"It's Not That We're So Dumb . . ."
"Every organized [patriarchy] works overtime to contribute its own brand of misogyny." - Robin Morgan
Considering the huge flap over the Halloween-influenced hanging of Sarah Palin in effigy, I wonder what today's social circles would think of the real thing -- the actual hanging of an innocent female -- except that in this case the murderers were the politically and socially elite ones, and the female victim the scapegoat for those men and women who had come before her and an inhibiting omen for those who would come after her. It happened on a July afternoon in 1889.
The following is excerpted from the Preface to my historical novel manuscript, presently in an edit iteration, The Sweetwater Conspiracy: the Legend of Cattle Kate.
In the summer of 1889, during the settling–up of the American west, a sensational news story drifted off Wyoming's high plains, making international headlines, and shaking the resolve of the westward pioneering spirit. The story told of the macabre garroting murder by hanging of a young, single, cowgirl homesteader and her boyfriend by an ad-hoc vigilante group of six influential Wyoming cattle barons.
According to the press, the precocious female settler was strung up for stocking her new homestead with cattle by trading sex for cows – tantamount to rustling. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Though the six men readily admitted murdering the couple and were charged with murder, the case was dismissed prior to trial due to lack of evidence. By the trial date every prosecution witness, some of whom had tried in vain to stop the hangings, had died or mysteriously disappeared.
This gruesome incident, involving wealthy cattlemen and relatively indigent homesteaders in Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley, became a vital spark in the incendiary run-up to the infamous Johnson County War, leading to a US government declaration of martial law and subsequent amendments to the various federal land-grant acts, which were profoundly influenced by that conflict.
The Sweetwater incident's key role in the volatile triad of the federal government (desperately trying to equitably settle the west), the territorial government of Wyoming (in the middle of its highly political transition to statehood), and the Wyoming Stockgrowers' Association (then, the most powerful jurisdictional and lobbying organization in America) should no longer be ignored. The social, political, and historical significance of this tragic event has been suppressed, subverted, ignored, and overlooked for well over a century now, and most of what little has been written about it – with the notable exception of the late George W. Hufsmith's excellent 1993 historical work, The Wyoming Lynching of Cattle Kate, 1889 – has been inaccurate if not intentionally misleading. Even today the Cattle Kate story is not discussed in polite company in Wyoming society.
What follows is the likely truth behind that sensational story of so long ago – a story that filled the front pages of the press from Cheyenne to Chicago to New York and on across the Atlantic to London, Paris, and Berlin. . . .
The true story, and the motivation of the politically and financially powerful men behind the gruesome murder of Ella Watson ("Cattle Kate") and her friend, Jim Averell, is a glaring insight into the minds of malevolent, duplicitous, greedy, and jealous misogynistic men, who -- by their sheer guile, power, and disregard for human life, human morality, and the rule of law -- were able to overtly commit murder in order to achieve their own ends.
We are taught, perhaps rightly so, to trust and believe in the integrity of the press as well as those who are in influential authority; but, considering these laconic words from Will Rogers, we ought to also strive to avoid naivety and seek the truth when the air reeks foul. He put it this way: "It's not that we're so dumb; it's just that what we know ain't so."
VVV
Considering the huge flap over the Halloween-influenced hanging of Sarah Palin in effigy, I wonder what today's social circles would think of the real thing -- the actual hanging of an innocent female -- except that in this case the murderers were the politically and socially elite ones, and the female victim the scapegoat for those men and women who had come before her and an inhibiting omen for those who would come after her. It happened on a July afternoon in 1889.
The following is excerpted from the Preface to my historical novel manuscript, presently in an edit iteration, The Sweetwater Conspiracy: the Legend of Cattle Kate.
In the summer of 1889, during the settling–up of the American west, a sensational news story drifted off Wyoming's high plains, making international headlines, and shaking the resolve of the westward pioneering spirit. The story told of the macabre garroting murder by hanging of a young, single, cowgirl homesteader and her boyfriend by an ad-hoc vigilante group of six influential Wyoming cattle barons.
According to the press, the precocious female settler was strung up for stocking her new homestead with cattle by trading sex for cows – tantamount to rustling. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Though the six men readily admitted murdering the couple and were charged with murder, the case was dismissed prior to trial due to lack of evidence. By the trial date every prosecution witness, some of whom had tried in vain to stop the hangings, had died or mysteriously disappeared.
This gruesome incident, involving wealthy cattlemen and relatively indigent homesteaders in Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley, became a vital spark in the incendiary run-up to the infamous Johnson County War, leading to a US government declaration of martial law and subsequent amendments to the various federal land-grant acts, which were profoundly influenced by that conflict.
The Sweetwater incident's key role in the volatile triad of the federal government (desperately trying to equitably settle the west), the territorial government of Wyoming (in the middle of its highly political transition to statehood), and the Wyoming Stockgrowers' Association (then, the most powerful jurisdictional and lobbying organization in America) should no longer be ignored. The social, political, and historical significance of this tragic event has been suppressed, subverted, ignored, and overlooked for well over a century now, and most of what little has been written about it – with the notable exception of the late George W. Hufsmith's excellent 1993 historical work, The Wyoming Lynching of Cattle Kate, 1889 – has been inaccurate if not intentionally misleading. Even today the Cattle Kate story is not discussed in polite company in Wyoming society.
What follows is the likely truth behind that sensational story of so long ago – a story that filled the front pages of the press from Cheyenne to Chicago to New York and on across the Atlantic to London, Paris, and Berlin. . . .
The true story, and the motivation of the politically and financially powerful men behind the gruesome murder of Ella Watson ("Cattle Kate") and her friend, Jim Averell, is a glaring insight into the minds of malevolent, duplicitous, greedy, and jealous misogynistic men, who -- by their sheer guile, power, and disregard for human life, human morality, and the rule of law -- were able to overtly commit murder in order to achieve their own ends.
We are taught, perhaps rightly so, to trust and believe in the integrity of the press as well as those who are in influential authority; but, considering these laconic words from Will Rogers, we ought to also strive to avoid naivety and seek the truth when the air reeks foul. He put it this way: "It's not that we're so dumb; it's just that what we know ain't so."
VVV
Copyright (©2008) Albert Lloyd Williams
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