Buffalo Bill

By the end of the nineteenth century, mil­lions had taken part in a common experi­ence promising to transport them to the real American West: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which toured Europe and the United States extensively during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Although best known for his Wild West shows, Colonel William F. Cody (also known as Buffalo Bill or in Germany as Buffel-Wilhelm) gained a fair degree of fame in the United States before he orga­nized his first Wild West show in 1883. He had previously ridden for the Pony Express and Majors and Russell, fought in the Civil War as a Union soldier, driven a stage­coach, hunted buffalo to feed the Kansas- Pacific Railroad’s work crews, served as a scout for the U.S. Cavalry, prospected for gold, engaged in several major battles against American Indians, and acted in sev­eral melodramatic theatrical productions. As a result of his exploits he received the Congressional Medal of Honor and was elected to serve in the Nebraska state legis­lature. Contemporaries commonly be­lieved that he had truly experienced first­hand the settlement of the western frontier.

The show offered a spectacle that amazed its German observers. When the company arrived in a German city, crowds gathered to see the unloading of the train’s cargo and watch the parade as it went to an open space in the city. So impressed were the observers by the rapidity with which the show assembled corrals and tents that the Prussian military sent officers to docu­ment specifically how the troupe accom­plished this feat so quickly. Following the arrival at the designated open space, the company set up a camp, complete with te­pees, corrals, stagecoaches, and tents. The public was allowed to roam these grounds for free and meet the company’s celebrities. The show itself was a series of acts, each

Circus poster showing cowboys rounding up cattle and portrait of Colonel W F “Buffalo Bill” Cody on horseback. (Library of Congress)

demonstrating a mythologized aspect of the western frontier such as the job of a Pony Express rider, life in a Native Ameri­can village, gunfights, and horse taming. The Wild West show allowed German au­diences the chance to see things, people, and events they associated with the Ameri­can West that they had long imagined but had probably never seen. Examples in­cluded Native Americans, cowboys, Mexi­can vaqueros, buffalo, broncos, and dis­plays of lassoing. Several of the show’s most popular star performers during the Ger­man tour were Annie Oakley, Jim Larson, Jonnie Baker, Red Bear, Black Heart, and Eagle Horn.

Although the show obviously pre­sented a romanticized vision of the Ameri­can West—replete with such cliches as gunfights and Indian war dances—its pro­moters claimed that it represented an ac­tual portrait of the western landscape. Moreover, Cody’s actual participation in the drama further blurred the lines separat­ing fact and fiction. For its own part, the company purposely attempted to confuse German audiences. A disclaimer in the Wild West’s German program read, “We

have only real personalities, only true, no false equipment.... [the performance] de­picts a great, romantic and nevertheless re­alistic picture of the time, that though now over, still lives in memory.... Here is no theater production, one sees here actual life, as it was in the west... a genuine, unadulterated [ungeschminkt] picture of the past—the fighters and wild riders of the prairie” (Shealy 2003, 11). German newspaper reviewers of the production seem to have accepted the assertion that they were in some ways seeing an objective portrayal of life in the American West. They described it as a combination of per­formance, historical reenactment, circus, and educational opportunity. On seeing the performance, a reviewer effused, “One feels nature—the wild, powerful, un­bounded nature of the Prairie. That is something completely different from the most beautiful, impressive circus.” Another reporter wrote that “one gets a real living picture of the hunting- and Indian-life of the North American prairie,” and yet an­other reporter told his readers, “If you would hold that Col. W. F. Cody is a loud charlatan, you are very mistaken” (Shealy 2003, 23, 45).

Cody always asserted that the reason for his international tour was to serve as a type of cultural ambassador from the New World to the Old, in order that Europe might think more highly of the United States. In this respect, he must have been pleased with the reaction of German audi­ences. According to Cody and other mem­bers of the troupe, German audiences at­tended the productions with more enthusiasm and interest than their Euro­pean counterparts. The visit of the Wild West to a city often left in its wake groups of hobby clubs devoted to exploring aspects of American Indian culture or life in the West. Moreover, numerous contemporary articles relate stories of girls pretending to be Annie Oakley and men injuring them­selves as a result of trying to duplicate the show’s stunts. Interestingly, the movement of performers across the Atlantic Ocean oc­curred in both directions. Following the show’s tour through Germany, it returned to Chicago to take part in the World Expo­sition of 1893. Wilhelm II allowed a de­tachment from the Prussian military to ac­company the troupe and perform their riding abilities before American audiences.

Gregory Paul Shealy

See also Indians in German Literature

References and Further Reading

Blackstone, Sarah J. Buckskins, Bullets, and

Business: A History of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.

Kasson, Joy S. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000.

Moses, Lester George. Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 1883—1933. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

Reddin, Paul. Wild West Shows. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Shealy, Gregory. Buffalo Bill in Germany. MA thesis, University of Wisconsin at Madison, 2003.