The American West - First Season

Narrator: Previously on "The American West"...

In the decade since the Civil War,

America has been desperate to settle the West.

But the effort has been met with conflict

- at nearly every turn. - Who's the cashier?

Narrator: Outlaws like Jesse James

have terrorized railroads and banks

across the Midwest...

leading to one of the largest manhunts

in American history.

But Jesse James gets away

and goes into hiding for two years.

In the Great Plains, the United States military

looks to defeat the armies of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

and secure the gold

in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

But after they're defeated at the Battle of Little Bighorn,

the U.S. government sees the extermination of the buffalo

as a way of starving the Lakota nation

into submission.

Narrator: After their victory at Little Bighorn...

Lakota warriors led by Crazy Horse

continue to fight for their land.

Hold the line!

Narrator: But despite winning small battles

against the U.S. Army,

the struggles for the Indians

are only getting worse.

General William Tecumseh Sherman's strategy

of exterminating the buffalo is working...

as more and more Indians face starvation.

Lakota leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

are running out of options.

Narrator: After years of leading the Lakota people together,

Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse part ways.

Sitting Bull leads 5,000 Indians north to Canada...

while Crazy Horse stays behind

with fewer than 1,000 warriors,

determined to remain on their rightful land.

The Native Americans pressed on despite the violence

and the decimation of their tribes and their culture.

They were persistent in wanting to maintain their beliefs,

and they pressed on because they had courage.

Narrator: With the Indian population depleted,

the U.S. government moves full force

into the Black Hills,

allowing them to take the land

and the gold discovered there three years earlier.

By 1880, the area is yielding

over $7 million in gold and silver annually,

over $170 million in today's dollars.

David Eisenbach: This is just this moment of extreme opportunity

to just go out there and strike it rich.

And a lot of men and women were able to do that.

And people who are not seeing the opportunities

that they saw in prior generations

see the West as that great promised land.

Narrator: As gold pours into the economy,

the U.S. is the first country

to pull itself out of the global depression.

And over the next decade,

more than 12 million immigrants arrive in the United States,

looking to take full advantage of the country's prosperity.

But the population boom brings a problem...

Millions of new mouths to feed.

The solution is found in the West.

The wide-open spaces provide the perfect spot

for a new American industry...

cattle.

H.W. Brands: There were lots of cattle in Texas

on the border of Mexico for a long time.

But it wasn't until the railroads

that they could be moved out to the plains

and shipped from there to hungry people in the East.

Narrator: Cattle that would sell for ten dollars a head in Texas

are worth forty dollars a head on the East Coast.

This booming industry breeds a new sort of businessman...

The cattle baron.

Cattle barons buy up huge tracts of grazing land

stretching from Kansas to California.

Kiefer Sutherland: Those land grabs presented unbelievable opportunities.

We're talking about sometimes millions of acres,

of these farms, and thousands and thousands of head of cattle.

Narrator: But with so much product

spread across such a vast, unguarded area,

herds belonging to cattle barons

are becoming a major target...

for outlaws.

And in the territory of New Mexico,

one cattle rustler will become

one of the most notorious men in the West.

He's born Henry McCarty...

but the world will come to know him

as Billy the Kid.

His story begins 2,000 miles to the east.

Paul Hutton: Billy the Kid came from Hell's Kitchen in New York,

and there's a beautiful sort of irony

to the idea of a kid from the slums of New York

becoming this icon of the Wild West.

Narrator: Billy never knew his father.

In the early 1870s,

he and his mother move to New Mexico.

But within a year of arriving, she dies...

and Billy is all alone in an unknown land.

Narrator: For years he wanders without direction.

What'll you have?

Whiskey.

Leave the bottle.

Burt Reynolds: There were all kinds of cowboys.

There were ones that were loud

and drunk and a pain,

and then there's the quiet ones who didn't say anything.

Always sat in the corner.

Those are the ones you had to watch out for.

Narrator: To get by, Billy turns to the one thing he can do best.

Hutton: Billy the Kid was superb with a gun.

He used every spare dollar he had

to buy ammunition for practice.

He understood very early on

that the gun was his ticket to success.

And he's not shy about using it.

Narrator: Armed with his trusted weapon,

Billy starts stealing cattle from wealthy ranchers

and selling them one county over.

John McCain: Self-reliance is one of the more salient features

of the Old West because it was tough.

And in those kinds of environment,

the tough are the ones that survive.

Cowboy: Where are ya headed?

Into Lincoln.

I'm just rounding up some strays.

Those cattle you have belong to John Tunstall.

Well, then John Tunstall can come and take them back himself.

Be in your best interest to let me get on my way.

That's not how this works.

Doesn't look like you have much of a choice.

Narrator: Young cattle thief Billy the Kid

has just been captured by a local rancher

he tried to steal from.

Most men shoot cattle rustlers on the spot.

You still haven't told me who you're workin' for.

I don't work for anyone.

Son, in Lincoln County,

everybody works for somebody.

Yeah... well... not me.

You strike me as a man used to gettin' what he wants.

You got that right.

Only thing about that is...

so am I.

Easy. Easy.

You got a lot of men.

You got room for one more?

When Billy the Kid came to Lincoln, he needed a job.

John Tunstall happened to need cowboys.

Cowboys who could use guns,

and so Billy became one of his employees.

Narrator: After roaming the West for years,

Billy the Kid has finally found a place to belong...

Working for an ambitious rancher and businessman

in New Mexico...

named John Tunstall.

Mark Lee Gardner: John Henry Tunstall has come to the West

to make a fortune.

And he settles on Lincoln County,

where he can make a lot of money.

Narrator: Looking to make it big in the booming cattle industry,

Tunstall has bought a ranch outside of Lincoln, New Mexico,

and in just two short years has become

one of the most successful cattle barons in the territory.

But with his success,

he's upset some very powerful men.

Chamberlain: Lincoln was the wildest of the Wild West.

The law was almost nonexistent,

and the people who controlled it

were generally corrupt.

Narrator: The established power in Lincoln County

was a group of wealthy land owners and cattle barons

known simply as "the House."

"The House" controls everything

from cattle prices, land holdings

and government positions.

Even the law is on their payroll.

Gardner: The House controlled Lincoln County,

and they were prominent.

In fact, a lot of people that lived in Lincoln

really looked at them as oppressors.

And John Henry Tunstall arrives

to kind of horn in on the monopoly

that the House has had for a long time.

Narrator: Tensions quickly rise between Tunstall and the House,

but the rancher is not one to back down.

Looking to build up his small army,

Tunstall sees potential in young Billy.

Gardner: In Lincoln County,

everyone was forced to make a choice...

Either you supported the House

or you supported John Henry Tunstall.

There was no in between.

So, once Billy accepted that job with John Henry Tunstall,

he was gonna be Tunstall's man.