>This is not to deny that small farms in CA needed seasonal migrant
>labor at harvest time, nor is it to deny
>that large numbers of them existed because of capitalist irrigation schemes,
>nor that there weren't therefore more capitalistic than plains, midwestern
>and eastern farms. Its just to be more historical and less hyperbolic.
Point taken. But sometimes simplify and exaggerate has its place.
A few years ago I was reading a lot of the New Western History and I'll never forget the first time I saw a photo in a book by Patricia Limerick. It was of a group of 19th century miners in either California or Colorado, posing in front of a huge mound of empty canned goods. They were living for months off canned beans and the land to them was something you sucked things out of and then moved on. It was a revelation to see that settlement of the West was always more carpetbagger than yeoman.
That's why Richard White titled his big overview of the American West "It's Your Misfortune and None of my Own." He says that refrain sums up the attitude of settlers there very well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Your_Misfortune_and_None_of_My_Own
As I was walking one morning for pleasure I spied a cowpuncher riding along His hat was throwed back and his spurs were a-jingling And as he approached he was singing this song
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies It's your misfortune and none of my own Whoopie ti yi yo, git along little dogies You know that Wyoming will be your new home
Early in the springtime we round up the dogies Mark 'em and brand 'em and bob off their tails Round up the horses, load up the chuck wagon Then throw the little dogies out on the long trail
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies It's your misfortune and none of my own Whoopie ti yi yo, git along little dogies You know that Wyoming will be your new home
Night comes on and we hold 'em on the bedground The same little dogies that rolled on so slow We roll up the herd and cut out the stray ones Then roll the little dogies like never before
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies It's your misfortune and none of my own Whoopie ti yi yo, git along little dogies You know that Wyoming will be your new home
Some boys go up the long trail for pleasure But that's where they get it most awfully wrong For you'll never know the trouble they give us As we go drivin' them dogies along
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies It's your misfortune and none of my own Whoopie ti yi yo, git along little dogies You know that Wyoming will be your new home
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies It's your misfortune and none of my own Whoopie ti yi yo, git along little dogies You know that Wyoming will be your new home You know that Wyoming will be your new home