How violent was the old west dbq essay example

(Document 6) From 1860 to 1890 the U. S. government had thousands of conflicts and small altercations with the natives. Among these people were the Apache, Sioux, and the Cheyenne. . Rumors of arable land and gold drew droves of white settlers into the Dakotas. One major battle recorded here in 1876 was the battle of Little Bighorn.

Some Americans believe that the tradition of violence can be traced back to the American West. For more than a century, American novels, films, radio, and finally televi- sion showed the American West as a wild and woolly place - cowboy gunfights, Indian attacks, massive buffalo kills, rough and tumble mining towns.

In this DBQ violence means actual physical acts car- ried out in order to kill or injure another person. A Brief Background of the Old West Before 1854, the Great Plains was known to Americans as "The Great American Desert," a vast prairie that would never be suited for anyone except buffalo and the Plains Indians.

Due to this, violence and severe cuts to the buffalo and Indian populations became ubiquitous throughout the Plains. The Old West was extremely violent due to the harm caused occupationally, environmentally, and racially.