One of the most potent anti-liberty memes has been that simple phrase, the “Wild West”. Wild as in lawless, violent, murderous. And one of the most potent pro-liberty memes is therefore, if only because it negates the first meme, the fact that the Wild West was, in the words of a famous Journal of Libertarian Studies article by Terry Anderson, the Not So Wild Wild West.
Here is another article, The American West: A Heritage of Peace by Ryan McMaken, dealing with the history of the West, and with the history of its history, in the form of Western novels and of course “westerns”, that is to say movies set in that Wild Wild West. This makes similar points to those made by Terry Anderson, and the one link in McMaken’s article is to Anderson’s.
McMaken ends his article thus:
Unfortunately for novelists and filmmakers, the American West was far less exciting than we have long been led to believe. The frontiersmen knew this themselves. In his old age, Buffalo Bill Cody, one of the most flamboyant architects of our perceptions of the West, openly admitted to lying about his violent exploits to sell more dime novels. He was, after all, wounded in battle with Indians exactly once, not 137 times as he claimed. And such tales are no doubt popular with many Americans today who seem increasingly open to believing almost anything about the West as long as it is simultaneously exciting and violent and bleak.
As with so many success stories, however, the story of the West is primarily a story of hard work, trade, tedium, and peace. The original mythmakers would have us believe that the settlement of the West was some kind of crusade. A war of righteous American legions against everybody else. In reality, there were no legions, and there was certainly very little righteousness.
There were men and women trying to make a better life for themselves, acting under their own will, and pursuing their own ends. On the other end of the spectrum, the purveyors of the new Western victimology would have us believe that these individuals brought with them messiah complexes and violent tendencies which would never be brought under control until “civilization” caught up with them. Yet, the messiah complexes, the “Manifest Destiny,” and the raging violence have always mostly resided in the minds of politicians, pundits, novelists, and movie directors; none of whom ever tamed any land harsher then their own back yards.
As I say, this is a familiar theme among libertarians. I thank my fellow London libertarian Patrick Crozier for alerting me to this piece, and I also checked through the archives here just to make sure that no Samizdatistas had already commented on it. This is familiar stuff – but familiar because so persuasive and important, and for that reason, worth any amount of supportive comment.
You may correct me if I’m wrong, since I read the Terry Anderson article about 15 years ago if it is the one I think it is… there was some great data in there on the murder statistics for Dodge City. Most years it was zero I believe…
It’s worth noting that the American frontier, i.e., the West, began about 50 miles inland from the Atlantic. As it moved to the Pacific, most folks living in what, for them, was the West, did not record living in an anarchic and dangerous place, with bullets and whiskey flowing freely.
I have a copy of the brief memoirs of a maternal ancestor who lived along the Western frontier in the 1830’s and 1840’s. I don’t recall any mention of gunslingers, Indian raids, gambling halls, or evil cattle barons. I do, however, recall reading about cutting down a lot of trees, about wives and children getting sick and dieing, about trying to stay warm in the winter and, to all intents and purposes, having no money, period.
The American West was very big, very harsh in parts, mostly empty, and until each territory was accepted as a state, largely devoid of governmental resources. Still, the Wild West myth owes its existence to a lot of bad writers and a few notorious incidents.
Lesson n°1: books > movies
What ? You mean “Die Hard” is not for real ? And that “The good, the bad and the ugly” was not shot in 1863 ?
Hollywood = MiniTruth these days…
The one phenomena of the West that may have actually approximated the wild and wooly image were the temporary ‘Boom Towns’ that sprang up when a gold or silver, or later, an oil discovery was made. Shanty towns filled with entreprenuers of various types – legal and illegal- sprang up overnight. And often disappeared as quickly. A lot of the dime novel type characters that are associated with the West were actually denizens of these places.
I understand that they have survived into more modern times in the Brazilian Mata Grosso, where gold mining Boom towns appeared periodically in the last couple of decades, complete with the standard cast of characters, libertarians all.
Doug, some of the most entertaining writing about those mining boom towns came from the pen of Mark Twain, who worked as a reporter in Nevada in the heyday of the silver boom. Collections of his reports from the local paper are available.
Another aspect worth mentioning is that many of the legendary outlaws of the West, e.g., Jesse James et al, were unrepentant ex-Confederate guerillas who can, without much of a stretch, be seen as having taken to the hills and the highways to continue what they did during the Civil War.
Of course, the important reality about the West and the frontier is that it offered people from all over the globe a chance to start over. That is a remarkable gift that is sorely missed tofay.
Regarding Jesse James, it may be of interest to recall that the James/Younger boys, 8 in all, went to rob the bank in Northfield, Minnesota on September 7th, 1876.
Northfield was not exactly the Western frontier, but it certainly was a small town in a very lightly-populated area.
And the good citizens of this little town gave them such a fearful shellacking that they never recovered. Two were killed on the spot, a third died of his injuries a couple of weeks later. The rest of the group sued for peace and amnesty from various places in various ways.
The rule of law was absolutely vital in frontier towns,and was enforced with a vigour which would make the ACLU blink. For example, we may learn from this analysis of Western cow towns
http://www.iusb.edu/~journal/2000/mcendarfer.html
that almost all of our movie-driven preconceptions about violence and lawlessness in the West – are just wrong.
llater,
llamas
In this era of gay “marriage” and non-marriage, it may be interesting to look at the role of families in the settling of the West. It seems likely that blood relationships were the rock on which most towns were founded in the old West. The family was, after all, the first government. What would the West look like now if in the old days society had favored the abandonment of procreation?
Indeed. As a resident of New Mexico (home to such outlaws as Billy the Kid and all that) and having at least part of my heritage go back in southern Arizona quite some ways it’s terribly clear here that this region must have been mostly at peace. Just look at the regional ruling class here (mayor et al) whose families extend back hundreds of years to the earliest settlers and the old Haciendas with similarly extended histories. Would any of that be possible w/out mostly peace? I remember asking about late 1800’s “Wild West” from older family members (sadly all gone now). There was little that was so wild.
Robert Speirs, don’t be silly, how many gays procreate even when unmarried?
So, you mean to tell me that the Euro-intelligentsia’s favorite insult to Americans, “Cowboy”” – may actually denote a quietly hard working, nose-to-the-grindstone, boring, simplistic, very average, God fearing, brush clearing drudge?
Heavens to Betsy. My how America has changed since then. You could never find somebody like that in the U.S. any more.
Yes, parts of the US have plenty of cowboys. Go to the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, parts of Kansas, Nebraska and other places. You’ll find plenty of people who would probably grin at the word ‘cowboy’, but who make a living growing beef and who are ‘quietly hard working, nose-to-the-grindstone, boring, simplistic, very average, God fearing, brush clearing drudge(s)’. Their idea of big fun is to put on a clean shirt and go to the Friday night HS football game or the Saturday night rodeo. Trust me, if you don’t doff your hat for the prayer and the Pledge, it’ll get doffed for you . . . .
Just to add to my above comments about the general lawfullness of the West – it might be said that this was perhaps true ‘in town’ but that out in the hinterlands, a different culture prevailed. I don’t think so.
I once had occasion to research a criminal case from the Wyoming territory in the mid-1870’s. It was a relatively minor matter of threatening behaviour, no gunplay and certainly no-one dead. It played out in the Sybille country, 50-70 miles from the nearest town, which was Cheyenne and which had at that time perhaps 10,000 residents.
God, but the Wyoming State Archives are a wonderful place. The entire criminal file whopped into my mailbox. There were reports, and process, and the officers travelled out to the place, and issued warrants, and then the offender came to district court, and witnesses were summoned, and bail was set, and he came back for trial and sentence. All that to be bound over to keep the peace and a nominal fine.
It certainly looked to me like there was plenty of law, even out in the wilder parts of the country, and it was enforced with vigour. A few hundred miles north, a few months later, General Custer had his unfortunate date with destiny, yet some poor sodbuster up in the hills could ask for and get the full process of the law.
llater,
llamas
I think that the facet of the American West that drives many Europeans nuts is the long history of self-organization and local law that dominated life during the entire frontier era.
The vast majority of Western communities sprang into being as local people organized their own local political structure. Towns in America were not the result of a federal official planting a surveying flag somewhere and saying, “build a town here.” Towns arose when the local population reached a density level where they needed churches, schools and stores. Local people started these services and towns grew up around them. This bottom up phenomenon was so pronounced that many of the more interesting struggles, both the violent and the humorous, occurred over which local town would become the county seat. Higher levels of government rarely got a say in the matter.
Frontier organization went chronologically: nuclear family->Church/School->Store/Blacksmith->county->terratory or state. The role of higher levels of organization was to recognize and formalize the decisions made at lower levels.
This is exactly backwards from the European experience where the legitimacy of lower, local governments depended on their connection to the the larger centralized government.
The American experience is fundamentally one of cooperating political equals creating a social and political order out a vacuum. Even though the frontier is a hundred years dead, its cultural legacy still remains with us.
When I lived in Texas, some 15 years ago, I talked to two very courteous little elderly Texas ladies who were docents of some museum or gallery. One was in her nineties, if I remember right, and one was around 88. They had memories of their log house (it was more than a cabin!) being attacked by Indians when they were tiny girls. But rather than being blood-curdling assaults, the Indians confined themselves to putting their fingers through any gaps they could find in the walls, and wiggling them. And then they’d ride off. As tiny girls, they were totally intimidated by this, but the Indians did them no harm. Can’t remember the tribe, but the area we’re talking about was Comanche country.
Shannon Love,
Excellent.
I would like to add to the discussion that the “Western” experience veried from state to state, or more appropriately, region to region. The development of States like Texas greatly differed from those in Colorado,Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and California. Without trying to get into a flame war, the mythology of the Wild West is greatly based on experiences on the Texas frontier. The clashes with Commanches on the west and subsequent war with Mexicans on the south lasted several generations and severally scarred the people and the landscape. 200 years of territorial fighting, with settlers holed up in behind walls, restless Natives and political upheaval tends to create a cultural mythology and national identity. (All this occured well before Billy the Kid and the OK corral.) The Wild West might not have been so wild in Kansas in Nebraska, but I can assure you the experience in other parts of the country west of the Mississippi were not so genteel.
I wish I was a better writer, to fully convey my meaning and emotion. But, unfortunately, this is going to have to do.
The American West is my favourite historical example of anarcho-capitalism. It didn’t last as long as Medieval Iceland, but Medieval Iceland is, a) less relevant to us now, since it occurred so long ago, and b) not actually anarchocapitalism due to the absence of free-entrants for “chieftains” (there were competing “cheiftains,” but a limited number of them, which allowed all the chieftaincies to be bought up).
The old West is relatively modern, as so relatively relavent to the modern world, and thus a much better tool for anarcho-capitalists looking for an historical example. It is also a lot less problematic and debatable than the success of anarchism in Somalia.
PaulBubel makes an excellent point. Texas is certainly different in this regard.
I would suggest, at the very least, that that has a lot to do with the (relatively) later arrival of the southern transcontinental railroad route and the generally-later move of migrants to Texas in large numbers.
In the Northern tier of Western states, the law followed the rails. While we have been discussing the relatively law-abiding state of the developing West, it should be understood that it was law of a limited sense and primarily concerned with public order.
This should be no surprise. Many towns lived and died by their transient populations, who came to spend their money. As with Las Vegas in the 60’s and 70’s, the first concern of the controlling interests of those towns – the railroads, followed by the commercial and ‘sporting’ interests – was that visitors should be able to spend their money free of any fear of violent crime. Hence the emphasis on the rigid suppression of street crime and violence.
Other crime, primarily that of the ‘sporting life’, flourished unchecked and sometimes encouraged, and those interests often paid de-facto taxes on their extra-legal activities to support a strong law-enforcement presence.
Other interests influenced the law that prevailed in other places. For example, in mining communities, the law was inordinately concentrated on questions of claim and property ownership, vital to the progress of such places.
Texas, being primarily agrarian at the time, with a mixture of laws already in place (from the Spanish influence) which matched those agrarian interests quite well, and a generally-slower influx of outsiders (into the hinterlands, at least), probably developed that strong desire to enforce public order somewhat later.
llater,
llamas
Another factor that made Texas different was its reputation as a refuge for Americans and others who either were sick of their current surroundings or who found their current surroundings a little too warm for them.
For much of its history, Texans have considered the question: “Where are you from?” to be the nadir of discourtesy, if not a deadly insult.
That this reputation goes back to before the founding of the Republic of Texas can be seen from Davy Crockett’s short pithy valedictory speech to the U.S Congress: “I’m going to Texas and you can all go to Hell!”
Verity,
I grew up in Brown county which is nearly exactly in the geographic center of Texas and is right next door to Comanche county.
The people described by your ladies were almost certainly not “Indians” as you would see in the movies but “Banditos” multi-ethnic gangs that roamed the U.S.-Mexican borderlands during the early 1900’s up until WWI.
A relative of mine who died in her nineties back 1970-something, survived a bandit raid sometime around 1912. I believe they burned down a barn and killed or wounded her brother. I never confirmed the story.
The last official Indian raid in Texas occurred in 1878. The story highlights how little Texans of that day could count on centralized authority for protection.
Shannon, Your points are interesting, but the people who surrounded their house and then rode away again were Native Americans. The girls themselves were tiny, but their parents were not and they recognised the tribe. Also, they came several times. It wasn’t a one-off. And they seemed to be fascinated with the structure, which was remote from a town in those days. Their parents thought maybe the Indians had never seen a building before, which is why they had the fascination with putting their fingers through gaps and wriggling them. Obviously, the parents must have discussed this quite a bit at the time as it was vivid in the minds of both ladies. Where is Brown County, come to think of it? Is it south Texas?
Verity,
Heres a map showing Brownwood
Comanche is 26 miles up the road
Verity
Shannon Love,
I believe it could have been an incident of counting “coup”. A ritual/belief that alot of the plains tribes practiced that considered touching someone was just as brave as killing someone. I could be way off on this, though.
Imaging discussing this on a predomantly Euro blog. Interesting. I came to love Texas history while in exile in London, so I guess it is fitting. Cheers.
Shannon – Don’t know how Brownwood, which I’ve never heard of before, edged into the conversation. I was just interested how far Comanche territory stretched. I thought it went down to south Texas, but maybe not. These little ladies were from near Corpus, so maybe it was a different tribe. I always thought Comanches went way down south because I had a friend who was a full-blooded Comanche and he was from Texas.
Paul Bubel – Interesting suggestion. The only thing — I’m asking because I don’t know — would warriors count coup against a woman and two little girls? Seems like kind of a nancy way of counting coup … on the other hand, maybe it counted.
From the way they told the story, I’m more inclined to think they had some kind of fascination with the house. Or maybe putting one’s fingers through the dottle into the inside and waggling them was some kind of medicine.
I just thought it was an intersting story.
I meant to say my Comanche friend was from Houston.
Verity,
The Comanche Territory was vast. They were excellent horsemen, sometimes considered the best light calvary history has ever produced. They ranged far beyond their homelands in the southern great plains ( Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, and Kansas) and they pushed the Lipin Apaches out of their holdings in the Texas Hill Country north of San Antonio into the mountains of New Mexico. They raided as far south as Monterrey, Mexico, crossing near Del Rio, on a routine basis. So much so, the Spanish government wanted a barrier to their invasions and Stephen F Austins Anglo colony was to serve that need. Unfortunately for the Spanish, Austin settle East of the plains along the Brazos and Colorado Rivers, amongst the thick woods where the Comanches refused to go. Horses are not very effective in the confines of a dark and heavily forested area. The area south of San Antonio and Corpus Christi was called the Brasada (sp?), a very dry and unforgiving country, and was the domain of the Coahultecans and Karankawas. Both these tribes were generally avoided and eventually wiped out by desease early on in Texas history and probably were not responsible for your story. So, my original counting coup theory is probably invalid. Interestingly, I did find a link to support it.
My guess would be a roving band of restless Mexican’s from across the border. This was the era of Poncho Villa, and these transgressions were not unheard of. Although, Corpus is pretty far from the border, it could have happened. Hope this helps in some way, cheers
Paul Bubel – These people were very clear that the people who had come to their cabin on several occasions were Indians. They – and their parents – lived at the time and we must assume that, being intelligent people who were surviving in a new environment, they knew what they were talking about. Second-guessing the people who were actually there (with their parents) a century later is just silly.
If they had Indian features, dressed like Indians and rode like Indians, let’s give them a break and assume they were Indians. The mother may even have been familiar with some of the words of their language if they were the local power structure.
OTOH, I had already come, after my last posting, to the conclusion you offer. I am assuming they were Indians and that they were indeed counting coup on the husband. “This is how close we can get to your woman and children.” And yes, as soon as you suggested counting coup, that seemed to explain it. On the husband, as you say. Not the woman and children.
Apologies to the hosts of this blog for dragging this so far off track. It wasn’t intentional.
i want to know about the plains indians well i waz lookin in the wrong 1 sorry
We did not think of the great plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth, as “wild.” Only to the white man was nature a “wilderness” and only to him was the land “infested” with “wild animals and “savage” people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved was it “wild” for us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was that for us the “Wild West” began.
Chief Luther Standing Bear,
of the Oglala band of the Sioux