God Bless Buffalo Bill

Abstract

William E (Buffalo Bill) Cody gave Americans a real version of the West that depicted Indians as raw savages, cowboys as chivalrous knights, and both as products of nature. Courageous pioneers versus savage Indians seemed as natural an opposition as sun and moon. The Wild West (the term was omitted from the title to indicate that this was no fantasy), announced Cody's publicists, not the result of rehearsal, it is not acting, it is nature itself (Reddin, p. 61). Perhaps that is indictment enough against Cody and his Wild West show. Both Cody and his show sponsored, celebrated, and commemorated a racialized form of imperialism. Yet, as Joy Kasson (professor of American studies and English at the University of North Carolina) and Paul Reddin (professor of history at Mesa State College Colorado) show two new books on wild west shows, Buffalo Bill leaves us a quandary. It is impossible to celebrate Buffalo Bill wholeheartedly; yet it is impossible to condemn him outright. He did, after all, give Americans and Europeans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries first-rate modern spectacles. Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows involved constant action, horsemanship, sharp shooting, and glitter enough for the Grand Ole Opry, putting the Wild West show a league with P.T. Barnum's circuses. More important, who would condemn a man who apologizes to a friend for being slow to respond to a letter because he had been in a hell of a toot (i.e., drunk), and who shouts to his wife the middle of a third-rate stage melodrama, Hello Mama! Oh, but I'm a bad actor (Reddin, p. 57)? Buffalo Bill was an ingenuous soul, at least the early stages of his entertainment career, and he defies simple judgment. The resurrection of Buffalo Bill, if he needs resurrecting, is far from complete, yet the more human he seems, the more likable he becomes. L.G.