A lone cowboy pulls into town atop his trusty steed.
Six shooters on his hip, he saunters into the nearest saloon and sits for a drink.
The waitress gives this stranger a smile as she sets down his single shot of whiskey,
and the stranger returns it.
Suddenly a man leaps to his feet, enraged and screaming “Hey that there's my woman!”,
and in the span of a few heartbeats the two strangers are facing each other down, six
shooters drawn and ready to fire.
Bar patrons flee for their lives, some to find the local Sheriff even though everyone
knows that the only law around these parts is the law of the gun.
There's few periods in human history more iconic, or more full of myth and legend, than
America's Wild West.
Many nations have had their own pioneering and expansion periods, but none have ever
inspired the awe of America's western frontier.
From rampaging indians out for revenge on the settlers taking their land from them,
to gangs of outlaws shooting up remote towns full of helpless villagers, the Wild West
has been the subject of much myth and no small amount of exaggeration.
But just how wild was the wild west really?
When you think Wild West one of the first images that spring to mind is that of settlers
in wagon trains crossing the prairies of middle America, only to have a horde of angry Indians
descending on them.
It's a trope that's been told across novels, movies, and even comic books, with the Indians
justified for their slaughter of pioneers as revenge in some, and demonized as uncivilized
savages in others.
Yet the truth is far less dramatic, and while Native Americans and US Cavalry forces did
clash on numerous occasions- typically with a very one-sided outcome for the Cavalry-
very few immigrants heading out west ever met their death at the end of a tomahawk.
Between 1840 and 1860 there were only 362 cases of fatal Indian attacks on wagon trains,
while in the same time period between 10,000 and 30,000 pioneers died to disease, animal
attack, and accident.
On the flip side there were 426 documented killings of Indians by settlers, with likely
many more never being reported.
The famous and iconic image of wagon trains circling in order to defend from Indian attack
was actually meant to keep cattle from wandering away, rather than defend from an Indian attack
that almost never came.
In fact it was the Indians who were the greater victims, as usual, with the great wagon trains
moving across their lands chasing game away and using up wood supplies in the sparse prairie
regions for their campfires.
The settlers also brought disease with them which would spread and remain long after the
settlers had move along.
Indians were so affected by the passage of large wagon trains that they began to demand
payment for passage across their lands, which naturally most settlers completely ignored
and instead opted to arm themselves to the teeth and threaten reprisal if the Indians
pressed them too hard on the matter.
Valuable as guides across the mountains and dangerous terrain of the Western US, Indians
were more likely to be hired as guides than to form warbands to prey on unwary settlers.
If there's one thing we can be sure of about the Wild West is that it was a tough, lawless
place that was home to more bank heists and robberies than rattle snakes.
Yet despite having been home to the most famous outlaws in history, the Wild West had surprisingly
few bank robberies.
In one 40 year period between 1860 and 1900, only between 7 and 9 bank robberies were recorded,
by comparison the US had 4,251 bank robberies total in 2016.
That's 7 to 9 robberies in 40 years versus over 4,000 in just one year- the fact is the
wild west was a safer place to bank than in most modern nations today.
But why were bank robberies so rare, given how remote most towns were and seemingly susceptible
to criminal activity?
First there's the simple fact that in those days the more permanent buildings tended to
be huddled together.
That meant that a bank typically had a grocer on one side, and the Sheriff's office on the
other, so if you decided to rob a bank you'd have a very short walk to a waiting jail cell
next door.
Banks were also very robustly built to deter anyone from trying to dynamite their way in,
though the noise would obviously give you away pretty quickly and since most people
slept and lived right above their establishments, not only would an angry banker be on you in
seconds with his rifle, but the Sheriff as well.
It just wasn't practical or even realistic to rob a bank, which is why the famous bank
robberies such as those done by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were in fact so famous.
The act of actually robbing a bank and getting away with it was such a legendary deed that
it ironically created the legend of lawlessness in the wild west.
Ok, so criminals weren't running around rampant shooting and robbing everyone in sight, and
indians weren't constantly descending on wagon trains full of settlers heading west- surely
if there's one thing about the Wild West that isn't a myth it's the one thing it is most
famous for: its guns.
The Wild West was the American frontier, a dangerous place full of wild animals and...
well not so many criminals or hostile indians it turns out.
Still, as a frontier it had its dangers, and to face those dangers every man, woman, and
child had to carry a gun on their hip or rifle on their back.
Sadly for modern gun vendors and anyone against gun control who use the Wild West as an icon
for their products and ideologies, the truth is that there was far more strict gun control
in the Wild West than in modern America.
The reasoning was simple: people were sick and tired of all the gun violence.
Initially, the first groups of settlers came out west armed to the teeth, and when these
heavily armed settlers started building communities, it's little surprise that gun violence skyrocketed.
With gun violence endemic to daily life, citizens and politicians took action on gun control,
banning the carrying of guns on a person's body and limiting their sale.
In Colorado cowboys were forbidden from carrying them as they herded cattle back and forth
across their ranges, and in the infamous Dodge City, Kansas, authorities posted a large sign
warning that the carrying of firearms was strictly forbidden.
Go to a modern gun show and you'll see replicas of wild west firearms along with plenty of
iconography meant to inspire gun ownership as an American frontier tradition, yet the
historical truth is that guns were seen as “barbaric relics of the past”, as written
in an editorial of the Caldwell Commercial in 1882 Kansas.
Not only was the Wild West home to strict gun control laws, but the most iconic moment
of Wild West history, the duel at high noon, is yet another myth of the era that rarely
if ever actually happened.
Most six-shooters simply weren't accurate enough to fire at anything but extremely close
ranges, which is why shotguns and rifles were the preferred weapons of the day.
Six shooters, duels at high noon, indian attacks, bank robberies, and gun control- is there
anything about the Wild West we haven't ruined for you in this episode?
Sadly the truth is that what has been glamourized as the wildest period in American history
was anything but, and in our opinion should be renamed the Mild West for historical accuracy.
With far more gun violence and bank robberies today, you were far safer in the Wild West
than in most American cities right now, and in a century or two we wouldn't be surprised
to see our modern age made into the new Wild West for future generations- though at least
this time it would be far more accurate.
What other myths about the Wild West do you know of?
Also, check out video from our friend Simple History titled How to survive the Wild West
to learn more about the topic!
See you next time!