Having finished the Yellowstone series I began 1883, one of two “prequel” series, now that it’s free. (A few spoilers follow.) The bee in my bonnet is the vision running through both, thanks to the writing of one Taylor Sheridan (“TS”). His politics are perverse but he tells a good story. The writing is a cut above ordinary teevee fare. He is extremely prolific.
Yes and there are good Indians and bad Indians, (the dying heroine even wants to marry one of the good ones) just to show how decent the settlers are. It’s mostly a crock. “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” was a more honest statement of the ideology.
A very interesting read is “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Suffice it to say that none of our historical good guys make the grade in her telling.
It sounds quite different from the Westerns of the 1930s through 1960s. Their focus was on the closing of the frontier, the transition from the Wild West to the Lawful West. There were elegies. The era of the gunfighter, when the law was just who was quicker at the draw, was over. Of course, that era never really existed, but there was good money selling it.
Yes and there are good Indians and bad Indians, (the dying heroine even wants to marry one of the good ones) just to show how decent the settlers are. It’s mostly a crock. “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” was a more honest statement of the ideology.
A very interesting read is “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Suffice it to say that none of our historical good guys make the grade in her telling.
I read that a couple of months ago. Recommended.
It sounds quite different from the Westerns of the 1930s through 1960s. Their focus was on the closing of the frontier, the transition from the Wild West to the Lawful West. There were elegies. The era of the gunfighter, when the law was just who was quicker at the draw, was over. Of course, that era never really existed, but there was good money selling it.