Law and Order Flashcards
What does The Virginian suggest about law and order in the west? Was it accurate?
- historical fiction, sold 50,000 copies in two moths
- Owen wester, author, travelled west to ‘faithfully report’
- the ‘walk down’ extract = unreliable and exaggerated, as pistols were in accurate weapons and most Cowboys were not good shots.
What does ‘what an unbranded cow has cost’ suggest about law and order in the west? Was it accurate?
- painting by Frederic Remington
- exaggerated and romanticised as no gun battle over unbranded cows (rustling) claimed as many lives as painting suggests
What does Butch Cassidy and the sun dance kid suggest about law and order in the west? Was it accurate?
- film made in 1969
- parts of film were made up when makers didn’t know what actually happened
- made out like a romanticised version of characters actual lives
Why was there lawlessness or violence? Explain the factors.
Geographical factors:
- west was vast, transport slow, made it diff to enforce law and order
Economic factors:
- many potential sources of conflict between diff economic groups
Political factors:
- mining and cow towns were v lawless in early years, shortage of reliable law enforcement officers, politicians didn’t think issue was important enough to train more officers
Social factors:
- many sources of conflict between diff ethnic groups
- readjusting to civilian life was difficult for those demobalised
- many unwilling to forgive and forget what happened
Values and attitudes:
- west dominated by primitive code of honour
- your responsibility to settle things for yourself
- many arguments ended in shooting
- not breaking law by shooting if victim was also armed
Give examples of each type of crime:
Bank robbery: James younger gang between 1866-82
Claim jumping: problem in gold and silver mining towns, late arrivals stole others land
Fence cutting: homesteaders and small ranchers cut cattle barons barbed wire 1880s - 1890s
Racial attacks: Chinese were victims in mining an cow towns, 1885, Rock Springs, Wyoming
Shootings: lead poisoning killed 20,000 1866 - 1900
Train robbers: Seymour, Indiana 1886
Name the factors that explained each type of crime:
Bank robbery: social, economic
Cattle rustling: economic, social
Claim jumping: geographical, political, economic
Fence cutting: economic, values and attitudes, social
Horse stealing: economic, social
Racial attacks: social, political
Shootings: values and attitudes
Road agents: geographical, political
Train robbers: geographical, economic
What do dime novels suggest about law and order in the west? Were they accurate?
- appeared successfully in 1860s
- based upon real people, but plots were fictional and often wildly exaggerated
- created the myth of the noble frontier hero instinctive,y doing the right thing
- were popular som helped create myth of west
- Cowboys appeared in novels from 1870s
What were the different types of forces for law and order? Describe them.
U.S. Marshals:
- oversee a state / territory
Town Marshals:
- appointed by people of a town
Sheriffs:
- elected by country for two years
The Texas Rangers:
- 1820 army of lawmen that enforced law in Texas
Pinkerton Detective Agency:
- private company, hired by businesses to provide protection or catch outlaws
Judges:
- appointed by president, three supervised each state
What problems did the forces for law face?
- had to appoint deputies as couldn’t cover such large areas
- had to cover too wide an are to be effective
- not enough judges for each state so prisoners held for a longer time before trial, sometimes lunched before trial could take place
- few men made a career out of being a lawman (badly paid and dangerous)
- quality of lawmen ranged from admirable to bad
Were vigilantes a force for good or evil? Explain the GOOD side of the argument.
- found out sheriff Henry Plummer was also the leader of an outlaw gang
- acted as deterrents
a lynching saved money rather than holding outlaws
Were vigilantes a force for good or evil? Explain the evil / BAD side of the argument?
- didn’t provide evidence for actions
- brought trouble to the community
- killed a woman who killed a man because he molested her, but if she wasn’t Mexican she would have been praised for killing him
- could have gotten the wrong person
Describe Billy the Kid.
- born 1859
- teens: imprisoned for stealing, escaped from jail (repeated more than once)
- 1877 killed his bully
- worked as a cowboy for English rancher John Tunstall
- 1878 Tunstall murdered, billy drawn into conflict, gained reputation as a top gunfighter
- became an outlaw, shot dead by sheriff 1881
Describe Wild Bill Hickock.
- born 1837
- 1871 hired as town Marshall Abilene
- killed Davis Tutt 1875, made name as a gunfighter
- killed 3 more men since
- shot and killed a soldiers in fighting off revenge attack
- killed Phil Coe + accidentally his deputy
- shot in back of head 1876
Describe John Wesley Hardin.
- born 1853
- became most feared gunfighter in Texas
- wild bill Hickock given handbill offering reward for arrest of Hardin
- Hickock told Hardin he would not arrest him for crimes in Texas but any here in Abilene and he will not get out of town alive
- Hardin killed a man but escaped
- captured and imprisoned in 1874
- released, threatened a policeman, so shot dead 1895.
Describe Butch Cassidy.
- born 1866
- was in the ‘wild bunch’ gang of robbers
- lead life of crime
- gang from Wyoming operated from 1896-1901
- by 1901 pulled of numerous robberies
- left US for Argentina
- died 1908 from a gunshot
