Dee Brown - The American West

Also by Dee Brown

NONFICTION

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow

Wondrous Times on the Frontier

When the Century Was Young (A Writers Notebook)

Folktales of the Native American

Griersons Raid

The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old West

The Bold Cavaliers: Morgans Second Kentucky

Cavalry Raiders

Fort Phil Kearny: An American Saga (republished as The Fetterman Massacre)

The Galvanized Yankees

Showdown at Little Big Horn

The Year of the Century: 1876

Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans

Tales of the Warrior Ants

The Westerners

FICTION

Wave High the Banner

Yellowhorse

Cavalry Scout

They Went Thataway (republished as Pardon My Pandemonium)

The Girl from Fort Wicked

Action at Beecher Island

Teepee Tales of the American Indians

Killdeer Mountain

The Conspiracy of Knaves

Creek Marys Blood

DEE BROWN

Simon & Schuster
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TOUCHSTONE
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New York, NY 10020
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Copyright 1994 by Dee Brown and the Estate of Martin F. Schmitt

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First Touchstone Edition 1995

TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Designed by Deirdre C. Amthor

Manufactured in the United States of America

20 19 18 17 16

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Dee Alexander.

The American West / Dee Brown : photos edited by Martin F. Schmitt.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

I. West (U.S.)History. I. Schmitt, Martin Ferdinand. II. Title.

F591.B86 1994

978dc20 94-37444

CIP

ISBN-13: 978-0-684-80441-5

ISBN-10: 0-684-80441-7
eISBN 13: 978-1-439-12556-4

Some material was previously published in Fighting Indians of the West, copyright 1948 by Charles Scribners Sons; Trail Driving Days, copyright 1952 by Charles Scribners Sons; The Settlers West, copyright 1955 by Martin F. Schmitt and Dee Brown.

All maps copyright Macmillan Publishing Company, by Raphael D. Palacios, except Principal Long Horn Trails of Texas. copyright Anita Carl and James Kemp.

FOR THOMAS JEFFERSON EASTERWOOD, BALLOONIST AND TRAILBLAZER

WE ESPECIALLY THANK Sally Arteseros for her editorial work in helping to meld the separate parts of this work. Credit is also due many, many librarians and archivists from the Eastcoast to the Westcoast, without whose help in searching out numerous bits and pieces of Western history this book would not exist. Within these pages is much of my late friend and collaborator, Martin Schmitt, who I hope would approve of what we are doing. And had my editor, Carlo de Vito, not been a persistent and amiable gadfly we would never have got it done. Special thanks to copy editor Debra Makay for her keen eye and long labor.

Mountain Barrier

San Francisco Harbor, 1851

Crossing the Kaw

The Crooked Straight, Rough Places Plain

Russian Emigrants at Bismarck

Jesse Chisholm

When Abilene was Wild

Branding, Nineteenth Century

Brands of the Southwest

Remuda

Drag Riders

End of the Trail Drive

Indian Runner

Red Cloud

Staking Down Buffalo Skins, 1870

Cheyenne and Arapahoe Chiefs

White Bear

Lone Wolf

Kiowa Calendar

Apache Scouts

Red Clouds Head Men

Crazy-in-the-Lodge

Sod Shanty on the Plains

First Arrivals

Well-Diggers and Windmills

Wheat-Buying Center, Fargo, Dakota Territory

Puffing Monsters of the Prairies

Year of the Grasshopper

The President Visits a Bonanza Farm, 1878

Supply Depot

The Baker

Gents Furnishings

First Church

Little Green Schoolhouse

U.S. Mail by Proxy

Bernhardt vs. Howe

Mexican John

Wild Bill Hickok

Cowtown

Hays City Stagecoach

Curley

Custers Last Rally

Joseph

Teddy Roosevelt

The Last Spike

Cheyenne Club

Play Ball!

Geronimo

Dead Chief

Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses

The Wild West Show: Rodeos Proving Ground

Trouping in the Wild West

The Prairies and the Great Plains

The Permanent Indian Frontier in 1840

Principal Longhorn Trails from Texas

The Bozeman Trail, 1866-68

Fort Philip Kearny

The Central Plains, 1864-65, during the Cheyenne-Arapaho War

The Southern Plains: Events of 1868-69

The Great Plains in 1870

The Area of the Red River War, 1874-75

First Violations of the Sioux Treaty

The Bighorn Campaign of 1876

The Bighorn Campaign (troop movements)

The Battle of the Little Bighorn: Custer Divides His Forces

The Battle of the Little Bighorn: Custers Last Stand

The Yellowstone Expedition, 1876

Flight of the Cheyennes

The Scene of the Modoc War

Chief Josephs Retreat

The Sioux Reservations in 1890-91

Wounded Knee

THE AMERICAN WEST as a paradigm for the nation as a whole has become, in recent years, almost a clich. Academics debate its myths and realities. Popular culturists delve into all its aspects. Filmmakers approach and retreat from its myriad of images. Television documentarians display its pictorial records with solemn commentaries. At one time or another almost every American has examined the nations Western experience, sometimes with curiosity, sometimes with admiration, awe, incredulity, distaste, or a mixture of all of these.

Some years ago Martin Schmitt and I followed the trail of frontier photographers in our first venture into the American West that was. Over a long period we searched for the most telling graphics that we could find, and let the early photographers and artists show us what the West was like. Out of this came three volumes titled Fighting Indians of the West, Trail Driving Days, and The Settlers West. Later we considered the possibilities of additional books that would be similar to them, yet more specialized. We finally decided that within our three volumes we already had included the essence of the Old West. Along with the cowboys and Indians and settlers we had introduced gunfighters and lawmen, wagon trains and railroads, soldiers and explorers, gold and silver miners, newspaper editors, gamblers, entertainers, pioneer women, preachers, doctors, and lawyers. The whole of the West was there.