Here’s a link to more “A View From a Washichu” columns by Stew Magnuson.
I have high hopes for a new Western airing on the basic cable channel AMC called Hell on Wheels.
For those who love the history of the American West, the last couple decades have been lean times as far as TV shows and movies. At one time, “oaters” as they were called were staples on network television and at the movies. But that fad passed and they slowly disappeared from screens.
The upshot is that what has been released over the last 20 years is of much better quality. Dances With Wolves, Unforgiven, Open Range, Appaloosa, 3:10 to Yuma, are examples of what are known as “revisionist Westerns,” which try to adhere to a more realistic portrayal of the West.
I thought the HBO series Deadwood about the Black Hill mining boom town was one of the greatest television dramas ever produced. One of my complaints, however, is that it left out much of the historical context that allowed for the settlement of the Black Hills, namely their theft from the Lakotas. There were no Native American characters in the show.
There was an attempt in 2005 to do a comprehensive, Western TV drama, with a balanced approach to the Native American side of the story, called Into The West, a mini-series that aired on TNT. The producers’ hearts were in the right place, but it was unfortunately unwatchable mess with incomprehensible storylines. I never made it past the third episode.
That’s the problem for us history nerds when we watch a show like Deadwood or Hell on Wheels. We are constantly on the lookout for historical inaccuracies, or in my case, important facts or details that are conveniently left out.
Deadwood was cancelled before it could come to a natural end. If there were a season four, it could have ended with a big fire that destroyed the town’s notorious red light/gambling district, which is what really happened.
Hell on Wheels has a similar backdrop. Deadwood portrayed life in a boomtown that attracted businessmen and lowlifes, and in later seasons, its slow evolution into a more respectable community. The title of the new show refers to the tent communities that followed the construction of the railroad, in this case, the Union Pacific, its workers and those who catered everything from prostitution, gambling and booze to the men who had money in their pocket. You wouldn’t know by looking at it now, but North Platte, Nebr., began its life as one of the more notorious Hell on Wheels stops when work stalled there for several months as the railroad constructed a bridge over the river. (In fact, North Platte’s reputation as the sin city of the West survived well into the 1950s, but that’s another story.)
The building of the first transcontinental railroad had huge implications for the plains Indians, and that’s why I am hopeful that the writers will be providing important context, and therefore, some history lessons for the general viewing public.
In the first episode, we see a surveying party that was attacked by warriors identified as Cheyennes. That matches up with history. The Southern Cheyennes put up the most resistance against the railroad.
In the first episode we are also introduced a Native American character, Joseph Black Moon (of undetermined origin). He will be a main character in the show and is played by a Lakota actor, Eddie Spears, a member of the Lower Brule tribe.
I will be watching as the series unfolds for some more historical context. For example, Pawnee men were hired to protect the workers and counter the Cheyennes. If you go deeper in the history, Chief Spotted Tail and his followers used that opportunity to launch several raids against their long-time mortal enemies at the Pawnee reservation near Genoa, Nebr. The failure of the U.S. government to protect the Pawnee — as their best fighting men were off guarding the Union Pacific corporation’s progress — was one factor in the Pawnee deciding to abandon their traditional homeland along the Loup River and move to Indian Territory.
We shall see if the Pawnees make an appearance in the show.
As would be expected for a mainstream television show, the main story will revolve around the white characters. The central plot is about a former Confederate soldier who is seeking revenge for the cruel death of his wife at the hands of Union troops. The “nation is an open wound” in the post-Civil War years, the show’s opening proclaims. The theme of a nation trying to heal after the trauma of the Civil War is worth exploring and is an important part of U.S. history that rarely explored.
So too is the U.S. government’s clash with the native peoples, and that’s why I am excited about Hell on Wheels.
Television shows and movies are not documentaries. I’m not expecting complete accuracy and for every historic detail to be included. But I have high hopes that the producers and the writers will strike the right balance and tone when it comes to the building of the transcontinental railroad and its effects on the nation’s first inhabitants.
Stew Magnuson (stewmag@yahoo.com) is the author of The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder: And Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns. ORDER Here.
