The Wild West

49 Pages·1.947 MB·English

by  Escott J.

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UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 0x2 6dp
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First published 2002
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10 9 8 7
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isbn: 978 o 19 4243414
Printed in China
A complete recording of this Dominoes edition of
The Wild West is available on cassette isbn 978 o 19 424357 5 N
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The publisher would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce photographs:
The Bridgeman Art Library p 10 (Sitting Bull/D.F. Barry, Bismarck, Dakota): Corbis UK Ltd
pp 9 (Kit Carson/Bettmann), 14 (The Eagles dressed as cowboys/Henry Diltz), 25 (Butch
Cassidy/Jonathan Blair), 32 (Buffalo Bill’s Travelling Troupe), 39 (Charles Marion Russell/
Lake County Museum); The Kobal Collection pp iv g (Maverick/Cooper, Andrew/Icon
Productions), iv h (Unforgiven/Wamer Bros.), 28 (Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid/
20t*1 Century Fox), Mary Evans Picture Library pp 33 (Colonel William Frederick Cody/
Explorer Archives), 34 and 40 (Annie Oakley); Peter Newark’s Western Americana pp 3
(wagons), 7 (hunting buffalo), 8 (trapper), 11 (Battle of Little Bighorn), 15 (Allan Pinkerton,
eye symbol), 16 and 40 (Wyatt Earp), 20 (Wild Bill Hickok), 21 (Wild Bill novel), 22 and
40 (Frank and Jesse James), 23 (Frank and Jesse James robbery), 25 and 26 (Billy the Kid),
27 (Billy the Kid robbery), 32 and 40 (Buffalo Bill), 35 (Annie Oakley), 36 and 40 (Nat Love),
39 and 40 (Davy Crockett, Geronimo, Bella Starr), 41 (Bella Starr); The Ronald Grant
Archive pp iv a (Will Smith), iv b (Geronimo), iv c (Dances With Wolves), iv d (Wyatt
Earp), iv e (The Quick And The Dead), iv f (Dances With Wolves), 17 (Gunfight at The
OK Corral), 29 (Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid); Stone pp 1 (The Mittens/James
Randklev), 37 (cowboy and horse/Gary Holscher)
Illustrations by: Neil Gower p 2; Mark Ward pp 4, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 42, 44.
SERIES EDITORS: BILL BOWLER AND SUE PARMINTER
JOHN ESCOTT
LEVEL ONE ■ 400 HEADWORDS
John Escott has written many books for readers of all ages, and particularly
enjoys writing crime and mystery thrillers. He was born in Somerset, in the
west of England, but now lives in Bournemouth on the South Coast. When he
is not writing, he visits second-hand bookshops, watches videos of old
Hollywood films, and takes long walks along empty beaches. He has written a
number of titles in the Oxford Bookworms Factfiles series, including New
York, California, and The Cinema. He has also adapted William Tell and Other
Stories for Dominoes.
OXFORD
BEFORE READING
1 Look at these pictures from films. Which three show the Wild West best?
Tick the boxes.
2 Complete this sentence. Use a dictionary to help you.
When I see the words ‘Wild West’ I think of...
00 W EST, f r j f l t
|o West, young man!’ said an American newspaper
g
;
1 in 1850. And thousands of Americans went.
But people started moving to the American West nearly
fifty years earlier. In 1803, American president Thomas newspaper
people read about
Jefferson, bought thousands of kilometres of land from things that happen
every day in this
the French for fifteen million dollars. The land was west of
president the
the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains. (In
most important
today’s United States you can find Nebraska, Iowa, person in a
country
Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana
buy (past bought)
there.) to give money for
something
The next year, Jefferson asked two men to go through this
Missouri
land to the Pacific. When you find flowers and trees by the
/mi'zosri/
road, look carefully at them and write about them,’
Arkansas
Jefferson said. And talk to the people, too.’ These two men /'a:(r)k3nsa:/
were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. In May 1804, Louisiana
/lu:,i:zi'8en3/
Lewis and Clark went west with forty-six men. It was
wild interesting
November 1805 when they arrived at the Pacific.
and exciting
These were the early years of the ‘Wild West’. A time
Wyatt Earp
when the names Kit Carson, Sitting Bull, Wyatt Earp, /'waiat 3:(r)p/
Wild Bill Hickok, Butch Cassidy, Annie Oakley, and many become (past
became) to begin
more, became famous across America. to be
1
im , ^
v>\C ■■
/ A-' . .
W t'kA11
-V\
j ^r/ i-j
ftiVenlo * n^ta /.■/,-
A ^A ~ u r
7/k p e
w
Western Trails
There were three important trails to the West, and they
all began near the town of Saint Louis.
In 1821, the first white man left to travel the 1,300
kilometres to Santa Fe in New Mexico. Soon, this became
an important trail to the Southwest. Between 1826 and
1835, 1,500 men and 750 wagons travelled along the
Santa Fe Trail, carrying shirts and trousers, knives and
many more things to sell to the people of New Mexico.
trail a road
At the end of the 1830s, it was not easy to find work in
across wild
country
the East, and people did not have much money. They read
travel to go about the West in books and newspapers and said,
Santa Fe /.sasnto ‘Everything is better there. Let’s go West!’
'fei /
Early in the 1840s, thousands of families left their
wagon a kind of
homes and travelled 3,200 kilometres to California and
car with horses
Oregon. It took them about six months.
sell (past sold)
to take money for The Oregon and California Trails became the two most
something
famous trails. For the first 1,900 kilometres, the trails went
Platte /pket/
across Kansas, along by the River Platte, and through the
mountains very
big hills south of the Rocky Mountains. After that, the Oregon
A wagon train
Trail went north to Oregon City. From there it was not far to
the Pacific. The California Trail went south to Sacramento.
Families travelled along the trails in wagons or on
horses. Some walked. Many became ill and died before
they got near the West. Indians (now called Native
Americans) killed some of them.
From 1841 to the 1880s, about 350,000 people travelled
to the West by these trails. Then the railroads came, and
most families didn’t need the trails. ‘Now we can travel by
train,’ they said.
Wagon Trains
Many families going West went with a wagon train. The
‘train’ was a number of wagons travelling together.
Sometimes there were a hundred wagons carrying two or
Indians /Native
three hundred people. Horses pulled the wagons and they fhey h'vTchn North
went about twenty-five kilometres a day.
America before
white people
The first wagons were very large wagons from France.
railroad a train
Later, families travelled in smaller wagons.
travels on this
3
The 1830s and 1840s were the
years of the ‘mountain men’.
They lived in the mountains,
killed animals there, and sold the
skins to make money. Sometimes
they took people through the
mountains. They knew the best
trails, and were often good friends
with the Indians.
Kit Carson
One of the most famous
mountain men was Kit Carson.
When he was seventeen, he left
his home in Missouri and joined
a wagon train going to Santa Fe.
From there he travelled north.
4 mountain man When he was nineteen he went
to kill animals in California. It was the first of many visits
to the mountains of the West.
In January 1833, Carson was with about fifty mountain
men on the Arkansas River in Colorado. Some Indians
took nine of their horses. The next day, Kit, with twelve
more men, travelled more than sixty kilometres to find,
skin the outside of
an animal’s body fight, and kill those Indians.
But he was usually a good friend of Native Americans.
join to go with
His first wife was an Arapaho Indian, and his second wife
fight (past fought)
to hit someone was a woman from the Cheyenne tribe. He had a
again and again
daughter, and in 1842 he took her to Missouri because he
Cheyenne /Jai'asn/
wanted her to go to school there. On the road to Missouri,
tribe a big family
he met a man called John C. Fremont.
of Indians
American government,
finding new trails across
the West. Carson knew the
land well and for the next
five years he helped
Fremont with his work. i % ■ f
These years made Kit
■ ■ I
Carson famous.
( L
Later, he worked with the .■ •
,
American army. He was an ■ ' t '
army scout in the war . ’ ' • - ■
with the Navajo Indians.
The Navajos fought with
m Carson
many different tribes of
Indians in the West. In 1864, some of these tribes joined
government the
people who work
the ‘white man’s’ army to fight the Navajos. After the
with the president
Navajos lost the war, and their land, 8,000 Navajo men,
army a large
women and children went on ‘The Long Walk’ - 480 number of people
who fight for their
kilometres from Arizona to New Mexico. country
Kit Carson was fifty-nine when he died in 1868. He
scout a person
who knows the
never learned to read.
land well and goes
in front of an
The Pony Express army
war fighting
At first, getting letters from the East to the West of between countries
or tribes
America was slow. Then, in 1860, came the Pony
Navajo
Express. Its horses and riders were fast.
/‘nsvs.hso/
They travelled from St Joseph in Missouri to Sacramento
pony a small
in California. Every rider travelled 120 kilometres before horse
giving his bag of letters to the next rider. The 3,120 express very fast
kilometres from St Joseph to Sacramento took twenty-six rider a person
who goes on a
riders ten days in all.
horse
5
READING CHECK
Are these sentences true or false? Tick the boxes.
True False
a*
a American people started to go west in 1850. □
b The French sold a lot of land to Thomas Jefferson in 1803. □ □
c Lewis and Clark went through this land to the Pacific. O ' □
O
d The Santa Fe trail went to the north-east. :
lO
e People travelled west in wagons and later on trains. □
i n
f Kit Carson worked for the American government and in the army. n
if j t o
g The Pony Express took twenty-six days to go from St Joseph to Sacramento.
WORD WORK
1 Look at the pictures and write the missing words. They all come from Chapter 1.
6