Monday, July 30, 2012

Cowboy Revisionist History

I'll state it was because everyone was armed. A nobrainer.



I was pleased to learn that today is the Eighth National Day of the Cowboy. As such, it’s especially appropriate that we take advantage of the opportunity to set the record straight on many things Cowboy and Western.

First of all, the Old West was far more peaceful than is commonly portrayed in movies and the popular culture. As Thomas DiLorenzo points out in his Independent Review article, “The Culture of Violence in the American West: Myth versus Reality,” “some authors assume that the West was very violent and then assert, as Joe Franz does, that ‘American violence today reflects our frontier heritage’”—an argument that has been resurfacing in the past week in the aftermath of the Aurora, Colorado shootings. Yet DiLorenzo finds: “The civil society of the American West in the nineteenth century was much more peaceful than American cities are today, and the evidence suggests that in fact the Old West was not a very violent place at all.”

Further, in their chapter, “An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West,” in the Independent Institute book Anarchy and the Law, Terry Anderson and P.J. Hill found:

The West during this time often is perceived as a place of great chaos, with little respect for property or life. Our research indicates that this was not the case; property rights were protected and civil order prevailed. Private agencies provided the necessary basis for an orderly society in which property was protected and conflicts were resolved.

Thomas DiLorenzo also details that it was the establishment of a standing army in the aftermath of the Civil War that created the “violent” American West which consisted primarily of violence against Indians. Prior to the Civil War, settlers obtained land through negotiating with Indians. Following the Civil War,

More @ The Lighthouse

4 comments:

  1. "The West during this time often is perceived as a place of great chaos, with little respect for property or life. Our research indicates that this was not the case; property rights were protected and civil order prevailed. Private agencies provided the necessary basis for an orderly society in which property was protected and conflicts were resolved."

    That is true. I have Southern roots to be sure, but I am a Westerner, and like our Southern cousins, we have our ways.


    That photo was taken in Tombstone, AZ. I recognize the bar on the corner...The Cyrstal Palace...I had a beer there last summer. ;)

    Miss Violet

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  2. The Cyrstal Palace...I had a beer there last summer. ;)


    I'm jealous.:)

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    1. I love Tombstone, I've been there several times and it is one of those places that, despite the corny touristy stuff, there is an aura of history that wafts around you like a breeze. Besides, how could anyone not have a beer at the Crystal Palace Saloon?

      Something else, I was thinking about this while I was at work, I would daresay many of the best traditions of the West was because of the influence of the Southerners who relocated there after the war. So many from the South went West after having been burned out of their homes and having their loved ones killed. It is said my (several)great grandmother came to Texas with her favorite slave after her first husband was killed in the war and their plantation was lost. In Texas she met my (several)great grandfather Hiram McNeelan.

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  3. Very interesting. Thanks. Military men who were stationed in California came east to join the Confederacy.

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