Major Problems
in the History
of the American West
Y
DOCUMENTS AND ESSAYS
SECOND EDITION
EDITED BY
CLYDE A. MILNER II
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
ANNE M. BUTLER
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
DAVID RICH LEWIS
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston
New York
Contents
C H A P T E R l
Defining the West and Its History
Page 1
STATEMENTS
Y Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American
• X History 2
and The Problem of the West
4
Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains
5
Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest 8
and What on Earth Is
the New Western History?
9
William Cronon, Revisiting the Vanishing Frontier: The Legacy of Frederick
Jackson Turner
11
Donald Worster, New West, True West: Interpreting the Region's History
13
ESSAYS
Walter Nugent • Where Is the American West? Report on a Survey
Clyde A. Milner II • America Only More So
33
CHAPTER
2
15
Spanish Borderlands and Native Homelands
Page 42
DOCUMENTS
Don Luis de Velasco's Extensive Manifest of Personal Property, 1597
Nicolas de Aguilar's Few Worldly Goods, 1663
43
46
The Count of Paredes' Report on the Pueblo Indians' Revolt, 1681
The Testimony of Pedro Naranjo, A Pueblo Indian, 1681
47
49
Bishop,,Tamaron Visits Santa Fe and Taos, 1760
51
Father Junipero Serra Asks Viceroy Antonio Bucareli for Leniency for the
Indians, 1775
54
ESSAYS
Ramon A. Gutierrez • Honor and Marriage in Colonial New Mexico
57
Albert L. Hurtado • Sexuality in Early California's Franciscan Missions:
Cultural Perceptions and Sad Realities
69
IX
X
Contents
C H A P T E R 3
Cultural Contacts and Contracts
Page 82
DOCUMENTS
Buckskin Charlie Recounts Southern Ute Creation, Recorded 1912
Chippewa Contact Narrative, Recorded 1855
83
84
Wolf Calf (Piegan) Describes the Arrival of Horses, Recorded 1895
86
Francis Chardon Laments the Destruction of the Arikaras and Mandans by
Smallpox, 1837
88
George Ruxton Depicts Life Among the Trappers, and the Trappers' View of
Women, 1847-1849
93
ESSAYS
Sylvia Van Kirk • Native Women in Canadian Fur Trade Society
96
Dan Flores • Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy on the Southern
Plains
103
C H A P T E R
4
Federal Support of Explorers and Emigrants
Page 115
DOCUMENTS
Meriwether Lewis Views the Great Falls of the Missouri, 1805
117
The Stephen Long Expedition's Report of a Frontier Barrier, 1821
120
George Gibbs with the Mounted Riflemen Observes Emigrants on the
Overland Trails, 1849
122
Impressions of the Overland Journey from Vincent Geiger and Wakeman
Bryarly, 1849
126
The Overland Trails: Three Tables of Statistics
E S'SA
128
Y S
William H. Goetzmann • From the Northwest Passage to the "Great
Reconnaissance"
130
John D. Unruh, Jr. • The Federal Government's Aid to Overland
Emigrants
142
C H A P T E R
5
The Legacy of Acquisition
Page 156
DOCUMENTS
"x
Mexican General Mariano Arista's Advice to the Soldiers of the U.S.
Army, 1846
157
Anastasio Parrode, Commander-in-Chief of the Department of Tamaulipas,
to His Troops, 1846
158
Contents
Charles DeMorse Gives a Texan's View of the War with
Mexico, 1846
159
John C. Calhoun Opposes Incorporating Mexico, 1848
XI
160
John A. Dix Advocates Expansion onto Mexican Lands, 1848
162
Queen Liliuokalani's Statement at Her Trial for Treason, 1895
164
From Haunani-Kay Trask, a Native Daughter in Colony
Hawaii, 1993
166
ESSAYS
Thomas R. Hietala • The Myths of Manifest Destiny
169
John Whitehead • Hawaii: The First and Last Far West?
182
C H A P T E R
6
Cowboys, Outlaws, and Violence
Page 195
1
DOCUMENTS
A Popular Account of the Death of Jesse James, 1882
197
'
Granville Stuart Recalls Cattle Rustlers and Vigilantes, 1883-1884
Helen Wiser Stewart Writes of Her Husband's Murder, 1884
201
Theodore Roosevelt Describes Cowboy-Land, 1893
203
An Arkansas Newspaper on the Killing of Bill Dalton, 1894
ESSAYS
198 I
i
V
204
./
Robert R. Dykstra • The Cattle Towns Adjust to Violence (with a
Postscript)
206
Richard White • Outlaw Gangs and Social Bandits
222
CHAPTER
/
7
Children, Marriage, and Families
Page 238
PHOTO
DOCUMENTS
David Hilton Homestead, Custer County, Nebraska, 1887
Ira Watson House, Custer County, Nebraska, 1886
240
Stewart Family in Spokane, Washington, 1889
241
Alice Jasperson, Goshen, Utah, Sewing a Flag, c. 1917
239
242
Lincoln J. Smith and Margaret E. Breeden Smith with Their Children in
California, date unknown
243
A Chinese Family in California, date unknown
244
Joseph F. Smith and His Polygamous Family in Utah, c. 1900
Chipeta and Her Family in Dragon, Utah, 1907
246
245
xii
Contents
ESSAYS
Elliott West • Children and the Frontier
247
Paula Petrik • Bordeaux v. Bordeaux: A Story of Divorce
CHAPTER
255
8
Contested Reforms
Page 268
DOCUMENTS
Sir Richard Burton Examines Mormon Polygamy, 1860
270
Helen Mar Whitney Defends Plural Marriage, 1884
271
"Brigham, Brigham Young," An Anti-Mormon Folk Song, Collected
in 1932
272
Testimonies Designed to Limit Chinese Immigration, 1876
Augustus Layres Endorses Chinese Immigration, 1876
274
276
Huang Zunxian Expresses the Chinese Perspective in Poetry,
c. 1884
278
Carrie Chapman Catt Encourages Idaho Suffragists, 1896
280
Newspaper Account of Idaho Suffrage Vote, 1896
282
ESSAYS
Carol Cornwall Madsen • Utah Law and the Plural Wives, 1850-1900
285
Margaret K. Holden • Gender, Protest, and the Anti-Chinese
Movement
294
CHAPTER
""
9
Railroad and Mining Labor
Page 303
DOCUMENTS
Albert D. Richardson Writes on Building the Great Railroad, 1865
William A. Bell Describes the Engineering of the Railroad, 1867
304
306
Daughters of Charity Comment on Life in Virginia City, Nevada,
c. 1875
308
Chinese Accounts of the Killings at Rock Springs, 1885
309
Frank A. Crampton on the Ludlow Massacre, 1914
312
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Calls Women to Labor Action, 1915
316
ESSAYS
W. Thomas White • Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Northwest Railroad
Work Force, 1893-1912
318
Gunther Peck • "Old" Radicals and "New" Immigrants in Bingham, Utah,
1905-1912
328
Contents
C H A P T E R
xiii
10
Living on the Land, Leaving the Land
Page 341
DOCUMENTS
Northern Utes Respond to the Break-up of Their Reservation, 1903
342
John Stands-in-Timber and Ella C. Deloria Recall the Early Days of
Reservation Farming, 1877-1900
349
Martin Chariot Speaks to the Futility of Flathead-Salish Farming,
1890-1910
352
Jorgen and Otto Jorgensen Remember the Decision to Homestead in
Montana, 1906
354
Elinore Stewart Advocates Homesteading for Women, 1913
The Bell Family Tries Dry Farming, 1911-1923
357
356
ESSAYS
David Rich Lewis • Farming and the Northern Ute Experience
Gilbert C. Fite • A Family Farm Chronicle
370
CHAPTER
359
11
Dam Water, Damn Dust
Page 379
DOCUMENTS
John Wesley Powell Demands Reclamation of the Arid Lands, 1878
William E. Smythe Envisions Conquest of Arid America, 1900
An Excerpt from the Reclamation Act, 1902
386
Voices of Those Who Built Hoover Dam, 1929-1935
387
Caroline A. Henderson Sends a Letter from the Dust Bowl of
Oklahoma, 1935
391
"The Plow That Broke the Plains": The Film Narrative, 1936
High Hammond Bennett Insists on Soil Conservation, 1939
380
384
394
396
ESSAYS
Wallace Stegner • Striking the Rock—Water and the Arid West
398
Donald Worster • The Black Blizzards Roll In—The Dust Bowl Begins
CHAPTER
12
The Other Western Homefront
Page 416
DOCUMENTS
Roger Daniels Quantifies the Forced Migrations of Japanese Americans,
1942-1946
417
Yoshiko Uchida Remembers a Desert Exile in Utah, 1942
420
406
XIV
Contents
Italian Voices from the Unknown Internment, 1942
423
Flore Lekanof, Sr., Lambasts the Government Evacuation of Alaska's
Aleuts, 1942
425
Charles M. Smith Praises Farm Workers from Mexico, 1943
427
Daniel L. Schorr Decries the Exploitation of Mexican
Americans, 1946
429
ESSAYS
Terrence M. Cole • Jim Crow Segregation in Alaska
431
Erasmo Gamboa • Mexican Laborers in the Pacific Northwest
CHAPTER
yf
PHOTO
13
New Cities, New Lives
Page 454
DOCUMENTS
Second Street Cable Railway, Looking West, 1888
Jawbone Siphon Construction Site, c. 1910
Construction of the Harbor Freeway, 1956
Disneyland, 1955
Disneyland, 1967
442
455
456
457
458
459
Burning Building in Watts Uprising, 1965
460
A Korean American Stands Guard During the Los Angeles
Riots, 1992
461
Dodger Stadium, 1962
462
ESSAYS
Quintard Taylor • Blacks and Asians in a White City
463
Carl Abbott • The Urban West and the Twenty-First Century
CHAPTER
y
476
14
Owning the West
Page 485
DOCUMENTS
Report of the Committee on the Conservation and Administration
of the Public Domain, 1931
486
Utah Governor George Dern Responds to the Public Lands
Debate, 1932
488 _
Two Statements from Nevada on the Sagebrush Rebellion, 1979
490
James Coates Asks, Is the Sagebrush Rebellion Dead? 1986
494
Return of the Sagebrush Rebels, 1995
495
Four Editorial Cartoons Capture the Angry West
498
Contents
ESSAYS
R. McGreggor Cawley • The Sagebrush Rebellion and Environmental
Politics
500
Bruce Babbitt • Public Use and the Future of the Federal Lands
CHAPTER
15
"X Imagining the West
Page 526
DOCUMENTS
John Wayne Receives a Congressional Gold Medal, 1979
The Duke: "More Than Just a Hero," 1979
528
527
High Country News Spoofs Real Estate Development, 1994
Ralph Lauren Builds His Ranch in Colorado, 1988
530
529
Dennis Quaid Dines Out in Montana, 1989
533
Pat Bagley Lampoons the New Western Lifestyles, 1993
Marshal Matt Dillon Has His Last Showdown, 1995
534
535
ESSAYS
Julian Crandall Hollick • The American West in the European
Imagination
536
Anne M. Butler • Selling the Popular Myth
541
518
XV