, determined rancher who seeks to drive his cattle to the bitter end, even if that involves killing Montomgory Clift, his adopted son who takes his herd from him.
The film is, in fact, a fictional account of the actual cattle-drive from Texas to Kansas that took place along the Chisholm Trail.
This epic western stars the one and only John Wayne as a no-nonsense, determined rancher who seeks to drive his cattle to the bitter end, even if that involves killing Montomgory Clift, his adopted son who takes his herd from him.
The film is, in fact, a fictional account of the actual cattle-drive from Texas to Kansas that took place along the Chisholm Trail.
High Noon (Fred Zinnemann,1952)
"High Noon" has been regarded as an allegorical tale of the McCarthy witch hunts in Hollywood. With that said, it should, above all, be embraced as a Western.
Lawman Gary Cooper gets deserted by his town and is left to face the bad guys all by himself.
"High Noon" has been regarded as an allegorical tale of the McCarthy witch hunts in Hollywood. With that said, it should, above all, be embraced as a Western.
Lawman Gary Cooper gets deserted by his town and is left to face the bad guys all by himself.
Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)
This is the film that established John Wayne's career and made him the star we know today. The film balances a good amount of character study with thrilling action sequences (thanks to the daring antics of stuntman Yakuma Canutt!)
It also iconized the Arizona- Utah border as one of the most recognizable locations in the western movie genre.
This is the film that established John Wayne's career and made him the star we know today. The film balances a good amount of character study with thrilling action sequences (thanks to the daring antics of stuntman Yakuma Canutt!)
It also iconized the Arizona- Utah border as one of the most recognizable locations in the western movie genre.
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
The epic film gives a historic account of the railroad development and modernization of the west. It's a work of epic scale that ambitiously depicts a turning point in the region.
Once viewers get over the fact that their beloved Henry Fonda is a cold-hearted killer, it evolves into an astonishingly beautiful film with powerful imagery.
The epic film gives a historic account of the railroad development and modernization of the west. It's a work of epic scale that ambitiously depicts a turning point in the region.
Once viewers get over the fact that their beloved Henry Fonda is a cold-hearted killer, it evolves into an astonishingly beautiful film with powerful imagery.
Shane (George Stevens, 1953)
"Shane" is based on Jack Schaefer's popular novel of the same name. This incredible film adaptation features Alan Ladd perfectly cast as a tough gunfighter trying to quit the game and live a peaceful life: of course, that turns out to be harder than he realized.
With Oscar-winning cinematography and Jack Palance’s masterful acting, both in emotion and physicality, the film will leave you pretty choked up.
"Shane" is based on Jack Schaefer's popular novel of the same name. This incredible film adaptation features Alan Ladd perfectly cast as a tough gunfighter trying to quit the game and live a peaceful life: of course, that turns out to be harder than he realized.
With Oscar-winning cinematography and Jack Palance’s masterful acting, both in emotion and physicality, the film will leave you pretty choked up.
Westward the Women (William A. Wellman, 1951)
Originally written by Frank Capra, "Westward the Women" sounds rather absurd on paper: A sizeable California farm is suffering from a shortage of women, so naturally, to balance things out, a train is sent out to haul back 150 brides to the farm.
Throw in some treacherous landscapes and tragic death in the mix; the film becomes a telling tale of hardship and gender politics. Not exactly your run-of-the-mill western.
Originally written by Frank Capra, "Westward the Women" sounds rather absurd on paper: A sizeable California farm is suffering from a shortage of women, so naturally, to balance things out, a train is sent out to haul back 150 brides to the farm.
Throw in some treacherous landscapes and tragic death in the mix; the film becomes a telling tale of hardship and gender politics. Not exactly your run-of-the-mill western.
The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin, 1925)
A western with a comic core, even if it can get pretty dark at times. The Charlie Chaplin silent classic depicts the hardships of prospectors in the Klondike Goldrush. Chaplin's pursuit of a woman initially offers hope, but things take a turn.
The events follow result in a great film filled with some absurdly romantic gestures and a lot of heart.
A western with a comic core, even if it can get pretty dark at times. The Charlie Chaplin silent classic depicts the hardships of prospectors in the Klondike Goldrush. Chaplin's pursuit of a woman initially offers hope, but things take a turn.
The events follow result in a great film filled with some absurdly romantic gestures and a lot of heart.
Destry Rides Again (George Marshall, 1939)
A greedy cheat takes control over all the local cattle ranches. When the sheriff suspects rigging, Kent has him killed. Enter legendary lawman Tom Destry, who restores town order. It's every western cliche thrown in one.
From crooked gamblers, drunks, and beautiful girls, you sure can't deny that it's a good old time.
A greedy cheat takes control over all the local cattle ranches. When the sheriff suspects rigging, Kent has him killed. Enter legendary lawman Tom Destry, who restores town order. It's every western cliche thrown in one.
From crooked gamblers, drunks, and beautiful girls, you sure can't deny that it's a good old time.
The Wind (Victor Sjöström, 1928)
This Swedish western follows the captivating tale of an East Coast woman forced into an unwanted marriage. Left to suffer in a windy cottage, our protagonist ( played by Lillian Gish) gets swept up by the literal wind (hence the importance of the name.)
The hallucinatory film remains grounded in Gish's performance as she offers raw emotion that depicts her inner conflict as she sits alone in the vast wilderness,
This Swedish western follows the captivating tale of an East Coast woman forced into an unwanted marriage. Left to suffer in a windy cottage, our protagonist ( played by Lillian Gish) gets swept up by the literal wind (hence the importance of the name.)
The hallucinatory film remains grounded in Gish's performance as she offers raw emotion that depicts her inner conflict as she sits alone in the vast wilderness,
Run of the Arrow (Samuel Fuller, 1957)
Run of the Arrow follows Private O’Meara, a Confederate soldier who ends up living with a Native American tribe. One could even credit this film for inspiring Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves." Unfortunately, in true 1950's fashion, the Native American characters are all played by clearly Caucasian actors.
Not entirely helpful in the authenticity department. Still, the film manages to depict the deductive nature of bigotry in its own Hollywood way.
Run of the Arrow follows Private O’Meara, a Confederate soldier who ends up living with a Native American tribe. One could even credit this film for inspiring Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves." Unfortunately, in true 1950's fashion, the Native American characters are all played by clearly Caucasian actors.
Not entirely helpful in the authenticity department. Still, the film manages to depict the deductive nature of bigotry in its own Hollywood way.
Vera Cruz (Robert Aldrich, 1954)
This film certainly offers a punch. A countess and her gold need to be transported to Vera Cruz, a port city in the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, various alliances are created as much as they are double-crossed. It's a game of wits executed perfectly by the brilliant Robert Aldrich.
It's also great to see the genre-expanding into new landscapes.
This film certainly offers a punch. A countess and her gold need to be transported to Vera Cruz, a port city in the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, various alliances are created as much as they are double-crossed. It's a game of wits executed perfectly by the brilliant Robert Aldrich.
It's also great to see the genre-expanding into new landscapes.
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985)
When a snowy mountain is pillaged over a land ownership battle during the early Gold Rush, all notions of money and land play into the grand struggle for power in America.
This Clint Eastwood blockbuster, while special in its own right, somewhat resembles "The Unforgiven" and could even be considered as a trial run.
When a snowy mountain is pillaged over a land ownership battle during the early Gold Rush, all notions of money and land play into the grand struggle for power in America.
This Clint Eastwood blockbuster, while special in its own right, somewhat resembles "The Unforgiven" and could even be considered as a trial run.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Sam Peckinpah, 1970)
"The Ballad of Cable Hogue" production caused quite a stir at the time. It went over the budget by three-million dollars and continued 19 days after schedule. That being said, the film that was shot in the desert landscapes of Nevada ended up being a masterful commentary on American despair.
Sadly due to production issues, Holywood lost interest in Peckinpah after this film. But we sure didn't!
"The Ballad of Cable Hogue" production caused quite a stir at the time. It went over the budget by three-million dollars and continued 19 days after schedule. That being said, the film that was shot in the desert landscapes of Nevada ended up being a masterful commentary on American despair.
Sadly due to production issues, Holywood lost interest in Peckinpah after this film. But we sure didn't!
Bad Company (Robert Benton, 1972)
What starts out as an odyssey to the "promised land" of American riches evolves into something far more dark and even bizarre. Jake (Jeff Bridges) and his buddy have stripped of their dreams and even dignity thanks to a cruel gang of roaming bandits.
It's a dog eat dog world out there.
What starts out as an odyssey to the "promised land" of American riches evolves into something far more dark and even bizarre. Jake (Jeff Bridges) and his buddy have stripped of their dreams and even dignity thanks to a cruel gang of roaming bandits.
It's a dog eat dog world out there.
No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
The Coen brothers can't do much wrong, and it becomes evident as ever here. This masterful script based on Cormac McCarthy's novel captures the disparities between young and old.
The Coens, together with their prized director of photography, Roger Deakins, shed light on the viciousness that took place in the vast wild region of the western landscape.
The Coen brothers can't do much wrong, and it becomes evident as ever here. This masterful script based on Cormac McCarthy's novel captures the disparities between young and old.
The Coens, together with their prized director of photography, Roger Deakins, shed light on the viciousness that took place in the vast wild region of the western landscape.
A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964)
The film has aged really well considering it's from 1964. The Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood) rolls into a village of San Miguel in the middle of a power struggle between the Rojo brothers. Of course, Eastwood inserts himself right into the battle with plans of his own.
Shots of menacing faces and forbidding landscapes almost make this western feel like a comic book.
The film has aged really well considering it's from 1964. The Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood) rolls into a village of San Miguel in the middle of a power struggle between the Rojo brothers. Of course, Eastwood inserts himself right into the battle with plans of his own.
Shots of menacing faces and forbidding landscapes almost make this western feel like a comic book.
The Assassination of Jesse James (2007)
This western revisionist film dramatizes the relationship between "wild west" legends Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) and causes on the events that led up to the actual assassination. Beyond the gripping story, the film has one of the best scores in recent cinema.
Oddly enough, it's taken about 10 years for this film to get the recognition it truly deserves.
This western revisionist film dramatizes the relationship between "wild west" legends Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) and causes on the events that led up to the actual assassination. Beyond the gripping story, the film has one of the best scores in recent cinema.
Oddly enough, it's taken about 10 years for this film to get the recognition it truly deserves.
3:10 to Yuma (Delmer Daves, 1957)
Like pretty much every western made, 3:10 to Yuma explores masculinity and the struggle to restore balance to his community. This time, this classic western follows an impoverished rancher who suffered from a drought and his risky job accompanying an outlaw to justice.
The film is based on a 1953 short story by Elmore Leonard and even inspired a remake starring Russel Crowe.
Like pretty much every western made, 3:10 to Yuma explores masculinity and the struggle to restore balance to his community. This time, this classic western follows an impoverished rancher who suffered from a drought and his risky job accompanying an outlaw to justice.
The film is based on a 1953 short story by Elmore Leonard and even inspired a remake starring Russel Crowe.
Day of the Outlaw (André De Toth, 1959)
With great cinematography that captures the helpless townspeople, André De Toth creates a truly gripping western:
Cattleman Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) and farmer Hal Crane (Alan Marshal) get into a nasty dispute that borders on danger. That all changes when their town is under siege from a band of thugs. Our hero Starrett rises to the challenge and attempts to restore his name.
With great cinematography that captures the helpless townspeople, André De Toth creates a truly gripping western:
Cattleman Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) and farmer Hal Crane (Alan Marshal) get into a nasty dispute that borders on danger. That all changes when their town is under siege from a band of thugs. Our hero Starrett rises to the challenge and attempts to restore his name.
Forty Guns (Samuel Fuller, 1957)
Some Western romance we have here. When a cattle queen gun "lord" falls for an upstanding sheriff, things get messy. There are a lot of guns and a lot of violence, but at least a feel-good Hollywood "fixes it all" moment.
It's also interesting to know that this Samuel Fuller classic had a ridiculously low budget was shot in 10 days!
Some Western romance we have here. When a cattle queen gun "lord" falls for an upstanding sheriff, things get messy. There are a lot of guns and a lot of violence, but at least a feel-good Hollywood "fixes it all" moment.
It's also interesting to know that this Samuel Fuller classic had a ridiculously low budget was shot in 10 days!
Track of the Cat (William A. Wellman, 1954)
In the midst of the harsh California winter, members of a ranching family are quarreling among themselves while the two sons go hunting for the panther that is killing their cattle.
The reveal of a black panther that drives the story becomes part of a grander metaphor for the root of the family's issues. Thanks to A.I. Bezzeride's screenplay, the story never loses its grip.
In the midst of the harsh California winter, members of a ranching family are quarreling among themselves while the two sons go hunting for the panther that is killing their cattle.
The reveal of a black panther that drives the story becomes part of a grander metaphor for the root of the family's issues. Thanks to A.I. Bezzeride's screenplay, the story never loses its grip.
Lone Star (1996, John Sayles)
This masterpiece somehow flew under the radar. Chris Cooper portrays a curious Lone Star named Sam Deeds who sets out to solve the 25-year-old murder of a sadistic predecessor. Sam digs up a dirty past that possibly even involves his own father.
This rich and complex film juggles many characters like an acrobatic act!
This masterpiece somehow flew under the radar. Chris Cooper portrays a curious Lone Star named Sam Deeds who sets out to solve the 25-year-old murder of a sadistic predecessor. Sam digs up a dirty past that possibly even involves his own father.
This rich and complex film juggles many characters like an acrobatic act!
Meek's Cutoff (2010, Kelly Reichardt)
Considered to be even anti-western, "Meek's Cutoff" is still a must for this list. The film explores the vast and neverending west and omnipresent violence rather than the occasional gunfights.
Enjoy the scene of the Oregon desert and a brilliant Michelle Williams performance.
Considered to be even anti-western, "Meek's Cutoff" is still a must for this list. The film explores the vast and neverending west and omnipresent violence rather than the occasional gunfights.
Enjoy the scene of the Oregon desert and a brilliant Michelle Williams performance.
Django Unchained (2012, Quentin Tarantino)
This is an amazing tale of an African-American slave who does everything in his power to find and recover his slave wife, Broomhilda.
During his journey, he partners with a headhunter, Dr. King Schultz, and becomes his student and later, his partner. This gory lovefest is truly one of the best action films of the decade and received numerous awards and nominations.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays the "Monsieur" Calvin J. Candie, a psychopathic plantation owner who owns Django's wife. During one of the more intense scenes of the film, DiCaprio got so into his monologue that he accidentally smashed a glass in his hands and was profusely bleeding for the rest of the scene.
Instead of stopping the scene, he not only continued to act but also smeared the blood on actress Kerry Washington's face to make it more intense. Now that’s what intense method acting looks like!
This is an amazing tale of an African-American slave who does everything in his power to find and recover his slave wife, Broomhilda.
During his journey, he partners with a headhunter, Dr. King Schultz, and becomes his student and later, his partner. This gory lovefest is truly one of the best action films of the decade and received numerous awards and nominations.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays the "Monsieur" Calvin J. Candie, a psychopathic plantation owner who owns Django's wife. During one of the more intense scenes of the film, DiCaprio got so into his monologue that he accidentally smashed a glass in his hands and was profusely bleeding for the rest of the scene.
Instead of stopping the scene, he not only continued to act but also smeared the blood on actress Kerry Washington's face to make it more intense. Now that’s what intense method acting looks like!
Fort Apache (John Ford, 1948)
A typical John Ford portrayal "xenophobic" portrayals of Native Americans. It was 1948, after all. At least we get to see how frontier tradesmen illegally sold weapons and toxic whiskey to the Native Americans.
The final act shows how terrible the decision results in the senseless deaths of men on both sides. A classic and genre-defining film nonetheless.
A typical John Ford portrayal "xenophobic" portrayals of Native Americans. It was 1948, after all. At least we get to see how frontier tradesmen illegally sold weapons and toxic whiskey to the Native Americans.
The final act shows how terrible the decision results in the senseless deaths of men on both sides. A classic and genre-defining film nonetheless.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
In keeping with the John Ford films, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance tells the story of a skilled gunman and the power of the mythical hero. It is Ford's purest expression of the Old West and a film fit for the quintessential John Wayne character,
In keeping with the John Ford films, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance tells the story of a skilled gunman and the power of the mythical hero. It is Ford's purest expression of the Old West and a film fit for the quintessential John Wayne character,
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
This loose adaptation of "Oil!" by Upton Sinclair centers around the ambitious and greedy Daniel Plainview played by the incomparable Daniel Day-Lewis.
The film brings together the clashes of business and region and business, sanity, and madness into one explosive world. This truly one of the greatest western films in recent cinema history.
This loose adaptation of "Oil!" by Upton Sinclair centers around the ambitious and greedy Daniel Plainview played by the incomparable Daniel Day-Lewis.
The film brings together the clashes of business and region and business, sanity, and madness into one explosive world. This truly one of the greatest western films in recent cinema history.
Back to the Future Part III (Robert Zemeckis, 1990)
This third installment of the beloved trilogy acts as a hilarious commentary on the sometimes absurd genre. The film features a comical standoff between Doc, Marty, and the most Yosemite Sam'd member of the Tannen clan.
There's no shortage of gags here, especially in the first act. A lot of kicking up dust and a lot of "horsin' around"!
This third installment of the beloved trilogy acts as a hilarious commentary on the sometimes absurd genre. The film features a comical standoff between Doc, Marty, and the most Yosemite Sam'd member of the Tannen clan.
There's no shortage of gags here, especially in the first act. A lot of kicking up dust and a lot of "horsin' around"!
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
One of the more unconventionally flavored western films out there, Robert Altman's great western feat follows a fast-talking gambler named John McCabe (Warren Beatty.)
Unfortunately for John, while he wins over the residents, the sharp Constance Miller sees right through him.
One of the more unconventionally flavored western films out there, Robert Altman's great western feat follows a fast-talking gambler named John McCabe (Warren Beatty.)
Unfortunately for John, while he wins over the residents, the sharp Constance Miller sees right through him.
Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)
In this classic revisionist western, a cold-blooded killer turned pig farmer begrudgingly accepts one last job, and of course, all hell breaks loose. This film is entirely a Clint Eastwood production with him in front of and behind the camera. No wonder it's a masterpiece that deservedly won an Oscar.
In this classic revisionist western, a cold-blooded killer turned pig farmer begrudgingly accepts one last job, and of course, all hell breaks loose. This film is entirely a Clint Eastwood production with him in front of and behind the camera. No wonder it's a masterpiece that deservedly won an Oscar.
Tombstone (George P. Cosmatos, 1993)
Most people know about the 1993 classic American Western film Tombstone. Thanks to its star-studded cast, the film was somewhat of a renaissance for the genre and helped it gain popularity once again.
While the production of the film was shrouded in controversy, the film, starring the brilliant Val Kilmer and Kurt Russel, brought the western back to life for people in the 90s.
Most people know about the 1993 classic American Western film Tombstone. Thanks to its star-studded cast, the film was somewhat of a renaissance for the genre and helped it gain popularity once again.
While the production of the film was shrouded in controversy, the film, starring the brilliant Val Kilmer and Kurt Russel, brought the western back to life for people in the 90s.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
This 1966 epic spaghetti Western stars Clint Eastwood, who teams up with an outlaw in the Southwest during the Civil War to take out a sinister villain. It has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is widely regarded as the best of all Spaghetti Western films.
Many more recent films have paid tribute to the classic western. One of them is Quentin Tarantino's 1992 movie Reservoir Dogs when he creates a cinematic nod to the famed standoff scene. Stephen King also said that the film was his inspiration behind his novel, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger.
This 1966 epic spaghetti Western stars Clint Eastwood, who teams up with an outlaw in the Southwest during the Civil War to take out a sinister villain. It has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is widely regarded as the best of all Spaghetti Western films.
Many more recent films have paid tribute to the classic western. One of them is Quentin Tarantino's 1992 movie Reservoir Dogs when he creates a cinematic nod to the famed standoff scene. Stephen King also said that the film was his inspiration behind his novel, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger.
Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks, 1975)
Since it hit the theaters, the film has become a multi-generational classic. It took the audience by storm, shining a satirical light on social issues like no other film before it. There were countless firsts that resulted from the film, and several of those who were brave enough to partake in its making wound up being nominated for (and some even winning) awards for their efforts.
But putting the finished product together was no easy feat. From casting to getting the studio's approval, writer/director Mel Brooks and his team had a tough time bringing the story to life. In fact, there was one point at which the film was nearly canceled entirely.
Since it hit the theaters, the film has become a multi-generational classic. It took the audience by storm, shining a satirical light on social issues like no other film before it. There were countless firsts that resulted from the film, and several of those who were brave enough to partake in its making wound up being nominated for (and some even winning) awards for their efforts.
But putting the finished product together was no easy feat. From casting to getting the studio's approval, writer/director Mel Brooks and his team had a tough time bringing the story to life. In fact, there was one point at which the film was nearly canceled entirely.
The Wild Bunch ( Sam Peckinpah,1969)
The film, which stars William Holden, Robert Ryan, and Ernest Borgnine, is known for being controversial for its time. These days, graphic violence is pretty much expected in certain types of films. But in the late ’60s, it was just starting to emerge.
Sam Peckinpah directed and co-wrote the revisionist movie, which was deemed as “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant,” by the U.S National Film Registry in 1999. Now, it’ll be forever preserved in the Library of Congress as such.
The film, which stars William Holden, Robert Ryan, and Ernest Borgnine, is known for being controversial for its time. These days, graphic violence is pretty much expected in certain types of films. But in the late ’60s, it was just starting to emerge.
Sam Peckinpah directed and co-wrote the revisionist movie, which was deemed as “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant,” by the U.S National Film Registry in 1999. Now, it’ll be forever preserved in the Library of Congress as such.
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Of all of the Western films that Wayne starred in, this one is known for being one of, if not his absolute best. It’s both influenced and made an appearance in several other films and television shows, including Martin Scorsese’s 1967 film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door, in which two of the characters have a conversation about it.
The film has high ratings on nearly every movie critic website, including Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert, and IMDb. Directed by John Ford, it follows Wayne, playing a Civil War veteran on the hunt for his abducted niece. Of course, he’s actually hunting her, not trying to rescue her, as one may assume.
Of all of the Western films that Wayne starred in, this one is known for being one of, if not his absolute best. It’s both influenced and made an appearance in several other films and television shows, including Martin Scorsese’s 1967 film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door, in which two of the characters have a conversation about it.
The film has high ratings on nearly every movie critic website, including Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert, and IMDb. Directed by John Ford, it follows Wayne, playing a Civil War veteran on the hunt for his abducted niece. Of course, he’s actually hunting her, not trying to rescue her, as one may assume.
The Naked Spur Director (1952, Anthony Mann)
Director Anthony Mann steers away from the typical Western terrain of arid deserts and tumbleweeds and sets up this tale in the foresty mountains of California. Here, Howard Kemp (Jimmy Stewart) plays a gloomy bounty hunter in desperate need of the reward on the head of an outlaw.
We can begin to see the seeds of the dark, brooding personality that cemented Stewart's career in Vertigo.
Director Anthony Mann steers away from the typical Western terrain of arid deserts and tumbleweeds and sets up this tale in the foresty mountains of California. Here, Howard Kemp (Jimmy Stewart) plays a gloomy bounty hunter in desperate need of the reward on the head of an outlaw.
We can begin to see the seeds of the dark, brooding personality that cemented Stewart's career in Vertigo.
My Name is Nobody (Tonino Valerii, 1973)
This Western comedy stars the brilliant Henry Fonda back in Leoneland. Trading in his villainous scowl for some respectable spectacles, the actor plays an aging gunfighter who just wants peace.
Unfortunately, he finds that he is cornered at just about every turn by young up-and-comers trying to prove themselves. There's one young upstart in particular named Nobody (Terrence Hill), and he is hell-bent on seeing the legendary gunfighter finally meet his demise.
This Western comedy stars the brilliant Henry Fonda back in Leoneland. Trading in his villainous scowl for some respectable spectacles, the actor plays an aging gunfighter who just wants peace.
Unfortunately, he finds that he is cornered at just about every turn by young up-and-comers trying to prove themselves. There's one young upstart in particular named Nobody (Terrence Hill), and he is hell-bent on seeing the legendary gunfighter finally meet his demise.
The Hanging Tree (Delmer Daves, 1959)
The Hanging Tree features Gary Cooper as a righteous gunslinger and a bunch of morally questionable townsfolk. Similar to High Noon, the story at its core is about the indescribable bonds between people in a wretched world.
Maria Schnell, who plays a stagecoach victim of a robbery, is totally as captivating.
The Hanging Tree features Gary Cooper as a righteous gunslinger and a bunch of morally questionable townsfolk. Similar to High Noon, the story at its core is about the indescribable bonds between people in a wretched world.
Maria Schnell, who plays a stagecoach victim of a robbery, is totally as captivating.
The Indian Fighter (André De Toth, 1955)
This revisionist Western features Johnny Hawks (Kirk Douglas) attempting to stomp out fires after Wes Todd (Walter Matthau) dupes the Sioux.
This breath of fresh air takes a pro- Native American stance. Set in the gorgeous Oregon Trail, Ande de Toth turns this film into a visual delight.
This revisionist Western features Johnny Hawks (Kirk Douglas) attempting to stomp out fires after Wes Todd (Walter Matthau) dupes the Sioux.
This breath of fresh air takes a pro- Native American stance. Set in the gorgeous Oregon Trail, Ande de Toth turns this film into a visual delight.
Compañeros (Sergio Corbucci, 1970)
The greatest Spaghetti Western comedy you're ever likely to see, Compañeros features some major heavyweights of the time, including Franco Nero and Tomás Milián.
The film revolves around a Swedish arms dealer and a rowdy revolutionary leader. Together they go up against the one-handed fiend, Jack Palance.
The greatest Spaghetti Western comedy you're ever likely to see, Compañeros features some major heavyweights of the time, including Franco Nero and Tomás Milián.
The film revolves around a Swedish arms dealer and a rowdy revolutionary leader. Together they go up against the one-handed fiend, Jack Palance.
The Quick and the Dead (1996, Sam Raimi)
Gene Hackman must have a knack for playing sadistic characters as he once again plays a cruel-hearted sheriff in The Quick and the Dead. The super-stylized Western brings out the big guns by showcasing all the best gunslingers in the West for a quickdraw duel.
The winner is up for a huge prize, and of course, gets to keep his life. Things heat up when Russel Crowe, who plays a priest, enters the tournament and guns for Hackman over a past incident. There's a young Leo, too!
Gene Hackman must have a knack for playing sadistic characters as he once again plays a cruel-hearted sheriff in The Quick and the Dead. The super-stylized Western brings out the big guns by showcasing all the best gunslingers in the West for a quickdraw duel.
The winner is up for a huge prize, and of course, gets to keep his life. Things heat up when Russel Crowe, who plays a priest, enters the tournament and guns for Hackman over a past incident. There's a young Leo, too!
For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965)
The second installment of Sergio Leone’s “Man With No Name” Trilogy follows Clint Eastwood, this time joined by Lee Van Cleef.
The film follows the bounty hunters in their pursuit of a deranged bandit named El Indio, played by the great Gian Maria Volanté.
The second installment of Sergio Leone’s “Man With No Name” Trilogy follows Clint Eastwood, this time joined by Lee Van Cleef.
The film follows the bounty hunters in their pursuit of a deranged bandit named El Indio, played by the great Gian Maria Volanté.
Man of the West (Anthony Mann, 1958)
Link Jones (Gary Cooper) plays a former outlaw living a righteous life who gets thrown back into disarray when his old gang decides to take him and some innocent people captive.
Pushed into violence, Cooper is forced to face the sadistic gang leader Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb.)
Link Jones (Gary Cooper) plays a former outlaw living a righteous life who gets thrown back into disarray when his old gang decides to take him and some innocent people captive.
Pushed into violence, Cooper is forced to face the sadistic gang leader Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb.)
The Big Gundown (Sergio Sollima, 1966)
Jonathan Colorado Corbett, the Bounty hunter (Lee Van Cleef), makes his way through Texas and Mexico to catch a supposed murderous bandit named Manuel Chuchillo Sanchez (Tomas Milian.)
Spaghetti Western legend Sergio Sollima's film is considered to be an allegorical tale of North America's interference in Latin America. Watch this if you can take all the harsh social commentary.
Jonathan Colorado Corbett, the Bounty hunter (Lee Van Cleef), makes his way through Texas and Mexico to catch a supposed murderous bandit named Manuel Chuchillo Sanchez (Tomas Milian.)
Spaghetti Western legend Sergio Sollima's film is considered to be an allegorical tale of North America's interference in Latin America. Watch this if you can take all the harsh social commentary.
Bend of the River (Anthony Mann, 1951)
Glyn and Emerson play two buddies who lead a wagon train along the Columbia River Valley in search of a new settlement. The two end up going head to head when Emmerson (Arthur Kennedy) decides to rob and sell the passengers' belongings for cash. Glyn (James Stewart), however, remains committed to the traveling settlers.
Director Anthony Mann's film is an allegory for the divide between the culture of production and the culture of consumption that defined the 1950s.
Glyn and Emerson play two buddies who lead a wagon train along the Columbia River Valley in search of a new settlement. The two end up going head to head when Emmerson (Arthur Kennedy) decides to rob and sell the passengers' belongings for cash. Glyn (James Stewart), however, remains committed to the traveling settlers.
Director Anthony Mann's film is an allegory for the divide between the culture of production and the culture of consumption that defined the 1950s.
Jeremiah Johnson (Sydney Pollack, 1972)
Robert Redford stars as a rugged mountain man who has turned his back on humanity in this existential Western by Sydney Pollack.
It's a real visual stunner filled with a brilliant cast.
Robert Redford stars as a rugged mountain man who has turned his back on humanity in this existential Western by Sydney Pollack.
It's a real visual stunner filled with a brilliant cast.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949)
This technicolor Western starring John Wayne that takes place on Monument Valley bursts with picturesque imagery. The story follows the journey of a retired cavalry officer. it's certainly Wayne's most subtle performance of his career.
The landscapes are striking in this 1949 John Ford classic.
This technicolor Western starring John Wayne that takes place on Monument Valley bursts with picturesque imagery. The story follows the journey of a retired cavalry officer. it's certainly Wayne's most subtle performance of his career.
The landscapes are striking in this 1949 John Ford classic.
Tears of the Black Tiger (Wisit Sasanatieng, 2000)
Our first Thai Western film on this list, "Tears of the Black Tiger" by Thai Chinese director Wisit Sasanatieng is a true triumph of Eastern cinema. It took seven years for the film to be premiered in America, but when it did, Western fans went wild.
Starring Chartchai Ngamsan as Dum, a common man in love with a rich woman named Rumpoey. Their love becomes forbidden when Rumpoey's father wants to marry her off to Police Captain Kumjorn. Dum is then forced to be the outlaw Black Tiger.
Our first Thai Western film on this list, "Tears of the Black Tiger" by Thai Chinese director Wisit Sasanatieng is a true triumph of Eastern cinema. It took seven years for the film to be premiered in America, but when it did, Western fans went wild.
Starring Chartchai Ngamsan as Dum, a common man in love with a rich woman named Rumpoey. Their love becomes forbidden when Rumpoey's father wants to marry her off to Police Captain Kumjorn. Dum is then forced to be the outlaw Black Tiger.
The Homesman (Tommy Lee Jones, 2014)
Tommy Lee Jones (who also directs) and Hilary Swank give incredible performances in this underrated Western about a woman named Mary Bee Cuddy escaping farm life to move to Iowa. She hires a low-life drifter to assist her and her female companions on the difficult journey.
The film follows the troubled characters on their picturesque but harsh journey across the Nebraska terrain. It's a beautiful film filled with psychological hardships.
Tommy Lee Jones (who also directs) and Hilary Swank give incredible performances in this underrated Western about a woman named Mary Bee Cuddy escaping farm life to move to Iowa. She hires a low-life drifter to assist her and her female companions on the difficult journey.
The film follows the troubled characters on their picturesque but harsh journey across the Nebraska terrain. It's a beautiful film filled with psychological hardships.
Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)
This drama follows a saloon owner and gunslinger turned guitar player who defies the unruly townsfolk led by Emma Small. The film features one of the most epic showdowns in history.
It starred Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Ernest Borgnine, and Scott Brady and was adapted from the Roy Chanslor novel.
This drama follows a saloon owner and gunslinger turned guitar player who defies the unruly townsfolk led by Emma Small. The film features one of the most epic showdowns in history.
It starred Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Ernest Borgnine, and Scott Brady and was adapted from the Roy Chanslor novel.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
(Tommy Lee Jones 2005)
Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut is a soulful Western about the terribly inhumane southern border in the 2000s. The film revolves around the crime against an undocumented worker by a border agent and the friend, rancher Pete Perkins who seeks justice.
The film makes an effort to condemn racism and xenophobia, but not in a preachy way. Tommy Lee wouldn't do that.
(Tommy Lee Jones 2005)
Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut is a soulful Western about the terribly inhumane southern border in the 2000s. The film revolves around the crime against an undocumented worker by a border agent and the friend, rancher Pete Perkins who seeks justice.
The film makes an effort to condemn racism and xenophobia, but not in a preachy way. Tommy Lee wouldn't do that.
True Grit (The Coen Brothers, 2010)
After The Coen Brothers' Oscar-winning sensation “No Country for Old Men,” they feared nothing, not even the Western classic, True Grit from the year 1969.
The successful remake revisits the 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) and the drunken U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), and there the man committed the crime against her father.
After The Coen Brothers' Oscar-winning sensation “No Country for Old Men,” they feared nothing, not even the Western classic, True Grit from the year 1969.
The successful remake revisits the 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) and the drunken U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), and there the man committed the crime against her father.
3:10 to Yuma (James Mangold, 2007)
Another incredible remake, this time by James Mangold. This film, according to Roger Egbert, "restores the wounded heart of the Western." Steering away from senseless violence, the film still sticks to the original story of the infamous outlaw Ben Wade (played by Russell Crowe.)
Mangold succeeds in combining the old-school foundations with contemporary style.
Another incredible remake, this time by James Mangold. This film, according to Roger Egbert, "restores the wounded heart of the Western." Steering away from senseless violence, the film still sticks to the original story of the infamous outlaw Ben Wade (played by Russell Crowe.)
Mangold succeeds in combining the old-school foundations with contemporary style.
Bone Tomahawk (S. Craig Zahler, 2015)
Combining the slow-burn Western with gritty B-movies, this film turns out a truly horrifying and brutal tale that might be a little hard to stomach. The plot revolves around four townsmen who venture into the wildness to free the prisoners held captive by a group of Troglodytes.
The scares grow stronger, and the cannibalistic tribe is simply terrifying.
Combining the slow-burn Western with gritty B-movies, this film turns out a truly horrifying and brutal tale that might be a little hard to stomach. The plot revolves around four townsmen who venture into the wildness to free the prisoners held captive by a group of Troglodytes.
The scares grow stronger, and the cannibalistic tribe is simply terrifying.
Slow West ( John Maclean, 2015)
John Maclean brings us this surreal and absurd Western about a man named Jay Cavendish (Smit-McPhee) searching for his lost love Rose (Caren Pistorius), through the wild west. When he runs bounty hunter Silas Selleck (Fassbender) develops a fatherly love for him.
It's a joyful, funny yet painful film that features an incredible cast.
John Maclean brings us this surreal and absurd Western about a man named Jay Cavendish (Smit-McPhee) searching for his lost love Rose (Caren Pistorius), through the wild west. When he runs bounty hunter Silas Selleck (Fassbender) develops a fatherly love for him.
It's a joyful, funny yet painful film that features an incredible cast.
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)
One of the common plots found in the Western genre was the character’s search for gold or participation in the “gold rush.” Directed by Jack Huston, the story of the "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" centered on two Americans working in Mexico who enlist the help of a prospector so they can look for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Values are tested, and the men, of course, encounter bandits on their way to striking it rich. The film starred Humphrey Bogart and another member of the Huston dynasty, Walter Huston.
One of the common plots found in the Western genre was the character’s search for gold or participation in the “gold rush.” Directed by Jack Huston, the story of the "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" centered on two Americans working in Mexico who enlist the help of a prospector so they can look for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Values are tested, and the men, of course, encounter bandits on their way to striking it rich. The film starred Humphrey Bogart and another member of the Huston dynasty, Walter Huston.
Giant (George Stevens, 1956)
"Giant" was a star-studded Western featuring some of Hollywood’s most beautiful faces: James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson. Family legacies, old money, generational controversy, and ranching, Giant was a sweeping, epic drama that was more than just a Western.
The story follows Jordan “Bick” Benedict Jr. (Hudson) and Leslie Benedict (Taylor) as they maintain their Texan family wealth and legacy. What makes Giant more unique is that it follows the character’s storylines throughout their lives and even into the next generation of Benedicts.
"Giant" was a star-studded Western featuring some of Hollywood’s most beautiful faces: James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson. Family legacies, old money, generational controversy, and ranching, Giant was a sweeping, epic drama that was more than just a Western.
The story follows Jordan “Bick” Benedict Jr. (Hudson) and Leslie Benedict (Taylor) as they maintain their Texan family wealth and legacy. What makes Giant more unique is that it follows the character’s storylines throughout their lives and even into the next generation of Benedicts.
Deadwood: The Movie (Daniel Minahan, 2019)
The TV series "Deadwood" first aired in 2004 and had 3 seasons, the last of which aired in 2006. The TV show plot made it onto the silver screen in 2019 with a full-length movie. The film opens with South Dakota being declared an official state in 1899 and, while the residents are celebrating, the drama is brewing.
Senator George Hearst (Gerald McRaney) challenges the property claim held by Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie), which he declines. The refusal then ignites a major feud between Hearst and the other residents of Deadwood.
The TV series "Deadwood" first aired in 2004 and had 3 seasons, the last of which aired in 2006. The TV show plot made it onto the silver screen in 2019 with a full-length movie. The film opens with South Dakota being declared an official state in 1899 and, while the residents are celebrating, the drama is brewing.
Senator George Hearst (Gerald McRaney) challenges the property claim held by Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie), which he declines. The refusal then ignites a major feud between Hearst and the other residents of Deadwood.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Ethan & Joel Coen, 2018)
The Coen brothers are known for their dark, quirky, and avant-garde films. They brought their same unique flair to their western, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs." The film was also unique because the plot involved six different storylines, with the main protagonist (Buster Scruggs, played by Tim Blake Nelson) narrating some of the opening stories.
The other short stories in the film gave viewers bite-sized, narrative dramas of different characters.
The Coen brothers are known for their dark, quirky, and avant-garde films. They brought their same unique flair to their western, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs." The film was also unique because the plot involved six different storylines, with the main protagonist (Buster Scruggs, played by Tim Blake Nelson) narrating some of the opening stories.
The other short stories in the film gave viewers bite-sized, narrative dramas of different characters.
Sweetgrass (Llisa Barbash & Lucien Castaing-Taylor, 2009)
The documentary "Sweetgrass" took viewers deep inside the daily lives of shepherds in Montana as they take care of their flocks. It may sound like a simple task, but the herders were responsible for caring for the helpless animals as they took them through treacherous terrain where predators waited for an easy meal.
They had been carrying on the tradition since the 1800s, guiding the flock on horseback and with the help of herding dogs.
The documentary "Sweetgrass" took viewers deep inside the daily lives of shepherds in Montana as they take care of their flocks. It may sound like a simple task, but the herders were responsible for caring for the helpless animals as they took them through treacherous terrain where predators waited for an easy meal.
They had been carrying on the tradition since the 1800s, guiding the flock on horseback and with the help of herding dogs.
The Outlaw Josey Wales (Asa Earl Carter, 1976)
Along with John Wayne, Clint Eastwood was another big star in the Western genre. In the film "The Outlaw Josey Wales," Eastwood played the role of a farmer who, after his family is killed by Union soldiers, decides to become a Confederate soldier.
The film became a character study of a man who exits ordinary life, transforming into an outlaw, on the run from bounty hunters, the Comanche Indians, and even those close to him, all in the name of vengeance.
Along with John Wayne, Clint Eastwood was another big star in the Western genre. In the film "The Outlaw Josey Wales," Eastwood played the role of a farmer who, after his family is killed by Union soldiers, decides to become a Confederate soldier.
The film became a character study of a man who exits ordinary life, transforming into an outlaw, on the run from bounty hunters, the Comanche Indians, and even those close to him, all in the name of vengeance.
City Slickers (Ron Underwood, 1991)
"City Slickers" is actually a crossover film, combining the comedy and western genres. Mitch Robbins (Billy Crystal) turns a midlife crisis into an adventure after his friends gift him a birthday trip to participate in a cattle drive in the Southwest.
A major comedy ensues when Robbins, who is accustomed to the big city, is forced to adapt to the ways of Western life. To this day, the film is still considered one of Crystal’s best comedies.
"City Slickers" is actually a crossover film, combining the comedy and western genres. Mitch Robbins (Billy Crystal) turns a midlife crisis into an adventure after his friends gift him a birthday trip to participate in a cattle drive in the Southwest.
A major comedy ensues when Robbins, who is accustomed to the big city, is forced to adapt to the ways of Western life. To this day, the film is still considered one of Crystal’s best comedies.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
In an unusual plotline, a lady of the night, Constance Miller (Julie Christie), and a gambler, John McCabe (Warren Beatty), decide to partner in a “business” venture. The pair open a combination tavern/brothel in hopes of making a lot of money but instead encounter some unforeseen problems when they turn down another business offer from the Harrison Shaughnessy Mining Company.
McCabe must then use his grittier skills to protect himself and his new business from the mining company’s thugs.
In an unusual plotline, a lady of the night, Constance Miller (Julie Christie), and a gambler, John McCabe (Warren Beatty), decide to partner in a “business” venture. The pair open a combination tavern/brothel in hopes of making a lot of money but instead encounter some unforeseen problems when they turn down another business offer from the Harrison Shaughnessy Mining Company.
McCabe must then use his grittier skills to protect himself and his new business from the mining company’s thugs.
The Proposition (John Hilcoat, 2005)
Although it is actually set in the Australian Outback, the plot of "The Proposition" can still qualify as a western. The story opens with an infamous outlaw, Charlie Burns (Guy Pierce), who has been apprehended by Captain Stanley Morris (Ray Winstone).
With all of his posse dead except his younger brother, Burns is given an ultimatum by Morris: find and kill his older brother (also an outlaw), or his younger brother will be killed. What unfolds expands beyond the plot of a traditional western into the drama of family dynamics.
Although it is actually set in the Australian Outback, the plot of "The Proposition" can still qualify as a western. The story opens with an infamous outlaw, Charlie Burns (Guy Pierce), who has been apprehended by Captain Stanley Morris (Ray Winstone).
With all of his posse dead except his younger brother, Burns is given an ultimatum by Morris: find and kill his older brother (also an outlaw), or his younger brother will be killed. What unfolds expands beyond the plot of a traditional western into the drama of family dynamics.
The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)
Quentin Tarantino’s films are typically known for their violent, avant-garde storylines. "The Hateful Eight" chronicles bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his captured outlaw, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), as they take temporary refuge in a small haberdashery.
The haberdashery, however, also houses a group of suspicious characters. As the film unfolds, the characters each reveal their malicious intentions as they clash with both Ruth and Domergue. As is common for Tarantino films, "The Hateful Eight" is full of violent twists and turns that make this western particularly captivating for viewers.
Quentin Tarantino’s films are typically known for their violent, avant-garde storylines. "The Hateful Eight" chronicles bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his captured outlaw, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), as they take temporary refuge in a small haberdashery.
The haberdashery, however, also houses a group of suspicious characters. As the film unfolds, the characters each reveal their malicious intentions as they clash with both Ruth and Domergue. As is common for Tarantino films, "The Hateful Eight" is full of violent twists and turns that make this western particularly captivating for viewers.
Open Range (Clifford Smith, 1927)
Released in 1927, the silent film Open Range revolves around both a drama and a love story. Ranch hand Tex Smith (Lane Chandler), the main protagonist, pursues a young woman named Lucy Blake, who lives in one of the nearby cattle settlements.
On the outskirts of their romance, American Indian chief Brave Bear is plotting (along with fellow rival Sam Hardman) to steal the local community’s cattle during a rodeo. The plot thickens when Tex is mistaken for one of the cattle rustlers and must defend his name, expose Brave Bear and Hardman, all while trying to win Lucy’s heart.
- (No Video is available for this 1927 Film)
Released in 1927, the silent film Open Range revolves around both a drama and a love story. Ranch hand Tex Smith (Lane Chandler), the main protagonist, pursues a young woman named Lucy Blake, who lives in one of the nearby cattle settlements.
On the outskirts of their romance, American Indian chief Brave Bear is plotting (along with fellow rival Sam Hardman) to steal the local community’s cattle during a rodeo. The plot thickens when Tex is mistaken for one of the cattle rustlers and must defend his name, expose Brave Bear and Hardman, all while trying to win Lucy’s heart.
Open Range (2003) Kevin Costner
Though it has the same title as the 1927 film (above), the "Open Range" film that was released in 2003 was not a remake. Kevin Costner both directed and starred in the film that was set in late 1800s Montana. In the film, cattleman Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) takes his herd across the country with his hired hands.
Along the way, however, the group encounters bandits, which results in Spearman losing one of his cattlemen along the way. The film featured a well-known cast, including Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Annette Benning, and Diego Luna.
Though it has the same title as the 1927 film (above), the "Open Range" film that was released in 2003 was not a remake. Kevin Costner both directed and starred in the film that was set in late 1800s Montana. In the film, cattleman Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) takes his herd across the country with his hired hands.
Along the way, however, the group encounters bandits, which results in Spearman losing one of his cattlemen along the way. The film featured a well-known cast, including Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Annette Benning, and Diego Luna.
Shanghai Noon (Tom Dey, 2000)
A little more comedy than western, Shanghai Noon centers on an imperial guard (with the perfect name) Chon Wang (Jackie Chan) as he embarks on a mission to rescue Princess Pei Pei, who has run away to the United States.
Along the way, Wang finds help from charming outlaw Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), who lends his gun-slinging skills to the rescue mission. Although they are an odd couple at first, East eventually meets West leading to a heartwarming friendship between Wang and O’Bannon.
A little more comedy than western, Shanghai Noon centers on an imperial guard (with the perfect name) Chon Wang (Jackie Chan) as he embarks on a mission to rescue Princess Pei Pei, who has run away to the United States.
Along the way, Wang finds help from charming outlaw Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), who lends his gun-slinging skills to the rescue mission. Although they are an odd couple at first, East eventually meets West leading to a heartwarming friendship between Wang and O’Bannon.
Appaloosa (Ed Harris, 2008)
Directed by Ed Harris, Appaloosa was based on a novel written by Robert B. Parker. After a New Mexico town is overtaken by the malicious rancher, Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), lawman Virgil Cole (Ed Harris), and deputy Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) come to the town’s rescue.
A love triangle involving widow Allison French (Rene Zellweger) threatens the righteous goals of the duo, but Cole and Hitch manage to keep both their loyalty and their purpose at the forefront of their friendship.
Directed by Ed Harris, Appaloosa was based on a novel written by Robert B. Parker. After a New Mexico town is overtaken by the malicious rancher, Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), lawman Virgil Cole (Ed Harris), and deputy Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) come to the town’s rescue.
A love triangle involving widow Allison French (Rene Zellweger) threatens the righteous goals of the duo, but Cole and Hitch manage to keep both their loyalty and their purpose at the forefront of their friendship.
Dodge City (Michael Curtiz, 1939)
"Dodge City" may be one of the most traditional western films in the genre. Swashbuckling leading man Errol Flynn stars as Wade Hatton, the main protagonist who had been involved in bringing the railroad to the Dodge City region.
He later encounters interpersonal drama and unrest amongst his contemporaries which leads to him being offered the position of sheriff. Although reluctant at first, Hatton is looked at as a stable, capable figure and eventually accepts the new position. Along the way, he finds love with Abbie Irving and eventually manages to win both her heart and become a traveling sheriff, cleaning up different crime-laden cities.
"Dodge City" may be one of the most traditional western films in the genre. Swashbuckling leading man Errol Flynn stars as Wade Hatton, the main protagonist who had been involved in bringing the railroad to the Dodge City region.
He later encounters interpersonal drama and unrest amongst his contemporaries which leads to him being offered the position of sheriff. Although reluctant at first, Hatton is looked at as a stable, capable figure and eventually accepts the new position. Along the way, he finds love with Abbie Irving and eventually manages to win both her heart and become a traveling sheriff, cleaning up different crime-laden cities.
Blackthorn (Mateo Gil, 2011)
"Blackthorn" follows an older Butch Cassidy (Sam Shepard) who now goes by the alias James Blackthorn. Having been hiding out in Bolivia, Blackthorn decides to return to the U.S., but on his way out of Bolivia, he is almost killed by Eduardo Apodaca (Eduardo Noriega).
The two actually become partners with Apodaca offering to share the $50,000 he stole from a local mine owner. The pair spend the rest of the film narrowly escaping from gang members who are in pursuit of Apodaca. The entire film becomes a sort of reminiscence for Blackthorn as he looks back on his past as Butch Cassidy.
"Blackthorn" follows an older Butch Cassidy (Sam Shepard) who now goes by the alias James Blackthorn. Having been hiding out in Bolivia, Blackthorn decides to return to the U.S., but on his way out of Bolivia, he is almost killed by Eduardo Apodaca (Eduardo Noriega).
The two actually become partners with Apodaca offering to share the $50,000 he stole from a local mine owner. The pair spend the rest of the film narrowly escaping from gang members who are in pursuit of Apodaca. The entire film becomes a sort of reminiscence for Blackthorn as he looks back on his past as Butch Cassidy.
In a Valley of Violence (Ti West, 2016)
"In a Valley of Violence" is actually considered a remake of the film "High Plains Drifter."
In the film, Paul (Ethan Hawke) and his dog are wandering through Mexico when they are held at gunpoint by a priest ( Burn Gorman).
Paul has his dog attack the priest, he takes the priest’s gun, and canteen and the two continue on into town. The rest of the film chronicles the strange, violent situations that surround the mysterious Paul as he encounters the townspeople.
"In a Valley of Violence" is actually considered a remake of the film "High Plains Drifter."
In the film, Paul (Ethan Hawke) and his dog are wandering through Mexico when they are held at gunpoint by a priest ( Burn Gorman).
Paul has his dog attack the priest, he takes the priest’s gun, and canteen and the two continue on into town. The rest of the film chronicles the strange, violent situations that surround the mysterious Paul as he encounters the townspeople.
Hostiles (Scott Cooper, 2017)
Set in the late 1800s, "Hostiles" follows army captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale) as he escorts Cheyenne chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), who is dying of cancer, and his family back to their land in Montana. The history between the two men is complicated as Yellow Hawk had killed a number of Blocker’s friends.
While the film, of course, has the usual elements of a western, the story also explores the deep wounds between white settlers and Native Americans and the possibility of reconciliation.
Set in the late 1800s, "Hostiles" follows army captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale) as he escorts Cheyenne chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), who is dying of cancer, and his family back to their land in Montana. The history between the two men is complicated as Yellow Hawk had killed a number of Blocker’s friends.
While the film, of course, has the usual elements of a western, the story also explores the deep wounds between white settlers and Native Americans and the possibility of reconciliation.
The Horse Whisperer (Robert Redford, 1998)
In "The Horse Whisperer," a young girl, Grace (Scarlett Johansson), endures a tragic horse-riding accident that leaves her with an amputated leg and her horse, Pilgrim, with severe behavioral problems. To help Grace and Pilgrim heal, her mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) enlists the help of Tom Booker, otherwise known as the “horse whisperer,” to help rehabilitate the two.
Over the course of the film, Booker works through Grace’s pain and fear to help both her and Pilgrim heal.
In "The Horse Whisperer," a young girl, Grace (Scarlett Johansson), endures a tragic horse-riding accident that leaves her with an amputated leg and her horse, Pilgrim, with severe behavioral problems. To help Grace and Pilgrim heal, her mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) enlists the help of Tom Booker, otherwise known as the “horse whisperer,” to help rehabilitate the two.
Over the course of the film, Booker works through Grace’s pain and fear to help both her and Pilgrim heal.
The Keeping Room (Daniel Barber, 2014)
The "Keeping Room" was a unique plotline for a genre that is typically centered on male characters. In the story, three southern women (two white sisters and an African American slave) fight for their survival in the final days of the American Civil War.
As the three learn to rely on each other, a bond is formed, and racial barriers are overcome as they fight off Union soldiers and venture into the uncertainty of a post-Civil War world.
The "Keeping Room" was a unique plotline for a genre that is typically centered on male characters. In the story, three southern women (two white sisters and an African American slave) fight for their survival in the final days of the American Civil War.
As the three learn to rely on each other, a bond is formed, and racial barriers are overcome as they fight off Union soldiers and venture into the uncertainty of a post-Civil War world.