Week 6: The way to the West
Well my friends, today we take time out of our Roy Baker ruminations to contemplate the writings contained in Elliott West’s book, The Way to the West. The central theme of these collected essays all seem to point out one reality: life on the central plains was no picnic, that attempts to make it more manageable and to adapt to changing conditions only made matters worse, and that the only thing we’ve found more satisfying than surviving such trials is telling the world about it via popular culture.
When white men began moving out onto the central plains in the 1850’s from the west, south, and east, their reasons for coming might have varied, but the effect on Native American was the same: dislocation. Wherever white men went Indians had to go. Thusly pressed, displaced Native Americans began to crowd into territory that heretofore had been home-range to other tribes. This exacerbated rivalries and increased the strain on the land which had barely been able to support a more traditional balance.
While it may not be very glamours to say so, the Windmill was a principle tool in the winning of the west. This mechanism facilitated the pumping of ground water to the surface. Water is the key commodity on the arid plains. Where it is found, grass, animals, and people can flourish. Indians lacked this ability to procure waer via the windmill, and were therefore forced to live in areas where surface water occurred naturally. This brought them into direct competition with Bison and the livestock of white men.
The Bison were not in a position to compete with anybody. The case is made that their population was in steady decline during the second score of the Nineteenth-Century. By their physiology, these animals required large quantities of forage. And as this commodity grew scarce, the buffalo were driven into smaller and smaller ranges where Indian horses and white cattle/sheep/oxen/horses were already stretching the land beyond its limits. One must also contemplate whether the Bison’s decline was also due to the ‘mini ice-age’ that occurred between the Fifteenth-Century to the Eighteenth-Century timeframe. This condition may well have contributed to the scarcity of forage on the open plains, which drove buffalo into areas where the grass was greener, but there were more mouths depending on it.
Aside from the windmill, the family unit might also be considered a basic tool for winning the west. As a support network, and a source of labor and knowledge, as a mechanism for raising child, the family had few equals. The Native American family unit, as an institution, was as strong as its white counterpart at the beginning of the Nineteenth-Century…devasted by its end. What happened? The essayists in this volume argue that disease, alcoholism, societal decay, and wars with whites and other tribes, weakened the family unit beyond its capacity to absorb. This effect, was the greatest factor in the ‘winning of the west’.
Country music singer Tim McGraw has a song called ‘I guess that’s just the Cowboy in Me’. In it we’re told that the ‘urge to run, the restlessness, the heart of stone we sometimes get…the things we’ve done for foolish pride, the we that’s never satisfied...’ constitute ‘the Cowboy in us all’. Lordy, do we like hearing that; the notion of stubborn individualism is at the heart of the traditional western history. It is something that we have yearned for since industrialization necessitated the homogenization of our society. It is the reason why we connect so well with the West. And the fact that this character is largely a matter of myth is of little account.
Well my friends, today we take time out of our Roy Baker ruminations to contemplate the writings contained in Elliott West’s book, The Way to the West. The central theme of these collected essays all seem to point out one reality: life on the central plains was no picnic, that attempts to make it more manageable and to adapt to changing conditions only made matters worse, and that the only thing we’ve found more satisfying than surviving such trials is telling the world about it via popular culture.
When white men began moving out onto the central plains in the 1850’s from the west, south, and east, their reasons for coming might have varied, but the effect on Native American was the same: dislocation. Wherever white men went Indians had to go. Thusly pressed, displaced Native Americans began to crowd into territory that heretofore had been home-range to other tribes. This exacerbated rivalries and increased the strain on the land which had barely been able to support a more traditional balance.
While it may not be very glamours to say so, the Windmill was a principle tool in the winning of the west. This mechanism facilitated the pumping of ground water to the surface. Water is the key commodity on the arid plains. Where it is found, grass, animals, and people can flourish. Indians lacked this ability to procure waer via the windmill, and were therefore forced to live in areas where surface water occurred naturally. This brought them into direct competition with Bison and the livestock of white men.
The Bison were not in a position to compete with anybody. The case is made that their population was in steady decline during the second score of the Nineteenth-Century. By their physiology, these animals required large quantities of forage. And as this commodity grew scarce, the buffalo were driven into smaller and smaller ranges where Indian horses and white cattle/sheep/oxen/horses were already stretching the land beyond its limits. One must also contemplate whether the Bison’s decline was also due to the ‘mini ice-age’ that occurred between the Fifteenth-Century to the Eighteenth-Century timeframe. This condition may well have contributed to the scarcity of forage on the open plains, which drove buffalo into areas where the grass was greener, but there were more mouths depending on it.
Aside from the windmill, the family unit might also be considered a basic tool for winning the west. As a support network, and a source of labor and knowledge, as a mechanism for raising child, the family had few equals. The Native American family unit, as an institution, was as strong as its white counterpart at the beginning of the Nineteenth-Century…devasted by its end. What happened? The essayists in this volume argue that disease, alcoholism, societal decay, and wars with whites and other tribes, weakened the family unit beyond its capacity to absorb. This effect, was the greatest factor in the ‘winning of the west’.
Country music singer Tim McGraw has a song called ‘I guess that’s just the Cowboy in Me’. In it we’re told that the ‘urge to run, the restlessness, the heart of stone we sometimes get…the things we’ve done for foolish pride, the we that’s never satisfied...’ constitute ‘the Cowboy in us all’. Lordy, do we like hearing that; the notion of stubborn individualism is at the heart of the traditional western history. It is something that we have yearned for since industrialization necessitated the homogenization of our society. It is the reason why we connect so well with the West. And the fact that this character is largely a matter of myth is of little account.
posted by ksturcken at 10:54 AM
1 Comments:
Hi Kent, Just got your comment on my blog; thanks! Loved the comment from Dr. Hawkes--sounds right on. I also love your last paragraph of your blog. So true!
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