The Old West

Between the 1860's and 1890's, the west of the United States got its name "the Old West" and a reputation of being violent. Now there are many movies, books, television shows, and many other things based on the Old West having: cowboys, gunfights, rough towns, and Indian attacks. Some people may believe that the Old West really was like this, but I think the west wasn't any more violent than other areas of the United States at this time. Less people lived in the west at this time so one murder may be a more significant difference compared to the other regions with lager populations. Also, there were laws set up to try and keep everything under controlled in these towns. Finally, it may of seemed like there were more deaths, but there were wars going on because it's a new area that people are trying to get settled in. Compared to other areas in the United States at the time, the Old West had a much less population. This could of made it seem like there were more deaths when they had to find a common number of people to compared the death ratio of the Old West with other regions in the country. Since there was a greater population over the U.S than in the west, when it was converted to a common number of 100,000 as the population, the number of deaths in the west increased while the number in other regions decreased (Document 3). This made it deceiving by looking like there was more deaths in the Old West, but the mathematics speak differently. Also, over the span 15 years there were only 45 deaths that occurred in the Old West. This averages out to be about 3 deaths a year, that isn't very many (Document 2). Another thing that supports the Old West not being too violent is laws were set up to try and keep peace and the towns under control. There was the Green River City Ordinances of 1868 that made it illegal to: no weapons, no shooting, no public intoxication, keep peace and quiet, no gamboling, no prostitutes, and no speeding (Document 5). This wasn't the