All language subtitles for Kevin.Costners.The.West.S01E08.Johnson.County.Wars.1080p.NOW.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

As the United States
prepares for its first centennial,

the war in the West
between native nations and the U.S.

is not yet over.
But its outcome seems clear:

the tribes that once thrived
in the Great Plains,

the Sioux, the Cheyenne,
the Arapaho,

are now mostly
confined to reservations.

Bison
are on the verge of extinction,

and the vast grassland
that once sustained them

now offers opportunity

for a new wave of Western
immigrants: cattle ranchers.

Their arrival
will reshape the northern plains,

igniting a life and death struggle
for the control of the open range.

People live on myths.

The myths that really stick
in the American experience

are those of the West.

The mountains were taller,
the deserts were harsher,

the snows were deeper.

American West conjures
wonder, possibility, opportunity.

The figure of the mountain man.

Notorious outlaws.
- The cowboy.

The discovery of gold
in California.

This train of wagons
trailing across the prairie.

Everybody has a reason
for wanting this land.

But most of that land
was already occupied.

We have been residents
for more than 10,000 years.

This is a clash
of two different ways of seeing life

and fighting for the future of
your homeland on the one side...

...and fighting for the destiny
of the New Republic

on the other side.

The history of the West
is a creation story.

It's the creation of
what we think of as modern America.

The West is a place
where anything is possible.

It is the essence
of the American dream.

The core of this is,
what are we to be as a nation?

The reckoning is coming.

The West is this canvas

on which American dreams
become larger than life.

In 1866,

the end of the Civil War
brings a new wave of settlers West,

seeking fresh opportunity

and fresh profit on government lands
across America's Great Plains.

This is federal property
known as the open range.

The grass is free at this point.

Settlers have come to recognise
that this enormous grassland,

which provided forage

for tens of millions
of head of buffalo,

might be just as good
for American cattle.

This realisation dawns
as Americans in the North

develop a new taste for beef,

thanks to a booming post-war economy
and fast-growing cities.

And it becomes very quickly
central to the American diet

and the American identity.
When immigrants come to America,

one of the first things
they write home is,

"You will not believe it,
but I'm having beef

twice, three times a week."
The first place

to meet this growing demand
is Texas.

While their owners
fought in the Civil War,

the cattle proliferated here.

When they returned, they found
some five million Longhorns

grazing freely on open lands.

This is chiefly
Spanish Criollo cattle

that's being interbred
with English Herefords,

known as the Texas Longhorn.

Growing demand
means serious money,

and a steer worth $4 in Texas
can sell for up to 50 in New York.

But first they must reach
the nation's meat-packing centre

in Chicago. That means driving herds
hundreds of miles across Texas

to the nearest rail hub
in Abilene, Kansas,

gruelling work
that falls on the shoulders

of what will become
an American icon.

The birth of the cowboy
is really the cattle drive:

massive herds of cattle

protected by cowboys to make sure
they kept moving.

You would round up in Texas,

and you would go up
the famous Chisholm Trail,

but you had to be hardy.

You'd get left behind
if you got sick.

And the reality is,
being a cowboy was a terrible job.

It was really hard.
You were poorly paid.

About 20%, maybe even more
of American cowboys

were African-Americans.

It's also work
that exposes cowboys

to wild animals, hostile natives.

You're absolutely expendable,
which is why you find

such a high proportion
of African-Americans in this work.

It is far less glamorous
than Hollywood would memorialise it.

Today there are a lot of people
who wear cowboy hats

who don't go anywhere near cows
or horses, but people live on myths.

Built
on the backs of cowboys,

the cattle business booms,
and with the completion

of theTranscontinental Railroad
in 1869,

transporting beef across the country
gets easier

and even more profitable.

One of the most remarkable things
was connecting the East to the West

with the Transcontinental Railroad,

and you can't exaggerat
e how significant that is.

Before the railroad,

it costs as much
to send a ton of goods

30 miles overland as it does
to send it 3,000 miles

across the ocean.
- That changes everything.

Now, people moving West,
they weren't moving laboriously

by the wagon,
now they can get on the train.

That obviously opens up
an enormous field of opportunity

for ordinary families moving west,
but also for big businesses.

Thanks to the railroad,
cattle ranching soon expands

north from Texas
all the way to Wyoming,

where livestock can graze freely
across the open range.

The open range is grazing lands
that aren't fenced,

and so they're not staked out
by any particular divide,

and that means
the cattle can roam freely.

If you had the resources
to acquire a herd

and bring it to a place
where it was free range,

you were sittin' pretty.

In 1877, Americans
hoping to prosper in the cattle boom

are encouraged
by a new Congressional law,

the Desert Lands Act,
aimed to boost settlement

in the high, dry plains.

The Act lets anyone
buy up to 320 acres of land

for just $1.25 an acre.

It was designed
to fill the American West

with honest people
who would sink down roots

and have their families,
build a school, some churches.

Goes back to Thomas Jefferson.

The smallholder is the heart
of the American Republic.

Soon hundreds
of homesteaders flock to Wyoming,

hoping to make it
as cattle ranchers.

The idea is that if you can
get your cows out there

and fatten them up to feed
on this open grassland,

that's gonna increase your profits.
- Didn't have to pay for anything.

The animals take care of themselves.

They're wandering around,
but you need to know

which cattle are yours, which belong
to your friend, or enemy.

The solution
is cattle branding.

You burned a symbol
in the animal's side, and people

knew it was yours.

But branding
is not a perfect solution

on the open range,
where herds could interbreed,

making it hard to know
who owns which unbranded calves.

These unmarked calves
are called mavericks,

and according to common practice,
if you find one, and brand it,

it's yours.

It's a long tradition
where if you find stray cattle

that are not branded,
what was called a maverick,

you can take that calf
and give it your own brand.

It is basically a free calf.

By 1880, a calf is one of
the most valuable assets in America.

A herd of 10,000 cattle
can net a yearly profit

worth $20 million today.
As fortunes amass,

the cattle business changes.

The cattle industry in Wyoming
begins with small-time operators,

but very quickly,
larger ranches are funded

with corporate money, with stocks
sold in New York and Boston

and Philadelphia, and sold
in Edinburgh and Berlin,

because of
this global industrial market.

These ranch owners
get a reputation as aristocrats.

They're called the cattle barons.
- But surprisingly,

the great cattle barons
didn't own any land.

They might've owned a tiny bit,
but they were just extractors

using the convenience
of the public domain

to line their pockets.
They were living the good life

with cigars, and brandy,
and amiable women, let's say,

in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Thanks to such easy profits,

Wyoming's capital, Cheyenne,
builds its own Millionaires Row

in the 1880s. Its streets are lit up

by some of America's
first electric lights.

In 1882, it becomes
the wealthiest city per capita

in the world.

Wyoming's elite ranchers

are determined
to maintain their wealth and power.

The most powerful Wyoming ranchers

create the Wyoming Stock Growers'
Association, and in the whole state,

cattle-ranching
is the foundation of power.

The Association
functionally becomes the government

of the territory of Wyoming.
Then in 1886,

Wyoming's cattle ranchers
are dealt a terrible blow

in what comes to be known
as the Great Die-Up.

Winter of 1886-1887
was one of the worst winters

ever to hit the Plains.
Cattle died by the thousands.

People would find vast herds
frozen to death.

Investors in London, in Scotland,
in Boston, New York,

all say,
"This is not a good business.

We don't wanna be involved.
Liquidate your herds,

send them to Chicago. We're out."
Ranches go under.

Cattle industry's in freefall.

Any cattle barons
left standing

are now ready to fight
for every last dollar.

The great cattle barons
get the legislature of Wyoming

to pass a law
saying that every maverick

belongs to the Wyoming
Stock Growers' Association,

so that anytime
there's an unidentified calf

it can't be claimed
by one of the homesteaders

or a small rancher.

The Maverick Act
made the possession

of unbranded cattle illegal.
- So the small ranchers

are breaking the law
every time they pull

one of their own calves
back from the herd.

The Wyoming
Stock Growers' Association

hire stock detectives
who will patrol the range

to make sure mavericking policies
are being enforced.

And the penalty
for stealing cattle is death.

As tensions rise
between Wyoming's cattle barons

and its small ranches
over mavericks,

a new technology makes things
even more challenging.

Advertised as lighter than air,
stronger than whiskey,

and cheaper than dust: barbed wire.

The devil's rope,
as the indigenous people call it,

will allow people
to secure their homestead.

It's dry in the American West,
and there's not a lot of wood,

so it's hard to build a fence,
until the invention of barbed wire

makes it pretty easy to do so.
- You can just

unspool this barbed wire to ensure
your livestock stayed in,

and nobody came and stole from you.
It was the hot invention.

At the same time,

it undermines the whole notion
of the open range system.

All of a sudden,
there is no unfettered movement

of grazing cattle.
- Everything was now cut

and parcelled
into these chunks of land

guarded by sharp wire.

The fences threaten
the cattle barons' livelihoods,

which depend on
free access to the grass.

The cattle barons
are determined to take action.

Two independent ranchers
are the first ones in their sights:

Jim Averell and Ellen Watson.

Jim Averell and Ella Watson
were beginning to prosper a little,

running a ranch for cattle.

Ella Watson was very angry
that the cattle barons,

the Stock Growers' Association,

was starting to make it impossible

for her and her husband
to make a living.

But their homestead
is right on the river,

a prime watering hole

in the middle of
a cattle baron's range.

It was fenced, and so
he couldn't use that land anymore,

land that had made him rich.
He needed to get them off that land.

And so the cattle barons decided
to eliminate Averell and Watson,

so they send out a hit squad.

The moral legitimacy
is on the side of the homesteaders,

and none of the legitimacy

is on the side of the cattle barons,
misusing power for their own greed.

Averell and Watson
are accused of stealing cattle,

a practice called rustling.

And the stock detective
s take them from their ranch...

...and they lynched them.

Extra-judicial hanging.
The cattle barons believed

that this is
the first important step

in warning people in Johnson County
to desist from rustling.

For the people who knew
Watson and Averell, this is murder.

The powerful cattle barons
have money,

and they controlled
most of the newspapers.

So the headlines
in most of the Cheyenne papers

present, "Rustlers are lynched,
and they deserved it,

they were thieves".
- Ellen Watson is 'Cattle Kate,'

a notorious prostitute
being paid with stolen cattle.

And that Averell was her pimp.

She is branded
as an outlaw,

when the truth of the matter is,
she was a woman trying to get by.

The news terrifies
small homesteaders in Wyoming,

but some realise
if they want to survive,

they must band together
and fight back.

One of them is Nate Champion.

Nate Champion grows up in Texas.

He works in various places
as a ranch hand,

and cowboy riding the ranges.
He knew how the business worked.

Champion moved
to Johnson County in the 1870s

to set up his own ranch,
and has grown his herd

to over 200 cattle, but right now,
the future looks bleak.

Homesteaders fear being murdered,
or falsely prosecuted

for fencing off their own land.

People are dying,
and there's a real climate of fear.

Nate Champion's one of the few

that does not get
completely scared off by this.

Champion
and some of his compatriots

realised they weren't gonna be able
to stay in business

unless they could
break the cattle barons' power,

and so they establish
their own association,

the Northern Wyoming
Stock Growers' Association.

It's gonna have its own rules,
and its own round-up,

and crucially that round-up
is gonna be

one month before the Wyoming
Stock Growers' Association round-up.

Champion
and the homesteaders know the risk,

and going up
against the powerful Stock Growers

is a make or break decision.

The big-time ranchers know
this is an existential threat.

If this round-up
happens before them,

there's gonna be
a lot of unbranded cattle

that they think should be theirs

going to Champion and friends.
They must stop it happening.

So the cattle barons
hire Frank Canton to lead the effort

to suppress the round-up.

Now Canton, he had
a kind of chequered past:

murder, robbery,
all sorts of crimes.

But he reinvented himself,

first as a sheriff
in Johnson County,

and them as the henchman
for the cattle barons.

He is in cahoots
with big stock growers,

and ultimately
becomes a stock detective.

In the spring of 1882,

Canton and his men
find Nate Champion at his cabin.

Nate Champion is in bed.

Champion reaches under his pillow
and pulls up a revolver...

...and starts shooting.

There's a gunfight.

Champion hits a couple of them.

They flee...

...and they're not able
to get Nate Champion.

Once the coast is clear,

Champion
finds a literal smoking gun.

He does the minimal forensics
to realise

that it belongs to Frank Canton,
a key player for the cattle barons.

So now Nate Champion
is in a position

to bring down Frank Canton.

This is a real problem
for the Stock Growers' Association.

If one of these stock detectives
ends up in court,

they will be forced to testify
against their employers.

Nate Champion could blow the lid off
the whole thing.

In 1890,

as tensions between homesteaders
and stock growers intensify,

Wyoming enters the Union
as the 44th state,

with Cheyenne as its capital.

Cattle barons are appointed
to important government positions,

hold meetings in the Capitol,

and have a hand in electing
the state's Governor

and its two Senators.

All three of them are Republicans.

President Benjamin Harrison
is also a Republican,

so these are people
who know each other,

so they're optimistic
that they'll get co-operation.

As the cattle barons
consolidate their power,

the nation itself
is in the midst of a fight

between workers and the millionaires
who employ them.

Thousands of miles away
in Homestead, Pennsylvania,

Andrew Carnegie is in the midst of
crushing the Steel Workers' Union.

He sees these unionised workers

as people that are undermining
his ability to make his millions,

and so he does everything
in his power to crush them,

including hiring
a private army of 300 Pinkertons.

Mark Twain described the years
between 1875 and 1900

as the Gilded Age, a result of
the Industrial Revolution,

where people at the top
enjoyed huge wealth and power

at the expense of factory workers
in the East

and small farmers in the West.

These enormous natural resources
of the country, this vast amount,

the whole lot of it,
is coming into the ownership

of a smaller group of people.

At this point, the wealthy
have the power

to be able to incite violence
at a mass level

against the smaller guys,
and at times they do.

As it is in the East,
so it goes in the West.

But the cattle barons
go even further

and hire private armies
to take out their worst enemies.

The cattle barons make a list
of 70 individuals

up in Johnson County
that must be eliminated,

by which I mean eliminated,

and the number one
they want to get is Nate Champion.

The list included manyhomesteaders

in Nate Champion's Northern Wyoming
Stock Growers' Association,

and anyone
whose homestead is in the way.

This is not just
a bunch ofranchers or hired hands

or cowboys. The kill list is of
prominent people of Johnson County,

sheriffs and judges
and city council members

and newspapermen.
So it's a civil war, effectively.

The Stock Growers' Association
decide they need to get hired guns.

They recruit 25 desperadoes,
gunmen from Texas,

with the promise of $5 a day
for expenses

and $50 for every rustler
that they kill.

Now, to us,
they look like hitmen.

To them, they were bringing justice
to Johnson County,

which to them
had descended into anarchy.

People in Johnson County
are gonna call them invaders,

because they're coming
to basically invade Johnson County,

to take over, and to kill people.

The hired guns
travel from Texas by a private train

to meet the cattle barons
and Frank Canton.

They're then equipped with horses,
with rifles.

They have a wagon that's got tons
of ammunition and food

and even dynamite, and off they go,

headed for
the heart of Johnson County.

On the way, they find out
that Nate Champion is staying

on the KC Ranch, which is right
on the way to Buffalo,

and they thought
if they could ambush Champion,

they would get one of
their key suspects off their list,

cutting the head off the snake.

As they near the KC Ranch,
the invaders cut the telegraph lines

to prevent news of their arrival
from getting to Johnson County.

On April 9th, 1892,

the cattle barons' vigilante army
quietly surrounds the KC Ranch.

Champion
is staying at the KC Ranch

along with one of his friends
and two other men.

Two of the guys go out
to get water, and don't come back.

Nate Champion
and his friend, Nick Ray,

realise that, "Where are they?
Something's going on here."

Ray decides to go look.

Suddenly Champion,
he knows what's going on.

Can he get out alive?

He's outgunned here by 50 to one,
but he actually hits three of them,

and he does manage to keep them
at bay for several hours.

And so a stand-off ensues.
He was holed up in his cabin.

There wasn't a lot he could do.
He could give up,

but he knows
that might mean certain death.

Nate Champion is under siege,
and yet he starts to take a diary,

write what's happening.
- "I see 12 or 15 men.

One of 'em looks like Frank Canton."

Even though he's very alone,
he feels like

he's part of something bigger.
- He's gonna provide evidence

that the cattlemen
were behind the attack,

so that if he was gonna die,
he wasn't gonna die in vain.

At one point,
a friend of his rides by

and exchanges gunfire
with these hired invader gunmen.

He realises that something
really bad is going on here,

and so he galloped back to Buffalo
to get help.

Frank Canton
and his hitmen

suspect that rescuers from Buffalo
will soon be on their way,

and they'd better get Champion fast.

They take this cart,
which they light on fire,

and then
push very firmly toward the cabin.

Cabin catches on fire.
Nate Champion is shooting, writing.

"The house is all fired. Boys,
there's bullets coming in like hail.

I don't think they intend
to let me get away this time."

He's surrounded
by dozens of killers.

There's no way out.

Astonishing that he writes a journal
at that time.

"I think I'll make a break for it.

They're still shooting
all around the house.

Goodbye, boys,
if I never see you again."

Champion knows
this isn't gonna end well for him.

He makes a run for the ravine.

There are all these people
shooting at him.

Nate Champion... is gunned down
in a hail of bullets.

Canton finds Nate's diary.
He tears out a page,

and leaves a warning on Nate's body.

That note
is a key part of the story,

because killing Nate Champion,
in a way it's an act of terrorism.

More than about enforcing the law
or finding justice,

it's about scaring people,
telling people what'll happen,

even if they think they're gonna
get away with it,

about what'll happen
if they cross the Association.

Johnson County
is not gonna be welcome

to people like Nate Champion
anymore.

When Nate Champion's friends
discover that he's been murdered,

they sound the alarm
and go after the invaders.

The Sheriff of Johnson County,
Red Angus,

is able to round up 250 men.

It's gonna be the townspeople
and the homesteaders

against the big cattle ranchers.
Canton and his men

have lost the element of surprise.

Now
the whole county is out to get them.

Frank Canton's men
decided they would hole up

at the TA Ranch to figure out
what they were gonna do

now their plan had fallen apart.
Sheriff Angus

and his posse track
Canton's invaders to the ranch.

Homesteaders surround the ranch.
For the second time in as many days,

we were gonna have a siege.

The invaders, to save themselves,
barricade themselves in,

set up sharpshooter positions,

and this begins
a several-day stand-off.

Ranches at this time
were designed to be defended,

as the earliest ranches were part of
taking land violently

from native peoples.

Now, the thing to know
about these kind of showdowns

in the American West is, we all have
this image from TV, movies,

everybody's an incredible shot,
they can shoot a bird outta the sky.

Really,
people's guns were unreliable.

A lot of times people were shooting
and nobody was getting hit.

The siege at the TA Ranch
takes place over several days,

and while that's happening,
posse is growing,

and it's gonna get
up to around 400 people.

But the invaders have create
d a problem for themselves.

The original plan was to surprise
everyone in Johnson County,

and part of that plan had been
cutting the telegraph lines.

That had seemed like a good idea
at the time, but was a mistake:

they had no way to get word back
that they were in trouble.

Trapped and surrounded,
Canton manages to send a runner

out through the blockade
to plead for help.

He reaches the Governor of Wyoming,

who sends a telegram
to Washington, DC.

Meanwhile,

the people of Johnson County
are moving these siege weapons

towards the cabin.
They'll send in dynamite.

It's gonna be the death
of the entire invading army.

This is going to be a massacre.

In Johnson County,

Wyoming, a simmering conflict

between cattle barons
and small ranchers

has erupted into violence.

Hired assassin Frank Canton
and his men

faced a posse of angry citizens
bent on revenge,

but he has managed to send out
a plea for help to powerful allies

thousands of miles away.

The two Senators from Wyoming,

alerted by the telegraph
that this is happening,

literally go from their homes
in Washington DC to the White House

in the middle of the night.

President Harrison,
who's at home asleep,

they get someone to go in
and wake him up

and tell him there's an insurrection
underway, a violent insurrection

in Wyoming.

And the word insurrection
is a powerful one for Americans

in the 19th century,
as all of these people

had lived through the Civil War,

and they feared more than anything

a loss of authority
of the United States government,

possible meaningful insurrection.
Realising the stakes,

President Harrison wastes no time.

Benjamin Harrison sends a telegram
to Fort McKinney,

which is in Johnson County,

and the US military
rides to the rescue of the invaders.

President Benjamin Harrison's

from one of the oldest aristocratic
Virginia plantation families.

His great-great-grandfather
was one of the Founding Fathers.

His grandfather,
William Henry Harrison,

was also briefly a President,

and so we see this aristocrat
helping out the cattle barons.

This is a pretty tight-knit group,

and the cattle barons
have a lot of influence.

At the TA ranch,
literally the cavalry arrives,

a visible form
of the United States' authority.

Canton
surrenders to the US cavalry.

He's lost two of his men,

both killed
by tripping over their own guns.

Canton and 45 others are escorted
back to Cheyenne,

where they're put in jail
to await trial for murder.

Homesteaders believe
that the United States government

is gonna bring those men to justice,
that they'll get justice

for people like Champion,
and believe they can create a world

in which they have a say.
- They find the hit list

of the 70 names of people
who were to be assassinated.

That's
a pretty good piece of evidence.

We might imagine
that's a smoking gun,

but we also have to remember
the cattle barons' perspective:

it's not a smoking gun
if those people

are, in fact, thieves. They believed
they were doing the right thing,

for them. The miscarriage of justice
was the attempt

to convict these people

for rightfully ridding the county
of cattle thieves.

The cattle barons
hire expensive attorneys

to defend the invaders,
but they don't stop there.

In the weeks that follow,
witnesses disappear,

trial dates are pushed back,
until eventually

the county runs out of money.

They remain in custody
for approximately four months.

At the end of that time period,
they are given back their weapons

and released
on their own recognisance.

They're all acquitted. Nobody
has to pay a price for the violence.

They go to a big party
that's thrown for them

at the Cheyenne Club,
and they're feted with champagne

and given commemorative rings,
treated as heroes.

In the end, all the men
who participate in the invasion

are paid for what they did,
for their time in jail,

and for their involvement
in the killings.

And are even given a bonus
for getting Nate Champion.

The hired gunman
get back on the train,

go back to Texas,
and they get away with it.

And it's immediately clear
justice is never going to be done,

that this is
official military cover-up

extending to the highest reaches
of the American government,

to the President himself,
protecting capitalists

who are illegally trying
to protect their way of life

against legitimate homesteaders.
We call it the Johnson County War.

It's a civil war, and it's one of
the greatest miscarriages of justice

in American history.

Most of the newspaper coverage
of this Johnson County War

is heavily
in favour of the cattle barons,

and depicts the homesteaders
as, you know, crazy, violent,

you know, bandidos
that need to be suppressed

in the interest of law and order.

The wealthy and influential
had power in Johnson County,

and could control the narrative
to justify their actions.

Johnson County War
is just one example of many

where, in various parts of the West,
at various times,

the little guys show up and begin
to make a life for themselves,

but the rich and powerful,

with their capital
and access to government,

gain a tremendous advantage,
and the little guys end up losing.

While the cattle barons
escape justice

for their invasion
of Johnson County,

they can't stem the tide
of new settlers

carving up the open range.

This is kind of the death knell
of the cattle baron vision.

There are too many people coming in
and starting farming,

too many coming in
and starting smaller ranches

across the plains.
There's not enough free land

to scatter your cattle far and wide,
so ranching becomes smaller scale.

It also becomes less profitable.
- The Association

has somewhat of a change of heart

and they decide to admit
these small cattle operators

into their association.

The era of the open range ends,

and smaller family ranches
become more common.

It's this moment
where suddenly

there's a sense of, "Wow,
maybe the resources have run out,

and now we're fighting over them
among ourselves."

For some people
who are still making a go of it

in places like Wyoming,
this is the time

to seize the last opportunity
that is presented by the West.

Near the end
of the 19th century,

the US government
makes a surprising announcement

that signals the end of an era.

In 1890, the Census Department
tells Americans

the frontier is effectively closed.
- The frontier at that point

is defined by two people
per square mile of land,

and so the U.S. has reached
a population that's beyond that.

The frontier as a category
has now been removed

from the census forms,
because it's no longer useful.

The closing of the frontier
has an important impact

on the American psyche,

because the American people
have conquered the West

with spectacular success.
Who will we be,

now that our Manifest Destiny
has been settled,

now that
we've achieved this ultimate goal?

There's no longer
the sense of continuous abundance,

continuous opportunity,

so it's a defining moment
in American history.

As it enters
the 20th century,

America has expanded to 44 states,

and its size has quadrupled

since
the end of the Revolutionary War,

but native nations have been pushed
into ever smaller territories.

The most astonishing fact
of the 19th century in America

is the rapidity
with which white people

took the entire continent.
Jefferson actually believed

it might take 800 or 900 years
for us to reach the Mississippi

or the Missouri. In one century,

this juggernaut
just overwhelmed everything.

In that process,
a complex and enduring myth is born.

We, as a country,
grew up very, very fast.

Our distinct American character
was a result of this march westward.

When people went west,
they could start over again.

The self-reliance, the perseverance,

and the determination it took
to succeed in the West

became part of our conception
of what it means to be an American.

An important thing to understand

about why Americans
are so fascinated

by stories about the West
is that fascination starts

in the 1890s. Americans are trying
to tell a collective story

about who they are as a country,
stories of cattle ranching,

settlement, of railroads,
of homesteads.

It gave all Americans something
they felt like they had a stake in.

In many ways, the idea of the West

is really the birth
of the American Dream...

...pursuing opportunity,
seeking a new life.

But part of that
is that there are consequences...

...and there are many other people

that pay the price of ambition.

In the end,
the legacy of the creation

of the American West,
and the story of Western expansion

is a legacy of destruction,
of conquest,

of dispossession. But also
there's so much to inspire us.

The story of the West is heroic.

There are the peacemaker heroes.

There are
the natives of the resistance.

And even though we have
a kind of more sombre view

of the heroics today,
because we know the cost...

...it was an age of heroes.

Our country
is a beautiful, magnificent,

abundant place to live.

And we're still here
to tell the story.

Eventually, the open space
that so many battled over

is fenced off piece by piece,
contained by barbed wire,

and joined to the East
by railways and roads.

The frontier, so much a part of
the American Dream,

is finally closed.
But when we look back,

we can see the story of the West

is much more than just a story
of American settlement.

There's a legacy of conquest,
of course,

a fact that we should never
fail to include,

but we have to also recognise
the resourcefulness it took

for our ancestors
to cross this country.

It's that legacy of courage and hope
that defines America today.

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