The Wild West

See also Wars and Battles: Wild West (battles of).

Native Americans

Cochise, Geronimo: tribe		Apache
The only horse to survive the Battle of the Little Bighorn		Comanche
Sitting Bull's right hand man; led his followers into the Battle of the Little Bighorn; stabbed to death by a US guard in 1877, while attempting to negotiate with US troops		Crazy Horse
Apache chief (1829–1906): the last Native American leader to surrender formally to the USA (1886)		Geronimo
16th century Mohawk (or Onondaga) chief, credited with founding the North American Indian nation; name means "He makes rivers"		Haiohratha (Hiawatha)
Known to the Native Americans as the Battle of Greasy Grass Creek		Little Bighorn
Calumet		Peace pipe
Algonquin Indian princess who (according to a well–known story) prevented her father from executing the English soldier Captain John Smith, in 1606; converted to Christianity, married the English settler John Rolfe, and took the Christian name Rebecca; travelled to England with Rolfe in 1616, but was taken ill shortly after leaving to return to America in 1617, aged 21 or 22; taken ashore, but died and was buried in Gravesend churchyard (exact site unknown); a memorial statue was erected in the churchyard in 1958		Pocahontas
Tribe that defeated Custer at Little Bighorn but was massacred at Wounded Knee; leaders included Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse		(Lakota) Sioux
Leader of the resistance to US government policies, throughout the 1860s and early 70s; established the camp beside the Little Bighorn river, where he welcomed over 10,000 Native Americans; some three weeks before the battle, he had a vision of many soldiers, "as thick as grasshoppers", falling head first into the camp, which was seen as foreshadowing a major victory		Sitting Bull
Forced relocations of Native Americans, in the 1830s, from their ancestral homelands in the south–eastern USA to an area west of the Mississippi that had been designated as Indian Territory		Trail of Tears
The last major battle between native Americans and the US Cavalry (1890): 146 men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux were massacred when the Cavalry opened fire after a deaf Sioux refused to give up his rifle as ordered by his chiefs		Wounded Knee, South Dakota

Gunfight at the OK Corral

Date			26 October 1881
Location of the OK Corral (town)			Tombstone, Arizona
Deputy US Marshal, and Town Marshal (of the above town); ambushed from behind and permanently maimed, two months later (28 December 1881)			Virgil Earp
Younger brother of the above, a Special Policeman or Deputy Town Marshal; led the posse that sought revenge for the maiming and assassination (respectively) of his elder and younger brothers			Wyatt Earp
Another Special Policeman or Deputy Town Marshal; youngest of the three brothers who opposed the 'Cowboys' in the gunfight: wounded on that day, and assassinated in March 1882 by a shot through a window while he was playing billiards			Morgan Earp
The other Earp brothers (who didn't take part in the gunfight)	Oldest of all the Earp brothers (only half–brother to the others)		Newton
	Second oldest		James
	Youngest		Warren
A third Special Policeman or Deputy Town Marshal: supported the Earp brothers at the OK Corral; was ambushed and permanently injured two months later; died in 1887, aged 36			John Henry 'Doc' Holliday
Occupation of the above			Dentist
Brothers on the other side, first names Tom and Frank – both fatally shot			McLaury
The third fatality			Billy Clanton
Brother of the above – ran from the fight, and later filed a murder charge against the Earps			Ike Clanton
The other two that ran			Billy Claiborne
			Wes Fuller

Butch and Sundance

Their real names:	Butch Cassidy		Robert LeRoy Parker
	Sundance Kid		Harry Alonzo Longabaugh
Their gang			Hole in the Wall Gang
Their mysterious female companion (played in the film by Katharine Ross)			Etta Place
Country in which they're believed to have died in a shoot–out with local soldiers			Bolivia

Other

Eccentric Texan saloon–keeper and Justice of the Peace (1880s): styled himself "the Law West of the Pecos"			Roy Bean
Born William Henry McCarty Jr., sometime between 1859 and 1861, probably in New York; a.k.a. William H. Bonney, William Antrim, Kid Antrim; probably killed eight men; catapulted into legend in 1881 when Lew Wallace, governor of New Mexico, placed a price on his head. Died 14 July 1881 at Fort Sumner, New Mexico (see Pat Garrett)			Billy the Kid
One of the first American folk heroes: broke a trail (the Wilderness Road) through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian mountains, into what's now Kentucky (then part of Virginia); founded one of the first settlements west of the Appalachians (which was named after him)			Daniel Boone
Commonly called Boothill or Boot Hill in the Wild West (including the one at Tombstone)			Cemetery
Type of vegetation found in California and Baja California, with hard, evergreen leaves: named after the Basque name for the scrub oak (a small or dwarf variety of oak); gives its name to a type of leather trousers without a seat, worn by cowboys over ordinary trousers to provide protection from it (commonly abbreviated); its name also features in the title of a TV Western series (1967–71)			Chaparral
Pistol, first manufactured in 1873: officially known as the Single Action Army, a.k.a. The Peacemaker; often referred to as "the gun that won the West" (but see Winchester)			Colt .45
Sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico – shot Billy the Kid without warning in 1881; appointed Collector of Customs for El Paso, Texas by Theodore Roosevelt in 1901; shot dead in 1908, in a dispute over grazing rights by Jesse Wayne Brazel, who pleaded self defence and was acquitted of murder			Pat Garrett
Marshal of Abilene, Kansas, from April to December 1871 (relieved of his duties after acccidentally shooting his deputy); shot in the back by Jack McCall while playing poker in the No. 10 Saloon, Deadwood, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota) on 2 August 1876			James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok
Shot in St. Joseph, Missouri on 3 April 1882 by Bob Ford – described in a popular song as "that dirty little coward"			Jesse James
Used the pseudonym Thomas Howard
Star of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show: dubbed "Watanya Cicilla" – "little sure shot" – by fellow performer Sitting Bull; described as America's first female superstar			Annie Oakley
Pony Express (1860–1) ran from St. Joseph, Missouri to (Californian city)			Sacramento
The Alamo was in			San Antonio
Mexican general who besieged the Alamo			Santa Anna
Custer's regiment at Little Bighorn			Seventh Cavalry
The Pony Express ran from 3rd April 1860 to November 1861, from			St. Joseph, Missouri
Commander of the Texian (sic) forces that defended the Alamo against Santa Anna's Mexican force (1836); wrote a famous open letter to the people of Texas, ending "Victory or Death"			William B. Travis
Formed in 1852 by three directors of American Express, to expand their business to California (from New York) following the Gold Rush of 1848; one of the few Californian banking businesses to survive the Panic of 1855; became involved with the Pony Express in April 1861; effectively took control of the entire mail service in the Western United States in 1866; business moved to the railways following take–over of the Pacific Union Express Company in 1869			Wells Fargo
Launched by press agent Major John M. Burke, 1883			Wild West Show
Arms manufacturer that coined the epithet "the Gun that Won the West" to refer to its most successful rifle (see also Colt .45)			Winchester
Surname of the four brothers (Cole, Jim, John & Bob) who formed a notorious gang in the 1870s with the James brothers (Jesse and Frank)			Younger

© Haydn Thompson 2017–23