Post Six: The Way to the West

Elliot West gave me new insight on how interconnected life was in the American West - a new perspective for the American Indian, White migratory settlers, and the ecological balance of nature they encountered while occupying the same space on the Central Plains. The nature of the seasons, such as winter forcing Indians into river valleys (microenvironments) because the grasslands on the open plains would not yield nutritional value to their horses. When these winter lodgings became crowded with other Indians as whites pushed up the same river valleys enroute to other parts of the West, an ecological crisis occurred. During the summer whites with herds of cattle, mules, and their horses decimated the river valleys of grasses and timber making them progressively useless to the Indians over the years between 1840-1860. Here and throughout the book, Elliot West used the relatively new science of ecology to explain a dynamic of interconnectedness that previously was not drawn out for earlier historians.

Along with the White man's culpability into the Indian's demise, Elliot West did a good job in demonstrating that the Indian's tribes migration onto the Central Plains during this time competed for resources (including Bison) and accelerated their own inability to live off the land. Cheyenne, Arapaho, Lakota, Pawnee, Plains Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa fought for resources amongst themselves. I found it revealing that it was their collective peace treaty of 1840 that also led to the Bison's decimation due to an "open season" on all Bison in sight. Even Western Mythology seems to accept blame for white buffalo hunter slaughtering the Buffalo nearly into extinction.

Indian trade would also be a factor I never realized that led to the Indians decline. Classic warfare with Whites and diseases are prominent in literature. However the rush to acquire more goods by accelerating the killing of the Buffalo at the rate of 43 bison to 1 Cheyenne warrior was telling. (The ratio of 6 bison to one Indian was the norm for sustaining life in the tribes.) Then too was the propensity to trade for alcohol and firearms to fight other tribes before buying food for their own people was telling of the economic conditions the Indians chose for themselves. It was a different West that Elliot West was telling, apart from the classic tales and history told in earlier times. I enjoyed it.