Frontier Violence and Law and Order: Historical and Geographical Variance in the Great Plains of the North American West

Abstract

Stark differences between the United States and Canada in the post-Civil War/post-Confederation frontier West of the Great Plains and Prairies regarding the role of government, levels of interpersonal violence, and access to firearms (especially handguns) helped to shape the two countries’ divergent developmental paths. Utilizing the alternative approaches of Seymour Martin Lipset’s “origins thesis” and borderlands studies to structure its analysis, this article contrasts the frontier experiences of both countries in the nineteenth century concerning gun laws, violence, and the enforcement of law and order. Canada’s frontier West was demonstrably more orderly and peaceful than was the American frontier, yet the closer one came to the 49th parallel, the more rowdy and violence-prone were the Canadian towns and settlements. Nevertheless, despite occasional instances of lawlessness, even the Alberta borderlands were not as violent or unruly as the American frontier, due in large measure to a strong central government and the effectiveness of the North-West Mounted Police.