5
Theodore Roosevelt

Excerpt from Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail

Originally published in 1888; available at Bartleby.com (Web site)

"The hunter is the arch-type of freedom. His well-being rests in no man's hands save his own. He chops down and hews out the logs for his hut, or perhaps makes merely a rude dug-out in the side of a hill, with a skin roof, and skin flaps for the door. He buys a little flour and salt, and in times of plenty also sugar and tea; but not much, for it must all be carried hundreds of miles on the backs of his shaggy pack-ponies."

For those Americans living in the Gilded Age, the western territories of the country were mysterious, dangerous, intriguing. The Wild West was the stage for the Plains Indian Wars (1866–90), and those more urbanized populations in the East and even in the South considered the frontier (the far edge of the wilderness, characterized by some settlement) a boundary. Cross that imaginary dividing line between civilization and wilderness (vast acreage of unsettled land) and there was no telling what could happen. And women—"proper" single women—dared not travel in the frontier.

For as long as it has existed, America's wilderness frontier has been the birthplace of myths and legends. The adventures of men such as explorer Daniel Boone (1734–1820), outlaw Jesse James (1847–1882), and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok (1837–1876) were told and retold until their stories were more fiction than fact. Mountain men, those who lived high in the mountains and survived by their own skills of hunting and trapping, were the subjects of many novels and short stories. To live on the frontier meant dealing with outlaws and other men of questionable and rough character; women of the era were believed to be delicate in nature, not able to take care of themselves. Having been raised to appreciate good manners, the security of home, and the safety provided by a well-bred husband, most women could not imagine life in the wilderness frontier.

Even before becoming president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) profoundly influenced the history of the American West. Although often ill as a child, he increased his physical endurance through exercise. In doing so, he developed a love of the outdoors.

Roosevelt first headed West from New York in 1883. Having heard reports that the buffalo herds of the Dakota Territory were all but extinct (gone forever), the outdoorsman wanted to shoot himself a buffalo to add to his trophy collection. While in the West, he developed a great appreciation and affection for not only the land but also its people. He bought two ranches in the Dakota Badlands before heading home. Throughout his life, those ranches would be his escape from city and political life.

Roosevelt began publishing books about his experiences in the West. His engaging writing style and sense of humor made these books popular among readers not only in America but also throughout the world. One of these books was titled Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail and was published in book form in 1888. Before that, the stories were published in Century Magazine over the course of many months.

Things to remember while reading an
excerpt from Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail:

• Most of the readers of Roosevelt's work lived in the eastern regions of the United States. They had never been West, and so their perception of what the frontier was like was formed by what they read.
• Roosevelt's account of the West was romantic; it focused on portraying Americans there as strong, determined, and able-bodied. His stories gave America a version of itself it wanted to believe, one rooted, perhaps, more in storytelling than in accuracy.
• Roosevelt was a biased (judgmental) writer. Although he discussed the course of events as the frontier was settled and how they affected both sides, there was never a doubt which side he was on. Without hesitation, he favored the pioneers and settlers over Native Americans.
• The following excerpt is from a chapter entitled "Frontier Types."

Excerpt from Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail

The old race of Rocky Mountain hunters and trappers, of reckless, dauntless Indian fighters, is now fast dying out. Yet here and there these restless wanderers of the untrodden wilderness still linger, in wooded fastnesses so inaccessible that the miners have not yet explored them, in mountain valleys so far off that no ranchman has yet driven his herds thither. To this day many of them wear the fringed tunic or hunting-shirt, made of buckskin or homespun, and belted in at the waist—the most picturesque and distinctively national dress ever worn in America. It was the dress in which [explorer] Daniel Boone was clad when he first passed through the trackless forests of the Alleghanies [sic] and penetrated into the heart of Kentucky, to enjoy such hunting as no man of his race had ever had before; it was the dress worn by grim old [frontiersman] Davy Crockett when he fell at the Alamo. The wild soldiery of the backwoods wore it when they marched to victory over [British major Patrick] Ferguson and [British general Edward] Pakenham, at King's Mountain and New Orleans; when they conquered the French towns of the Illinois; and when they won at the cost of [Native American leader] Red Eagle's warriors the bloody triumph of the Horseshoe Bend.

These old-time hunters have been the forerunners of the white advance throughout all our Western land. Soon after the beginning of the present century they boldly struck out beyond the Mississippi, steered their way across the flat and endless seas of grass, or pushed up the valleys of the great lonely rivers, crossed the passes that wound among the towering peaks of the Rockies, toiled over the melancholy wastes of sage brush and alkali, and at last, breaking through the gloomy woodland that belts the coast, they looked out on the heaving waves of the greatest of all the oceans. They lived for months, often for years, among the Indians, now as friends, now as foes, warring, hunting, and marrying with them; they acted as guides for exploring parties, as scouts for the soldiers who from time to time were sent against the different hostile tribes. At long intervals they came into some frontier settlement or some fur company's fort, posted in the heart of the wilderness, to dispose of their bales of furs, or to replenish their stock of ammunition and purchase a scanty supply of coarse food and clothing.

Frederic Remington: Painter of the Wild Frontier

No artist is more connected with the American West than Frederic Remington (1861–1908). Like many young men of his day, Remington heeded the call to "Go West" and left his home in New York for the adventure of a lifetime. His travels gave him time to sketch the people of and places on the frontier. In 1886, he solidified his reputation as an artist of the West when he began selling his work to the major magazines of the time.

Remington worked primarily in charcoal, but quickly established himself as a painter. Most of his illustrations were of sweeping landscapes, Western heroes, and moments of danger that captured America's perception of the wild frontier. Nearly all his works revolve around the theme of the struggles of the individual against overwhelming odds.

Remington focused his efforts on sculpture beginning in the mid-1890s, and he quickly became a master of the art. His bronze sculptures were popular for the energy the artist was able to capture within them. One of his most famous pieces was the "Bronco Buster."

By the time of his death in 1908, Remington had produced more than three thousand drawings and paintings, twenty-two sculptures, over one hundred articles and stories, a novel, and a Broadway play. He worked with Theodore Roosevelt on the memoir Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail, enhancing the text with colorful illustrations.

Although Remington's talent cannot be denied, it was his understanding of America's need to see itself as tough, independent, and optimistic that gave the artist a lasting place in American art history. Remington gave his country a vision of itself that it wanted to see; in return, he became a permanent part of the American West.

From that day to this they have not changed their way of life. But there are not many of them left now. The basin of the Upper Missouri was their last stronghold, being the last great hunting-ground of the Indians, with whom the white trappers were always fighting and bickering, but who nevertheless by their presence protected the game that gave the trappers their livelihood. My cattle were among the very first to come into the land, at a time when the buffalo and beaver still abounded, and then the old hunters were common. Many a time I have hunted with them, spent the night in their smoky cabins, or had them as guests at my ranch. But in a couple of years after the inrush of the cattlemen the last herds of the buffalo were destroyed, and the beaver were trapped out of all the plains' streams. Then the hunters vanished likewise, save that here and there one or two still remain in some nook or out-of-the-way corner. The others wandered off restlessly over the land—some to join their brethren in the Coeur d'Alene or the northern Rockies, others to the coast ranges or to faraway Alaska. Moreover, their ranks were soon thinned by death, and the places of the dead were no longer taken by new recruits. They led hard lives, and the unending strain of their toilsome and dangerous existence shattered even such iron frames as theirs. They were killed in drunken brawls, or in nameless fights with roving Indians; they died by one of the thousand accidents incident to the business of their lives—by flood or quicksand, by cold or starvation, by the stumble of a horse or a footslip on the edge of a cliff; they perished by diseases brought on by terrible privation, and [diseases] aggravated by the savage orgies with which it was varied.

Yet there was not only much that was attractive in their wild, free, reckless lives, but there was also very much good about the men themselves. They were—and such of them as are left still are—frank, bold, and self-reliant to a degree. They fear neither man, brute, nor element. They are generous and hospitable; they stand loyally by their friends, and pursue their enemies with bitter and vindictive hatred. For the rest, they differ among themselves in their good and bad points even more markedly than do men in civilized life, for out on the border virtue and wickedness alike take on very pronounced colors. A man who in civilization would be merely a backbiter becomes a murderer on the frontier; and, on the other hand, he who in the city would do nothing more than bid you a cheery good-morning, shares his last bit of sun jerked venison with you when threatened by starvation in the wilderness. One hunter may be a dark-browed, evil-eyed ruffian, ready to kill cattle or run off horses without hesitation, who if game fails will at once, in Western phrase, "take to the road,"—that is, become a highwayman. The next is perhaps a quiet, kindly, simple-hearted man, law-abiding, modestly unconscious of the worth of his own fearless courage and iron endurance, always faithful to his friends, and full of chivalric and tender loyalty to women.

The hunter is the arch-type of freedom. His well-being rests in no man's hands save his own. He chops down and hews out the logs for his hut, or perhaps makes merely a rude dug-out in the side of a hill, with a skin roof, and skin flaps for the door. He buys a little flour and salt, and in times of plenty also sugar and tea; but not much, for it must all be carried hundreds of miles on the backs of his shaggy pack-ponies. In one corner of the hut, a bunk covered with deer-skins forms his bed; a kettle and a frying-pan may be all his cooking-utensils. When he can get no fresh meat he falls back on his stock of jerked venison, dried in long strips over the fire or in the sun.

Most of the trappers are Americans, but they also include some Frenchmen and half-breeds. Both of the last, if on the plains, occasionally make use of queer wooden carts, very rude in shape, with stout wheels that make a most doleful squeaking. In old times they all had Indian wives; but nowadays those who live among and intermarry with the Indians are looked down upon by the other frontiersmen, who contemptuously term them "squaw men." All of them depend upon their rifles only for food and for self-defense, and make their living by trapping, peltries being very valuable and yet not bulky. They are good game shots, especially the pure Americans; although, of course, they are very boastful, and generally stretch the truth tremendously in telling about their own marksmanship. Still they often do very remarkable shooting, both for speed and accuracy. One of their feats, that I never could learn to copy, is to make excellent shooting after nightfall. Of course all this applies only to the regular hunters; not to the numerous pretenders who hang around the outskirts of the towns to try to persuade unwary strangers to take them for guides.

What happened next …

With vivid detail and humorous stories about the ranching life, Roosevelt's writing prompted many wealthy easterners to visit the Dakota Territory. Tourists came in such great numbers that many ranchers opened up their ranches to them. These operations, which became known as dude ranches, welcomed city dwellers to stay and get a taste of the ranching life. Visitors wore Western clothing, helped with chores around the ranch, learned to herd cattle.

In addition to helping establish a new tourist industry, Roosevelt's stories directly affected the way the general public perceived the Wild West. By giving the impression that westerners were self-reliant, honorable, and hard-working, Roosevelt made the frontier a challenge for all Americans. If they could make it there, they could survive anywhere.

The frontier wilderness closed two years after the publication of Roosevelt's memoirs. In 1890, U.S. Cavalry slaughtered more than three hundred Lakota Indians at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Known as the Wounded Knee Massacre, that bloody conflict marked the end of the Plains Indian Wars as well as the frontier. From that point on, it was no longer considered wilderness area, as thousands of settlers migrated West.

Roosevelt saw firsthand what could happen to natural resources if left in the hands of the greedy, the ignorant, and the selfish. He witnessed the overgrazing of land, the clear-cutting of forests, battles for water rights, and the over-hunting of many animal species, the buffalo in particular. A common activity among men during the era was to shoot buffalo from passing trains. Nothing was done with the dead and wounded animals; the point of the shooting was just to be able to do it. Roosevelt's already-developed sense of connection to the outdoors was only intensified during his years in the Dakota Territory.

TR's Opinion of Women on the Frontier

Theodore Roosevelt admired frontier women, as evidenced by this excerpt from Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail:

There is an old and true border saying that "the frontier is hard on women and cattle." There are some striking exceptions; but, as a rule, the grinding toil and hardship of a life passed in the wilderness, or on its outskirts, drive the beauty and bloom from a woman's face long before her youth has left her. By the time she is a mother she is sinewy and angular, with thin, compressed lips and furrowed, sallow [pale] brow. But she has a hundred qualities that atone for the grace she lacks. She is a good mother and a hard-working housewife, always putting things to rights, washing and cooking for her stalwart spouse and offspring. She is faithful to her husband, and, like the true American that she is, exacts faithfulness in return. Peril cannot daunt her, nor hardship and poverty appall her. Whether on the mountains in a log hut chinked with moss, in a sod or adobe hovel on the desolate prairie, or in a mere temporary camp, where the white-topped wagons have been drawn up in a protection-giving circle near some spring, she is equally at home. Clad in a dingy gown and a hideous sun-bonnet she goes bravely about her work, resolute, silent, uncomplaining.

When he became president in 1901, Roosevelt took it upon himself to use his power and authority to conserve, or save, what he saw as America's most valuable resources. As was true of anything else Roosevelt believed, he was not afraid to speak his mind, and he made no apologies when some people perceived him as the "bully" president. Afire with commitment to his beliefs, Roosevelt often spoke with the enthusiasm and intention of converting his audience, much like that of a preacher at his pulpit. Roosevelt himself referred to the White Houseas being a bully pulpit, a splendid place from which to pursue an agenda. He also established himself as the conservation president; while in office, many conservation and environmental laws were passed.

As president, Roosevelt was concerned with the long-term well-being of the nation. He considered the land an economic resource that must be conserved, managed, and protected. Among the conservation legislation passed throughout Roosevelt's presidency were the Alaska Game Act (1902; a law protecting certain game animals); the National Reclamation Act (1902; an act requiring the money from the sale and disposal of public lands in certain states and territories to be spent on the construction of irrigation works for dry lands, making them livable); and the Antiquities Act (1906; a law that allowed the president to designate federally protected national monuments for the sake of historic and scientific preservation; see Chapter 13).

Did you know …

• Roosevelt established 150 national forests, 51 bird preserves, 5 national parks, and 18 national monuments during his time as president.
• Most of the early cowboys in the 1870s and 1880s were Irish and Welsh immigrants from Ireland and Great Britain.
• One of the many jobs of children on the frontier was the gathering of buffalo chips (dried buffalo waste). These were used for fuel in the fireplace.
• Wanting a rest after completing his presidency in 1909, Roosevelt and his son Kermit went on a safari in Africa. They killed thousands of animals, including elephants, rhinos, and lions.
• Many cowboy words come from Mexican culture. Among them are "lariat," "chaps," "buckaroo," and "rodeo." Although largely considered the epitome of western wear, the cowboy hat also has its roots in Mexican culture and is a version of the sombrero.

Consider the following …

• How are the conservation concerns during the early twentieth century similar to those today? How are they different?
• How has Hollywood influenced America's perception of the cowboy?
• How might the life of a woman on the frontier differ from the life of a woman living in an eastern city?

For More Information

BOOKS

Hafen, LeRoy R., ed. Mountain Men and Fur Traders of the Far West. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

Kraft, Betsy Harvey. Theodore Roosevelt: Champion of the American Spirit. New York: Clarion Books, 2003.

Roosevelt, Theodore. Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail. New York: The Century Co., 1888. Multiple reprints.

West, Elliott. Growing Up with the Country: Childhood on the Far-Western Frontier. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989.

WEB SITES

PBS. "Frederic Remington." American Masters.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/remington_f.html (accessed on July 25, 2006).

PBS. "Theodore Roosevelt." New Perspectives on the West.http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/i_r/roosevelt.htm (accessed on July 25, 2006).

"Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail." Bartleby.com.http://www.bartelby.com/54/ (accessed on July 20, 2006).

Zimmerman, Emily. "The Mountain Men: Pathfinders of the West, 1810–1860." American Studies at the University of Virginia.http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/HNS/Mtmen/home.html (accessed on July 25, 2006).

Dauntless:

Fearless.

Untrodden:

Roadless.

Fastnesses:

Areas.

Inaccessible:

Unreachable.

Thither:

There.

Tunic:

A loose fitting robe-like garment.

Trackless:

Pathless.

Soldiery:

Soldiers.

King's Mountain:

South Carolina site of an American Revolution battle.

New Orleans:

Louisiana site of a War of 1812 battle.

Horseshoe Bend:

Alabama site of a Creek War battle in the War of 1812.

Intervals:

Periods of time.

Coarse:

Rough.

Nook:

Secluded place.

Brethren:

Brothers; fellow human beings.

Coeur d'Alene:

Northern area of Idaho.

Toilsome:

Characterized by hard work.

Incident to:

Regularly occurring in.

Privation:

Hardship.

Savage orgies with which it was varied.:

Opposite of privation; excessive indulgence in food and alcohol, for example.

Frank:

Honest and direct.

Element:

Weather, usually severe.

Vindictive:

Vengeful.

Backbiter:

One who makes mean or spiteful comments about another person.

Sun jerked:

Sun-dried.

Ruffian:

Bully.

Highwayman:

Thief who preys on travelers.

Chivalric:

Honor.

Arch-type:

Perfect symbol.

Hews:

Cuts.

Queer:

Strange, odd.

Doleful:

Sad.

Contemptuously:

Scornfully.

Peltries:

Furs.

Unwary:

Unsuspecting.