[applause] and this wont be the last you will have heard from the gathered scholars. We are going to compile an edit a new volume in our women f. Cody series of the American West with the university of oklahoma press. All of the presenters are invited, as they know, to submit their work for consideration for this volume. Then all of the rest of you are invited to purchase and read that volume when it comes out. [laughter] stay tuned. Its a great pleasure to introduce tonights keynote speaker. Paul Andrew Hutton is an american historian. He is an awardswinning author, writer and television permanent. Personality. He serves as a distinguished professor of history at the university of new mexico. As we all know, he is published quite widely in both scholarly academic venues and popular magazines. He has reached a very large audience through that kind of work. His work has been recognized far and wide. He is a sixtime winner of the western writers of america spur award and a sixtime winner of the western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and western Heritage Museum for his work in print and film. It was his book, Phil Sheridan and his army, that received the prize from the organization of american historians, the evans biography award and a spur awarned. He is also the editor of several books that we all have on our shelves. Western heritage, round up, the custer reader and soldiers west, as well as a 10volume eyewitness to the civil war series he did for bantam in the 1990s. He started reaching on shaping western historical scholarship when he was an associate editor at the western historical quarterly and then editor of the new Mexico Historical review. Now he has written several short films, dozens of television documentaries, and he has appeared upon, if this is to be believed, over 300 Television Programs on major networks, public television, and Cable Networks as well. You may have known or seen the work that he did behind the scenes as a historically consultant on ron howards film the missing. He also worked on cowboys and aliens, and recently on jane got a gun. He has been very active as a public historian, making an imprint on programming at curate guess curating exhibits on everything from the alamo, the custer legend, davey contract and billy the kid. His latest pack, the apache wars was published by crown, and it was recognized with a 2017 st. Petersburg award for best nonfiction. Coming up through western history, my academic career came up during the time that we just saw reflected in the various toasts that we had. The heady era of the new western history, old western history range wars. [laughter] and, you know, paul hutton served as the executive director of the western History Association from 1990 to 2006. So, you know, when we think of Davey Crockett, we have a popular image in our minds of fess parker. When we think of the lone ranger, it is going to be clayton moore. When you think of james bond, it has to be sean connery. And when you think of the western historian, you think of paul hutton. It is my great pleasure to introduce paul to speak to us tonight. [applause] paul i know it is so common to think of me and sean connery in the same way. [laughter] certainly my wife does. Not. [laughter] i want to thank the Buffalo Bill Center of the west. I want to thank jeremy and his excellent staff. This really has been a marvelous three days. The only thing ive really learned as i have aged is how little i know. And being around all these bright Young Scholars this week has certainly shown me just really how little i know about something i thought i knew everything about. It is wonderful new work and exciting new work. As a historian, one of the things that makes you get up in the morning and after hearing that introduction, all this stuff i have done, i understand why i am so tired, and it is so hard to get up in the morning. [laughter] but i certainly appreciate so much all that they are doing to bring about new insight, but also to discover new material. We were shown all kinds of new material about buffalo bill and his show this week that is absolutely astonishing to me. Thank you all for educating me this week. I dont know if i am going to educate you very much tonight. This room is full of experts on william f. Cody. The story i am going to tell is a familiar one, but i sort of thought that systematically thematically i might be able to pull together here as the last speaker some of the themes that we have been talking about this week and put buffalo bill in perspective. Let me start by doing that by telling you a personal story because we have been getting some of those this week as well. Of course you know we are here because it is the centennial of Buffalo Bills death, william f. Codys death. That was in 1917, the year of my mothers birth. Then in 1968, 51 years later, i first visited this wonderful institution in company with two of my high school chums, Steve Horowitz and don fork. We had just graduated from Short Ridge High School in indianapolis, and we had dons volkswagen bus, and we had simon and garfunkels america ringing in our ears, and we went out in search of america. Im still looking. [laughter] well, the boys were anxious to get to the climax of our trip, the final destination, the really golden dream at the end of the western rainbow for all young men. Las vegas, nevada. [laughter] but i would not and party to the trip unless we visited first the black hills. Cody, wyoming, to this museum, and they reluctantly agreed to that, and they were perhaps not as delighted as i was by this institution in 1968, but they pretended to be charmed. Well, it has now been 49 years since i made that journey. 51 years from the time of Buffalo Bills death until i made the journey, 49 years now since i did that. And my point to you is just how short our history as a nation is and how an institution like this and what we are trying to convey is in fact a connection point, something that connects us to and it is live. And it dictates so much of our actions today. Whats the old joke, if youre people who dont know the past are have to repeat it, and of course, the curse of historians is they do know the fast and have to watch the country repeat it over and over. And over. And if you live long enough you get to see it being repeated even again. Its like if you watch i used to watch days of our lives and you watch it too many times they repeat the same plots over. New people, same story. William f. Cody was a man seemingly trapped in a distant past. Yet he was one who cared desperately about an onrushing future for himself, for his family, his business and of course, his nation. He was progressive in his politics. He favored votes for women long before that liberal icon Woodrow Wilson finally got around to supporting it. And he was, for his time and place, you must always keep that in mind, he was for his time and place incredibly enlightened on questions of race and equality. He had lived the american dream. He had risen from abject poverty to incredible wealth. He had been fawned over by queens and kings, president s and captains of industry, and at the time of his death, he was the living symbol of what it meant to be an american. President Theodore Roosevelt described him thusly. An american of americans, he embodied those traits of courage, strength and selfreliant hardihood which are vital to the wellbeing of our nation. He was like the nation he came to symbolize, though, a bundle of contradictions. Paradoxes is the word used. Contradictions works as well. He was a hunter who became a conservationist. He was a friend to the indian who was famous as an indian fighter. He was a rugged frontier scout best remembered as a sequined showman who could have stepped off the stage with liberace. Or elvis in vegas. A living artifact after pie noor past playing out his role in a world of telephones, motion pictures, automobiles, airplanes, skyscrapers, and finally at the very end world wars. Codys life 1846 to 1917 spanned a period of astonishing change. And he participated in much of that change. His father was a martyr in the fight to keep slavery out of kansas. And as a teenager, he fought in the civil war. He rode for the pony express. [laughter] hunted buffalo for the railroad. Where he earned his nickname. Scouted for the army. Won the congressional medal of honor in a fight with the sioux. Took the socalled first scout for custer. And a celebrated duel at war bonnet hat as it was originally known, creek in 1876. And fook a final curtain call in his western adventures at the time of the terrible tragedy at wounded knee. That fight at war bonnet creek in which there was only one casualty, that fight is the defining episode of his life. And i want to talk about it for it was in many ways a moment an incredible moment simply frozen in time. Where western reality and the frontier myth, the topics that im going to talk about tonight, came together. But first, a little context. To set the stage of how we got to war bonnet creek, one of my favorite movies is fort apache , in which the custer legend of western legend is proven to be entirely false. And yet is covered up and protected by Army Officers and the line the final line in that film which is so powerful is correct, in every detail, about a famous painting of custers last stand. Let me just say that this painting, too, is correct, in every detail. [laughter] nothing is correct in that painting. Many serious scholars who spent a considerable part of their lives debating points such as this have placed the birth of the western at 1823 with the publication of james coopers novel the pioneers. Now, some grumbled that the more enduring and clearly superior last of the mohicans in 1826 deserves that spot of honor. The point is well taken but then others argued that the tales of captain jon smith and pocahontas, colonial indian captivity narratives, john fillsens marvelous little chapter on the adventure of daniel boone written in 1784 are the true origin point for the western story. Which is ultimately the story of america. Now, there are those who give all credit to that talented harvard dude who came right out here to where we are, owen worcester, and he captured the imagination of the world with his 1902 novel the virginian. It was worcester who turned the american cowboy and in fact an epithet. And it is still used that way sometimes. Cowboy foreign policy, cowboy diplomacy, and when you said cowboy you meant a wild, rowdy, uncontrolled element in your society. Well, suddenly he makes the cowboy into an american centaur. Im looking at you, professor warren. An american centaur. Hes always so riveted by my comments. [laughter] like the kid in class who pretends, you know, that youre his favorite professor and of course hes always on his phone facebooking in your class. Anyway, i took professor warrens phone away from him before we began. [laughter] it was worcester who turned the american cowboy into a national symbol. Albeit with considerable help from, of course, our hero william f. Cody from Frederick Remington from Charlie Russell and of course from the cowboy president himself, the real cowboy president , Theodore Roosevelt. All cowboy president s go to harvard. [laughter] well, this debate helped found expression among my class of people in the endless and sometimes tiresome argument over Frederick Jackson turners 1893 frontier thesis. Now, turner saw the American National character and thus american exceptionalism as an outgrowth of the frontier experience. His critics, and there have been many, like now the premiere of star wars and line them up around the block and his argument the frontier is but one of many forces that shaped our nation. And of course you cant argue with that. The argument, though, is one between process and place. With the strongest modern interpreters, sometimes referred to by people like me as the rebel, led by professor Patricia Nelson limerick. Of the university of colorado, professor warren is just a fellow traveler with her. [laughter] and well go to yellowstone and you see those packs. Shes the leader. Leader. Well, this is exactly the same debate in historical circles that you have between cooper and owen worcester. Where does the story begin . Well, it doesnt matter where the story begins, i would argue. Its just rich and varied literary history, thats rich and varied historiography thats central to our understanding of ourselves and were always looking for that. You start when youre a kid and always looking for your identity and of course many of us never get there. But nations do that, too. And were looking for our identity. And we hope were not like some of the other nations that were familiar with. We want to be so special. And its always been this way. In the 1820s americans were in search of identity that might unite them as a people. Who were we . 13 colonies, what the hell is that . How do we get together and how do we become one out of many . North and south, accomplished that by looking to the west. Frontier america suddenly became respectable in literary circles with the success of coopers leather stocking the hunters of kentucky celebrating the prowess of kentucky and tennessee militiamen over the english at the 1815 battle of new orleans, apologies to our english brands. Friends. But we elect president s because they shoot english people. [laughter] im an historian. I can only speak the truth. I love the british. I tell my students that theres a beautiful thing about the british. Is that they unite all peoples everywhere around the world. India. Africa. Russia, germany, france. The United States. Weve all shot at them. Because theyre always in somebody elses neighborhood. Telling folks how to behave. And then they get themselves in trouble and they get all shot up and then they build beautiful statues in london which we all pay a lot of money to go visit. It was a very clever technique. [laughter] nevertheless, that song the hunters of kentucky helped to sweep Andrew Jackson into the white house. And border dramas as they were called in those days, stories such as nick the woods and the lion of the west which was a play based on the life of Davey Crockett. It became all the rage on eastern and european stages in the 1830s and 1840s. And the rise of jackson, other western political figures including the legendary crockett himself, symbolized a political and cultural shift in this cribt country from the east to the west. Which i always cheer for. No offense to our eastern friends. But since weve already done in the british, why not just continue . Timothy flinch, bestselling biography of daniel boone, the martyrdom of Davey Crockett at the alamo, the celebrated adventures of kit carson and john fremont and the romance surrounding the great migration to oregon, which was immortalized by one of americas first great historians who was of course a western historian, frances parkman, harvard. [laughter] and by the way, professor limerick and professor warren, that is harvard, not yale. But i went to Indiana University so what the hell do i know . Thank you all very much. Good basketball. Well, anyway, they all served to change the frontiersmen once sustained by the guardians of American Culture as a dangerous symbol of low breeding and anarchy into the very ideation of the evolving national character. Heres who we are, were Davey Crockett, were daniel boone, kit carson and people pushing west on the oregon trail. Thats this american, this new human thats come on to the planet from so many different places. Well, a ghastly civil war tore all this asunder. A great westerner, the grandson of one who had followed daniel boone up the couple brland gap Cumberland Gap and into kentucky redeemed in the dream, restored hope to the country, and Abraham Lincoln through the homestead act and the transcontinental railroad, that he sponsored, created a new transmississippi west. And set it all in motion. And out of this story, out of the new west, a new epic arose. This story united the divided nation north and south, forever cemented National Identity and now for a richly diverse people. Because folks were coming after the civil war from everywhere. You want to know who you were when you got to this country . Just read a buffalo bill novel. Its right there. Thats who you are and tonight it doesnt matter that youre from poland or a russian it doesnt matter that youre an italian. Get a cowboy hat. And it helped. It helped people unite. A fresh generation of heroes emerged to be celebrated in the popular dime novels that horrified parents and literary critics alike. Now we had the gun fighting lawman, Wild Bill Hickok, the heroic soldier, martyred to manifest destiny george custer, the scout, Buffalo Bills, the outlaw billy the kid, the indian statesman sitting bull, the wild cowgirl calamity january. And from them came a story rich calamity jane. And from them came a story rich in romance and boundless optimism yet also burdened even while it was being told with nostalgia for vanishing past. Because even as it played out it was over. Over in an instant. Buffalo bill cody who had lived the reality of the western story as a civil war soldier, railroad, buffalo hunter and army scout, put it all into a grand extravaganza in 1883 and he took it on the road. His wild west enthralled two generations of americans and people around the world. Created the cliches and conventions followed by writers and film makers that were to follow him. Now, cody was a true child of the american frontier. And he was a person who grew up in the very environment that he was now celebrating. He was the third ch