Romanticised in novels, film, costume and games, the American West nurses a cache of dramatic stories and extraordinary personalities, some of whom have been essential to America’s self-image.
Among them are notorious outlaws but also iconic figures like Stagecoach Mary, who brandished firearms as a US postal service mail carrier, and the Lakota leader Crazy Horse, who famously defeated the US Army at Little Bighorn.
The period of the Wild West is typically regarded as spanning the mid to late 19th century. During this time, the westward expansion of the United States continued and the population of remote settler towns exploded. The history of the American frontier is one of hardship, endurance and also conquest, for the growth of the settler population was hitched to the dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants of the land.
