The Range of the American West
In the nascent years of the 19th century, as the United States looked westward with curiosity and ambition, the vast expanse beyond the Mississippi River remained largely an enigma. When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on their monumental expedition in 1803, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, their instructions included a rather intriguing possibility: the encounter of living mammoths or mastodons, creatures known only from skeletal remains unearthed in the salt licks of Kentucky. While we might chuckle at this notion today, it underscores the sheer unknown that cloaked the territory beyond the Missouri River’s mouth.
The expedition led by Lewis and Clark traversed a portion of this immense and unfamiliar land, a region destined to become the great cattle range of America. This sprawling domain stretched from the Spanish territories in the south, encompassing a thousand miles of short grasslands, all the way to the present-day Canadian border. Some Americans at the time even dreamed of extending it further north to the latitude of 54 degrees, 40 minutes. The sheer scale of this potential cattle range was breathtaking, promising a vast and fertile ground for a new kind of industry.
However, the true value of this land remained largely unrecognized by those early explorers. For more than half a century, it was widely believed to be unsuitable for white settlement, deemed only fit as a hunting ground for the various Indigenous tribes who called it home. Many remember old school maps that vaguely labeled this area as "The Great American Desert," implying a hopeless wasteland incapable of supporting human industry. Yet, as time would reveal, much of this land possessed a richness rivaling any on the globe. The Range of the American West, once considered barren, would become a breadbasket and a grazing paradise.
The perception of infertility likely stemmed from the treeless nature of the Great Plains. Early settlers in Illinois and Indiana, migrating from south of the Ohio River, had the choice of timbered lands and prairies. They often considered the prairies worthless, reasoning that land unable to sustain trees could not possibly yield crops. As a result, these pioneers spent generations clearing timber along river bottoms, leaving the prairies largely untouched. It was difficult to imagine that these seemingly barren lands would one day be worth hundreds of dollars per acre, studded with thriving towns, and serve as a vital part of the world’s granary. The Range of the American West would defy expectations and become a testament to the resilience of both the land and the people who would eventually cultivate it.
However, while the early explorers may have dismissed the region beyond the Missouri River as valueless for settlement, the wild creatures and the Native Americans, who had inhabited it for millennia, held a different perspective. The buffalo, in vast numbers, roamed from the Rio Grande to the Athabasca, from the Missouri River to the Rockies and beyond. While no one initially recognized the difference between the wild buffalo and the domestic ox, these native cattle had already demonstrated the sustaining power of the Plains’ grasses. The Range of the American West was, in fact, a thriving ecosystem perfectly suited to the needs of its native inhabitants.
Each species, including humans, adapts to its environment, often developing a deep affection for it. The Eskimo and the Zulu each believe they inhabit the best land in the world. Similarly, the American Indian, sustained by the immense buffalo herds, roamed freely across the land that would later become the domain of the white man and his domestic cattle. The Horse Indians of the Plains led a life of unparalleled freedom, and they represented a physically superior type of savage.
On this buffalo range, which was destined to become the cattle range, Lewis and Clark encountered numerous bands of the Sioux, including the Mandan, Assiniboine, Blackfeet, and Shoshone. Further south resided the Pawnee, Kaw, Otoe, and Osage, most of whom relied on the buffalo for sustenance, though some, like the Otoe, Pawnee, Mandan, and others, also cultivated corn and squash to supplement their diets. Still further south lived the Kiowa, Comanche, and others. The Arapaho, Cheyenne, Crow, and Ute, all hunters, were soon to come into contact with the white man. The youthful captains meticulously documented these tribes, but failed to fully grasp the future potential of this region for Americans. They were explorers, not industrial strategists. The Range of the American West was a complex tapestry of cultures and ecosystems, soon to be dramatically altered.
Nearly half a century after Lewis and Clark’s journey, the Forty-Niners traversed the Plains in pursuit of gold, while the Mormons sought refuge in a land where they could live according to their beliefs. Yet, the wealth of the Plains remained untapped. California dominated the world’s attention, and the great cow range was overlooked. However, in the early 1850s, as the placer fields of California began to dwindle, the rough-and-tumble mining population surged northward, even across the Canadian border. Eventually, they spread east, southeast, and northeast across the dry plains of Washington and Oregon. Consequently, the cow range was not settled through a direct westward migration from the East, but rather approached from multiple directions: north, east, west, northwest, and finally, south. The Range of the American West was thus settled in a unique and decentralized manner.
This early population of miners and adventurers was often crude, lawless, and aggressive, with little regard for the Indigenous tribes. Conflict, often amounting to murder, erupted as soon as white men encountered Native Americans in this far western region.
These newcomers who flooded the unknown country of the Plains, Rockies, Sierras, and Cascades needed to be fed. They could not rely on the methods by which the Native Americans had sustained themselves. A new industry emerged in the United States, freighting supplies to the West by bull-train or pack-train. This specialized industry demanded individuals with great business acumen, resilience, and daring. The Range of the American West was becoming increasingly reliant on external supplies and expertise.
Each freight train that ventured westward carried more and more of the white men who were reshaping the landscape. As the trains returned east, knowledge of the new country between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains spread. Fort Benton, Montana, on the Missouri River, emerged as a major northern supply post. Earlier, Fort Hall, Idaho, an old fur-trading post beyond the Rockies, Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas River in Colorado, and other outposts of Saxon civilization appeared in the West. The Range of the American West was gradually being integrated into the broader American economy and culture.
The Pony Express and the stagecoach followed, adding to the history and romance of the region. A strong, rugged, and largely male population surged westward, forming the shifting frontier of the American story.
Yet, for a long time, there was no sign of permanent settlement on the Plains, and the region was not considered the frontier. The men prospecting and exploiting the land were seen as mere adventurers. No one seemed to learn from the Indians or the buffalo. Fremont’s reports had long highlighted the nourishing quality of the high country grasses, but the age of the cowboy had not yet arrived. A popular story tells of a wagon train in 1866 forced to abandon its oxen on the range due to early snows. It was assumed that the oxen would perish during the winter.
However, the following spring, the owners were surprised to find that the oxen had thrived, becoming fat and healthy. While the story is often repeated, attributing the beginnings of the cattle industry to this incident would be an oversimplification. The cattle industry was not a Saxon discovery but a Latin enterprise that had flourished in Mexico long before the arrival of the miners and adventurers. The Range of the American West, it turned out, had a pre-existing pastoral tradition.
Knowledge of the Spanish lands to the south came through Zebulon Pike’s explorations and the prairie commerce, the wagon trade from the Missouri River to the Spanish cities of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Chihuahua. The cow business south of the Rio Grande was already well-established when the first adventurers from the United States entered Texas and began to compete with their Latin neighbors for land. It was there that the Saxon frontiersmen first encountered the cattle industry. These southern and northern riflemen, ruthless yet strangely statesmanlike, may have driven away the owners of the herds but paid little attention to the herds themselves. The slow and easy civilization of Old Spain fascinated these rude strangers. Gradually, the warriors of San Jacinto began to claim vast tracts of land for themselves, land that had little market value. Within recent memory, good land in Texas could be bought for six cents an acre, or even less. Today, much of that land is productive, but back then, land and cows were both considered nearly worthless. The Range of the American West was undergoing a transformation in value and perception.
This civilization of the Southwest, of the new Republic of Texas, can be seen as the first enduring American result of contact with Spanish industry. The men who won Texas largely came from Kentucky and Tennessee, or southern Ohio, and the first colonizer of Texas was a Virginian, Stephen Fuller Austin. They traveled along the old Natchez Trace from Nashville, Tennessee, to the Mississippi River, and then out into the Spanish country. This thrust of American civilization entered the cattle range at its southern end, between the Rio Grande and the Red River. The Range of the American West was shaped by a confluence of cultures and migrations.
In all the activities, mining, freighting, scouting, soldiering, riding the Pony Express, and adventuring, there was constant trading back and forth between those who stayed home and those who ventured out. This fostered an exchange of knowledge and customs between East and West, between the old country and the new. A similar exchange occurred in the South, where Saxon civilization met that of Mexico.
Several fundamental facts and principles of the cattle industry were adopted by American cattlemen directly from Mexico.
The Mexicans in Texas had an abundance of small, hardy horses of African and Spanish breed, brought to the New World by Spain. These horses, descendants of those brought into Spain by the Moors, were naturally hardy and able to subsist on dry food. Without such horses, there could have been no cattle industry. Running wild in herds, these horses spread to the upper Plains. La Verendrye, and later Lewis and Clark, found the Indians using horses in the north. The Indians had learned to manage the horse, replacing dogs for dragging the travois and calling the horse the "elk-dog." The Range of the American West and its cattle industry were intrinsically linked to the presence of these hardy horses.
In the original cow country, Mexico and Texas, countless herds of cattle were loosely owned over vast and unknown plains. Like wild animals, they bred in extraordinary numbers. The southern range has always been called the breeding range. Cattle had little value. If someone wanted beef, they killed a steer. If they wanted leather, they killed cattle for their hides. Beyond these limited uses, cattle had no real value.
However, the Mexican knew how to handle cows. He could ride a horse, rope cattle, and brand them. Most of the cattle on a wide range would regularly visit certain watering holes, where they could be roughly collected and estimated. This made it unnecessary for cattle owners to own ranch land. Securing the waterfront where the cows drank was enough. This gave the owner all the title he needed. The maternal instinct of a cow and the dependence of the calf on its mother provided sufficient proof of ownership in the increase of the herd. An old Mexican ranchero, seeing a certain number of cows and their calves at his watering places, knew that all before him were his property, or at least, he claimed them as such and used them. The Range of the American West was characterized by a unique system of land and livestock ownership.
This was, however, loose-footed property, prone to straying or being driven away. To address this, the shrewd Spaniard invented a system of proof of ownership: the branding method. The brand was his sign, name, trademark, and proof of ownership, impossible to shake off, burn off in the sun, or wash off in the rain. It went with the animal and could not be eradicated from its hide, providing certain owner identification. The Range of the American West relied heavily on the branding of cattle for ownership and identification.
These basic ideas of the cow industry were well-established on the lower range in Texas when white men first arrived. The cattle industry, though in its infancy and not expected to have a great future, was developed long before Texas became a republic. It never changed much from that time until the end of its career.
One great principle was religiously observed even in those early days: a man’s cow was HIS cow, and a man’s brand was HIS brand. There must be no interference with his ownership. Other aspects of the industry followed inevitably. Despite precautions, cattle and calves, each branded by the owner’s iron, began to mingle as settlers became more numerous. If a hundred or a thousand cows were not collected, that was fine. If a calf were separated from its mother, that was also fine. The old ranchers never quarreled among themselves and would never have formed a cattle association in the South. That was left for the Yankees to do when cows had come to have far greater value. There were few arguments in the first rodeos of the lower range. Ranchers vied with each other in generosity regarding unbranded calves. Haggling would have been considered contemptible. No one cared much about a cow in the lower range in the old times because there was no market for them. If someone offered a Mexican cinquo pesos for a yearling or two-year-old, the owner might offer the animal as a gift or smile and say "Con mucho gusto" as he was handed a few pieces of silver. There were plenty of cows everywhere!
Therefore, the old Spaniard deserves full credit for the picturesque romance and organized cow industry. The westbound thrust that came upon the upper part of the range in the days of more shrewd and exacting business methods was simply the best-known and most publicized phase of frontier life in the cow country, which is why it is often considered typical. It would not be accurate to say that the cattle industry was much influenced or governed by northern or eastern men. In practically all of its great phenomena, the frontier of the old cow range was southern by birth and growth.
There lay, then, that vast and splendid land, so long unused, destined to write its own romantic history, capturing the admiration and wonder of the world. A land of fascinating interest to the youth of every country, and a region whose story holds a charm for young and old alike even today.
It was a region royal in its dimensions. To the west, it was bordered by the gray-sided and white-topped Rockies. The cattle were to live where the buffalo once lived, high up in the foothills of this great mountain range that ran from the Rio Grande to Canada. To the east, where the Prairies transitioned into the Plains, it was a country waving with high native grasses, adorned with brilliant flowers such as sweet-William, wild roses, and vast fields of yellow sunflowers. The Range of the American West was a vibrant and diverse landscape, teeming with potential.
From the Rio Grande to the Athabasca, the frontier sky was typically blue and cloudless throughout most of the year. Rainfall was scarce, and the atmosphere was dry. It was a cheerful country, fostering optimism rather than gloom. In the extreme South along the Rio Grande, the climate was moister, warmer, and more enervating, but on the high steppes of the middle range in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and western Nebraska, lay the finest out-of-doors country, truly man’s country, the finest on Earth.
But at the time, preoccupied with mining, freighting, fighting, hunting, trading, and trapping, Americans who had arrived on the range paid little attention to cows. The northward movement of the great herds from the South had not yet begun. It was after the Civil War that the first great cattle drives from the South toward the North commenced. After men learned in Texas that cattle moved from the Rio Grande to the upper portions of the state and fed on mesquite grass would attain greater stature than in the hot coast country, the strange country long loosely held under the flag, the region of the Plains, the region now known as the Old West, leapt into comprehension and interest.
In great bands, in long lines, slowly, towheaded, and sore-footed, the vast gatherings of the prolific lower range moved north, each cow with its title indelibly marked upon its hide. These cattle would now replace those on which the Indians had depended for their living for so many years. A new day in American history had dawned. The Range of the American West was forever transformed.