Howdy Partner, I, like many of you are totally stoked for
the return of Westworld this week.
To celebrate, I am going to talk about some myths about the Wild West, and finish off
by talking about why we have myths about the Wild West.
Hi, I'm Tristan Johnson, and this is Step Back History.
Be sure to click the subscribe button as well as the bell notification to never miss a new
Step Back video or live stream.
We have a romantic vision of what life was like in the untamed wild west.
We carry an image of independent men and women, but mostly men, wearing fancy cowboy hats
and smoking marlboro cigarettes while taming uninhabited territory, reliant on noone but
themselves.
WEEEEEEELLL I think we can begin with the stuff you should
know as a history student then get to the fun stuff.
The "wild" west has pretty much always been a fiction.
Our image comes from decades of western films has origins in early 20th century wild west
shows of rodeo acts, cowboy and indian fights, and dramatic tales of great bank heists and
violent chaos.
I think Westworld having this idea of the wild west while being a simulation, a performance
is quite a clever choice on behalf of… well Michael Crichton when he thought of the much
cornier movie in the 70s.
Even though near the end of his life he got a little crazy and started becoming a climate
change denier… anyway.
I think viewers of this channel will know the region of the "wild" west was far
from uninhabited.
People had been settling there off and on for thousands of years.
Even before the first British settlers arrived at Plymouth, Spanish cowboys called vaqueros
lived in the region.
Eventually those spaniards became Mexican, and then when America decided it wanted the
west, the Americans took this territory for themselves.
This didn't mean the Mexicans living there just up and left.
So the white settlers arrived to an already active community of indigenous peoples and
settlers.
Including many runaway slaves from the US seeking refuge in Mexico which had banned
slavery.
By the way, vaqueros is apparently the word white people turned into buckaroos… which
might be whitest thing I ever heard.
Because this region is pretty arid, farming is… difficult.
Ranching became more popular, but only because of critical inventions in the late 19th century.
Those independent self reliant men relied heavily on inventions like the growing use
of refrigeration and the closeby rail network to sell all that cow to hungry people on the
east coast.
Also that self-reliance tends to write out all the women and children who came with those
men and made their lives function.
Now let's see if I can bust a few myths for you.
The clashes between indigenous peoples and ordinary settlers weren't frequent.
Most of those conflicts were the US Cavalry invading indigenous peoples territory for
having the audacity of living where white people want to.
They either forced indigenous people off their land or were bloody suppressions of rebellion.
When it came to attacking ordinary settlers on wagons on the other hand, not so much.
Evidence says only a few hundred people died this way ever.
Considering they were on the battlefield of a genocidal war, that's downright peaceful.
We also have a lot of Western stories about bank robberies, but they weren't familiar.
Banks were well defended, and in the centre of town close to the sheriff with no real
back door.
All in all, about eight recorded real bank heists in the whole "Wild" west occurred.
On an adjacent note, you probably think of the west as a place where everyone had guns,
but many of these towns outright banned them.
Rabid fire time.
The cowboy hat is a modern invention.
The real cowboy hat looks more like this, or this, or this.
The six shooter was super unreliable and dangerous.
It shot a tiny bullet with a limited range and would burn your hand when fired.
It was a last resort at best.They much preferred shotguns and rifles.
That reminds me, I should make a video about guns as a technology historian.
Anyway, the California gold rush was one of many and not even near the first.
The famous gunfight at the OK Corral lasted about a minute tops and took place behind
the Ok Corral.
There's some cool stuff in the west we don't give much attention.
There were feral camels in Texas which is pretty fun.
There was a civil war battle in New Mexico where the Confederates tried to follow the
Rio Grande to take Colorado before Union soldiers defeated them with local help… you know
losing as the Confederacy always does.
The oldest settlement in the United States today is in New Mexico called Acoma Pueblo.
People have been living on that spot since the 12th century.
Now, talking about the myths of the Wild west isn't uncommon.
Several people have done it before, but what I don't find is people asking why.
Why did the US build so much mythology around this 40ish year period in the middle of nowhere?
It's because of a powerful myth in American culture known as the frontier.
The frontier myth is one that has been prevalent in America from the colonial days.
It built upon myths Europeans made about the new world, that there was this vast empty
area where anyone could make themselves.
This myth was dominant, and drove a lot of people to expand out west into indigenous
territory.
One of the most important American Historians Richard Slotkin outlined this myth stating
many Americans believed in these untamed empty places, the self reliant individualistic man
could rise to the top..
This myth was first made significant in 1893 back when history was first formalising as
a profession.
Back then, Historians were definitely part of the nationalism movements going on, and
often histories were long, arduous narratives of a country's past in order to build nation.
It's a sort of an original sin the field has been desperately trying to think our way
out of over the last hundred years and change.
Anyway, in 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner wrote an essay called The Significance of
the Frontier in American History.
He claimed what made American character was the "meeting point between savagery and
civilization" Charming.
Turner believed there were waves of colonisation, but there was always an edge called the frontier.
He argued that interaction with indigenous peoples influenced these pioneers and they
became rugged individuals who loved freedom and individualism.
He claimed the frontier was why Americans loved nationalism and democracy.
He didn't invent this idea, but he formalised and gave it a voice and name.
In the early 20th century, this idea got a lot of popularity.
Americans idealised the frontier.
America wasn't the great cities of New York or Boston, but rural "real" America.
Richard Slotkin, a way better historian than Turner, has dedicated a good chunk of his
career to deconstructing this prevalent myth.
He traced it all the way to people in Europe making myths about the new world as a place
where their rigid social structure and limited land boxed them in.
It evolved over American history and built not only the story of the land of opportunity,
but a story with more sinister aspects.
This myth also made america a place where the strong could conquer, the weak deserve
their fates, and might makes right.
This myth was so powerful and motivated so many people that it drove the constant expansion
of the American borders at the expense of the people who lived there.
If you want to read any of Slotkin's trilogy of books on this subject, I will put links
in the description, and I get a bit of a kickback if you make any purchase using the link!
Stories are important, and the stories we tell ourselves about how we got to here not
only change the way we see our past, but our present, and directions for the future.
The idealised wild west is the last vestige of hanging on to the idea of America as a
place where anyone can make it.
It just leaves out that it isn't based in reality.
What do you think this myth is doing to culture today?
Are you Free Sunday nights?
I do a show those nights with Emperor Tigerstar and Cody from the Alternate History Hub.
Come see it live Sundays at 8 eastern on the Alternate History Hub channel.
This video was made possible by these sheriff's deputies, as well as the rest of my Patrons
over at Patreon.
I'd especially like to thank Don and Kerry Johnson as well as Kolbeinn Mani for their
generosity.
The theme song is by 12Tone, and come back next time for more Step Back.
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