Why the Towns in the West Were Often Lawless and Violent
In this essay I will be explaining why the towns in the West were
frequently lawless and violent. The various factors why the West was
lawless are: Geographical factors, social factors and values and
attitudes.
To begin with one of the reasons that the west was often violent and
lawless was due to geographical factors. The size of the West was vast
and this contributed to this problem. This is because it was
impossible for officers to enforce law and order everywhere, and as a
result of this people took the law into their own hands and abused
justice. For example when Nathanial Boswell was made sheriff of Albany
Country by the government of Wyoming Territory in 1869, he became
chief law enforcer of an area covering 16,000 square miles, which is
evidently too much for one individual to cover. This means that there
was no efficient police force on the frontier. Another explanation why
the West was unruly is that there was a lack of speed through
communication. As a result of these, people took advantage of the
loose control in society and frontier life became lawless.
The next factor contributing to the lawlessness and violence in the
West is social factors. The very lawlessness of the West attracted
characters with an aggressive back round. For example, the famous
outlaw brothers, Frank and Jesse James, were examples of men who had
been educated in guerilla warfare, by the confederate, (southern)
army, throughout the American civil war. An additional example is that
some men, such as the brutal murderer Bill Longely made no such
excuses for themselves. Lonely just reveled in the lawless existence
of the West. Vicious men such as the examples above were in the civil
war and they drifted towards the frontier where they thought they
could put their 'skills to use' subsequent to the civil war.
Another factor contributing to the lawless west is values and
Attitudes. People in the West had an exceptionally independent
Somewhere out in the Old West wind kicks up dust off a lone road through a lawless town, a road once dominated by men with gun belts attached at the hip, boots upon their feet and spurs that clanged as they traversed the dusty road. The gunslinger hero, a man with a violent past and present, a man who eventually would succumb to the progress of the frontier, he is the embodiment of the values of freedom and the land the he defends with his gun. Inseparable is the iconography of the West in the imagination of Americans, the figure of the gunslinger is part of this iconography, his law was through the gun and his boots with spurs signaled his arrival, commanding order by way of violent intentions. The Western also had other iconic figures that populated the Old West, the lawman, in contrast to the gunslinger, had a different weapon to yield, the law. In the frontier, his belief in law and order as well as knowledge and education, brought civility to the untamed frontier. The Western was and still is the “essential American film genre, the cornerstone of American identity.” (Holtz p. 111) There is a strong link between America’s past and the Western film genre, documenting and reflecting the nations changes through conflict in the construction of an expanding nation. Taking the genres classical conventions, such as the gunslinger, and interpret them into the ideology of America. Thus The Western’s classical gunslinger, the personification of America’s violent past to protect the freedoms of a nation, the Modernist takes the familiar convention and buries him to signify that societies attitude has change towards the use of diplomacy, by way of outmoding the gunslinger in favor of the lawman, taming the frontier with civility.
The enduring cultural expressions of the frontier were adapted into unique narrative traditions known as the “Western”. The Western genre portrays a story of conquest, competing visions of the land, and the quintessential American frontier hero who is usually a gunfighter or a cowboy. These Western archetypes can be observed in, The Outlaw Josey Wales, a film that employs revenge motifs that lead into and extended chase across the West and touches on the social and cultural issues of the American frontier.
The United States began as a group of 13 colonies controlled by Great Britain. These colonies won their independence in the American Revolution and became a unified country. Since that moment, the United States has been continuously expanding its borders. The Northwest Territory was gained as a result of the American Revolution, the Louisiana Territory was purchased from France, and the lands of California, New Mexico, and Texas were gained after the Mexican-American War. All of these gained lands helped expand the borders of the United States and develop the country into a global force. Expansion into the western lands of the United States became a growing trend in the early 19th century and continued to gain popularity amongst Americans. These lands promised a new start for some people, and for others, an opportunity for great wealth. Western expansion also created conflict between Americans. Competition for the best land, debates over slavery, and conflicts with Indians began to emerge with the increased expansion. The benefits and conflicts associated with western expansion defined the area and its role in America.
Milner, Clyde A, ed. The Oxford History of the American West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral were they really fighting for justice or revenge. In the attempt to serve “justice” they blurred the lines of the system to their gain. This essay is prove a point that the marvelous western hero lived a much darker live fueled by revenge, bribes, and gambling.
the boys on the island finally catch a pig and get meat, the one hunter, and
Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in fact, A Century of Dishonor.” The frontier thesis, which Turner proposed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, viewed the frontier as the sole preserver of the American psyche of democracy and republicanism by compelling Americans to conquer and to settle new areas. This thesis gives a somewhat quixotic explanation of expansion, as opposed to Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, A Century of Dishonor, which truly portrays the settlement of the west as a pattern of cruelty and conceit. Thus, the frontier thesis, offered first in The Significance of the Frontier in American History, is, in fact, false, like the myth of the west. Many historians, however, have attempted to debunk the mythology of the west. Specifically, these historians have refuted the common beliefs that cattle ranging was accepted as legal by the government, that the said business was profitable, that cattle herders were completely independent from any outside influence, and that anyone could become a cattle herder.
During late seventeen hundreds and the early eighteen hundreds America focused on growth and development. In 1803, America bought from France 828,000 square miles of land that ranged from the Mississippi to the Rockies for the bargain price of $15,000,000. This pristine land had not yet been ravaged by the rigorous process of growing cotton, so Southern farmers were excited about the prospect. However, most farmers were also afraid of what lay in the West, be it “savages,” dangerous wildlife or inhospitable terrain. The government believed that American citizens needed convincing that travelling west, settling and stabilizing this new land was a smart thing to do. To help convince the populace, the government turned to a new media, photography. The product of this invention astounded and perplexed many viewers who believed that the photos they saw depicted the absolute truth. Their ignorance of the selective bias of photographers paved the way for rumors and myths that influenced many to venture into dangerous areas, having little idea what really lay ahead. Photography in the early American West was a manipulative tool of the government’s interest by portraying the West as a safe land filled with opportunity.
Sanitary conditions in the West were practically non-existent. In the cities, horse manure covered the streets. Housewives emptied garbage, dishwater, and chamber pots into the middle of the city streets where free-roaming pigs devoured the waste. The pigs left their urine and feces on the streets. It was not easy to wash clothes. Many people had clothes splattered with manure, mud, sweat, and tobacco juice. Privies, or necessary houses were often to close to the homes with a very noticeable odor on hot and/or windy days. If a family had a kitchen, all the members washed at the sink each day, without soap, rubbing the dirt off with a coarse towel. Eventually, many cold bedrooms had a basin, ewer (pitcher), cup, and cupboard chamber pot. Bed bugs and fleas covered many of the travelers’ beds. “Isaac Weld saw filthy beds swarming with bugs.” These insects followed the travelers, crawling on their clothes and skin.
The cowboys of the frontier have long captured the imagination of the American public. Americans, faced with the reality of an increasingly industrialized society, love the image of a man living out in the wilderness fending for himself against the dangers of the unknown. By the end of the 19th century there were few renegade Indians left in the country and the vast expanse of open land to the west of the Mississippi was rapidly filling with settlers.
Few Hollywood film makers have captured America’s Wild West history as depicted in the movies, Rio Bravo and El Dorado. Most Western movies had fairly simple but very similar plots, including personal conflicts, land rights, crimes and of course, failed romances that typically led to drinking more alcoholic beverages than could respectfully be consumed by any one person, as they attempted to drown their sorrows away. The 1958 Rio Bravo and 1967 El Dorado Western movies directed by Howard Hawks, and starring John Wayne have a similar theme and plot. They tell the story of a sheriff and three of his deputies, as they stand alone against adversity in the name of the law. Western movies like these two have forever left a memorable and lasting impressions in the memory of every viewer, with its gunfighters, action filled saloons and sardonic showdowns all in the name of masculinity, revenge and unlawful aggressive behavior. Featuring some of the most famous backdrops in the world ranging from the rustic Red Rock Mountains of Monument Valley in Utah, to the jagged snow capped Mountain tops of the Teton Range in Wyoming, gun-slinging cowboys out in search of mischief and most often at their own misfortune traveled far and wide, seeking one dangerous encounter after another, and unfortunately, ending in their own demise.
Each man has a different background and different problems with which to deal; how that person solves his problems, makes the man who he is. During the Industrial Revolution in America, technological advancements began to greatly impact the lives of the American people. To the poor people, the city was a glamorous place with a multitude of opportunities to work and gain wealth. To the rich people, the city was where their successful and monopolized businesses were located, but it was associated with continuous poverty. As America’s industrial revolution continued to grow during the Gilded Age, a gap between the wealthy and the wealth-less grew thicker in education, the economy and politics, and urbanization.
While the western frontier was still new and untamed, the western hero often took on the role of a vigilante. The vigilante’s role in the frontier was that of extralegal verve which was used to restrain criminal threats to the civil peace and opulence of a local community. Vigilantism was typical to the settler-state societies of the western frontier where the structures and powers of government were at first very feeble and weak. The typical cowboy hero had a willingness to use this extralegal verve. The Virginian demonstrated this throughout with his interactions with Trampas, most notably in the interactions leading up to the shoot out and during the shoot-out itself. “Others struggled with Trampas, and his bullet smashed the ceiling before they could drag the pistol from him… Yet the Virginian stood quiet by the...
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