The West (PBS)

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[edit] General Information

History Documentary hosted by Peter Coyote, published by PBS in 1996 - English narration

[edit] Cover

[edit] Information

Chronicles the turbulent history of one of the most extraordinary landscapes on earth – a mythic landscape, simultaneously enticing and forbidding, filled with stories of both heartbreaking tragedy and undying hope. Beginning in the era when the land belonged only to Native Americans and ending in the 20th century, the film is populated by unforgettable historical characters, some famous and others relatively unknown – from gold seekers to cowboys to homesteaders to Indian leaders – whose competing dreams transformed the land, and turned the West into a lasting symbol of the nation itself, a tragic, inspiring intersection where the best of us met the worst of us and nothing was left unchanged.

[edit] The People (1500-1806)

Traces the lives of a diverse cast of characters, from explorers, soldiers and Indian warriors to settlers, railroad builders and gaudy showmen, who share their stories in their own words, through diaries, letters and autobiographical accounts.

[edit] Empire upon the Trails (1806-1848)

In the early 1800's, no one knew who would control the seemingly infinite spaces of the West.

[edit] Speck of the Future (1848-1856)

In 1848, a sawmill worker named James Marshall reached down into the stream bed of the American River in California -- and came up with the future of the West in the palm of his hand. He had discovered gold.

[edit] Death Runs Riot (1856-1868)

The West had always symbolized hope and new beginnings, but in the 1850s, as more American pioneers poured west to start over, they brought with them the nation's oldest, most divisive issue -- slavery.

[edit] Grandest Enterprise under God (1868-1874)

After the Civil War reunited North and South, Americans set out with renewed energy and optimism to finally unite the nation, East and West.

[edit] Fight No More Forever (1874-1877)

By the 1870s, only a few groups resisted the nation's push to conquer the West.

[edit] Geography of Hope (1877-1887)

The conquest of the West was nearly complete by the 1870s. In one remarkable decade, with Indians effectively confined to reservations, over four million new settlers arrived to stake their claim to the future.

[edit] Ghost Dance (1887 -1914)

By the late 1880's, American settlers continue to claim tribal lands while the Dawes Act tries to break up the tribal structure of the Native American nations. The Native Americans take up the Ghost Dance putting their faith in religion until their hopes are crushed at the Massacre of Wounded Knee.