Howdy ya'll from the scene of the crime (sort of),

First of all, I agree that this is a bunch of political nonsense (including academic politics) and doesn't deserve (and never did) much attention, and whoever made of list of who should be apologizing left out some real biggies, top of my personal list being the US government and all the European nations for what they did to the folks who were here before they arrived. Having said it's not worth the bother, I'm going to bother because it is practically the stuff my baptismal waters were made of and I enjoy the subject.

I believe I can speak with a bit of authority having been raised in the west by a grampa who knew Geronimo (no, he wasn't boosting) and was one heck of an historian, I lived in Sante Fe, spent long hours in the Western History Collection at the U of OK (where most primary resources on western history now reside), studied western history at OU for years, and my father was raised by his grandmother, the sister of the aforementioned Lew Wallace. (If anybody who knows me is trying to count on their fingers, my parents were nearly 40 when I was born, all my grandparents were born in the 1880's.)


Most of what has been posted here is hearsay and myth - thank you Q for pointing that out and providing a few verfiable facts. (There were others, but I don't remember who.) Most people haven't a clue what the "wild west" was really like, mostly because there are few varifiable facts in our favorite myths. As has been pointed out, between Buntline and the pennydreadfuls and the completely fanciful "my own true story"'s by folks like Pat Garrett, there was no solid truth, not even at the time. Tall tales weren't just a popular form of entertainment, just staying alive required a great deal of lying. Who made up the cast of characters of the old west? People who left the comfy North and South, usually because they had to. One of the few rules people stuck to was, "you don't ask questions" - especially   "who are you" and "where did you come from."

Not only did Doc H work both sides of the law, so did the Earps and everybody else - THEY ALL DID. All the so-called "lawmen" slid back and forth from one side to the other of the badge, including and especially while they were wearing it. There literally was no rule of law as we know it (or used to before Reagan). 98% of the times we think of as the "wild west" were while the places in question were not States, i.e., no constitution and no constitutional rights. Lew Wallace was Governor of New Mexico TERRITORY, not state. Any order that existed was imposed by people with the power of shear physical force and/or the power of money. My own grampa (the other one) was a Texas Ranger for about 5 minutes. At some point he made the history books because he was sent to the Cimarron Strip (the part of what is now Oklahoma that was just north of what was then Indian Territory) to close down a saloon that was selling booze to Indians - the problem was they had to cross the Cimarron River on what was essentially a wide board to get the booze and a lot of them drowned on the way back. Grampa settled the matter by (illegally) opening a competing saloon on the south side of the river and thus founding the town of Keystone, of which he was the sheriff. This is a typical example of how the "lawmakers" got their badges. It's also typical of how the myths grow - I read what I told you in a history book. Grampa told me nothing and Daddy told me what a fine upstanding lawman he was, and several tales to back that up. Nobody every told me why the whole family were such dedicated teetotalers. Like everything about the west, you have to decide which story suits you by reading between the lines.

I am no apologist for Uncle Lew (I won't even try to apologize for "Ben Hur"), but he wasn't all that bad an administrator considering the situation. After all, in some circles he is best known as the judge of the famous Andersonville prison trials (civil war, topic: war crimes). The governorship of NM Terr. was a political and temporary one. The place was a political mess and a lawless mess and no one person could have straighted it out even if they tried, and Uncle Lew didn't try very hard. (and he was indeed writing "Ben Hur" at that time.)

The topic of the Lincoln County Wars is extremely complicated, and even a good precis (and someone gave us a really good one) can't begin to give a good picture of what was happening. Anyone who says Billy the Kid was just a snivelly kid who enjoyed killing people doesn't know what they are talking about. He THOUGHT he was on the side of justice in the Lincoln County wars. He also shot a deputy in cold blood to make his famous escape, and that particularly cold-blooded, gruesome and slightly humerous business, along with the fact that he was the only one of the "wars" who received any kind of punishment, probably birthed the myth, helped along by Pat Garrett with his own mythological autobiography. By the way, Uncle Lew may have signed the clemancy paper, but he also hired Pat to kill the kid (on behalf of the political and monied folks). See what I mean? William Bonney who may have been born Henry was just another violent person in a violent place and time full of people with shaky morals and lots of names - some frightened, some greedy, some angy, some desperate, most all of the above.

I know that sounds like a summing up, but it's just my POV (highly informed tho it is, she says modestly), and I don't want to kill this thread by lecturing - it's fun! I would especially like to know just what stories the folks across the pond have heard, and how they view the good ol' Amurrrican West.