All language subtitles for The West S01E08.eng

As the United States prepares
for its first centennial,

the war in the West
between Native nations

and the United States
is not yet over,

but its eventual
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,

and the myths that really stick
in the American experience

are the myths 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 itself,

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 recognize

that this enormous grassland,

which provided forage
for tens of millions

of head of buffalo,

might be just as good
for American cattle.

This
realization 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 return,

they found some 5 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 center

in Chicago.

That means driving herds
hundreds of miles across Texas

to the nearest rail hub
in Abilene, Kansas,

grueling 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
that needed to be protected

by cowboys that would 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
memorialize it.

Today, there are a lot of
people who wear cowboy hats

who don't go anywhere near cows,

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

Built on
the backs of cowboys,

the cattle business booms,

and with the completion

of the Transcontinental
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 exaggerate
how significant that is.

Before the railroad, it
costs as much to send a ton

of goods 30 miles
over land 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
enormous field of opportunity

for ordinary
families moving west,

but it also opens opportunities
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, and 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.

You didn't have
to pay for anything.

The animals take
care of themselves.

They're wandering around,
but you need a way

to know which cattle are yours,

and which cattle belong to
your friend, or your enemy.

The solution
is cattle branding.

You burn 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, little 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 Millionaire's 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
ranchers in Wyoming create

the Wyoming Stock
Growers Association,

and in the whole state, cattle
ranching is the foundation

of power, and so the Wyoming
Stock Growers 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,
investors in Scotland,

investors in Boston,
New York, all say,

"This is not a good business.

We don't wanna be involved here.

Liquidate your herds,
send them to Chicago.

We're outta the business."

Ranches go under.

Cattle industry's
in a free fall.

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

that the 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 build a fence.

You can just unspool
this barbed wire

to make sure 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 parceled

into these chunks of land
guarded by sharp wire.

The fences threaten
the cattle barons' livelihoods,

which depends 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 great cattle barons,
who are misusing power

for their own greed.

Averell and
Watson are accused

of stealing cattle, a
practice called rustling.

And the stock detectives
take them from their ranch,

and they lynched them.

Extrajudicial
hanging, vigilantism.

The cattle barons believed

that this is the first important
step in warning the people

of Johnson County to
desist from rustling.

For the people who
knew Watson and Averell,

this is an outrage,
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".

And they say Ellen
Watson is "Cattle Kate,"

a notorious prostitute
who was 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
just a woman trying to get by.

The news terrifies
small homesteaders

in Wyoming,

but some realize 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

as the 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 people

that does not get completely
scared off by this.

Champion and some of
his compatriots realized

they weren't gonna be
able to stay in business

unless they could
somehow break the power

of the cattle barons,

and so they establish
their own association,

The Northern Wyoming
Stock Growers Association.

It's gonna have its own set
of rules, and its own roundup,

and crucially that roundup
is gonna be one month

before the Wyoming Stock
Growers Association roundup.

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 roundup
happens before them,

there's gonna be a lot
of unbranded cattle

that they think should be
theirs that are gonna go

to Nate Champion
and his friends.

They have to stop
it from happening.

So the cattle barons hire
Frank Canton to lead the effort

to suppress the roundup.

Now Canton, he had a
kind of checkered 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 gun fight.

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 realize 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 positions
in the government,

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 some cooperation.

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 unionized
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 enormous 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

and 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
many homesteaders

in Nate Champion's
Northern Wyoming

Stock Growers Association,

and anyone whose
homestead is in the way.

This is not just
a bunch of ranchers,

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
decides they're gonna need

to get some hired guns for this.

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 hit men.

To them, they were bringing
justice to Johnson County,

a place that, in their minds,
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 baron's vigilante
army quietly surrounds

the KC Ranch.

Nate 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 they don't come back.

Nate Champion and his
friend, Nick Ray, realize

that, "Where are they?

Something's going on here."

Ray decides he's
gonna go look.

Suddenly, Champion, he
knows what's going on,

and the question is,
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.