The romance of the American West cannot be underestimated. It is a victorious, a sad, and a mammoth story of people wanting more room, more land, and more opportunity to put down fresh roots. In the American West story, we find all kinds of special participants: mountain men, explorers, American Indians, engineers, farmers, cattle ranchers, gold seekers, railroaders, conservation specialists, wagon train members, artists, homesteaders, gunslingers, sheep herders, army officers and cavalry, as well as politicians. All these diverse groups in one form or another wanted to achieve the dream of Manifest Destiny in the Wild West. This is an overview course, not a heavy concentration on every topic.
What drove all these groups to seek a new life, a better life, and a piece of land they could call their own? H.W. Brands, the famous Western and historical author, has conceived a well-written book that gives us explorations from the Lewis and Clark expedition to fur trading with Astor to the missionary effort in the Northwest, especially Oregon. You sense from the book that fur trading was the forerunner of globalism. I tend to have an emotional attachment to the West, especially being born and growing up in Colorado. Additionally, I had the privilege of working and teaching in Wyoming and New Mexico. The West is dear to my heart because of constant Western film viewing, attending rodeos, visiting remote Colorado parts, including Mesa Verde, participating in chuck wagon gatherings, and seeing covered wagon ruts in the Scotts Bluff, Nebraska National Monument landscape. The West is an idea. The West is a phenomenon. The West is a continuing history.
The short and well-written Brands' chapters give us the flavor of the Westward Movement. We experience winding wagon trains with terrible hardships, American Indian struggles, growth of Western towns, attacks on forts, and slavery issues for states. It is a sweeping panorama of a bygone era that resonates with the public even today. Only a panorama, not a full-blown college course.
Session 1. Lewis and Clark, Jefferson, and the Opening of the Frontier.
Session 2. Northwest Lewis/Clark, John Jacob Astor, Fur Trading Companies, Astoria, Duncan McDougall and Northwest Trading Sale.
Session 3. American Fur Trade, Manipulating Forts, Social Life of Rendezvous, Attraction of the Beaver.
Session 4. Policy of All Against All, Moses and Stephen Austin, American Immigrants and Mexico, Worry about Mexican Loss of Texas.
Session 5. Rugged Life of Sam Houston, Preference of Houston to Have Texas Breakaway, Differences of Opinion: Houston and Stephen Austin, Crushing Rebellion at Alamo, Executions at Goliad: Santa Ana No-Quarter Strategy.
Session 6. Texican Exodus, Battle of San Jacinto, Denial of Slave State, Four Wisemen from Nez Perce or Flathead, Seeking the Great Spirit, Caravan of Fur Traders, Whitman Assisting Cholera Outbreak, South Pass Route, Narcissa: Need for Married Women, Whitman Assisting Cholera Outbreak, Whitmans and Spaldings: British Threat to Settlement, Beaver Trade Expiring, Wagon Cut into Cart, Transformation of Joe Meek and Newell into Farmers.
Session 7. Cayuse and Their Troubles with Whitmans, Whitman’s Experiences Back East, Whitman Continuing Back in Oregon, Increase in Wagon Trains, Acceptance of Shorter Route Creating Major Problems, Conflict with Prices of Dr. Whitman for Goods.
Session 8. Crossroads of Commerce: Independence, Missouri, The Concept of “Westering,” Impossible Terrain, Attack of Cayuse Indians, Massacre of Whitman and Others, First Organized Indian War in American West, Meek Returning to Washington, D.C. for Oregon Recognition.
Session 9. Marshall's Discovery Near Sacramento, Forty-Niners and Their Impact, the Pan, Sluice, and Cradle, Hydraulic Mining Hazards, Hordes of Gold Rushers from China, Mexico, South America, and Australia, Making Haste to California, Open City of San Francisco, Fires, Crimes, Vigilantes, Gambling.
Session 10. San Francisco and Affected Environs--Queen of Gold City, Clay and Calhoun Fighting over California Statehood, Legend of Joaquin Marietta, Governor Burnett and Indian Troubles.
Session 11. Row over Compromise of 1850, Anger of John Brown, Lincoln and Capture of Brown, Free Soil and Homestead Act, Slavery Advocates, Mormon Trek, Enter the Railroaders, Election of Lincoln, Central and Union Pacific Railroads, The Big 4: Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins, and Stanford, Union Pacific: Durant.
Session 12. The Mormon Trek (Mountain Meadows), Plight of Lakota Sioux, Black Hills Gold, Sand Creek Massacre, Battle of Little Big Horn, Horse and Plains Indians, Quanah Parker and Comanches.
Session 13. Captain Jack and Modocs, Chief Joseph with Nez Perce, Cattle Drives and Abilene, Development of Cowboys, End of Cattle Drives, John Wesley Powell and Promise of Grand Canyon.
Session 14.Conservation, Role of John Muir, Management of Western Water, Oklahoma Land Rush, Ghost Dancing, Wounded Knee, Jackson Turner’s Frontier, Legacy of the West.
Core Book
Brands, H.W. Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West. New York: Basic Books, 2019.
Selected Bibliography to Assist Topics in Certain Chapters
Ambrose, Stephen. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Bain, David Haward. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Viking, the Penguin Group, 1999.
Dary, David. The Oregon Trail: An American Saga. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
Gwynne, S.C. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, The Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. New York: Scribner, 2010.
Lavender, David. Let Me Be Free: The Nez Percé Tragedy. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992.
Limerick, Patricia Nelson. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987, 2006.
Morgan, Robert. Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion. New York: A Shannon Rawenel Book, Algonquin Books, 2012.
Stegner, Page. Winning the Wild West: The Epic Saga of the American Frontier 1800-1899. New York: The Free Press, 2002.
Sweeney, Edwin R. From Cochise to Geronimo: Chiricahua Apaches 1874-1886. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010.
Utley, Robet W. A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.