Johnson County Stock War: Big Business versus Small Ranchers On March 10, 1892 the Billings Gazette reported, “The opening of spring may be more red than green for the horse thieves and cattle thieves of Johnson County” (Brash, 143). The writer of the article could little have known how truthful their premonition would prove to be. The late 1800’s were turbulent times in the West. Large tracts of publicly held range ground would be at the center of Wyoming’s very own civil war. Gil Bollinger, author and western researcher, reports that by the 1870’s and 1880’s fencing of land to enclose both crops and water sources was common (Bollinger, 81). This practice, however, was still illegal according to the federal government. In 1877, the United States Government sued Swan Land and Cattle Company, in an effort to set an example that all fences on open range must come down (Bollinger, 81). The fencing of lands was a major problem, as agricultural producers needed open access to the limited resources, especially water. Johnson County, in northern Wyoming, was an agricultural nucleus for cattle and sheep producers who knew the lush grass and good water supply would greatly benefit their operations. Since fencing was illegal, these resources were available to everyone. Cattle operators, large and small alike, ran their livestock loose and participated in large roundups once a year where all the cattle were branded. Slick calves, called mavericks, were often unrightfully claimed. Lack of fencing made any free ranging livestock available to whoever was devious enough to take them (Smith, 25). Helena Smith quotes Horace Plunkett, a producer, in a letter he wrote to the Wyoming Stock Grower’s Association as saying, “The relations bet... ... middle of paper ... ...576. Harvey, Mark E., A Civil War in Wyoming: A Centennial Commemoration of the Johnson County War. M.A., American Studies Program, December 1992. Pfeifer, Michael J. (2004). Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society: 1874-1947. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Retrieved October 30, 2006 from . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_County_War. Norman, David. (1994) The Johnson County War against Nate Champion and the "Red Sash Gang". Retrieved October 30, 2006 from http://www.gunnyragg.com/redsash.htm. Robert, Phil. (2006) Events Leading up to the Johnson County War/Invasion. History of Wyoming class syllabus. Retrieved October 30, 2006 from http://uwacadweb.uwyo.edu/RobertsHistory/Johnson_County_Invasion_06.htm. Smith, Helena H. (1966). The War on Powder River: The History of an Insurrection. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
McMurtry, Larry. 2005. Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846-1890. 10th Ed. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Mackey, Mike. "Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics." Journal of the West 42(2003): 25-31, 33.
This historical document, The Frontier as a Place of Conquest and Conflict, focuses on the 19th Century in which a large portion of society faced discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and religion. Its author, Patricia N. Limerick, describes the differences seen between the group of Anglo Americans and the minority groups of Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics Americans and African Americans. It is noted that through this document, Limerick exposes us to the laws and restrictions imposed in addition to the men and women who endured and fought against the oppression in many different ways. Overall, the author, Limerick, exposes the readers to the effects that the growth and over flow of people from the Eastern on to the Western states
Harrison, Lowell H. The Civil War in Kentucky. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1975.
Wexler, Laura. 2003. Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America. Scribner; 2004. Print
" Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854-1865. The Kansas City Public Library. Accessed May 18, 2017. Trout, Carlynn, and Elizabeth Engel. " William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson."
In the historical narrative Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War, Nicholas Leman gives readers an insight into the gruesome and savage acts that took place in the mid-1870s and eventually led to the end of the Reconstruction era in the southern states. Before the engaging narrative officially begins, Lemann gives a 29-page introduction to the setting and provides background information about the time period. With Republican Ulysses S. Grant as President of the United States of America and Republican Adelbert Ames, as the Governor of Mississippi, the narrative is set in a town owned by William Calhoun in the city of Colfax, Louisiana. As a formal military commander, Ames ensured a
Hennessey, John J. Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.
Mendoza, Alexander, and Charles David Grear. Texans and War New Interpretations of the State's Military History.. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2012.
Wells, Ida B. Southern Horrors. Lynch Law in All Its Phase. New York: New York Age Print, 1892. Print. 6.
Milner, Clyde A, ed. The Oxford History of the American West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
The West has always held the promise of opportunity for countless Americans. While many African Americans struggled to find the equality promised to them after the Civil War, in the West black cowboys appeared to have created some small measure of it on the range. Despite this, their absence from early historical volumes has shown that tolerance on the range did not translate into just treatment in society for them or their families.
Southern Horror s: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells took me on a journey through our nations violent past. This book voices how strong the practice of lynching is sewn into the fabric of America and expresses the elevated severity of this issue; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching in the South. Wells examined the many cases of lynching based on “rape of white women” and concluded that rape was just an excuse to shadow white’s real reasons for this type of execution. It was black’s economic progress that threatened white’s ideas about black inferiority. In the South Reconstruction laws often conflicted with real Southern racism. Before I give it to you straight, let me take you on a journey through Ida’s
Trueman, C. (2013). The Battle of the Little Big Horn. Retrieved April 30, 2013, from History Learning
Thompson, Paul B. and Stout, Bill A. Beyond The Large Farm. Westview Press, Inc.: Colorado 1991