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Weblog for HIST 431: The North American PlainsFriday, September 26, 2008
RP: The Great Plains
Walter Webb's text The Great Plains is an attempt to understand why the region developed the way it did. It is a lens for looking at and understanding the history and culture of the Great Plains up to 1931. Webb sets up this lens according to the environmental conditions people wanting to live on the plains must adapt to. He introduces the reader to the challenges faced by pioneers, both from nature and from Indians living with them. Webb first sets up some parameters for the physical basis of the plains; flat, treeless, and arid. He uses these to explain the radical shift in style of living from the woods to the plains. People, needing to adapt to this flat, treeless "desert" had to develop new ways of living, which Webb gives numerous examples of. Windmills had to be used to get water out of the ground, horses completely changed the lifestyle of the Indians, and forced the settlers to develop six-guns to combat them effectively. Cattle ranching forced the development of barbed wire and the lack of rainfall effectively blocked the expansion of plantation farming and thus, slavery. A second point I found from the text which, although not nearly as developed as Webb's main thesis, was particularly interesting to me came up when Webb was discussing the life of the cowboys. I got the sense that if Webb wasn’t a historian, he would have really liked to be a cowboy. How he describes them seems to emulate every factor of my thought of the "ideal" American. Brave, strong, skilled of horseback, much like he describes the Comanches, but without the patronizing undertone. This tells me that Webb considered the cowboys on the plains essential in creating the legendary images of a Americans, and thus, the Great Plains were essential in forging the American culture and spirit.
Andrew Bakken
Andrew Bakken
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