This era, which lasted only 50 years, became a real myth of American culture, laying the foundation of many modern things and processes. There is everything: cowboys, bandits, wars with Indians and with each other. But the real image of America of the XIX century does not look the same as we used to see in films. The wild west was really wild.
All that we knew about the Wild West from films and mass culture is not true
It so happened that the main source of information about the Wild West for modern man is western movies. In this case, it should be borne in mind that virtually all significant westerns were make a movie by the Italians, and not by the Americans. As a result, we see a serious change in real historical images.
First: the real cowboys were not heroes at all, but ordinary shepherds, driving cow herds back and forth across the prairies.
Secondly: the cowboys never fought with the Indians. "Redskins" oppressed all to whom not laziness: bandits, smugglers, more than others, of course, the American army, but not cowboys. And the cowboys never arranged those most famous duels in the middle of the central street of the town. And in general, their weapons are extremely rare.
The man was not considered a man without arms
The cowboys were ordinary shepherds, as is evident from the term itself, and their freedom was very relative, because in the majority they were hired by rich farmers and drove their cattle from Texas to the northwestern states for them. These distances were very long - a year, and even more on dusty, exhausting roads. Every third cowboy was black, and every fourth cowboy was an Indian. Meanwhile, among the descendants of Africa, the Indians and Mexicans, there were many famous cowboys. For example, Nat Love and John Ouar are blacks. Nat Love best managed the lasso, won the rodeo, and John Ouar was the best in the West, the tamer of wild horses.
Most of the wild West cowboys, by the way, died not from wounds in skirmishes in saloons or with Indians, but from the banal inflammation of the lungs, which was their peculiar "professional disease". There were no cowboys and such drunkards as they are portrayed in movies. It should be borne in mind that during the exhausting distillations of livestock shepherds were not particularly entertained.
Since we are talking about weapons. It was at the time of the Wild West was at all. Really at all. A man could not be considered a man if he did not have a "colt". Well, of course, it was necessary to be able to shoot it. With this, too, everything is not as rosy as in western movies
But the bulk of the population owned firearms at a level sufficient to hunt and protect their property. By the way, it is from the times of the Wild West in America that the tradition has traditionally been to keep weapons in the house.
The law was established not by the state, but by private offices
Those very gangsters and robbers of the Wild West in the large cities were quite rare guests. If only because in such cities the police really provided security. It should be understood that no warning shots and long negotiations were then practiced. If you robbed someone or even worse killed, they just shot you without warning. Therefore, most criminals preferred to live in rural areas.
Here they were quite successful in stealing livestock, robbing trains and banks. There were practically no official American authorities in such places. Order and law were given to private security agencies, the so-called "land offices." They traded their extraterritorial jurisdiction and coped with law enforcement functions.
Bandits supported the image of the Avengers
Not the best level of public order was due to the fact that many bandits successfully manipulated the fear of their pursuers. For example, they assured that if the sheriff pursued him, he would kill his whole family. He will kill day and night, hunt, follow the trail until he destroys all his relatives.
And, it must be said that sometimes these were not just empty threats. Therefore, many sheriffs preferred simply not to contact the bandits.
White did not always win in the battles with the Indians
