Let's talk about the Wild West Veeky Forums
Let's talk about the Wild West Veeky Forums
Jason Bell
Luke Kelly
The "Wild West" was actually quite mild t-b-h. Rampant gunfighting and Indian raids weren't part of daily life.
Andrew Wilson
Its hot
Its dry
Everyone just steals and rapes
Filled now with fundamentalists and swarthy Mexicans
Its basically American Arabia
Ayden Johnson
There were very, very, very few Mexicans in the US before the 1960s change in immigration law. I will never understand this meme that America has always had a giant Mexican population.
William Collins
The only lawman worth his salt. Wyatt Earp was a reprobate. This guy is so badass, he rarely used a gun to settle disputes.
Connor Nelson
This. Low population densities meant that violence was actually very rare, consider that the most enduring legend of the period is the shootout at the OK corral, in which barely a handful of people actually died.
Aiden Ross
Plus when nearly everyone owns rifles, picking a fight seems like a terrible idea.
Pistol ownership was actually rare in the West until after the Civil War. After the Civil War, the government sold a huge number of excess pistols, and the price fell in half.
t. a guy who LARPs as a cowboy at our local museum and reads the old records for fun
Logan Collins
People assume that there were quite a few Mexicans due to the Mexican Cession when there were less than 300,000 (at the upper estimate) across the entire cession at the time of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. For reference that's less than half a person per square mile. It's just a common misconception.
Tyler Watson
How do I get in on a museum gig?
Cooper Gray
was still pretty violent by modern standards, especially in/around the boom-towns that grew up around the mining or cattle industries.
the amount of indian violence varied a lot depending on where and when but yeah it was really only a very small part of the development of the West.
big thing people forget is that the Old West was very much a product of the industrial revolution. California, Nevada, Montana and Colorado all had economies based around heavy industry for most of the late 19th and early 20th century.
"There Will Be Blood" is one of my favorite Westerns.
Gabriel Jenkins
A lot of those Spanish-speaking populations in the South-west (New Mexico, SoCal) were even more of their own Spanish/Native hybrids than Mexican. Mexico largely ignored Del Norte and by the 1840s the area was much less Hispanic then it had been in the late 1700s.
Hunter Diaz
In Little Big Man they said he used non-lethal takedowns because he was meanspirited and wanted to humiliate people.
Jackson Collins
Another misconception is that old west towns let you carry guns wherever, when in fact a lot of towns had very strict gun control laws passed that prohibited open carry or in some cases, even possession of a handgun.
Jayden Mitchell
*tips ten gallon hat*
m'pardner
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Easton Watson
The wildest west was down in Mexico. And unlike the US, their frontier didn't "settle down" after the railroads came through and cities were built - it exploded into savage guerilla warfare during the Mexican Revolution and didn't quiet down a bit until the 1930's.
Ryan Martin
After America acquired it's South West from Mexico the Hispanic people stayed. The Hispanic influenced remained. During Mexico's many social upheavals prior to the sixties, like the revolution, the American Southwest has always been favored for immigration purposes.
Blake Thomas
It has more to do with an incident in which he shot a kid, he was traumatized and decided on his fists as an alternative.
Chase Thompson
>modern standards
This is an absurd standard, because literally everywhere and everywhen is violent by modern standards. By the standards of the time, comparing the Wild West with (say) the East Coast of the USA, levels of violence were extremely low, due to the very low population densities and the near universal custom of owning firearms.
Liam Collins
Shit was overblown. But I still love it.
The Searchers is still my favorite movie.
Logan Ross
Now boy I tell you them's some strong wild tunes you be playin there
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Aiden Gonzalez
im fixin t' listen t' some great tunes
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