In the middle and late part of the nineteenth century, the West was a harsh and dangerous place to live. Bar fights and murders were being committed in every town. This was acceptable behavior however in those days. Men settled their problems face-to-face, and normally, the slower man ended up dead. Gunfighting in the West was started and carried on by a group of men known as the Clanton Gang. Old Man Clanton was the leader and founder of gunfighting, his sons carried some of his fights and continued with their own fights, and his last surviving son parted with gunfighting and started his own successful business.
Gunfights were common and took place regularly. The earliest gunfighters, or gunslingers, were born in the early 1800’s, and most men got recognition as slingers in the 1850’s. The founder of gunfighting was “Old Man Clanton”, or N. H. Clanton. In 1816, Newman Haynes "Old Man" Clanton was born in Davidson County, Tennessee. On January 5, 1840 Newman Clanton married Mariah Sexton Kelso in Callaway County, Missouri and together they had five boys and two daughters. John Wesley, Joseph Isaac, Phineas Fay, William Harrison, Alonzo Peter, Mary Elise and Ester Ann made up the Clanton Gang. He did not participate in many gunfights though he instigated many of them. Old Man Clanton took care of business swiftly. If he did not like somebody, he would simply point them out, and one of his sons would provoke an argument and shoot the man down in “self defense”. Old Man Clanton had formed a “cowboy party” which consisted of some of the deadliest men in the West. Curley Bill, John Ringo, Tim and Frank McLaury, Joe Hill, Pony Deal, Jim Hughes, Frank Stillwell and many other lieutenants, who had over four hundred frontier outcast under them, formed this group. He stole over $100,000 from ranchers in the south, and anyone who opposed was quickly exterminated. Old Man Clanton’s final days ended with a stolen-cattle drive. While he was passing through Guadeloupe Canyon, he and six other men were ambushed and shot dead out of their saddles. "Old Man" Clanton was buried where he fell in Guadalupe Canyon, New Mexico.
Although the leader of the Clanton Gang was dead, the family carried on. Billy and Ike Clanton were two of the participants in the most famous gunfight of all. The ...
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<http://clantongang.com/oldwest/gangphin.html>
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<http://clantongang.com/oldwest/gangbill.html>
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<http://clantongang.com/oldwest/gangike.html>
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Ellsworth was mean, and it was ugly. The stench of the its streets fell second to the odor of the unbathed saddle tramps who had just delivered 150,000 cattle from San Antonio to its freight yards. Adding to these smells were the blends of whisky, tanning leather, kerosene and carved carcasses, a revolting combination. Gunfights were spontaneous, either over a woman or a card game. When Wyatt crossed the Smoky Hill River into Ellsworth in 1873, he may have remembered the "rules of the gunman," but had no intention of employing them. The two main “rules of a gunman” were to take his time and always be armed. Although many people had warned him that it would be naive to go westward without being properly armed, Wyatt didn’t own a gun. All he hoped for was to find a peaceable job. But, only hours after hitching his horse in town he began to wonder if perhaps everyone was right. The most boisterous spot in town was Brennan’s Saloon, off Ellsworth Square; its faro and poker tables buzzed 24 hours, bartenders tapped beer and ...
McMurtry, Larry. 2005. Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846-1890. 10th Ed. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
When Kody Scott was 6 years old, the gang wars started in Los Angeles. It started out as a battle between the Crips and the Bloods, but by the late 70's and continuing today, the biggest killer of Crips is other Crips. The Crip Nation was divided into different divisions, which Monster compares to the U.S. Army. "For instance, one who is in the army may belong to the F...
The Frontier Thesis has been very influential in people’s understanding of American values, government and culture until fairly recently. Frederick Jackson Turner outlines the frontier thesis in his essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”. He argues that expansion of society at the frontier is what explains America’s individuality and ruggedness. Furthermore, he argues that the communitarian values experienced on the frontier carry over to America’s unique perspective on democracy. This idea has been pervasive in studies of American History until fairly recently when it has come under scrutiny for numerous reasons. In his essay “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”, William Cronon argues that many scholars, Turner included, fall victim to the false notion that a pristine, untouched wilderness existed before European intervention. Turner’s argument does indeed rely on the idea of pristine wilderness, especially because he fails to notice the serious impact that Native Americans had on the landscape of the Americas before Europeans set foot in America.
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Prison gangs are originally formed by inmates as a way of protecting themselves from the other inmates. These gangs have turned out to be violent and thus posing a threat to security. This paper will have a look at the different gangs in prisons, their history, beliefs and missions, and the differences and similarities in these gangs.
Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in fact, A Century of Dishonor.” The frontier thesis, which Turner proposed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, viewed the frontier as the sole preserver of the American psyche of democracy and republicanism by compelling Americans to conquer and to settle new areas. This thesis gives a somewhat quixotic explanation of expansion, as opposed to Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, A Century of Dishonor, which truly portrays the settlement of the west as a pattern of cruelty and conceit. Thus, the frontier thesis, offered first in The Significance of the Frontier in American History, is, in fact, false, like the myth of the west. Many historians, however, have attempted to debunk the mythology of the west. Specifically, these historians have refuted the common beliefs that cattle ranging was accepted as legal by the government, that the said business was profitable, that cattle herders were completely independent from any outside influence, and that anyone could become a cattle herder.
Ralph, P.H.(1997). From Self Preservation to Organized Crime: The Evolution of Inmate Gangs. In J.W. Marquart, & J.R. Sorensen (Eds.). Correctional Contexts: Contemporary and Classical Readings (pp. 182-186). Los Angeles: Roxbury
Brown, Dee, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, New York, Bantam Press,1970
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Which was the new site of the gold rush. But one night Henry and Jack were drinking at the Bannack Saloon and Jack began to ramble on about Plummers illegal activities and Henry was not gonna take his crap and pulled out his gun and shot him. Killing Cleveland, and making his mark in the new town of Bannack. In the middle of 1863 Bannack was booming with miners and they needed protection for their gold that they had worked hard to get and highwaymen would just steal it the next day. The town held the election for Sheriff and Plummer did run for the position but lost it too the town's butcher who was very popular in the town. Plummers anger flared up and went after the newly elected sheriff with a shotgun but a local warned him and the butcher shot Henry in the right arm. His shooting arm. He began to practice shooting with his left and began to become very accurate with it. When the sheriff heard of this he became scared and turned in his
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