You've certainly seen a movie in the “Western” or “Wild West” genre, or even some of the episodes of the cartoon “Woodpecker”. Well, both in the western movies and in the episodes of “Woodpecker”, the various stereotypes related to life in the “OldWest” American, such as the figures of the Indian, the sheriff, the bandit; or the desert scenery, the railways, the stagecoach, etc. This imagination of the western is related to the so-called west march, occurred in the StatesUnited from the second half of the nineteenth century.
The expression “Far West” in English means something close to “Far West” (or “Far West”) and was employed by English settlers and their descendants who settled on the US East Coast (in the region of the thirteencolonies) in reference to the territories to the West not yet occupied and, at the time, considered inhospitable. The search for the effective occupation of the American West was only carried out after the Warof secession, that is, the WarCivilAmerican, which occurred due to political and economic divergences between the colonies of the South and North of the USA, between the years of 1861 and 1865.
With the end of the war, many people were interested in the opportunities that life in the West could offer them, especially due to the mines discovered there, the possibility of raising animals such as horses and cattle, agriculture etc. This interest was fostered by the federal government, which, in addition to seeking to regularize the supply of land, also sought to integrate the West with the East part of the country by means of railroads. Regarding the regularization of land tenure, the main measure taken was the approval of the “Homestead Law”, of 1862, that is, the land law, sanctioned during the war period. According to historian Claude Fohlen:
“The Homestead Act” of 1862 marks a change in the federal government's land policy. Until then, it had been dominated by fiscal imperatives, with the sale of land at the best price. From that date onwards, the preoccupation with colonization and the desire to satisfy the pioneers' hunger for land prevailed. 'Every man,' proclaimed Van Buren, Free Soil candidate in the 1848 election, 'is entitled to a natural portion of the soil... The right to own land is as sacred as life'.” [1]
Above, American stamp commemorating 100 years of Homestead Law *
Fohlen further points out that, in 1862, “between 1862 and 1890, two million pioneers settled, taking advantage of the Homestead Law, while seven million acquired land or settled differently, this in a period when the total population increased by 45 million population." [2] The large displacement of people to the West ended up also causing major problems, such as the confrontation with tribes the delimitation, through fences, of the occupied lands and the coexistence with gangs of train robbers and mercenaries.
GRADES:
[1] FOHLEN, Claude. the western. (trans.) Paulo Neves) São Paulo: Companhia das Letras: Círculo do Livro, 1989. P. 18.
[2] Idem. pp. 18-19.
*Image credits: Shutterstock and Igor Golovniov
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