What Was the Wild West？最新章节_Janet B. Pascal著

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017941418

ISBN 9780399544248 (paperback)

ISBN 9780399544255 (ebook)

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What Was the Wild West?

In 1886, crowds gathered in New York’s Madison Square Garden to applaud one of the decade’s biggest traveling shows—“Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.” The cast included real cowboys and hundreds of Native Americans. Over the course of two thrilling hours, the audience saw the story of “how the West was won.”

Indians on horseback hunted live buffalo. Bandits attacked an actual stagecoach. The famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley shot a cigar right out of her husband’s mouth. Cowboys rode bucking broncos and roped cattle. In the end, a band of Indian warriors attacked a pioneer settlement and were soundly defeated.

Buffalo Bill Cody, who ran the show, was a genuine Wild West hero. As a teenager, he rode a horse across the prairie for the Pony Express mail service. He scouted in the Indian Wars. He earned his nickname by killing 4,282 buffalo in eighteen months to feed workers who were building a railroad across the country.

Buffalo Bill’s show was wildly popular. At the world’s fair in Chicago in 1893, millions of people came to see it. When it toured Europe, England’s Queen Victoria was a fan. The show was largely responsible for the popular legend of the Wild West that movies, TV shows, and novels still draw on. The real story of the western frontier, however, is much more complicated.