Policing The Plains

This is the story of setting the governmental control over either end of the Great Plains. To complete that mission, the Texas state and Canada North-West Mounted Police sent their law enforcement agents to subjugate Indigenous groups, dispossessing peoples of mixed ancestry.

Reproduction of the original: Policing the Plains by R.G MacBeth

Policing the Plains Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police by R. G. (Roderick George) MacBeth A few years ago I was away north of Edmonton on the trail of Alexander Mackenzie, fur trader and explorer, who a century and a quarter before had made the amazing journey from the prairies over the mountains to the Pacific Coast. We looked with something like awe and wonder at the site of the old fort near the famous Peace River Crossing, from which, after wintering there in 1792, he had started out on that unprecedented expedition, and we followed up the majestic Peace to Fort Dunvegan, past whose present location Mackenzie had gone his adventurous way. And during our trip we came across a little frontier encampment building itself into a primitive wooden town in view of the advent of a railway that was heading that way. It was a characteristic outfit with lax ideas in regard to laws which touched upon personal desires as to gambling, strong drink, Sunday trading and the rest. These men were out to make money as their type has been on most of the frontiers of civilization, and the unwary traveller or the lonely settler who ventured unduly was promptly fleeced of his possessions and turned out amidst a good deal of revelry in the hours of night. And then one day there rode into that shack-town a young athlete in a uniform of scarlet and gold, the rough-rider hat, the tunic of red, the wide gold stripe to the top of the riding boots and the shining spurs. He rode in alone from the nearest post some 60 miles away and, when he dismounted, threw off the heavy saddle and picketed his horse, a sudden air of orderliness settled on the locality. The young man, going around with that characteristic cavalry swing, issued a few warnings, tacked up a notice or two and then saddling his rested steed rode away at a canter over the plain. But the air of orderliness remained in that region after the horseman had disappeared over the horizon just as if he were still present. This was puzzling to a newcomer who was along, and he asked me what manner of man this young rider was that he was received with such deference and that his orders, so quietly given, were so instantly and so continuously obeyed. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Excerpt from Policing the Plains: Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous Royal North-West Mounted Police Pacific and from mid-continent to the North Pole. It was as large as half a dozen European Kingdoms and has become one of the greatest adjuncts of the British Empire, but King Charles did not know nor care much more about it than the French king who later on gave up Canada with a light heart, saying it was only a few hundred acres of snow. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In the late nineteenth century, the Texas Rangers and Canada?s North-West Mounted Police were formed to bring the resource-rich hinterlands at either end of the Great Plains under governmental control. Native and rural peoples often found themselves squarely in the path of this westward expansion and the law enforcement agents that led the way. Though separated by nearly two thousand miles, the Rangers and Mounties performed nearly identical functions, including subjugating Indigenous groups; dispossessing peoples of mixed ancestry; defending the property of big cattlemen; and policing industrial disputes. Yet the means by which the two forces achieved these ends sharply diverged;øwhile the Rangers often relied on violence, the Mounties usually exercised restraint, a fact that highlights some of the fundamental differences between the U.S. and Canadian Wests. Policing the Great Plains presents the first comparative history of the two most famous constabularies in the world.