Writing law into 'new Western history' : law and order in Wyoming and New Mexico

In the last two decades, historians have recognised that the history of the American west is more than a simple history of Anglo-American settlement. It is a more complex story of environmental, economic, political, class-related, cultural and ethnic tensions and themes. However, in the reformation of the history of the west, its legal history has largely been ignored. By comparing two examples of western disorder in Wyoming and New Mexico this article suggests that the breakdown of informal customs and institutions, combined with defects and inefficiencies in the formal legal system, in the particular cultural, ecological and economic context of western communities, led to the breakdown of law and order. In a broader sense, this article suggests that the legal history of the American west can link the traditional story of settlement with the more recent, and more complex, story and cultural convergence, economic exploitation and environmental degradation.