The Domestication of the Last Frontier

The Domestication of the Last Frontier

In 1865 the frontier line generally followed the western limits of the states bordering the Mississippi River, bulging outward to include the eastern sections of Kansas and Nebraska. Beyond this thin edge of pioneer farms, lay the prairie and sagebrush lands that stretched to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Then, for nearly 1,600 kilometers, loomed the huge bulk of mountain ranges, many rich in silver, gold and other metals. On the far side, plains and deserts were part of this region; here laid the "Last Frontier"--- the "Great Plains". "For a long time, the region had been called the Great American Dessert, a barrier to cross on the way to the Pacific, unfit for human habitation and therefore, to white Americans, the perfect refuge for Indians." (Tindall 857) Apart from the settled districts in California and scattered outposts, the vast inland region was populated by Native Americans: among them the Great Plains tribes -- Sioux and Blackfoot, Pawnee and Cheyenne -- and the Indian cultures of the Southwest, including Apache, Navajo, and Hopi. Soon these Indians were pushed away from their "safe haven". "They lost an estimated 86 million acres of their 130 million acres."(Tindall 873) The reason to this is because the white man went westward to expand.

A mere quarter-century later, virtually all this country had been carved into states and territories. Miners had ranged over the whole of the mountain country, tunneling into the earth, establishing little communities in Nevada, Montana and Colorado. Cattle ranchers, taking advantage of the enormous grasslands, had laid claim to the huge expanse stretching from Texas to the upper Missouri River. Sheepherders had found their way...

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...rueling work, was far from romantic, its mythological hold on the American imagination has remained strong, from the novels of the 1870s to the films of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood in the late 20th century.

Altogether, between 1866 and 1888, some six million head of cattle were driven up from Texas to winter on the high plains of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. The cattle boom reached its height in 1885, when the range became too heavily pastured to support the long drive, and was beginning to be crisscrossed by railroads. Not far behind the rancher creaked the covered wagons of the farmers bringing their families, their draft horses, cows and pigs. Under the Homestead Act they staked their claims and fenced them with a new invention, barbed wire. Ranchers were ousted from lands they had roamed without legal title. Soon the romantic "Wild West" had ceased to be.