American West q1

If there was a case when there was a crime and the criminals were caught, anyone who could formally prosecute them could take months to get to said town because of how vast and empty the west was. During this time there was no form of wire based communication so by the time a letter had been delivered requesting a judge or government official, then it could possibly take the best part of a year before said official arrived.

The vastness of the west also meant that groups of criminals were ripe. Men and women who thrived on a crime ridden lifestyle could cause chaos in a town and sometimes control it with fear, or if there was any kind of law and order in said town, they could simply disappear into the countryside, never to be seen again. Some examples of this are shown by source D shows an artist’s impersonation of a bank raid in Northfield, Minnesota in 1876. Even though it is an artist’s impersonation so it could be exaggerated to make the picture more exciting to the viewer. It does give us some insight into the problems surrounding law and order in the west.

Sometimes townspeople resorted to violence to bring their own ‘rough justice’. Vigilante groups were rife in the west and they followed a ‘fight fire with fire approach’. If a crime was committed they would hunt down and publicly hang the criminal as a warning to any other criminals that they would suffer the same fate if they tried anything.

However, the lack of law and order and the high rates of crime were not the only difficulties for new settlers in the west. Another major issued faced by settlers was poor hygiene and lack of medical care in newly established towns. Source C tells us of life was in the mining town of Virginia City Montana. It tells us that miners built their own cabins and did their own cooking. Some of the cabins were well kept, however some were not. There was an outbreak of typhoid in the winter and many people fell ill. Houses were cramped together and if there was any dirty or infected water then it could easily pass between the houses and spread quickly.

In conclusion I feel that although there were other reasons, the main reason that settling in a new town in the west was the poor or even non-existent law and order.