Annals of the Association of American Geographers · 1969 · 26 citations · 1 references
Natural ResourcesRange ManagementRangeland ManagementGrazing ManagementPasture EstablishmentPolitical EcologyAgricultural EcologyAgricultural HistoryGrazing EcologyGrazing PolicyPastoral LandscapesPastoralismAccess To Grazing LandAppropriated Resource UseCattle RanchingCivil War LegaciesHistorical MisconceptionsIndigenous Land AlienationInvasion Of GrasslandsLand Alienation Restrictions
ABSTRACT In retrospect it appears that the extensive grasslands of the American West stood as an open invitation to the pioneers to establish a grazing or range economy. However, the woodsman settlers coming from the East never conceived, projected, or defined a suitable range economy, and so it was through the “side door” or “back door” of Texas that an appropriated system of grazing burst northward across the Plains following the Civil War. The system, commonly identified as ranching, was appropriated from Spanish America, and was an import from the grasslands of northern Spain. The American woodsman challenged this intrusion with a series of inept land alienation laws, largely based on a variety of geographic misconceptions conceived and formualted within his system of values of verities. The misconceptions expressed themselves mainly in the efforts of the rainmakers, the irrigators, and the exponents of dry farming. An examination of the efforts of these challengers reveals resultant confusion and chaos.
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