Was Sheriff William Brady a willing pawn in the hands of a crooked political faction, or was he an honest man dedicated to law and order? After his extensive research, Lavash thinks Brady deserves a more realistic evaluation. Although Brady tried to stem the growing tide of anarchy, his efforts ended when he was ambushed by Billy the Kid and his gang.
This is a book that for over forty years was carefully researched and footnoted by the principal author Ernest S. Sanchez. It is a story that is weaved together by multiple interviews with families and their familial history that makes this account and supported by documentation. This book brings into focus the following points: 1. History of the settlement of New Mexico from Onate to the present 2. The principal families that were involved in the settlement and their experiences... 3. The New Mexican experience from the Hispanic view in the history of the settlement of Lincoln County and the Lincoln County War 4. An insight on the personal relationship of the Hispanics with William H. Bonney (Billy the Kid). 5. A very accurate reference in the genealogy of the families that settled in Lincoln County New Mexico. This story illuminates the rich customs and traditions of the people that make up New Mexico history. We get a view of the every day life experiences of the Nuevo Mexicanos, that were passed forward from generation to generation. This account also exposes the violence, greed and racism that not only permeated the Spanish settlement of New Mexico but also fueled the Lincoln County War. It is an American story, a story of the painful birth of a nation.
"A lively, lucid, compelling account of complex and confusing events about which scholars are still puzzling".--WASHINGTON TIMES. This story of greed, violence, and death has entered American folklore through the mythologizing of the career of Billy the Kid and also through a tendency to see the Lincoln County War as emblematic of frontier lawlessness. Illustrations.
"Chamberlain argues that the focus on Billy the Kid has discouraged broader interpretations of the Lincoln County War; she provides a woman's perspective of the historic event and places Susan McSween's life and legacy into the larger context of New Mexico history and of women's experiences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Southwest"--Provided by publisher.
The town of Lincoln is nestled in the lush green valley of the Rio Bonito in Southeastern New Mexico. It lies on US Route 380 about 57 miles west of Roswell and south of the Lincoln National Forest. Lincoln has been a National Landmark since 1960, and historians often refer to it as the most authentic Old West town remaining in the United States. Spanish settlers arrived in the area during the 1840s. By the 1860s, Lincoln served as a supply center for local ranches, mines, and nearby Fort Stanton. Lincoln merchants vied for lucrative government contracts, and the famous Lincoln County War erupted. As a result, Lincoln holds a unique place in American history, connected with the names of Lew Wallace, Billy the Kid, Sheriff Pat Garrett, and John Chisum. Seventeen historic buildings and four museums highlight the town as well as an annual folk pageant, The Last Escape of Billy the Kid, held since 1949.
Here is the full story of the Irish immigrants and their decedents whose hard work helped make the West what it is today. Learn about the Irish members of the Donner party, forced to consume human flesh to survive the winter; mountain men like Thomas Fitzpatrick, who discovered the South Pass through the Rockies; Ellen “Nellie” Cashman, who ran boarding houses and bought and sold claims in Alaska, Arizona, and Nevada; and Maggie Hall, who became known as the “whore with a heart of gold.” A fascinating and entertaining look at the history of the American West, this book will surprise many and make every Irish American proud.
Elected for two-year terms, frontier sheriffs were the principal peace-keepers in counties that were often larger than New England states. As officers of the court, they defended settlers and protected their property from the ever-present violence on the frontier. Their duties ranged from tracking down stagecoach robbers and serving court warrants to locking up drunks and quelling domestic disputes.The reality of their job embraced such mandane duties as being jail keepers, tax collectors, quarantine inspectors, court-appointed executioners, and dogcatchers.
Even before he was shot and killed in 1881, Billy the Kid’s charisma and murderous career were generating stories that belied his brief life—and that only multiplied, growing to legendary proportions after his death at age twenty-one. In Thunder in the West, Richard W. Etulain takes the true measure of Billy, the man and the legend, and presents the clearest picture yet of his life and his ever-shifting place and presence in the cultural landscape of the Old West. Billy the Kid—born Henry McCarty in 1859, and also known as William H. Bonney—emerges from these pages in all his complexity, at once a gentleman and gregarious companion, and a thief and violent murderer. Tapping new depths of research, Etulain traces Billy’s short life from his mysterious origins in the East through his wanderings in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. As we move from his peripatetic early years through the wild West to his fatal involvement in the Lincoln County Wars, we see the impressionable boy give way to the conflicted young man and, finally, to the opportunistic and often amoral outlaw who was out for himself, for revenge, and for whatever he could steal along the way. Against this deftly drawn portrait, Etulain considers the stories and myths spawned by Billy’s life and death. Beginning with the dime novels featuring Billy the Kid, even during his lifetime, and ranging across the myriad newspaper accounts, novels, and movies that alternately celebrated his outlaw life and condemned his exploits, Etulain offers a uniquely informed view of the changing interpretations that have shaped and reshaped the reputation of this enduring icon of the Old West. In his portrayal, Billy the Kid lives on, not as a cut-throat desperado or a young charmer but as both—hero and villain, myth and man, fully realized in this twenty-first-century interpretation.
