The Times That Try Mens' Souls
My husband and I have been watching a series on Netflix called "Into the West." I highly recommend it, but it can be pretty depressing. It covers the expansion of white people from the east to the west throughout the nineteenth century. It focuses on the conflict between the whites and Native Americans as the inexorable tsunami of wagons crossed the plains. Indian wars, broken treaties, the near extinction of the buffalo, stolen lands . . . For the whites, the 1800's were a time of prosperity and gain. Inventions made life easier, the railroad brought the coasts together, while gold mines, industry, banking made some people millionaires. Huge cattle ranches and drives were the stuff of legend. Literature, politics, education, entertainment, journalism . . . There was nothing withheld from the irrepressible, enterprising whites of eighteenth century America. For the Indians, it was a time, with a few exceptions, of humiliation and loss. They fought bravely for what they