Analysis: Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

Date: 1880s and 1890s

Author: William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody

Genre: memoir

Summary Overview

Of all the big personalities to come out of the American West, none was perhaps bigger than William F. Cody, popularly known as Buffalo Bill. An Army scout, Indian fighter, Pony Express rider, and gold miner all by the time he was fourteen, Cody made a name for himself as first a buffalo hunter and, later, as one of the greatest showmen of the nineteenth century. His travelling circus, Buffalo Bill's Wild West, not only gave audiences across the United States and Europe a taste of life on the vanishing frontier, but also became the template for how popular culture would forever after depict life in the West—the enduring story of savagery conquered by civilization. In the process of the show's nearly three-decade run, Cody became a living legend, and his actors and performers, both cowboys and Native peoples, became the icons of a much romanticized and often exaggerated, uniquely American era.

Defining Moment

The latter half of the nineteenth century in the American West is arguably the most romanticized era in United States history. A great amount of sentimentalized art, literature, and film has depicted the “Old West” as a place of villainous bandits, wild savage Natives, and heroic cowboys. Few have helped shape this image more than William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody.

A prodigious showman and self-promoter, Cody lived and worked a myriad of jobs throughout the western United States during the 1860s and 1870s, at the very height of the settlement expansion. Thanks in part to his many, often exaggerated experiences, Cody was able to touch on nearly every aspect of life in the American West. Theatrical by nature, and having tasted the interest of eastern audiences for tales of life on the frontier, in 1883, Cody packaged his exploits (making some up as he went along) and founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West. The show, a traveling circus of western attractions, featured performances by both cowboys and Native peoples. Among the large, shifting troupe were such notables as sharp-shooters Annie Oakley and Lillian Smith; cowboys Will Rogers and Wild Bill Hickok; and Native Americans, including Chief Sitting Bull (Lakota), Chief Joseph (Nez Perce), and Geronimo (Apache).

Each show would follow a somewhat standard format, beginning with a parade on horseback, followed by “historical reenactments,” such as a bison hunt or train robbery. In some shows, Cody would stage a reenactment of the Battle of Little Bighorn, in which General Custer dies the last man standing, gloriously fighting his Sioux attackers to the bitter end, after which Cody himself would appear to take revenge for the fallen hero. Shooting demonstrations, cowboy tricks, rodeo events, and races were all featured throughout. Finally, every show would then conclude with an Indian attack on a “burning cabin,” a scene in which, again, Buffalo Bill would emerge as the savior.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West toured throughout the New and Old World, with special performances even given to many of the crown heads of Europe, most notably the British royal family, including Queen Victoria herself. The show was a spectacular success, drawing large crowds wherever it went. It also struck a nerve with a public fascinated by a place and a time that was quickly disappearing. By the time the last of Buffalo Bill's performances closed in 1908, his story of the West became the story of the West.

Author Biography

William F. Cody was born in Iowa in 1846. Following the death of his father, Cody, barely a teenager, struck out to support his family, finding odd jobs as a freight carrier, unofficial scout during the Utah War, gold miner, and even as a rider in the famed, albeit short-lived, Pony Express. In 1863, Cody joined the Union Army and, following the defeat of the Confederacy became a scout for the reconstituted United States Army. In short order, Cody made a reputation for himself as not just a talented scout and tracker, but also as famed buffalo hunter, having shot as many as 4,282 bison in a period of eighteen months for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, thus earning for himself the nickname, “Buffalo Bill.” In 1872, Cody began to perform in Wild West shows and, in 1883, established his own, Buffalo Bill's Wild West. In addition to his travelling circus, Cody was a tireless self-promoter, writing multiple autobiographies and self-aggrandizing histories. He was also a land speculator and sometime investor. Cody died in 1917, one of the most famous men in America, if not the world.

Document Analysis

This selection from William F. Cody's autobiography details the European tours of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, with special emphasis given to the many prestigious guests who attended the performances. We get a sense of Cody's boastful nature and his real pride over the success of his shows in Europe, but we also glimpse some sadness at the loss of the frontier and his inherent contradictions about Native peoples. Most importantly, we witness his role in crafting the narrative of the American West.

Cody believes that he's offering audiences an authentic experience. Whether it be in the form of a war-bonnet from the Great Plains or a stagecoach from the Black Hills, Cody spares no expense in securing artifacts from the West to use in his show. At the same time, he has an obvious flare for showmanship, crafting spectacle with grand entrances and fake gunfire. He wants to dazzle audiences, while also giving them something of what they already expect. His aim is to make real what they've imagined the West to be. He takes special delight in entertaining royalty, who shower him with gifts and praise and, according to Cody, often seem more “democratic” than many of the elected officials he's met. In fact, Cody loves his tours of Britain, where his show finds bigger success than in the United States—not surprising considering that, at the time, Victorian Britain controlled the largest empire in the world.

Throughout Cody's account his depiction of his Native American performers is most interesting. While he professes his respect for his Native American performers, going so far as to say that Native peoples had every right to defend themselves against “the white man,” and that the policies of the US Government were “unwise and unjust,” he's still not above using his Native American performers to play on the stereotypes of the audience. The Native peoples in this Wild West show are the aggressors, whooping and screaming, the savage hordes come down on an unsuspecting wagon train or log cabin. Cody often seems amused when his Native performers seem out of their element. Respect them though he might, Cody obviously considers Native peoples quite primitive.

Overall one gets the sense from the document that Cody is very conscious of the frontier's imminent demise. The West is fading from memory, and never again will there be anything like it. The best that Cody can do is to try and recreate something of it through his over-the-top, larger than life performances. Through his shows in Europe, all things of the American West have become trendy. Cody might argue that what he's created is authentic and realistic, but in truth, it's just it's just a caricature, and he knows it. As he laments several times throughout his account, and indirectly through the inclusion of a letter from W. T. Sherman, all that was is gone, and only spectacle remains.

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Blackstone, Sarah J. The Business of Being Buffalo Bill. New York: Praeger, 1988. Print.

Bridger, Bobby. Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull: Inventing the Wild West. Austin: U of Texas P, 2002. Print.

Carter, Robert A. Buffalo Bill Cody: The Man Behind the Legend. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000. Print.

Warren, Lois S. Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show. New York: Random House, 2005. Print.