page_title: Wild Westing
section_title: Progressive Era fight for the image
hierarchical_section_title: Wild Westing / Progressive Era fight for the image
caption_attribution_description: English: Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and Congress of Rough Riders of the World - Circus poster showing cowboys rounding up cattle and portrait of Col. W.F. Cody on horseback.
context_page_description: Wild Westing was the term used by Native Americans for their performing with Buffalo Bill's Wild West and similar shows. Between 1887 and World War I, over 1,000 Native Americans went "Wild Westing." Most were Oglala Lakota from their reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the first Lakota people to perform in these shows. During a time when the Bureau of Indian Affairs was intent on promoting Native assimilation, William Frederick Cody used his influence with U.S. government officials to secure Native American performers for his Wild West. Cody treated Native American employees as equals with white cowboys.
  Wild Westers received good wages, transportation, housing, abundant food, and gifts of cash and clothing at the end of each season. Wild Westing was very popular with the Lakota people and benefited their families and communities. Wild Westing offered opportunity and hope during time when people believed Native Americans were a vanishing race whose only hope for survival was rapid cultural transformation.
context_section_description: During the Progressive Era, U.S. government policy focused upon acquiring Indian lands, restricting cultural and religious practices and sending Native American children to boarding schools. Progressives agreed that the situation was serious and that something needed to be done to educate and acculturate Native Americans to white society, but they differed as to education models and speed of assimilation. Reformist progressives, a coalition led by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Society of American Indians and Christian organizations, promoted rapid assimilation of children through off-reservation Indian boarding schools and immersion in white culture.
  The Society of American Indians was opposed to Wild West shows, theatrical troupes, circuses and most motion picture firms. The Society believed that theatrical shows were demoralizing and degrading to Indians, and discouraged Indians from "Wild Westing."  Chauncey Yellow Robe wrote that "Indians should be protected from the curse of the Wild West show schemes, wherein the Indians have been led to the white man's poison cup and have become drunkards."  
  Reformist progressives believed Wild West shows exploited Native Americans and vigorously opposed theatrical portrayals of Native Americans as savages and vulgar stereotypes. From 1886 to the onset of World War I, reformist progressives fought a war of images with Wild West shows before public exhibitions at world fairs, expositions and parades portraying the model Carlisle Indian Industrial School as a new generation of Native Americans embracing civilization, education and industry.
caption: In 1893, over two million patrons saw Buffalo Bill's Wild West perform during the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
exif: {}