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The American West

by J D Wright
Introduction Americans have always looked west, and you can find a few western characteristics in any American. The idea of the 'Old West' is still strong because, after all, its final frontiers were crossed within living memory. Some Americans alive today are older than the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. The West taught that you could confront new experiences, shape your own destiny, and, if fate meant failure, move on to fresh opportunities. It appealed to optimists like the editor and politician Horace Greeley, known for his advice to 'Go West, young man,' and he was not alone in his enthusiasm. Most young Americans thought it was an excellent idea, and probably God's. Why go west? By 1845 this urge had turned into 'manifest destiny' to explain the responsibility that Providence had placed in American hands. The West was a rich promised land, obviously a vast extension of the USA. After victory in the Mexican War in 1848 opened up the Southwest, the manifest destiny had a formidable goal, and its name was California. Each pioneer, of course, followed the sun for a personal reason. Land meant wealth, and by 1862 Congress had passed the Homestead Act to give 65 ha/160 acres in the West virtually free to anyone who would stay on the land for five years. Even quicker wealth beckoned in the gold fields of California and Colorado. Joining the trek west were ambitious trappers, traders, and merchants. Still others sought religious freedom, such as the vilified Mormons led by Brigham Young in 1846 to the peaceful solitude of Salt Lake City. Some Americans had more melancholy reasons, like the former Confederates escaping a lost war and the devastated South. Western obstacles The devil in the West was distance. Even Yankees accustomed to travelling a rugged 485 km/300 mi from Boston to Philadelphia could not prepare themselves for the empty world beyond Independence, Missouri and other frontier towns. California lay 2,415 km/1,500 mi away over roadless plains, rapid rivers, and walls of Rocky Mountains. Many pioneers pulled up short of their destination, building their own log or sod houses after accidents, illnesses, or deaths along the trail. Often they were killed by the extreme elements and the sheer effort of endless travel. A deeper fear existed. American Indians in the East had been defeated and exiled to the West under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Plains Indians were thus alerted

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and kept their own permanent, movable frontier of warriors to harass wagon trains and homesteaders isolated in the wilderness. Settlers' tales swept across the Great Plains of the dreadful deaths administered by Apaches, Commanches, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and other nomadic tribes. The resourceful Sioux in Wyoming attacked wagon trains and forts for years, massacring 80 soldiers in 1866 before a treaty two years later at Fort Laramie confined them to reservations. Law and order Life could be equally cheap in 'civilized' towns. Maintaining law and order was no easy matter when armed cowboys ended long cattle drives in places like Abilene and Dodge City, the 'wickedest city in the West'. Lawmen were often as notorious killers as the lawbreakers were, and courts could be run by eccentrics like Roy Bean, the 'hanging judge' who also sold whisky. Progress by rail The Wild West signified its wildness in such names as Boot Hill and Tombstone, but it became a safer place by the end of the 19th century. The expanding US railway system tamed western towns, bringing commerce and an influx of eastern families who would have never risked their lives in a Conestoga wagon. Powerful trains replaced cattle drives and relegated the famous Chisholm Trail and Pony Express to history. After the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways were joined in 1869 by a silver hammer and golden spike in Promontory Point, Utah, the rail journey from New York to San Francisco was reduced from three months to eight days. Indian Wars end Towards the end of the mid-19th century, intermittent battles with American Indians that had lasted more than 250 years were also drawing to a close. After the Civil War, a string of forts were built from the Dakotas to Texas. Cavalry troops roamed ahead of the line of advancing settlers who ploughed up land that Congress had designated 'Indian Country' in 1834. The end of the Indian Wars came soon after the slaughter of General George Custer's troops at Little Bighorn in 1876. It provoked the capture of Chief Crazy Horse the following year, and American Indian resistance ended after the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890 when US soldiers massacred more than 200 Sioux men, women, and children. Territories quickly organized to have a voice in Congress. New western states began falling into the Union like dominoes, six alone in 1889 and 1890. They brought to the nation a fresh, vigorous renewal of social and political equality. Wyoming passed the first US law to allow women to vote when it was still a territory in 1869, a halfcentury before national suffrage for women. The modern West

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A century after the West was conquered, it remains the most exciting and innovative region of the US, with enterprises including space operations in Houston, computers from Silicon Valley, aircraft from Seattle, the films of Hollywood, the flamboyance of Las Vegas, and the artificial gardens of Phoenix. California alone, with the largest population of any state, grows more than 70% of the nation's produce. But these are mere outposts on the vast western landscape. Beyond the busy commerce of arrow-straight interstate highways lies the most unchangeable aspect of the West: its immense, empty land. Wyoming is larger than the United Kingdom, but all of its population in 1996 could fit into the English city of Liverpool. In 1965, the city of St Louis raised a 190-m/630-ft Gateway Arch on the banks of the Mississippi River to symbolize the city as the 'Gateway to the West'. The giant steel structure stands as a reminder to Americans that the West is a place apart, still an uncertain adventure and an endless land of opportunity. Related Articles: American Indian Crazy Horse Custer, George Armstrong Homestead Act Indian Removal Act Plains Indian West, American Wounded Knee Copyright Helicon Publishing Ltd 2000. All rights reserved.

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