'Law and Order in the American West'

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‘Law and Order in the American West’

GCSE History Coursework

Essay Questions:

  1. Describe the problems of living in a newly set up town in the west.

  1. Why were towns in the west often violent and lawless places?

  1. Analyse the part played by (i) vigilantes (ii) women in dealing with the problems of living in early towns in the west.

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Introduction

 In this piece of coursework I plan to investigate the problems surrounding newly set up towns in the west and why these new settlements were often violent and lawless places. I will also investigate the roles played by vigilantes and women in dealing with the problems faced by the inhabitants of early towns in the West and the positive.

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  1. Describe the problems of living in a nearly set up town in the west:

 Many Americans emigrated across the Plains (‘The Great American Desert’) as a result of various push and pull factors which forced them to abandon their present residence in search of a better life in the West. Since the East and West were separated by the seemingly uninhabitable ‘Great American Desert’ the only knowledge emigrants had of the West were circulating rumours and stories told by people who had travelled to the West. This included traders such as the Fur Trappers, missionaries who wanted more immigrants from the East to come settle and help convert more Indians to Christianity and people keen to make money out of the new settlers. These stories depicted places like Oregon and California, in the West as ‘paradise on earth’, with weather conditions perfect for farming and plentiful supplies of food and other natural resources. To the people of this time period these two locations were no more than distant outposts seen and understood by few. There was no sound proof that assured the authenticity of these stories, consequently one would wonder why people in the East would risk the level of comfort they enjoyed at their present residence to move to a location of which they had little knowledge and no guarantee of a better life. However, all of a sudden the quality of life in the East dropped dramatically. Banks collapsed in a great economic depression, wages fell and farmers suffered because the value of the crops (i.e. wheat and corn) they grew collapsed. All factors considered many people concluded circumstances could not be much worse in the West and resolved to undertake the risk of the journey.

 The different groups of people who migrated west all had their own motives for travelling west and circumstances, which influenced their decision to make the journey.

  In the January of 1848, James Marshall’s discovery of Gold in the Sierra foothills was the catalyst needed to turn the steady stream of emigrants travelling westwards into a deluge of desperate ‘speculators’ eager to strike it lucky. This mass movement of travellers westwards in search of Gold is known as ‘The Gold Rush’. Droves of travellers (tens-of-thousands), mostly able-bodied men and some entire families joined the search for Gold.

 As the population in the East grew, towns became congested and the inhabitants began to feel crowded. The West offered land in enormous quantities and the American government realized the need to populate the West. The American government passed various acts to entice farmers and their families to migrate west across the Great Plains. These acts included:

The Homestead Act of 1862: The Homestead Act of 1862 passed by the U.S Congress was meant to encourage settlers to travel to and farmland in the west. The act allowed 160 acres of free land to each family provided they resided on it and cultivated it for five years.

The Timber Culture Act of 1873: To encourage the growth of settlements as well as tree raising this act was passed stating that families could claim an extra 160 acres of land provided 40 acres of it was used to plant trees and that they farmed it for 10 years.

The Desert Land Act of 1877: This act was passed to encourage the development of the arid regions of the west. The act permitted settlers to buy 640 acres of land at a reduced price of $1.25 per acre in particular areas known to have little precipitation provided irrigated the land for 3 years and showed proof of their efforts.

 The development and expansion of the transcontinental railroads in the 1870s that linked the East and the West made it much easier for homesteaders to travel across the plains. This improved mobility along with the plentiful land offered at a minimal price enticed many people to make the journey west in search of a better life. The result was a flood of homesteaders pouring onto the plains to start afresh.

Buffalo Trade

 Huge herds of Buffalo once roamed the Great Plains serving as the one intrinsic element that formed the Native American Indian way of life. Native American Indians used the buffalo for food, shelter, clothing and it was the subject of many of their religious beliefs making it a very prominent and essential part of their way of life.

The Fur trappers originally hunted and killed beavers for the value of their furs but as beaver’s neared extinction and buffalo meat and buffalo hides became more popular in Europe the buffalo became the Fur Trappers’ primary target. The Fur Trappers were not the only ones interested in the buffalo trade but any settlers who saw their potential as a means of earning money. Buffalo hides were valuable material for making robes, rugs, industrial machine belts and their value also shot up when an eastern tannery discovered a process through which buffalo hides could be turned into high quality leather in 1871. Millions of buffalo were butchered, stripped of their hides and any other parts that the trappers deemed useful and their carcasses and bones were left to rot on the plains. The bones were then collected by farmers and grounded into phosphorous fertilizers. Advancements in communication and travel such as the development of the transcontinental railways brought an even greater number of homesteaders and pioneers who shaped the West. This mass slaughter of the buffalo took place over a few short violent decades and was concluded by the disappearance of the last of the large buffalo herds. Some Indian tribes also reportedly traded no less than 100,000 buffalo hides with the white settlers. This not only marked the disappearance of the buffalo herds but in effect the Indian way of life.

Cattle Driving:

 

 The cattle that roamed the plains had originally been brought to America by the European invaders in the 16th century. This particular breed of cattle was known as the Texas Longhorn and was well adapted to flourishing on the ‘open range’. Regardless of their poor quality of meat in the 1850s beef became an increasingly popular food. There was a tremendous growth in the cattle industry and Texas became the cattle ranching centre of the West.

 Large herds of cattle were driven to various markets surrounded by a herd of cowboys; these were known as cattle drives. The real profit to be made was in the densely populated Eastern market, and the development of railroads was a vital factor in accomplishing this.

 As the West became more densely populated it became more and more difficult to do cattle drives, as they would be intruding on homesteaders’ land. Homesteaders would try to stop cattle drives to avoid damage to their crops. Texas long horns also carried a highly contagious disease, carried by ticks living on the cattle’s body known as Texas fever, which homesteaders feared, would be passed onto their animals.

  A solution to this dilemma was pioneered by Charles Goodnight (1836 - 1929) who secured his prosperous position in the cattle industry by selling beef to feed Native American Indians living on reservations, to be rationed among US army soldiers in the West and also sold to prospectors and railroad workers. The invention of the railroad made it possible to drive cattle through routes that far enough towards the west of Kansas farms to avoid conflict with homesteaders.

 Another important figure in the development of cow towns in the west was a business-minded opportunist Joseph McCoy (1837 - 1915). He realized the business potential offered by the development of the railroad and was the founder of one of the first cow towns, called Abilene, which started out as a frontier village on the railroad before McCoy built a stockyard, bank, office block and a hotel. He invested in advertising Abilene as a shipping point knowing that that selling cattle in Abilene could fetch many fold the price it could in Texas.

 As railroads developed further and stretched further west, this development gave rise to new cow towns such as Dodge City and Newton.

 However this westward expansion attracted more speculators than settlers. Mining towns or rather ‘camps’ rapidly sprung up around alleged mining sites. These mining camps were among the earliest towns in the West. Mining towns were crudely constructed temporary settlements, as their pioneers had no intention of settling there. Their intention was to obtain as much wealth in gold as possible and return home. For this reason newly set up towns in the west were often undesirable places to live. A typical mining camp consisted of one street situated in hot, dusty arid conditions. The towns had been so hastily set up that they lacked even the most basic public health facilities. Women were a minority in these towns and had always traditionally been the ones who tend the sick. Miners worked in filthy, unhygienic conditions and diseases such as scurvy, diarrhoea, dysentery and malaria were prevalent. The extremes of weather on the plains did not help this situation. Annual extremes of temperature prevailed summers were characterized by high temperatures and winters were bitterly cold.

 The inhabitants of these towns consisted mainly of strong, competitive males from different walks of life. Prospectors coming to mine the land were from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Blacks, Chinese, Mexicans, European and Indian settlers had all travelled from their residence in the East in hopes of ‘striking it rich’. Women only formed a minority of the inhabitants, probably no more than 20%, many of who were prostitutes working at saloons.

 The conditions the inhabitants were subject to also encouraged lawlessness and violence. The gender imbalance may have ignited conflict between sexually frustrated males and those who felt they were superior to the opposite sex. The rough, competitive ambience prospectors were subject to predisposed them to a lack of association with fellow miners and a lack of goodwill and friendship between them. The only entertainment available to the inhabitants revolved around drinking, gambling and squandering their hard day’s earnings on prostitutes at saloons.

 Miners were unwilling to pay for the recruitment and training of law enforcement officers. If and when trials were held to reach a verdict following a crime the trials would often be biased and decisions made would have no legal basis.

 An example of such a trial is reported by a historian. In one Texas town, a Texan killed a black soldier. When two more black soldiers came to arrest him he shot them too. A White jury found him not guilty.’ (Source: The American West 1840-1895, The Struggle For The Plains – a study in depth).

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Claim jumping:

 

 Claim jumping was a prevalent problem in mining towns as late arrivals poured in and attempted to mine areas, which had already been claimed. Mining laws had to be passed and upheld by the miners themselves as early towns in the west lacked trained law officers and were situated far from the closest police station.

Cattle Rustling:

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 The large herds of Longhorn cattle roaming the plains were an easy target for rustlers. Cattle owned by people doing business in the cattle industry were distinguished by a unique symbol branded onto their bodies. ...

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