Old West Dbq

Although many consider the Old West violent and bad, it was actually a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The Old West began in the 1860’s up until 1890. It was also called the
Great Plains and stretched from west of the Mississippi River all the way to Rocky Mountains. Many Americans traveled out west in search of adventure and a fresh start. There were a variety of job opportunities available, such as becoming a farmer, miner, or railroad worker. In the Old West, violence was prevalent, but people’s interpretation of the amount of violence that occurred has been skewed by Hollywood which leaves people to wonder how violent the Old West actually was. The Old West was in fact violent, but not as brutal as Hollywood portrays it; the violence
The creation of the Transcontinental Railroad played a big role in the origin of the violence that transpired in the Old West because it lead to the rapid growth of cities and population which created an immense amount of conflict and violence. In Document A, it depicts a map of the Great Plains and the route in which the railroad was built. Also on this map, it displays
In Document E, it illustrates the extreme conditions that existed in Benton, Wyoming, and not anywhere else. For example, the murder rate was exceptionally high, averaging a murder a day.” Also, this town was not properly governed, “almost everybody [was] dirty, many filthy with the marks of lowest vice…it fairly festered in corruption, disorder and death,” and there was, “gambling and drinking.” This explains that within this specific town, there was a lot of violence and misconduct present. The statistics for this town, a murder every day, contribute to the overall average amount of violence in the Old West which means that although the average number of homicides is high, part of the data comes from specific towns, such as this one. Not every town in the west had a superfluity of murders, gambling, and drinking which proves that the violence in the west occurred in certain towns that were poorly governed and allowed their civilians to act so disorderly. In Document J, it shows the number of reported murders in the Old West in 1867 through 1882. In 1867, 219 Indians were killed by U.S. military, and in 1876, 265 soldiers were killed by Indians, and 72 Indians were killed by the military. Other than those two years, the number of deaths remained minimal, including zero Indians killed