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June 25, 2005

The Real Deadwood

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/opinion/25tierney.html?ex=1277352000&en=19e027adfffc2dab&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Historians have often accused HBO's Deadwood of playing loose with the truth, especially where language is concerned.

Now it turns out that the whole notion of the violent West is pretty contrived as well. (I imagine much of it comes from Hollywood.)

"It was a rather polite and civil society enforced by armed men," Dr. McGrath said. "The rate of burglary and robbery was lower than in American cities today. Claim-jumping was rare. Rape was extraordinarily rare - you can argue it wasn't being reported, but I've never seen evidence hinting at that...."

"There wasn't an awful lot of violence in Deadwood except for the crooks and drunks killing each other. When everybody has a gun on his hip, they tend to avoid confrontation."

Another Deadwood historian, Bob Lee, said that the best account of the two peak years of the gold rush, 1876 and 1877, lists only 77 violent deaths in all the Black Hills, most outside Deadwood, and most attributed to Indians, who were understandably angry at the invasion of their lands by both miners and troops under George Armstrong Custer.

Posted by March at June 25, 2005 02:59 PM