Original subtitles

Previously on "The American West"...

In the decade since the Civil War,

America has been desperate to settle the West.

But the effort has been met with conflict

- at nearly every turn. - Who's the cashier?

Outlaws like Jesse James

have terrorized railroads and banks

across the Midwest...

leading to one of the largest manhunts

in American history.

But Jesse James gets away

and goes into hiding for two years.

In the Great Plains, the United States military

looks to defeat the armies of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

and secure the gold

in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

But after they're defeated at the Battle of Little Bighorn,

the U.S. government sees the extermination of the buffalo

as a way of starving the Lakota nation

into submission.

After their victory at Little Bighorn...

...Lakota warriors led by Crazy Horse

continue to fight for their land.

Hold the line!

But despite winning small battles

against the U.S. Army,

the struggles for the Indians

are only getting worse.

General William Tecumseh Sherman's strategy

of exterminating the buffalo is working...

as more and more Indians face starvation.

Lakota leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

are running out of options.

After years of leading the Lakota people together,

Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse part ways.

Sitting Bull leads 5,000 Indians north to Canada...

while Crazy Horse stays behind

with fewer than 1,000 warriors,

determined to remain on their rightful land.

The Native Americans pressed on despite the violence

and the decimation of their tribes and their culture.

They were persistent in wanting to maintain their beliefs,

and they pressed on because they had courage.

With the Indian population depleted,

the U.S. government moves full force

into the Black Hills,

allowing them to take the land

and the gold discovered there three years earlier.

By 1880, the area is yielding

over $7 million in gold and silver annually,

over $170 million in today's dollars.

This is just this moment of extreme opportunity

to just go out there and strike it rich.

And a lot of men and women were able to do that.

And people who are not seeing the opportunities

that they saw in prior generations

see the West as that great promised land.

As gold pours into the economy,

the U.S. is the first country

to pull itself out of the global depression.

And over the next decade,

more than 12 million immigrants arrive in the United States,

looking to take full advantage of the country's prosperity.

But the population boom brings a problem...

millions of new mouths to feed.

The solution is found in the West.

The wide-open spaces provide the perfect spot

for a new American industry...

...cattle.

There were lots of cattle in Texas

on the border of Mexico for a long time.

But it wasn't until the railroads

that they could be moved out to the plains

and shipped from there to hungry people in the East.

Cattle that would sell for ten dollars a head in Texas

are worth forty dollars a head on the East Coast.

This booming industry breeds a new sort of businessman...

the cattle baron.

Cattle barons buy up huge tracts of grazing land

stretching from Kansas to California.

Those land grabs presented unbelievable opportunities.

We're talking about sometimes millions of acres,

of these farms, and thousands and thousands of head of cattle.

But with so much product

spread across such a vast, unguarded area,

herds belonging to cattle barons

are becoming a major target...

for outlaws.

And in the territory of New Mexico,

one cattle rustler will become

one of the most notorious men in the West.

He's born Henry McCarty...

but the world will come to know him

as Billy the Kid.

His story begins 2,000 miles to the east.

Billy the Kid came from Hell's Kitchen in New York,

and there's a beautiful sort of irony

to the idea of a kid from the slums of New York

becoming this icon of the Wild West.

Billy never knew his father.

In the early 1870s,

he and his mother move to New Mexico.

But within a year of arriving, she dies...

and Billy is all alone in an unknown land.

For years he wanders without direction.

What'll you have?

Whiskey.

Leave the bottle.

There were all kinds of cowboys.

There were ones that were loud

and drunk and a pain,

and then there's the quiet ones who didn't say anything.

Always sat in the corner.

Those are the ones you had to watch out for.

To get by, Billy turns to the one thing he can do best.

Billy the Kid was superb with a gun.

He used every spare dollar he had

to buy ammunition for practice.

He understood very early on

that the gun was his ticket to success.

And he's not shy about using it.

Armed with his trusted weapon,

Billy starts stealing cattle from wealthy ranchers

and selling them one county over.

Self-reliance is one of the more salient features

of the Old West because it was tough.

And in those kinds of environment,

the tough are the ones that survive.

Where are ya headed?

Into Lincoln.

I'm just rounding up some strays.

Those cattle you have belong to John Tunstall.

Well, then John Tunstall can come and take them back himself.

Be in your best interest to let me get on my way.

That's not how this works.

Doesn't look like you have much of a choice.

Young cattle thief Billy the Kid

has just been captured by a local rancher

he tried to steal from.

Most men shoot cattle rustlers on the spot.

You still haven't told me who you're workin' for.

I don't work for anyone.

Son, in Lincoln County,

everybody works for somebody.

Yeah... well... not me.

You strike me as a man used to gettin' what he wants.

You got that right.

Only thing about that is...

so am I.

Easy. Easy.

You got a lot of men.

You got room for one more?

When Billy the Kid came to Lincoln, he needed a job.

John Tunstall happened to need cowboys.

Cowboys who could use guns,

and so Billy became one of his employees.

After roaming the West for years,

Billy the Kid has finally found a place to belong...

working for an ambitious rancher and businessman

in New Mexico...

named John Tunstall.

John Henry Tunstall has come to the West

to make a fortune.

And he settles on Lincoln County,

where he can make a lot of money.

Looking to make it big in the booming cattle industry,

Tunstall has bought a ranch outside of Lincoln, New Mexico,

and in just two short years has become

one of the most successful cattle barons in the territory.

But with his success,

he's upset some very powerful men.

Lincoln was the wildest of the Wild West.

The law was almost nonexistent,

and the people who controlled it

were generally corrupt.

The established power in Lincoln County

was a group of wealthy land owners and cattle barons

known simply as "the House."

"The House" controls everything

from cattle prices, land holdings

and government positions.

Even the law is on their payroll.

The House controlled Lincoln County,

and they were prominent.

In fact, a lot of people that lived in Lincoln

really looked at them as oppressors.

And John Henry Tunstall arrives

to kind of horn in on the monopoly

that the House has had for a long time.

Tensions quickly rise between Tunstall and the House,

but the rancher is not one to back down.

Looking to build up his small army,

Tunstall sees potential in young Billy.

In Lincoln County,

everyone was forced to make a choice...

either you supported the House

or you supported John Henry Tunstall.

There was no in between.

So, once Billy accepted that job with John Henry Tunstall,

he was gonna be Tunstall's man.

Over the next few months, the young outlaw

becomes Tunstall's most trusted gunslinger.

And for the first time,

it feels like this orphan of the West

has a home.

Tunstall was a mentor to Billy the Kid.

Billy really liked Tunstall

because he treated him fairly, he paid him well,

and he was probably the first man in his life

Billy looked up to and respected and treated him

like Billy wanted to be treated.

Put your plate over here, Billy.

Thanks.

I'm starved.

It doesn't get any better than this, son.

Good to have you on board.

Thank you.

If you think about it, Billy had been scraping by.

He was looked at by most people as riffraff.

But John Henry Tunstall... it's kind of shocking,

but he offers this hoodlum... he offers him a job.

For a young man of Billy's age,

that was incredible, that was life-changing.

So he becomes a loyal,

devoted employee and friend

of John Henry Tunstall.

While Billy the Kid

is now a part of the burgeoning cattle industry

that's fueling America's growth...

several hundred miles to the north,

one man is doing everything he can

to hold off western expansion.

Since parting ways with Sitting Bull,

Lakota warrior Crazy Horse

has tried to protect his people

from the flood of settlers.

But after months of watching

the buffalo extermination starve his people,

Crazy Horse is running out of options...

and is forced to do something

he swore he would never do.

Easy, boys.

On May 6, 1877,

Crazy Horse, the man that led his people to victory

at the Battle of Little Bighorn, surrenders,

marking the end of 17 years of resistance.

When Crazy Horse surrenders,

I really believe everyone knew that was the end.

But the reality is if he didn't do that,

most of us wouldn't be here.

We would've died fighting

instead of going to the reservation.

But while the move onto a reservation

may have saved his people from starving...

Crazy Horse is beginning to realize

that it's doing something far worse.

When they put us on the reservations,

it really kinda took the spirit out of a lot of people.

They took away our pride, they took away our life,

they took away our manhood

because we couldn't hunt anymore.

A lot of people died, not from sicknesses and stuff,

they died from broken spirits.

He trusts in me. He speaks through me.

The Lord, the Savior.

But the government isn't content

just to tell the Indians where to live...

they're also determined to change their culture.

Large numbers of Christian missionaries

were in fact sent out to reservations in the West

to do the work of, as people in the 19th century saw it,

"civilizing" these Native Americans.

It's a policy known as "assimilation."

Assimilation is just... maybe it had good meaning,

maybe the intentions were good.

But I think they wanted us to change

to protect themselves.

They had a saying in the military...

"Kill the Indian and save the man."

Which is, basically, to take his culture away

and you'll be a better person.

They thought we were savages.

After months on the reservation,

Crazy Horse fears his people

are on the verge of losing their identity.

I think putting Indians on reservations

was a despicable part of history...

because it basically was attacking their soul.

Now the proud Lakota warrior

knows he needs to stand up for his people once again.

"My people are not happy here.

I am not happy here."

"We do not want to live here on this reservation."

"I want what I was promised, a reservation of our own,

a place where we are free,

even if we are not."

Life on the reservation

is not what you're accustomed to.

Give it time.

I think you'll become quite fond of it.

Months after leading his people onto a reservation,

Crazy Horse is growing restless.

But since pleading his case to U.S. authorities,

the military now fears the Lakota warrior

could incite an Indian uprising.

The U.S. was incredibly scared

about Crazy Horse.

There's rumors going around that Crazy Horse

wants to kill a visiting U.S. general.

And U.S. authorities are forever concerned

about these rumors of Indian outbreaks.

As fear of Crazy Horse's intention spreads,

the Lakota warrior decides to meet

with reservation agents to clear his name.

Crazy Horse thinks he's going to a meeting

with some U.S. officials.

He doesn't realize the magnitude of what's about to happen.

They start to put him into a jail cell.

Well, he sees... "Wait a second.

This isn't what I came in here for."

And he comes out with knives.

Agh-hh!

Accounts here differ,

but I think the most reliable interpretation

is that the white U.S. sentry

bayonets him, and he dies.

Crazy Horse is never killed in battle in that respect.

His vision is correct.

He's taken completely unawares

when he's, um, surprised by the sentry.

On September 5, 1877, Crazy Horse,

a man who fought his entire life to protect his people

and won battle after battle against the United States Army,

is killed.

Crazy Horse's death is hard to talk about

because it's just so...

fresh, even though it's been that many years.

His death...

I think we all died that day, really.

One of the things that's most fascinating

about Crazy Horse and his legacy

is simply the fact that

of all the many native leaders across American history,

he's one of the few people

that most non-Indians have heard about.

I think he's seen today as a symbol

of courageous resistance to the U.S. government...

and he is, in many respects.

And I think that's one of the reasons

that makes him so powerful.

With Crazy Horse gone,

the Lakota people are in desperate need of leadership

if they're going to save what's left of their culture.

After years on his own, Billy the Kid

has finally found his place in the West

and a mentor in John Tunstall.

Tunstall's cattle business is quickly gaining momentum

and cutting into the interests of his biggest competition...

a group of ruthless businessmen

known as "the House."

The House had a monopoly on business,

but then there was this newcomer

who arrives in Lincoln with some money behind him

and the desire to kind of take over and compete.

The House has some very powerful allies,

including one of the largest landowners

in the United States,

Thomas Catron.

Thomas Catron was linked to the House

because Catron had loaned the House a great deal of money.

Until the House repaid Catron,

he had a stake in their well-being.

So it was in his interest that they do well

so he could get repaid.

Catron owns three million acres of territory,

nearly equal in size to the state of Connecticut.

His landholdings include Lincoln County,

and Catron doesn't take kindly to the new competitor

impeding on his business.

This is for you.

It's a writ of attachment,

authorizes you to seize all the property

of John Tunstall and his business partners.

And what if he resists?

I don't care about the means.

Just the results.

Understood.

Go check it out.

- You stay here. - Yeah.

What's the rush, boys?

We heard a shot.

Did you, now?

Don't do anything stupid, son.

This doesn't involve you.

I suggest you keep it that way.

This competition,

this feuding between businesses,

entrepreneurial interests is one thing.

Like so many conflicts in the West,

it becomes personal.

Hyah!

Personal to the point where someone is murdered.

And that person is John Henry Tunstall.

He is murdered over a business dispute.

That's as personal as it gets.

With Tunstall dead,

Billy loses the only family he knows.

Billy swears vengeance over Tunstall's grave

and says he'll get every man who is a part of this.

John Tunstall's death

sets Billy on a path to find his killers.

And it will turn him from an unknown gunman

into a legend of the West.

As the country continues to expand,

men like Billy the Kid are realizing

just how lawless the frontier is.

But over 400 miles away from New Mexico,

one man is about to bring order to the West.

In the plains of Kansas where men take what they want...

and every day is a struggle for survival,

no one is tougher...

than Wyatt Earp.

Wyatt Earp was a big guy,

he was about six feet tall and he was very strong.

He was large by 19th century standards.

He used that size to be imposing.

Wyatt Earp is one of thousands of Americans

who have flooded the West

in hopes of striking it rich.

Wyatt was bit by the incurable Western disease.

And that was the need to always find the next frontier.

The frontier might be mining, it might be real estate,

but it was the search itself, the adventure itself.

That's what really drove Wyatt.

To get by, he's done nearly every job

on the frontier.

From laying tracks for the Union Pacific Railroad...

to hunting buffalo on the plains

and even working as a bouncer at a brothel.

Wyatt's search for fortune

has landed him in Dodge City, Kansas,

a place like thousands of others

popping up across the West called "boomtowns."

To move cattle from wide-open plains to eastern cities,

they must first be driven to railroad hubs

that soon turn into bustling towns.

A boomtown explodes on the scene.

You had that barren landscape and then suddenly

you would have a hotel with 50 rooms.

Boomtowns are quickly populated

by the men working the cattle drive,

a group that will become synonymous with the West...

cowboys.

You have a lot of young men that would get to those towns

and they're all fueled on whiskey, carrying guns.

So you've got young men drinking heavily and armed.

And this is, indeed, one of the reasons the West was wild.

Wyatt sees that in Dodge City

the law is nonexistent

and disputes are settled with violence.

In that day, you could shoot somebody dead in the street

for looking at you the wrong way

because there's no repercussion.

It's a different time... the values were different,

life was different.

After years of moving

from one job in the West to another,

Wyatt isn't satisfied.

It was a rough, tough life.

And a lot of them said,

"I think I'll just turn in my chaps

and do something else."

And they'd either go back East or they'd turn bad.

But Wyatt Earp feels he's destined for something more.

And it's in Dodge City that he demonstrates a skill

that will mark his place in history.

You cheated the wrong man.

That's my money.

The guy cheated. The guy's a cheater, huh?

Don't do it! Don't do it!

Nobody move. He pulled his gun, he pulled his gun.

Easy does it.

Nobody move! Don't move!

Easy there.

- He's a cheat. - Easy there.

- The guy cheated. - Put the gun away.

- His gun, did you see it? - Everyone saw him reach for his gun.

Just hand it over.

- You have to give over your gun. - Back off! Back off!

- Take it easy. - Back off!

I'll shoot you!

Come on.

The town of Dodge

is in desperate need of a lawman.

And Wyatt Earp is the perfect man for the job.

It isn't long before Wyatt Earp is recruited

to be deputy marshal of Dodge City.

There was no particular training for a lawman.

They were just people for whom the work suited,

and then there was a lot of on-the-job training.

But Wyatt brought a cool demeanor,

a knowledge of people,

and that presence that he had

that worked on pretty much everybody.

That's not how things work in this town.

It's all about intimidation.

Wyatt Earp didn't ask questions.

He'd smack you with the barrel of his gun.

"Pistol-whip," that comes from him.

Wyatt Earp is quickly making a name for himself

in Dodge City.

And it's in his role as a lawman

that he will soon become one of the most famous figures

of the West.