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Jackson’s record made him “an apt role model” for lawbreakers “for he too had crossed US borders illegally—in Florida in 1817—and had quickly rid- den his notoriety to even greater heights of popularity” (58). Instead of the West as a place of adventure, anarchy, and the saloon bar, Richards pres- ents it almost as a place of refuge from turbulence farther east. Mormons came to see that “in the West, no American mob would threaten plural marriage, and women would remain safely and securely under their hus- band’s watchful care” (113). Oregon’s provisional government sought to attract “a certain type of migrant who valued order, concord, and morality” (192). Above all, California presented a “vision of an idyllic seigneurial life that did not exist in the United States” (150). “Unwilling to attack fellow Americans” (80), migrants wanted to avoid a civil war and chose flight, not fight. Interestingly, migrants farther south tended to bring violence with them along with enslaved people. The Cherokee’s exposure during the Trail of Tears to lawlessness meant that once they were in Indian Territory they “embraced a system of vigilante justice” (119). Richards argues that the Cherokee became paradoxically more American—or rather south- ern—after
The Journal of the Civil War Era – University of North Carolina Press
Published: Nov 12, 2021
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