I was watching Outer Range on Prime and same thing. I would assume it has to do with Bureau of Land Management leases? My brother in law has a large farm in the Midwest. Nobody’s is constantly threatening to take his land.
So are the constant attempts at land grabs an actual thing or is it just a plot device for tv? And aside from imminent domain how could a private individual force another to lose their land?
Economics flair for real estate question.
In: Economics
[removed]
Well you had Range Wars back then. Disputes over land for cattle grazing that would at times become openly violent. Sometimes those weren’t just about land for grazing but also water rights which were pretty important too. Like most things it’s a mix of real life events coupled with elements of personal drama which make it entertaining for us to watch.
Answer – no it’s not common. The show *Yellowstone* is actually one 3rd of the larger series’ lore that also includes the shows *1883* and *1923*.
Land rights is a running theme of the three shows because the central characters (The Dutton Family) moved west following the Civil War to establish themselves and had to displace the existing native population whether through direct violence or subversive diplomacy.
The two central conflicts between the Broken Rock Reservation and random developers serves as a plot device to highlight the hypocrisy of the Dutton’s existence: *they took native land and now feel as the natives do with the land developers breathing down their neck.*
The land developers are an allegory for change and also a mirror: *using the same strategies and with the backing of the government, they wish to take what they feel is rightfully theirs just as the Dutton’s did over 100 years ago.*
We see within the reservation the poor living conditions, low wages, alcoholism, drug addiction, and little opportunities. Instead of looking inwards, their leader looks outwards and blames the what the Dutton’s represent: the White Establishment. If Broken Rock can retake Dutton’s land, which they used to own, they can finally prosper. Nothing else matters.
You could make the argument that Broken Rock is the ultimate victim. However we learn their leader is more concerned with maintaining power and lining his pockets above all else. He has been poisoned by money just like everyone else.
All three represent the past, the present, and the future. Three cogs on the same wheel all chasing the same goal.
It’s also fun that the Dutton’s complain about tourism in a heavily tourist economy as we learn that ranching is increasingly less profitable. Rather than pivot and adapt with the times, they stubbornly entrench themselves.
No, but it’s a mature motif of the western genre, and Yellowstone has a lot of the themes and tropes of a western.
*Once Upon a Time in the West* and *Open Range* for example are both western films where conflicts over land are central to the plot. They’re an ancillary theme in latter seasons of the TV series *Hell on Wheels* and while modern renditions skip over them events like the Lincon County War (Billy the Kid) and the gunfight at the OK Corral (Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday) and the Indians Wars were very much about land rights, access, and use.
Historically, this was a thing. The Range Wars did happen as did numerous ‘county wars.’ But these conflicts were born from a lack of central authority in the western territories, or corruption in what authority was present. It’s not a coincidence that the western genre really took off in American pop culture in the age of the Dust Bowl when federal authority started reaching into the mid-west to deal with problems and in turn turned the conflicts of land in earlier decades into a cultural guidepost that remains with us today.
In modern America this isn’t a thing anymore though you’ll still see it as a cultural theme for die-hard rich types (like the main characters of Yellowstone) for whom any threat to their business interests is just a prelude to the big bad guvment coming for their property. There’s also the ongoing conflict in the state of Oklahoma between native tribes and the state government over land, so there are still some real conflicts over land rights but individual ranchers fighting to protect their land from predation by outside forces is mostly a fantasy for the modern imagination.
So even though it’s not really a thing anymore, it’s still an issue that sparks imaginations in a modern audience.
Latest Answers