Joe Rogan Experience #2058 - Elliott West

Joe Rogan 0:00 (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Elliott West 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) Hello, sir.

Elliott West 0:13 Hello.

Joe Rogan 0:13 Thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Elliott West 0:15 You're quite welcome. Good to be here.

Joe Rogan 0:16 I really enjoyed you on the Meat Eater podcast, and, uh, that's why I reached out. And, uh, I started w- uh, reading your, uh, the book on the Nez Perce.

Elliott West 0:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 0:25 And then I, I picked this up as well, Continental Reckoning. That is ... That's a hell of a book.

Elliott West 0:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:31 That's-

Elliott West 0:31 It's a big book. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:31 That's a big book. How long did it take you to write this?

Elliott West 0:35 The writing, probably, uh, eight to 10 years. The, uh, research and so forth, more than, more than 20 years, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:42 Wow.

Elliott West 0:42 Yeah, long time.

Joe Rogan 0:43 So this is a lifetime of work.

Elliott West 0:45 It is.

Joe Rogan 0:45 Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion. One of the most fascinating subjects, I think, in the history of the human race. I mean, it is just such ... It's such an amazing story and such a tragic story and such a crazy story of the amount of change that took place over a relatively short period of time.

Elliott West 1:06 Yeah, 30 years.

Joe Rogan 1:08 Yeah. And how little most people really understand about the actual history of the Native Americans and, and that. One of the things that was most fascinating about the Meat Eater podcast was that at the time that Lewis and Clark had come to America, a hundred years before that, there had been Native Americans that had traveled to France.

Elliott West 1:31 That's right.

Joe Rogan 1:32 And met with the king.

Elliott West 1:33 That's right. Yep, yep. Yep. Um, that's right. Uh, 18- or 1720s, uh, there was a group of, of native people from Kansas, Missouri area, and they had been courted by the French because the French wanted to expand their fur trade into, uh, into that area, up the Missouri River. So they, uh ... And the Spanish had recently suffered a terrible military defeat there, in sort of what's today Eastern, Eastern Nebraska. So, so the French sent this guy named, uh, Etienne Bourgmont to make contact. Now, he already had contact there. In fact, he had a son by one of the women in the Missouria tribe. Uh, made contact, made some friends, made some allies, uh, courted them, and then to sort of seal the deal, he took back a delegation of about six Indians. Now, this is from Eastern Nebraska. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:25 Which tribe was this?

Elliott West 2:26 There were several tribes, the Missouria tribe, the Illinois tribe, uh, I think some Osage. Uh, and they were, uh ... And he, he then took them back from there down the Mississippi, down to New Orleans, uh, and then over across the Atlantic, uh, to Le Havre, and then they went by coach from there to Paris. Uh, and they spent several months there, uh, in Paris being fêted by King Louis XV, uh, visiting the Paris Opera, which they said was a great place full of sorcerers. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:57 (laughs) Sorcerers.

Elliott West 2:59 Sorcerers. Uh-

Joe Rogan 2:59 Why did they describe it as sorcerers?

Elliott West 3:01 I don't ... I think they figured, uh, these people were just sort of transformed before their eyes, you know. They just became somebody else. They're great actors, of course.

Joe Rogan 3:08 Ah.

Elliott West 3:08 I think that was it. Uh, they saw this famous, uh, puppet show on the Pont Neuf, uh, bridge, and they said it was, uh, this place was inhabited by small dwarfs.

Joe Rogan 3:17 (laughs)

Elliott West 3:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:20 Wow.

Elliott West 3:20 And they loved, they loved it. Yeah, they were taken to the, um, Cour des Fontaines. Uh, they ex- ... They showed their, uh, expertise at hunting by riding bareback in the Bois de Boulogne, you know, the royal woods, naked and bareback, uh, shooting, uh, pheasants. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:37 Wow.

Elliott West 3:37 Had a great time. One of the m- ... A woman who was in fact the, the woman who had borne Bourgmont's child, uh, she married a, a sergeant, uh, at Notre Dame. Um, they had a, they had a wonderful time, and the, the men liked just about everything except, uh, except the men. The other men, the French men. Uh, they said they were sort of effeminate and sissy, and, and, and, uh-

Joe Rogan 3:59 (laughs)

Elliott West 3:59 They said they, they said they smelled like alligators. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:02 Alligators?

Elliott West 4:03 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:04 Interesting.

Elliott West 4:05 Yeah. But this was, uh ... You know, this was 1720s, so that's, uh, that's, what, 80 years or something before, before Lewis and Clark even made it out to that area.

Joe Rogan 4:14 That is so fascinating.

Elliott West 4:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:15 Now, what was the language barrier? How did they communicate?

Elliott West 4:19 Well, uh, there were ... Bourgmont himself, uh, had, uh, lived for years, uh, among the Indians and, uh, was a expert on the Missouri River. So he was a, he was a Frenchman who came over, uh, enlisted in the army, deserted, uh, sort of went native and became a, uh, you know, coureur des bois, a, a French mountain man. Uh, took up with the Indians, uh, had this child by this woman, so he knew, he knew the languages quite well. Uh, and there were other, uh ... Remember, these, these Indians, as you can tell in this story, uh, were very cosmopolitan, you know, very sophisticated. They knew English, or some, some of them did. Uh, so yeah. I think the point to remember is that this ... Long before our image of Americans, you know- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:06 Mm.

Elliott West 5:06 ... uh, coming into this area, there was all sorts of contact, uh, between, uh, native peoples and Europeans, all sorts of exchanges. Um, it was really a mixed world, a world that was far more complex, uh, far more interesting, in my opinion, uh, than the, than the usual way that we, that we remember it.

Joe Rogan 5:26 To put it into perspective, it's, it's hard to ... It's hard for us in 2023 to look back at this time period and, and really have a context for it. But to put it into perspective, so first Europeans arrive here essentially in the 1400s, right?

Elliott West 5:46 Oh, yes.

Joe Rogan 5:47 The very, very first.

Elliott West 5:48 Well, very first. Late, very late 1400s, yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:50 So this is 200-plus years after that.

Elliott West 5:53 That's right.

Joe Rogan 5:54 So we're essentially talking about us thinking about the 1820s.

Elliott West 6:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:00 Right?

Elliott West 6:01 That's right.

Joe Rogan 6:01 So there was hundreds of years of Europeans slowly making their way across-... the continental United States.

Elliott West 6:11 That's right. The Spanish coming up from the south, of course.

Joe Rogan 6:13 Cabeza de Vaca.

Elliott West 6:14 Cabeza de Vaca, uh, 1520s. Uh, the French coming in quite early up to the, what's today the Northeast, uh, Eastern Canada. Uh, that had been going on across a long time, uh, before the English began their very slow and timid expansion into the, uh, beyond the Appalachians, so-

Joe Rogan 6:32 It's interesting because if you ask the general public about the expansion, they, they seem to put it into the time period of the 1800s.

Elliott West 6:40 That's right.

Joe Rogan 6:42 But there was so much more going on-

Elliott West 6:44 For sure. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:44 ... hundreds of years of that, which is hard for us to imagine. Again, it's like us thinking that the 1800s, like 1823 was just yesterday. It wasn't.

Elliott West 6:53 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 6:54 It was a long time ago, so there's hundreds of years...

Elliott West 6:58 Before that, but that-

Joe Rogan 6:59 Yeah.

Elliott West 6:59 ... that's right. And that had been going on slowly. It was sort of a slow simmer are these two, are these cultures, three cultures coming together. You know, uh, and so, um, in many ways, you know, which the Indians were far more sophisticated and well-traveled, far-traveled, uh, than the, uh, than the Americans who were, who were coming in there. We think, you know, our, our national myth has it that when Lewis and Clark, this is in, you know, 1804, 1806, Lewis and Clark make their way up the Missouri River into the West, that that's sort of the start of the history of the West. Before that-

Joe Rogan 7:32 Right.

Elliott West 7:32 ... uh, Lewis's famous quote as they left the Mandan villages, uh, in 1805 says, "We are, uh, heading up..." He compared himself to Columbus. He said-

Joe Rogan 7:42 Mm.

Elliott West 7:42 ... "We're heading into this place where the, the foot of civilized man has never trodden." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:48 (laughs)

Elliott West 7:49 Not true, not true. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:50 No. Well, to the best of their knowledge it w- which is interesting also, right? The amount of information that was available back then. It was so difficult to find out what was going on.

Elliott West 7:58 Well, sure. I me- I mean, just like today, you know, information is power.

Joe Rogan 8:01 Right.

Elliott West 8:01 And you don't want to let your imperial rivals know what's out there. You don't want them to know what you know.

Joe Rogan 8:09 Right.

Elliott West 8:09 So this is rather... These sort of state secrets, yeah?

Joe Rogan 8:12 So, uh, have you read, uh, the, uh, Cabeza de Vaca book, uh, A Strange New Land?

Elliott West 8:18 Yes, I have.

Joe Rogan 8:18 A Land So Strange?

Elliott West 8:19 A Land So Strange.

Joe Rogan 8:19 A Land So Strange.

Elliott West 8:20 Yeah, yeah, Andres Resendiz, yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:21 Which is a fascinating book because they essentially document the spread of disease without meaning to do it 'cause that, that is really where it all started from.

Elliott West 8:32 A lot of it did, yeah. It's a wonderful book, yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:35 It's an amazing book. And, you know, they talk about culture. They, like, they talk about the Mayas and, you know, there's always been this confusion as to what happened to the Mayas, but it's probably the same exact thing that happened to 90-plus percent of the Native Americans that contracted smallpox.

Elliott West 8:51 Maybe. Uh, the Mayas declined a, a good bit before that, but, but who knows? It's, it's very hard to say, but certainly disease, uh, was a very important factor, uh, in the conquest of native peoples in the, in the, uh, conquest by Europeans of, of North America and South America, yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:07 Is it clearly established that Cabeza de Vaca was one of the first Europeans to make it to the, to the continental United States or was, was it possible that others had m- made it before that but we-

Elliott West 9:18 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 9:18 ... we don't have record of it?

Elliott West 9:20 He was the first to move in, to encounter what we know today as Southwest. Uh, he was part of a shipwrecked expedition on the Texas coast, uh, and he and a few others, including a Black, uh, sla- African slave, Esteban, Stephen, uh, they were the ones who made their way, first enslaved by the Indians, uh, and then they gradually made their way across the Southwest up to, you know, what is today Arizona, like the Zunis, uh, and then made their way southward into Mexico. Fabulous journey, what a story.

Joe Rogan 9:50 It's an insane story. And if you look at the history of the human race across the cont- uh, across the, the planet rather, it's one of the most transformative stories in such a short amount of time where everything changed so rapidly 'cause it, it coincides with the Industrial Revolution-

Elliott West 10:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:06 ... and all these things happen, uh, and, and then you have massive cities appearing in these places where there was nothing before.

Elliott West 10:14 Yeah. Uh, that's a bit later, of course, but it's, uh-

Joe Rogan 10:16 Yeah, but it's, it's all over this period of a few hundred years, which is such a transformative time period.

Elliott West 10:22 That's right. If you think of it as sort of a, uh, I think of it as kind of a, uh, a curve of, of change or a graph, right?

Joe Rogan 10:27 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 10:28 Uh, now, we gotta remember, all kinds of changes, up and down, up and down, before, long before the Europeans came, you know, the rise and fall of civilizations, uh. Fantastic stories about that.

Joe Rogan 10:38 Yeah.

Elliott West 10:39 So there's that, but then the Europeans come to, come into this area and that, that line just goes, goes straight up.

Joe Rogan 10:47 Mm.

Elliott West 10:48 Very... And it keeps, and it keeps accelerating, keeps accelerating. So, uh, it's important to remember that, um, change has been going on for 15,000 years in what's d- (laughs) what's today, the United States.

Joe Rogan 11:01 Sure.

Elliott West 11:01 Uh, interesting changes that I think people don't recognize nearly enough, uh, and they ought to, they ought to. Um, but the pace of that change, uh, accelerates at this, uh, really astonishing, astonishing degree once the-

Joe Rogan 11:15 Well, they keep pushing back the date of modern humans in North America as well.

Elliott West 11:21 That's right, yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:21 You know, it used to be Clovis first and then the discovery of these 22,000-year-old footprints and-

Elliott West 11:26 Right, White-

Joe Rogan 11:27 ... and-

Elliott West 11:27 ... Sands, yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:28 Yeah, and now they don't even know. I mean, maybe there's some stuff that we haven't found that predates that considerably.

Elliott West 11:33 (laughs) I suspect there is.

Joe Rogan 11:34 Yeah.

Elliott West 11:35 That's one of the, that's one of these questions that we thought we had answered, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:39 Right, right.

Elliott West 11:40 But as us- as usual, we hadn't. And that question's been, uh, uh, very vigorously argued-

Joe Rogan 11:46 Yeah.

Elliott West 11:46 ... recently, um, all sorts of new, uh, new discoveries in places that we didn't know there were people before until fairly recently, like the Amazon, you know?

Joe Rogan 11:56 Mm.

Elliott West 11:56 So all of a sudden, we are finding these sites in the Amazon. We have no idea who these people were.... they don't seem to be culturally related to others in South America, where'd they come from?

Joe Rogan 12:08 Right.

Elliott West 12:08 How, where did they get there, right?

Joe Rogan 12:09 Yeah, I've discussed this many times with Graham Hancock.

Elliott West 12:12 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 12:12 And, uh, one of the things that he has brought up recently is the use of LiDAR. And that-

Elliott West 12:17 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:17 ... through this use of LiDAR, they found these grids and what appears to be irrigation systems and streets and structures and foundations and-

Elliott West 12:26 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:26 ... all of it unexplained.

Elliott West 12:28 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:28 And a- all of it was essentially covered by vast rain forest.

Elliott West 12:33 Right. Yep. Until, until fairly recently. It's really only the co- last, uh, two, two or three generations that we've begun to even poke our way into that place-

Joe Rogan 12:42 Right.

Elliott West 12:43 ... and to find, to begin to feel this out. Uh, Theodore Roosevelt's granddaughter, incidentally, was one of the, uh, key figures in, in divestigating this. So, hey. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:51 Really?

Elliott West 12:52 An anthropologist, yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:53 She was?

Elliott West 12:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:54 Really? Interesting.

Elliott West 12:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:56 Um, do you think that with the Amazon that we're looking at disease there as well? That it's probably European settlers came and-

Elliott West 13:04 (gasps)

Joe Rogan 13:04 ... or explorers.

Elliott West 13:04 You mean to explain the-

Joe Rogan 13:05 Yeah, the-

Elliott West 13:06 ... the decl- uh, I doubt that.

Joe Rogan 13:07 You doubt it?

Elliott West 13:07 This was, these, these go way, those ruins seem to go way, way, way back. I mean, thousands of years before the Europeans show up.

Joe Rogan 13:15 So there's no explanation for the decline? Like maybe some other diseases or something like that?

Elliott West 13:18 Don't know.

Joe Rogan 13:19 We don't know?

Elliott West 13:19 Don't know. We don't know a whole lot about what diseases were here before the Europeans. Uh, but, uh-

Joe Rogan 13:24 Right.

Elliott West 13:25 ... I don't know. I suspect it's, if you look at any civilization, it rises, peaks-

Joe Rogan 13:30 Yes.

Elliott West 13:30 ... collapses.

Joe Rogan 13:32 Um, one of the more interesting things that we found was that when you look at the rise of syphilis in Europe-

Elliott West 13:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:39 ... that some are connecting syph- at least some forms of syphilis to European settlers who had come to America and then gone back to Europe.

Elliott West 13:47 Yep.

Joe Rogan 13:47 And brought syphilis with them.

Elliott West 13:49 Yep. That too is being argued about right now.

Joe Rogan 13:53 Yes.

Elliott West 13:53 But th- right now, the evidence is quite clear. Uh, and we're, we're talking about venereal syphilis now.

Joe Rogan 13:59 Yes.

Elliott West 13:59 Uh, syphilis could also be a s- kind of a skin infection. Uh, that was there before. But the first documented cases of syphilis, last time I checked, uh, (laughs) a very suspicious time, a very suspicious place. Uh, it was in Spain in 1493. You know, that's back- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:20 Pretty close. (laughs)

Elliott West 14:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:23 That's right there.

Elliott West 14:23 It seems circumstantially pretty clear, you know-

Joe Rogan 14:25 Yeah.

Elliott West 14:26 ... that, uh, that, you know, Columbus's folks, uh, brought that back. Another thing, it was also absolutely devastating, which suggests that this was a new disease. It was not one that we had begun to, you know, that we'd been around, uh, for any length of time. Uh, terrible effects, uh, uh, fatal, you know, insanity, f- fatalities. Um, so that seems pretty clear. There's also evidence of, uh, syphilitic bone damage among native peoples going way back in-

Joe Rogan 14:55 Hmm.

Elliott West 14:55 ... in North America. So I think it's pretty safe to, uh, to say that.

Joe Rogan 14:59 Well, we've talked about it before on this show, but it's really interesting that that's the origin of the term bigwig. Uh, that-

Elliott West 15:05 Really?

Joe Rogan 15:06 Did you know about that?

Elliott West 15:07 No.

Joe Rogan 15:07 Oh, okay, great.

Elliott West 15:07 No, uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 15:07 I'm gonna tell you something.

Elliott West 15:08 Okay, great. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:09 So there was, uh, see if you could find out who these French royals were. But there was, uh, these, uh, French royals who contracted syphilis. They started losing their hair, and so they started wearing these, uh, uh, they'd put these beautiful wigs on. And the more money you had, the bigger your wig was.

Elliott West 15:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:29 And it became, because the syphilis had just run rampant through this population-

Elliott West 15:34 Right.

Joe Rogan 15:34 ... so many people were losing their hair, and they would-

Elliott West 15:36 Right.

Joe Rogan 15:36 ... get these s- uh, holes in their face-

Elliott West 15:39 Sores. Right, yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:40 ... and sores. It was really horrific. So these are the gentlemen. Saniel... How do you say his name? Papize? How would you say that?

Elliott West 15:46 Pepys.

Joe Rogan 15:46 Elliot. Pepys?

Elliott West 15:47 Pepys. Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 15:47 Pepys?

Elliott West 15:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:48 Um, so at the time, hair loss is a one-way ticket to public embarrassment. Long hair was a trendy status symbol and a bald dome could stain any reputation.

Elliott West 15:56 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:56 While Saniel Pepys' brother acquired syphilis, the diarist wrote, "If my brother lives, he will not be able to show his head, which would be a very great shame to me." Hair was that big of a deal. And so the syphilis outbreak sparked a surge in wig-making.

Elliott West 16:10 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:10 Victims hid their baldness as well as their bloody sores that scored, scoured their faces with wigs made of horse, goat, or human hair.

Elliott West 16:18 Wow.

Joe Rogan 16:18 Perukes were also coated with powder scented with lavender or orange to hide any funky aromas. Although common wigs were not exactly stylish, they were a shameful necessity. That changed in 1655 when the King of France started losing his hair. And so these guys started wearing wigs-

Elliott West 16:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:36 ... and everybody started wearing wigs. And the bigger your wig was, the more famous and rich and established you were.

Elliott West 16:43 Of course.

Joe Rogan 16:43 So the term bigwig.

Elliott West 16:43 So you're a bigwig.

Joe Rogan 16:45 Yeah. Isn't that wild?

Elliott West 16:45 That's, that's a wonderful story. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:47 'Cause, I mean, I heard about that s- that when I was a kid. Oh-

Elliott West 16:49 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 16:49 ... he's a bigwig.

Elliott West 16:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 16:50 Like, that had made it to the 1980s. Like, uh ...

Elliott West 16:54 Yep. Absolutely. I think you and I should look into this as a possibility.

Joe Rogan 16:58 No, I'm good.

Elliott West 16:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:59 I like being bald.

Elliott West 17:00 Me too. Me too.

Joe Rogan 17:01 It's comfortable. It's-

Elliott West 17:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:02 ... eat- so easy. You don't have to talk to barbers. Shave your head yourself.

Elliott West 17:05 Sure. Yep.

Joe Rogan 17:05 I enjoy it.

Elliott West 17:06 That's me.

Joe Rogan 17:06 And I have a good-shaped head, so I'm lucky. Some people have some funky heads.

Elliott West 17:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 17:09 So you got a good head too.

Elliott West 17:11 Thank you so much. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:13 (laughs) So that is a sto- that is part of the story, is this exchange of disease.

Elliott West 17:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 17:20 And the, the lack of immunity, and how much of a devastating effect this had on the North Americans who did encounter the Europeans.

Elliott West 17:28 That's right. That's right. Uh, and that's very well-established now. Now we're, we're coming to understand that in a more sophisticated way now. Uh, for instance, uh, it's not quite the f- it's not quite true that, that Indians had no immunity to it, or that we, that our immunity protected us when we went there. It's more typically a case of these diseases, like smallpox, for example, um, if you got it as a child, if you got it, it's like measles today, you know, or, or mumps, you know?

Joe Rogan 17:59 Hmm.

Elliott West 17:59 Or chicken pox. You know, you watch your kids-

Joe Rogan 18:02 Right.

Elliott West 18:02 ... to get those because, um, then they're immune-... a- and later on. It's a much more devastating disease if you get it as an adult, as a, as a grownup.

Joe Rogan 18:13 Do we know why?

Elliott West 18:15 You know, I, I, I'm not s- I'm not at all sure. I think it's because, eh, uh, i- it, when you're young like that, you can deal with it more effectively. I, I'm, I'm not sure. Uh-

Joe Rogan 18:24 Hmm.

Elliott West 18:25 ... but it was the case, especially viruses like smallpox, you know, you're then, you then gain lifetime immunity. So, what probably was going on was that smallpox was so common in Europe, uh, that the Europeans who came over here had likely had it when they were kids.

Joe Rogan 18:41 Hmm.

Elliott West 18:42 You know? And so they... So it wasn't that they had genetic immunity to it.

Joe Rogan 18:45 Right.

Elliott West 18:45 Uh, it was their-

Joe Rogan 18:46 They had previous exposure.

Elliott West 18:47 Right. Also, the fact that, especially later on, when time passes, uh, the greater mortality rate among Indians was because of the general degeneration of their condition, you know? Just like what we see in COVID. You know? People who are the poorest and people who are have the least medical care, the people who are ... they're the ones who are most vulnerable.

Joe Rogan 19:07 The oldest, uh-

Elliott West 19:08 Yeah, and ... Right.

Joe Rogan 19:09 ... ones with mortality or-

Elliott West 19:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:11 ... comorbidities.

Elliott West 19:12 Yeah. But what's, um, absolutely incontestable is that the effect of diseases on Indian peoples was absolutely catastrophic. Uh, and it goes a long way toward explaining how the Europeans were able to, uh, to take control of the continent, uh, as quickly, as quickly as they did.

Joe Rogan 19:29 You know, there's some estimations that 90% of the Native Americans-

Elliott West 19:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:33 ... died from disease.

Elliott West 19:35 That's right. It's, uh ... Well, the, the population declined by as much as 90% or even 94%. Uh, disease is an important factor, but, you know, think of it now. When ... If smallpox hits an Indian village, let's say, uh, in the Dakotas, uh, it kills ... Unlike other diseases, smallpox is sort of democratic in the sense that it kills all ages, right? It kills the most productive, it kills the hunters, it kills the mothers who are nursing their children. So, these secondary effects of that kind of loss ... What would happen if, if Austin, Texas lost 40% of its people?

Joe Rogan 20:15 Hmm.

Elliott West 20:16 You know? (laughs) The other 60% may survive, but not for long. You know? The whole system, everything collapses. So it's, uh, uh, it's an absolutely devastating effect when you have those kinds of, those kinds of epidemics.

Joe Rogan 20:31 So you have this kind of epidemic, and then you have this rush of human beings that have come over from Europe. And have they come over... What, what was the primary motivation for them coming over here? Was it to seek a better life? Was it gold mining, silver mining? What was the, the first initial wave?

Elliott West 20:52 There are various answers, various answers to that. Uh, keep in mind, these were all, initially, at least, imperial enterprises. You know? It wasn't just Frenchmen coming over. It was the French government trying to establish an empire there that they could profit from. Uh, the Spanish, s- same thing. Um, now when the English came over, theirs was a combination of governmental, uh, ambition, uh, and a business enterprise. But in any case, this was all being directed, you know, by others in Europe for their own ends. Not the ones who were coming over, you know, but they were there ... They were trying to do it for their own, uh, for their own purposes. Uh, then that raises the question, uh, who ... So, the ones who came over, you know, why were they there? And I think that the most common answer is the one you suggested, better lives. Right? You gotta remember, you know, in Europe, uh, especially a place like England, uh, land was very scarce. So, the possibility of somebody being born into the peasantry or being born, uh, you know, on the lower ranks, the possibility of them acquiring land was, you know, beyond remote. And then somebody says, "Okay, if you'll just go across the Atlantic, you know, we'll give you land."

Joe Rogan 22:09 Hmm.

Elliott West 22:10 "We'll give you a new start." Right? And that's a ... That's very seductive.

Joe Rogan 22:14 It's fascinating because that pessimism seems to still be prevalent in a lot of English people. This pe- this pessimism as far as, like, your ability to improve your lifestyle.

Elliott West 22:28 Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:28 You know? I have, have many, uh, English friends that have come over here and say the attitude in, in America is that, like, you can, you can go out and you can forge your own path, you could do things. But in England-

Elliott West 22:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:38 ... there's this, like-

Elliott West 22:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:40 It's very ... They're very dismissive of that.

Elliott West 22:42 Yeah, yeah. I, I think that's right. I think there's something, something to that, yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:45 Yeah.

Elliott West 22:45 There is that sort of American spirit.

Joe Rogan 22:48 But the, but the kind of people that would take that kind of chance to get on a boat and go across the ocean with no photographs to look at?

Elliott West 22:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:58 I mean, what did they have? A sketch that someone ... A story, a tale?

Elliott West 23:01 (laughs) Oh-

Joe Rogan 23:01 A pile of gold that someone had brought back?

Elliott West 23:03 Well, they had n- They had accounts. They had lies being told to them.

Joe Rogan 23:09 A lot of lies, I bet.

Elliott West 23:09 A lot of lies, yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:10 (laughs)

Elliott West 23:11 Those were, um ... But, you know-

Joe Rogan 23:13 What were the big lies?

Elliott West 23:15 The big lies?

Joe Rogan 23:15 Yeah.

Elliott West 23:16 Oh, the, you know, uh, you would, you'll pro- prosper instantly. Uh, there was a, uh, a very healthy place. Right? You would ... (laughs) Great place to raise a family, right? (laughs) Uh, the usual ones. Um, but these were ... Again, they were promoters. Uh, they were imperial promoters. Uh, they were private promoters. You know? The first English colonies, uh, Jamestown, uh, and then, uh, Plymouth, uh, and then Massachusetts Bay, those were all businesses. You know, they were corporations, you know? It was like, uh, Walmart establishing a colony on the moon or something. So, they're promoting it. They're trying to persuade people to go over there, to develop it, uh, to raise, uh, uh, tobacco, you know, and to, to give them, to give them their profits. So, a huge promotional scheme.

Joe Rogan 24:03 Hmm.

Elliott West 24:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 24:05 Yeah, just the, the kind of human that did that-... really sort of establishes the ethic of what it means to be an American, 'cause these are wild, risk-taking people, and these are the people that essentially first sta- established America. I mean, these, uh, th- or as far as Europeans, these are ... H- w- you have to be a wild person-

Elliott West 24:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:26 ... to take that kind of a chance.

Elliott West 24:28 It's a big chance. But, of course, it's, it's always balance between, uh, the, w- what appears to be a dead-end life from where they were.

Joe Rogan 24:36 Right.

Elliott West 24:36 All immigration, you know, is, uh, sort of a push and a pull.

Joe Rogan 24:39 Right. That's the motivation.

Elliott West 24:40 Uh, Americans had a great pull.

Joe Rogan 24:41 Yeah.

Elliott West 24:41 But they were also being pushed.

Joe Rogan 24:43 It's also extraordinary that there was this enormous continent, far bigger than Europe, that was available-

Elliott West 24:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:50 ... that, you know, that you could go there and establish a new life to. I mean-

Elliott West 24:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:55 ... what a, what a marketing promotion.

Elliott West 24:58 Oh, yeah. C- uh, imagine now, th- uh, as I tell my ... I'm retired now, but what I used to tell my classes, uh, imagine that, uh, suddenly, you know, the news hits that there is another universe, right, uh, that we didn't know was there.

Joe Rogan 25:17 Mm.

Elliott West 25:17 And number two, you could go there. You could actually go there. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:22 Yeah.

Elliott West 25:23 What an idea.

Joe Rogan 25:24 Yeah, what a crazy idea.

Elliott West 25:25 What an idea, yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:26 Yeah, my family came over here in the 1920s, uh, from both sides.

Elliott West 25:30 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 25:31 And they, they came over from Europe with this idea that, you know, America was better than what was available in Italy and Ireland. And, you know, that was something that had already been really pretty well-established. You go 100 years earlier than that, 200 years earlier than that, these, these are incredible risks that these people took.

Elliott West 25:53 Yeah, yeah. Um, they were, you know, and you have to sort of marvel at it-

Joe Rogan 25:58 Yeah.

Elliott West 25:58 ... at the same time ask yourself, "Would you do that?" You know? I don't think so. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:03 Uh, yeah, we can look at it from their perspective, marvel at it, but, man, from the perspective of the natives that lived here, what a horrific invasion, and what a devastating effect it had on their way of life, their culture, and how much is missing from their cultural memory because of this devastation of 90% of their population.

Elliott West 26:24 Yeah. Yeah, uh, except for the Black Death, uh, this was the most horrific thing that has ever happened in recorded human history to Indian peoples, uh, in the new world.

Joe Rogan 26:38 Mm.

Elliott West 26:38 Nothing remotely approaches it, except the Black Death, uh, except the, uh, the bubonic plague. Uh, and even, even then when you consider it, when you track it over time, bubonic plague, of course, came in waves, occasional waves. If you look at this as one story over 400 years, uh, it's, it's by itself. Nothing like it.

Joe Rogan 26:59 Well, it's not only by itself for human beings, but it's also by itself for native wildlife-

Elliott West 27:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:04 ... which is another incredible aspect of this story of American expansion. Um, I watched the Ken Burns documentary on the American buffalo-

Elliott West 27:12 Buffalo, that's right.

Joe Rogan 27:12 ... and you were in that, as well.

Elliott West 27:14 Yes.

Joe Rogan 27:14 And in that, a- as well as Steve Rinella, and that is, that is a crazy story, that no wildlife in this country can e- can survive being a commodity, and-

Elliott West 27:30 It might survive, but it's gonna have a real tough time of it.

Joe Rogan 27:32 Barely.

Elliott West 27:32 That's right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:33 Barely. I mean, we had to put the brakes on it in order for it to sh- survive. I mean, w- we-

Elliott West 27:37 And a big ... When it ... Uh, and we were able to put the brakes on it because it was no longer profitable.

Joe Rogan 27:43 Hmm.

Elliott West 27:43 As long as it's a com- a, a profitable commodity, you know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:47 Yeah.

Elliott West 27:48 ... it's in real trouble.

Joe Rogan 27:49 But that also contributed to the d- d- demise of Native Americans-

Elliott West 27:55 Of course.

Joe Rogan 27:56 ... particularly the ones who hunted the buffalo.

Elliott West 27:58 That's right. Well, not just the buffalo. Buffalo were just, you know ... Uh, uh, the most dramatic example of dozens, scores of species of animals, uh, in the new world, in North America, uh, that were driven to this, uh, either to extinction completely or, uh, really close to it. Uh, Dan Flores, I think he's been on your-

Joe Rogan 28:18 Yes, a couple times.

Elliott West 28:19 ... on your show. Yeah, uh, Dan has this, uh, marvelous, uh, new book, A Wild New World, uh, that goes to that, goes into that in some detail and describes it.

Joe Rogan 28:27 Yes.

Elliott West 28:27 And, um, as I remember from the book, Dan says that, um, at, at no point in modern history have so many different species, uh, been eradicated so quickly.

Joe Rogan 28:40 So quickly.

Elliott West 28:41 Yeah. And of c- and, of course, you made, of co- the essential point. What that is, it's not just that they're being hunted and, uh, exploited, uh, f- for the profit of people who are coming into it. That's really part of an even larger process that is the complete transformation of a world. That's one of the things that I try to emphasize in this book, uh, between 1850 (laughs) and 1880, uh, the western th- third of North America was literally remade, ecologic ... not just culturally, uh, socially, ecologically. Ecologically it was made over into a new world, uh, and that world, of course, was not one that native peoples knew how to work.

Joe Rogan 29:26 Hmm.

Elliott West 29:27 You know, their, (laughs) their existence relied on them being able, uh, r- relied on, you know, centuries of knowledge gained from this intricate understanding and use, this sort of choreographed life, uh, of this, of this place, of this place, relying upon its resources, animals also plants, of course, uh, crops and so forth. And the Europeans come in and they just transform it.

Joe Rogan 29:54 Quickly.

Elliott West 29:54 Qu- very quickly, very quickly, uh, so what are you gonna do? That is what defeated the Indians. It wasn't the military, you know. It was this transformation of their world into another, uh, from one world into another in which they didn't fit, so they simply had no choice but to do what they were told if you're gonna live.

Joe Rogan 30:14 Now, when it comes to the American bison, there, there certainly was, uh, a market hunting aspect of it.

Elliott West 30:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:21 That they were hunting them for their tongues, they were hunting them for their hides. But there was also, it seems like there was a motivation to remove the Native Americans' ability to sustain themselves. Or was that a, just a peripheral ... Was that like-

Elliott West 30:38 It- it's a little complicated, (laughs) as usual. Right?

Joe Rogan 30:43 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 30:44 Uh, you're talking about two things here, first.

Joe Rogan 30:45 Yes.

Elliott West 30:46 When you're talking about the, uh ... I think it's fair to say that Indian peoples had their own hand in this. Once buffalo robes ... That is, you, you take a, take a, usually a cow hide and you process, you scrape it out and you, and you work it, you work it into a robe. Um, suddenly those became quite popular, uh, in the East, uh, in England, uh, and in Europe. It was sort of this exotic thing to have in your house. You know, you put it on the wall or you put it- make it into a rug or you use it as a, uh, you're out in a, in a carriage in the winter, uh, you would have these things. It was, it was, uh, something that was, uh, interesting, something that was, all of a sudden it was a fashion, kind of a fad. And suddenly there was this great market for these things, uh, for Indian hunters, native hunters. They've been killing bison of course for their own uses, but now they would do both that and for their hides, which they could turn into robes, which would give them this unprecedented affluence.

Joe Rogan 31:48 Mm.

Elliott West 31:49 It was this, it was this business boom among them. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:52 And also warmth and the build- to sustain during winter.

Elliott West 31:55 Sure. Well, th- I mean, they had always used it for that. Now, it was a commodity.

Joe Rogan 32:00 When did that shift and what, what caused that shift?

Elliott West 32:02 That was in the eight- uh, 1820s is when it really, when it really booms. Suddenly, you know, there's this, uh, exotic, uh, thing that you can get from the American West, uh, that's, that's kind of cool to have, right?

Joe Rogan 32:15 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 32:15 So that's in the eight- 1820s, and it's a huge trade, you know. Hundreds of thousands of robes are sent down the Missouri and the Mississippi, down to be marketed, uh, marketed out of New Orleans, um, and to be, and to be, and to be sent east. That had an ear- early effect on the decline of the bison population. Uh, in my own- of own research and work on this, uh, I think that something close to a half of the bison population at its peak, um, is explained by that sort of hunting and other kinds of ecological and environmental changes, uh, that were going on in the West. So, long before the hide hunters, the white- th- those white hide hunters went out there and started killing them, Indians were killing them, and essentially for the same reason. In other words, Indians th- themselves became caught up in this commodification, uh, caught up in this international trade, right? Um, and they began to feel the effects of it.

Joe Rogan 33:18 Mm.

Elliott West 33:19 By the 1850s, there's this, uh, noticeable shortage, decline of, of bison populations. So they're already under pressure. And then, and then somebody figures out, 1872, we know exactly the year, 1872, somebody figures out that you can take a bison hide and you could turn it into industrial leather. (laughs) Now, in the 1870s, there was a worldwide leather shortage. The reason was, uh, industry. Factories needed leather for gaskets for these, uh, machines, uh, belts and these things. A huge demand for it, uh, both here, uh, and in England a- and in Europe. Uh, most of that leather had been coming from Argentina, the huge herds in Argentina, but they were about tapped out.

Joe Rogan 34:15 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 34:15 So there's this huge demand, there's huge- there's this big pressing economic question. How ... Where's the leather gonna come from? Um, as, as hundreds of new factories are being built all the time, right? Suddenly somebody figures out buffalos.

Joe Rogan 34:31 Wow.

Elliott West 34:31 They can give it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:32 So th- the buffalo got it from both sides.

Elliott West 34:34 That's right. That's right. So they-

Joe Rogan 34:36 Have you read Dan Flores' work on the reason why there was these immense buffalo herds in the first place?

Elliott West 34:43 Sure.

Joe Rogan 34:43 He believes that with the decline of the Native American population because of disease, that led to an unprecedented rise in the buffalo.

Elliott West 34:52 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:52 And that when th- the Europeans came and saw these millions of buffalo on the plain, that this was not normal.

Elliott West 34:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:00 That this was something akin to like, if you go to, uh, populations like in my neighborhood-

Elliott West 35:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:06 My, my, my neighborhood is overrun with white-tailed deer.

Elliott West 35:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:08 It's crazy how many of them there are. And white-tailed deer, at one point in time, were on the verge of extinction in the United States.

Elliott West 35:13 That's right. That's right.

Joe Rogan 35:14 Because of market hunting.

Elliott West 35:15 That's right. But that he says that he believes that this insane number of bison that people had first, uh, witnessed that this was because the Native Americans had declined so much, there was no pressure on them.

Joe Rogan 35:28 Yeah. That's a good argument. It- I think it's har- very hard to, to prove.

Elliott West 35:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:34 Um, but Dan and I have had that conversation before. Uh, and, um, I think there might well be something to it. It's, you know, the classic, classic thing, like Yellowstone, you know. You get rid of the wolves, the elk population booms, right?

Elliott West 35:46 Right. Right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:47 You get rid of the, um, you get rid of predators, the beaver population booms, and all of a sudden all the creeks are damned-

Elliott West 35:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:52 ... and every land's flooded, (laughs) and so it's-

Elliott West 35:54 Yes.

Joe Rogan 35:54 Yeah. So it's a ... Yeah. It's this, you know, it's this extraordinarily intricate relationship and connection that we have with the world around us, and you mess with any one part of it and, um, the rest of it's gonna change.

Elliott West 36:05 And human beings love to mess with things. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:08 Those ... We do especially. (laughs)

Elliott West 36:09 Yeah. We do.

Joe Rogan 36:10 (laughs)

Elliott West 36:10 Especially when we came to a place that we didn't really have an understanding of the ecosystem yet.

Joe Rogan 36:14 Right. That's right. Yeah.

Elliott West 36:15 Like North America.

Joe Rogan 36:16 Yeah. Um, w- another thing that-... Dan talks about this really fascinating, was that horses originated from North America-

Elliott West 36:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:26 ... but were wiped out.

Elliott West 36:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:28 But had already been transferred to Europe-

Elliott West 36:31 That's right.

Joe Rogan 36:31 ... and to other parts of the world, and then were reintroduced when Europeans came here.

Elliott West 36:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:36 What year was that, when that started happening?

Elliott West 36:38 Well, uh, you're right of course. They evolved on the southern plains, uh, over 50 million years, f- from a critter called a hyracotherium, uh, which was about the size of a collie.

Joe Rogan 36:51 Oh, wow.

Elliott West 36:51 Into the modern, into the modern horse. That took millions of years. Uh, and fairly late in that story, that is to say only two or three million years ago, uh, they migrated along with all kinds of other animal. Camels, for example, uh, evolved alongside horses-

Joe Rogan 37:07 That's crazy.

Elliott West 37:07 ... uh, in the Southwest. Um, and they made that trip, you know, over Beringia, over the, uh, the land bridge there.

Joe Rogan 37:15 Bering Strait.

Elliott West 37:15 Yeah. Into, um, what was the largest pasture on Earth. You know, Central Asia. And there, their population exploded, uh, and there they continued to evolve. And there became zebras, headed south into, into, into Africa, yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:31 That is crazy.

Elliott West 37:32 They became, uh, you know, asses. Uh, so all the equids, uh, evolved from those horses coming out of New Mexico, (laughs) right?

Joe Rogan 37:41 That is so crazy that zebras came out of New Mexico.

Elliott West 37:45 (laughs) That's right, right. Pushing far back enough, that's right.

Joe Rogan 37:47 Wow.

Elliott West 37:49 Uh, uh, so they boomed over there, uh, but, uh, you know, at the, at the end of the last Ice Age, into the pla- during the Wisconsin ... at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation, um, the world changes. We're going through a kind of a climate change, uh, as we have today, warming, and that changes the ecology completely, and all kinds of animals in, especially in North America became extinct. Uh, dozens of species, uh, became extinct. You know we-

Joe Rogan 38:17 Like 65% of all, all North of American large megafauna.

Elliott West 38:22 Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yep. Uh, you know, uh, we had an American lion, you know.

Joe Rogan 38:26 Mm.

Elliott West 38:26 We had of course the saber-toothed tiger, the Smilodon. American cheetah. The American cheetah.

Joe Rogan 38:31 Yeah.

Elliott West 38:31 We had armadillos the size of Volkswagen Bugs.

Joe Rogan 38:37 Really?

Elliott West 38:39 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:39 Up until when?

Elliott West 38:40 With this extinction.

Joe Rogan 38:41 Wow.

Elliott West 38:42 And so then-

Joe Rogan 38:42 So 12,000, 13,000 years ago there was giant armadillos here?

Elliott West 38:45 That's right. That's right. I mean...

Joe Rogan 38:46 Wow.

Elliott West 38:47 So, you know, they would run over cars. The cars didn't run over them. (laughs) So...

Joe Rogan 38:50 Wow. (laughs)

Elliott West 38:51 So... (laughs) Uh, and, you know, the list just goes on and on. Uh, they, uh, uh, all of these animals suddenly disappeared, because of this... partly because of this ecological change. Now there's an argument, uh, that it wasn't just that. Uh, the q- the question is, okay, uh, the lion goes extinct in America, didn't go extinct in Africa. Horses go extinct in America; they didn't go extinct over there. But it was a global change. So what's the difference? The argument is people. Uh, people by that point had just been able to make their way over in the other direction, you know, you know. You know, Beringia was a, it was a two-way street, a two-way highway.

Joe Rogan 39:37 Mm.

Elliott West 39:37 And there were animals coming over from Asia at the same time that American animals were going over in the other directions. Buffalos, bison, evolved in the Old World, and then they came over here, uh...

Joe Rogan 39:49 R- where, where did they originate from?

Elliott West 39:50 Uh, Central Asia.

Joe Rogan 39:52 Wow.

Elliott West 39:53 Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and also parts of Europe. There was an animal called a auroch, uh, that's, uh, that was a descendant also of them, uh...

Joe Rogan 40:00 Were they just as furry? Did they look similar?

Elliott West 40:02 Who knows? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:03 Who knows? Maybe they changed and evolved.

Elliott West 40:04 And they were, uh, th- they were quite different from the ones today. Uh, th- the ones that came over that dominated, uh, were called Bison antiquus, uh, or Bison latifrons. They were much larger.

Joe Rogan 40:16 Mm.

Elliott West 40:16 Much larger. Uh, Bison antiquus, if you can imagine one now, it has a... You know, the, the bulls have these, you know, the, the horns spread just like ours do. The horn spread of a Bison antiquus was great enough that, uh, LeBron James could lie down between the tips of the horns, uh-

Joe Rogan 40:36 Wow.

Elliott West 40:36 ... and not touch either, not touch either one.

Joe Rogan 40:39 Wow.

Elliott West 40:39 So there were these gigantic bison. They became extinct, and they were then succeeded, they were then, or, you know, re- replaced by or followed by, uh, our bison. Uh, uh, Bison bison, uh, americanus. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:54 Have you ever read into the Younger Dryas Impact Theory?

Elliott West 40:59 Into the what, now?

Joe Rogan 40:59 Younger Dryas Impact Theory?

Elliott West 41:01 Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:03 Yeah. Uh, uh, Randall Carlson, who's been on my podcast, uh, multiple times-

Elliott West 41:06 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 41:06 ... he's a proponent of that, and there's a lot of scientific evidence in terms of, uh, core samples and micro-diamonds that seem to indicate that around 11,800 years ago-

Elliott West 41:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:16 ... North America and a good 30% of the world was hit when we passed through, uh, a comet shower.

Elliott West 41:22 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:22 And that, that was the end of the Ice Age, and that it, it happened not just then, but it happened another time somewhere in the 10,000 range.

Elliott West 41:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:30 And that that was what melted m- almost instantaneously most of the North American cap that covered half the continent in miles of ice and all that. And that he thinks that that was the origin of the mass extinction along with human beings.

Elliott West 41:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:48 That there was a combination of those two things.

Elliott West 41:50 Yeah. I've, I've heard that idea.

Joe Rogan 41:52 But-

Elliott West 41:52 Yeah. ... I don't frankly don't know enough about it to...

Narrator 41:55 Have an opinion?

Joe Rogan 41:55 I'm trying to bring Randall e- together with someone who is an expert, like Dan Flores.

Elliott West 42:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:00 I would love to bring Randall and Dan Flores together so they can sort of compare notes.

Elliott West 42:04 Sure.

Joe Rogan 42:04 'Cause both of them are working on the same problem from different angles.

Elliott West 42:09 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a fascinating one. Uh, and it has to do of course with what we were talking about a little earlier. Uh, human groups, right? Uh, people who are here, what effect did that have on, on them?

Joe Rogan 42:21 Yeah.

Elliott West 42:21 Does that explain, you know, some of these t- sudden declines of populations?Don't know.

Joe Rogan 42:26 Yeah.

Elliott West 42:26 Don't know.

Joe Rogan 42:27 What's so interesting that we still have some animals left over, like the pronghorn antelope-

Elliott West 42:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 42:32 ... that moves at speeds that don't make any sense considering the predators that are available for it.

Elliott West 42:36 That's right. That's right.

Joe Rogan 42:37 They're so much faster than everything else because they had to evade the North American cheetah.

Elliott West 42:41 That's right. Yep. Yeah, there's a wonderful book called Ghosts of Extinction, uh, and, um, it's exactly, exactly along those lines. Also, you know, pronghorns, uh, can't jump fences.

Joe Rogan 42:52 Right, they go under them.

Elliott West 42:53 Or they go under them or try to go through them, but they can't-

Joe Rogan 42:55 Yeah.

Elliott West 42:55 ... go over them and that's because no fences back then. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:58 Right. Yeah, pretty wild.

Elliott West 43:00 They're f- faster than hell, you know?

Joe Rogan 43:01 Yeah.

Elliott West 43:01 They can, they can outrun a lion, but, uh, but they can't jump a fence.

Joe Rogan 43:04 You would think that something that could run that fast could also jump.

Elliott West 43:08 You'd think. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:09 Do you think if you gave them another million years, they'd figure out how to jump fences?

Elliott West 43:13 (laughs) I, I feel pretty confident they would, right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:15 Because white-tailed deer do it like they're born to do it.

Elliott West 43:17 Right.

Joe Rogan 43:18 Like, a fence to them is just like stepping over a branch.

Elliott West 43:21 Oh, I know we have a... We have a place out in the hills in Arkansas and we've got a fence. Like you said, they're overrun, overrun with deer. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:27 There's a place called Catalina Island in California-

Elliott West 43:30 Sure.

Joe Rogan 43:30 ... where they're, they're, the, the f- what they're trying to do now is use snipers and helicopters to wipe out the deer population because there's n-

Elliott West 43:38 No kidding.

Joe Rogan 43:38 Yeah. 'Cause, well, they're on an island and there's no predators and-

Elliott West 43:41 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 43:42 It's... Which is a shame. It's a, it's a horrible shame.

Elliott West 43:45 Well, they starve.

Joe Rogan 43:46 Yeah.

Elliott West 43:46 Right.

Joe Rogan 43:46 They starve. Diseases, you know, CWD. There's a lot of different diseases that they can get hit with because of this overpopulation.

Elliott West 43:54 Yeah. And of course, that's the kind of context that you can put in the decline of native peoples here.

Joe Rogan 44:00 Mm.

Elliott West 44:00 What we're doing, what we're doing is messing with the ecological arrangement in ways that make it impossible, uh, for certain thing, animals that have adapted to that, um, to survive.

Joe Rogan 44:15 Yeah.

Elliott West 44:17 The difference was, of course, is that, uh, Indians are human beings, and human beings have the imagination to imagine a different way and to, uh, respond to it, uh, in ways that others, others can't.

Joe Rogan 44:28 What's one of the more fascinating and horrific aspects of the story of the decline of the native population in America is that they had this incredibly unique lifestyle that really wasn't... Uh, it wasn't available anywhere else in the world at that time. Most of the rest of Europe and Asia had sort of changed and moved to agriculture and moved to cities. And these people had these immense tribes, super sophisticated hunter-gatherer civilizations that lived in symbiosis with the land. And to, uh, us, people that sort of understand how horrible it is that that's happened, we have this incredible romantic attachment to, to Native Americans.

Elliott West 45:14 Yeah. Yes, a lot of ways we do. Now, there was, of course, agriculture here.

Joe Rogan 45:19 Yes.

Elliott West 45:19 In what's today the United States, uh, in the East, uh, highly sophisticated forms of agriculture, growing a variety of crops. In the Southwest, uh, relying especially on, on corn. But you're right. A good part of what's today the United States, especially the West, uh, were hunter-gatherer peoples and fishers. Um, they had figured out these ways to, uh, these sort of, these incredibly complicated and complex, uh, uh, practiced ways of moving through their year, uh, month by month, week by week, in ways that had, they had practiced and, and learned about over the, over many generations, uh, that allowed them a really remarkably high standard of living. Um, now, there were not large tribes. One of the limitations of a hunter-gatherer society, uh, is you cannot expand in numbers beyond a certain, a certain limit. About 125. You know, that's a... Uh, get bigger than that, you really can't support it. So what you had was this extraordinary splay, this, this extraordinary, uh, variety of, of peoples. You know, hundreds, hundreds of different native groups. Um, today, there are 530 federally recognized tribes (laughs) in the United States.

Joe Rogan 46:39 Wow.

Elliott West 46:39 Yeah. Uh, and that's just, those are the ones who have survived, uh, physically and, and culturally. So there's this remarkable, uh, array of peoples, many of them speaking different languages or different dialects, uh, all of them in contact with the, with the others, uh, that with, in this, uh, very, uh, intricate tri- uh, trade relationships.

Joe Rogan 47:03 Mm.

Elliott West 47:03 Uh, it was quite a place, you know. And you're right, it, it, it flies, um, dramatically, uh, in the face of what we think was going on back then.

Joe Rogan 47:15 Mm.

Elliott West 47:15 This romanticized, simplistic view of the Indian, right? They're just like this, (laughs) this one group of people, right?

Joe Rogan 47:23 It's also so interesting that that number of 125 people aligns with we know as Dunbar's number.

Elliott West 47:30 That's exactly right. That's where it comes from.

Joe Rogan 47:32 Yeah.

Elliott West 47:32 So you're aware of that. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:33 Yeah.

Elliott West 47:33 Wonderful book. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:35 Yeah. Dunbar's number, meaning that we have in our mind the ability to hold a cer- a relationship with a certain number of people intimately, and then as it spreads out further-

Elliott West 47:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:46 ... we can know some people sort of, we kind of know of them, and, but there's just a small group that would be your family, a larger group that would be your tribe, and then there's neighboring tribes.

Elliott West 47:57 That's right. That's right. It's a fascinating idea.

Joe Rogan 47:59 It is fascinating because-

Elliott West 48:00 He uses the, uh, he used the-

Joe Rogan 48:01 ... it shows our hard drive.

Elliott West 48:02 Yep. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:03 We have a mental hard drive-

Elliott West 48:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:04 ... that's sort of designed...

Elliott West 48:05 Yeah, we do. Yeah. He uses a... It's a great book. Uh, he uses, uh, the idea of gossip. You know, uh, the m- uh, the go- the, uh, the maximum number in which gossip really affects you, right?

Joe Rogan 48:19 Mm.

Elliott West 48:20 (laughs) And you can't get above about 125 before, oh, what the hell? I don't care. So...

Joe Rogan 48:24 Well, it is interesting because it seems like there's a, a biological, maybe an evolutionary reason for gossip.

Elliott West 48:30 ... of course.

Joe Rogan 48:31 Yeah.

Elliott West 48:31 Yeah. Sure. Uh, and in, in those societies, it played a very important role, because these groups typically had nothing remotely like our system of authority. You know? Essentially, nobody was in charge, you know? A- Among many Western groups, no person in a particular band could tell another person to do anything. No one had that kind of authority.

Joe Rogan 48:59 Right.

Elliott West 48:59 So how do they stop people from, you know, being, going nuts, you know, or doing hor-

Joe Rogan 49:04 Right.

Elliott West 49:05 ... doing horrible things? It's, it's, it's, uh, it's the, it's the, it's the group's, uh, the band's opinion of you. Right?

Joe Rogan 49:12 Right.

Elliott West 49:12 You're shamed.

Joe Rogan 49:13 Right, right, shamed.

Elliott West 49:14 Right? You're, uh ... They have, uh, they would often have these characters who were like town criers. You know, if somebody would do something awful, then he'd w- walk through the camp yelling about this guy (laughs) , "This guy."

Joe Rogan 49:24 Oh.

Elliott West 49:25 "This guy did something." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:26 Wow.

Elliott West 49:26 Yeah. So it, uh, but that, of course, is just sort of gossip on a grand scale.

Joe Rogan 49:30 Right. Someone's hiding food.

Elliott West 49:31 Yeah, you got to-

Joe Rogan 49:32 Yeah.

Elliott West 49:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:33 Yeah. Yeah. Someone's being greedy. Someone's-

Elliott West 49:36 And what's interesting also about Dunbar, I'm sure y- you know, you remember this one from his, from his book. Uh, when you get down below 125, smaller groups. There's also groups in which, uh, there's a certain intimacy, you know? Where you can a- you can absolutely trust these people.

Joe Rogan 49:53 Mm.

Elliott West 49:53 Right? Right?

Joe Rogan 49:54 Right.

Elliott West 49:54 What's that number? 12. 12. You know? Think of it, 12 jurors. Right?

Joe Rogan 50:01 Right.

Elliott West 50:02 12 disciples, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:04 Right. Yeah.

Elliott West 50:05 Uh, 11 on a football, football team. Right?

Joe Rogan 50:08 Yeah.

Elliott West 50:08 Clo- close to it, yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:09 Right.

Elliott West 50:09 It's the ... You know, that's a, that's a smaller group, uh, that works because everybody knows everybody else. Everybody is, uh ... You could rely on each other. You know? So, yeah. And like, like I say, that's, it's hardwired.

Joe Rogan 50:23 Yeah.

Elliott West 50:24 It's how we work.

Joe Rogan 50:25 Well, that's one of the things that's fascinating about things like the battle at Little Bighorn.

Elliott West 50:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:30 Because the Native American groups had figured out, "Listen, we gotta get together. There's ... The only way we're gonna stop these invaders is if we band together and form a much larger group."

Elliott West 50:46 Yeah. Uh, now those are the tribes. You know, most importantly they're the Lakota or the Western Sioux, uh, and the Northern Cheyenne. They were all, guh- again, composed of bands. There, there was no tribe in the sense that we're thinking of.

Joe Rogan 51:00 Hm.

Elliott West 51:00 All of them broke down into, uh, in, into these smaller, these smaller units, and they recognized a kinship. Uh, they spoke the same or a common, or highly related languages, so forth. They intermarried a lot, sort of bonding them together. But, um, about that time, as you say, about the time of 1876, 1870s, uh, there was this realization. You know, "We got a real problem here. We got a real problem here." Uh, "And the best chance, the best shot we have is for us to, uh, overcome these, to, to, to forge a sense of common identity and a common purpose." Uh, it's a kind of rise of what you might call, uh, nationalism. A kind of a, a S- you know, a Sioux-Cheyenne, uh, nationalism.

Joe Rogan 51:51 Hm.

Elliott West 51:52 Uh, and it's, that's new. That's new. That wasn't there, wasn't there before. So they're evolving. Right? They're evolving in their understanding, they're evolving in how they think about it themselves, right? It's this world in constant motion and change.

Joe Rogan 52:07 Hm.

Elliott West 52:08 And what I, what fascinated me about this, uh, in this, in this book was, uh, how complex it was and how fast it was, and how completely w- far-reaching it was. Everything changes. You know?

Joe Rogan 52:21 Quickly.

Elliott West 52:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:23 The ... H- one of the fascinating stories about Little Bighorn was that th- this band, this, this, uh, banding together of all these, uh, natives didn't last. They, they were very effective in this one battle, very quickly. Like, what ... They said that the battle ... What did they say the battle lasted? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 minutes?

Elliott West 52:44 Well, the, sort of the height of it, you know, where, uh, Custer's part.

Joe Rogan 52:48 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 52:49 That's probably about that or maybe a little longer. Um-

Joe Rogan 52:52 Which is crazy.

Elliott West 52:53 Now, the, the battle itself, of course, the larger battle lasted much longer. Over, over ... More than a day. About two days, uh, as he's ... Part of them, uh, part of the command under Reno retreated to this hill, you know, and was besieged and held under siege, uh, for, uh, a da- a day and a half. But you're right. Um, and then (laughs) you know, they ... That's a great victory.

Joe Rogan 53:19 Yeah.

Elliott West 53:20 The problem is, uh, you know what's gonna happen. Right?

Joe Rogan 53:24 Hm.

Elliott West 53:24 You know what's gonna happen.

Joe Rogan 53:25 They knew the retaliation was coming.

Elliott West 53:27 Yep, yep. Big time. You gotta remember now, when, when did this happen? It was 1876. Uh, the battle itself was on June 25th, 1876. Like I say, they were u- under siege there for two or three days. Um, it was another few days before the first other group, uh, of the, of the, of the army, of, of the cavalry arrived. Then they had to spend a few days, uh, taking care of the wounded, doing what they can. Then they took the survivors, uh, to the Missouri River to get on a steamboat, uh, to head, to head down, uh, to Bismarck, um, and it was at that point that the news began to travel about this unprecedented defeat by American forces. (laughs) So the battle's on June 25th. Put all those days together. (laughs) When do you think the first news arrived that ... Of this catastrophe? July 4th.

Joe Rogan 54:29 Mm.

Elliott West 54:30 July 4th, 1876.

Joe Rogan 54:32 Independence Day.

Elliott West 54:32 The 100th, 100th anniversary of the approval of the Declaration of Independence. The ... Our 100th, on our 100th birthday, (laughs) news arrives of, of this crushing of Custer, you know?... the nation, the military was not gonna let that stand. Yeah. So this was part of the reasons that there was this, this extraordinary effort, you know, to des- to destroy these people. So they very quickly broke up into these constituent bands, uh, and tried to get away as best they could, and less than a year, they were, they were defeated.

Joe Rogan 55:08 And you talk about what happened after that in your other book on the Nez Perce.

Elliott West 55:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 55:13 The Last Indian War.

Elliott West 55:15 Yeah. Right.

Joe Rogan 55:16 Yeah.

Elliott West 55:17 That was the next year, uh, 1877. Uh, the Nez Perce were this extraordinary people in the Pacific Northwest. Uh, they were from Idaho, uh, from Eastern Oregon. They, too, composed of these different bands, uh, gathered together in this, uh, this one common identity, uh, the Nimiipuu, which means the real people (laughs) . Uh, and they were completely at peace with the whites. In fact, uh, Lewis and Clark had been the first, uh, the first Americans, the first white people that they had ever seen. Lewis and Clark came over Lolo Pass, uh, down in there. They were starving. Uh, and the Ne- uh, the Nez Perce took them in, um, saved them, uh, gave them... Uh, helped them get some, uh, uh, horses, uh, and canoes to keep on their way. And on the way back, uh, Lewis and Clark stay with them more than a month, and they form... In the, in the eyes of the Nez Perce, they form this alliance with the Americans, and they swore, uh, "From this time on, we're friends, we're allies. Uh, you help us when we fight, we'll help you when you fight." Now, that was in 1806. Uh, they kept that promise from 1806, uh, until 1877.

Joe Rogan 56:45 Wow.

Elliott West 56:46 As they were... Their land was being overrun, uh, as these, uh, uh, appalling treaties were being forced upon them, um, they kept their word. Uh, and then finally in 18-, uh, 1877, the government said, "Okay, that's enough. You gotta come into this reservation." Uh, and the ones who were living off of it, uh, had to then within one month, within a month, they had to pack up everything. They had to (laughs) leave their homeland that they had known for generations. Uh, they had to cross the Snake River at its highest point, somehow get their families, you know, women, children, kids, old folks, um, across this river to, to gather, to go into this reservation, end of a way of life. Um, even though the treaty that required them to do that was a, was a, was a, uh, was a, a fra- fraud. Uh, and on the eve of literally the day before they were to go onto the reservation to be forced onto the reservation, these young men sort of snapped. And these young men took off and killed a bunch of white folks, you know, that they had grudges against. Um, that then triggered this war, uh, triggered this larger outbreak against whites that then, of course, brought the army in, uh, and the army tried to, to put this down. Uh, but as I researched that book, uh, the question that keep, kept coming back to me was, "Why? Why did they do that?" Because at the time of the war, uh, they were completely at peace with the Americans around them. Uh, they had adapted beautifully. They were prosperous cattlemen. They were raising cattle, you know? Uh, they had silver tea sets for Pete's sake (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 58:44 Mm.

Elliott West 58:45 They were, they were more, they were more prosperous than the whites who were, who were living r- in the ar- in the area. They threatened no one. They were living on lands that the whites didn't want. Uh, why then? Why force them in? What's the reason? Uh, and the only reason I can think of was, um, the Little Bighorn, you know?

Joe Rogan 59:07 Mm.

Elliott West 59:08 This year before, this humiliating defeat at the hands of the, uh, of the Lakotas and the Cheyennes. Uh, with that, the government said, "Uh, okay, that's it. Everybody, even our best friends, have to give up, and they have to come in, into reservations where we will c- we will control them." Yeah. So-

Joe Rogan 59:32 Yeah, control them, and then force Christianity on them as well.

Elliott West 59:35 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:36 Have you seen, uh, Taylor Sheridan's, uh, series, uh, 1923? It's a, a pre- a l- a prequel to Yellowstone. Have you ever watched any of those shows?

Elliott West 59:44 No, no.

Joe Rogan 59:45 Really good show.

Elliott West 59:46 No.

Joe Rogan 59:46 But one of, one of the things that 1923 documents, it stars Harrison Ford, and so it was very interesting, but it, it documents these women that are forced from their tribe to go into these schools.

Elliott West 59:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:57 Where their, uh, Christianity is forced upon them.

Elliott West 1:00:00 Sure, sure.

Joe Rogan 1:00:00 They're beaten and treated horrifically, so it's v- very hard to watch-

Elliott West 1:00:05 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 ... because you know that that is what happened.

Elliott West 1:00:07 Of course, yeah. That's, uh, the boarding schools.

Joe Rogan 1:00:10 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:00:10 That goes way back before 1923. By '23, it's sort of, it's sort of winding down. Um, but yeah, yeah, all sorts, of course, uh, scandalous, uh, news recently in the past year or two about the kinds of, uh, treatment that came out of those, out of those schools. Here and in Canada, the same sort of thing is being revealed in, in, uh, in Canada about the abuses under those, under those schools. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:35 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:00:35 It's not just Christianity that's being forced on. They are, uh, required, uh, to speak only English.

Joe Rogan 1:00:43 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 1:00:43 You know, they're punished if they speak their own languages.

Joe Rogan 1:00:45 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:00:46 Uh, they're forced to give up their, their appearance. They cut their hair, uh, dress in a certain way. Uh-Now, there's a wonderful irony in that show (laughs) . Uh, I said a moment ago, uh, most people, most of the public think of, um, you know, the Indian as if there's one group of people (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 1:01:07 Right.

Elliott West 1:01:08 The, the Indian. Native peoples, of course, didn't think at all like that, uh. They identified with tribal groups. They identified with a band within the tribal groups, uh, but often at odds with each other. You know, uh, they'd been fighting each other like everybody fights everybody else, uh, in, in history. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:01:26 Right.

Elliott West 1:01:26 ... so their identity was, you know, when you say, uh, "What are you?" They would say, "Well, I'm a Cheyenne, I'm a Comanche, you know, I'm a Tlingit, you know (laughs) , I'm a, I'm a whatever."

Joe Rogan 1:01:37 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 1:01:37 Uh, "I belong to this guy's band," um. So the idea of an- of the Indian was, uh, completely foreign to them, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:01:47 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 1:01:48 ... until boarding schools. And all of a sudden (laughs) in boarding schools, all the kids, all the young people are taken, required to go to these schools. All of these different groups, uh, they're all living together (laughs) . They're all forced to surrender much of their own individual cultures, those dozens of different cultures that they were, um, um, you know, they had come from, um. And suddenly, it begins to dawn on them, uh, they're now all speaking the same language, right? They're all... (laughs) You know, we've got much more in common than we have differences among us.

Joe Rogan 1:02:29 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 1:02:30 So there's a way in which, um, you know, the, the supposed purpose of a boarding school was to destroy Indianness, yeah? The famous, uh, phrase, uh, coming from, uh, uh, Colonel Pratt, who was the one who founded Carlisle, was, uh, uh, "Kill the Indian to save the man." Uh, destroy Indian identity in order to allow these people to survive in the modern world, uh.

Joe Rogan 1:03:00 Wow.

Elliott West 1:03:01 But what the boarding schools did (laughs) was, in fact, create the Indian. They didn't kill the Indian. The Indian didn't exist before that. It created this sense of common identity, uh, this sense of, okay, we may be Comanche, we may be Cheyenne, we may be Lakota, may be Tlingit or whatever, but we're all- we all have this common problem that we're facing, these common difficulties. So we need to think in terms of the Indian-

Joe Rogan 1:03:27 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 1:03:28 ... to bond, to, to, uh, you know, to, uh, uh, to bond together, just like in a smaller scale when these bands decide to, uh, to join and unite in order to fight the military. Now on this much larger continental scale, Indians from all over, Native peoples from all over, uh, the nation now begin to see that they are related, related in their circumstances, not by blood. So the Indian was created, not killed, in the boarding schools.

Joe Rogan 1:03:57 That's fascinating. When they initially tried to move the Natives to reservations-

Elliott West 1:04:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:04:05 ... how did they... Were they doing it because where the Natives were, there was valuable resources? Were they doing it because geographically, they could control them better in these regions? Like, what was the motivation initially?

Elliott West 1:04:18 It was all of that. Yeah, uh, certainly they were, um, w- especially when they're in particular, you know, places that, uh, are very rich in resources. The g- great examples, of course, were mining rushes, um, these people who were, again, hunter-gatherers, uh, living in this someplace, this remote mountain area up in California or Arizona or wherever. Uh, suddenly, you know, they're overrun by these people coming in, overrun because they are, uh, they are, uh, living on some of the richest places, uh, in the nation. Uh, so you gotta get rid of them, right? Uh, uh, but there's also the reason this is a way to control them, uh, and to, in the eyes of the government, to transform them, right? Put them on these reservations and you can turn them into the kind of people that you want them to be, yeah, make them American.

Joe Rogan 1:05:13 Mm-hmm.

Elliott West 1:05:14 Yeah, uh, and that's what... So it was both of those things, both of those things together.

Joe Rogan 1:05:19 Which is historically, like when we look back at it now, it's, like, one of the most horrific aspects of it, that we just tried to eliminate them and just integrate them into our culture.

Elliott West 1:05:28 Right, that was always the, uh, the formal government goal, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:05:34 It wasn't simply, give them a place to live the way they live. It was not-

Elliott West 1:05:38 No, virtually no one was saying that.

Joe Rogan 1:05:41 Geez.

Elliott West 1:05:42 Even the people who were, were called, uh, this was sort of a, a formal term, Friends of the Indians. They were organi- an organization called The Friends of The Indians, and they were, uh, honestly in their own hearts, they thought that they were doing what was necessary for the best for these people. Uh, but this was... Uh, they w- they said, "The only way we can do that, the only way that these people can be saved is to transform them into people like us, you know, to make them into our... uh, to integrate them into our, our culture." Um, and that, uh, it depended on really b- basically three things. Uh, there was- uh, it w- uh, it was- uh, they had to become farmers 'cause, you know, from the beginning in this country, you know, that's sort of the ideal life. That's how you s- that's how you begin your, your integration into the American economy, farming, you know, the Jeffersonian vision, you know, of, uh, the ideal farmer. Um, they gotta be Christian, they have to have this common, uh, common religion, um, and education. We've gotta take their young people, and we've got to put them in schools where they will be- not only learn the basics of the three R's and so forth, but they'll be...... "culturally educated." Uh, "they will be culturally transformed." So these boarding schools, uh, were meant to transform these people, uh, into Americans, we'll take it, uh, so yeah. Uh, so we, uh, you often hear the term genocide thrown around, uh, and there are times in American history when that was absolutely true, when there was an effort to simply eradicate Indian peoples. Um, but the whole reservation system was not meant for that. Sometimes it turned out that way, but the purpose of it was this c- control and transformation. That's what was supposed to happen. And then when that happened, once that was done, then they, the reservations would be done away with. Everybody would, uh, uh, live in harmony, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:07:51 Wow. It had to be-

Elliott West 1:07:53 Didn't happen, of course, but-

Joe Rogan 1:07:54 Of course. It had to be so confusing to them what the resources were that the white man wanted too, because they're like, "Why do you want gold?" Like, what?

Elliott West 1:08:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:08:07 You can't eat it. You can't use it as a weapon.

Elliott West 1:08:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:10 So strange.

Elliott West 1:08:11 It is, in a, a lot of ways it is, uh, you know, gold, as you said, it's, it's virtually useless. It's, it's very soft, right?

Joe Rogan 1:08:18 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:08:19 So you can't make it into a, a, a hammer or that.

Joe Rogan 1:08:20 What a strange thing to be the most valuable of all commodities.

Elliott West 1:08:26 It's really shiny. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:08:28 B- b- how bizarre that so many parts of the world had agreed upon that.

Elliott West 1:08:32 Well, that's right. Uh, it just, cross-culturally, across hundreds of years, you know, the, uh, Egyptians, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:08:38 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:08:38 Egyptians called gold, uh, the breath of God, you know? The Aztec, uh, consider it, uh, God's scat. This was the excrement of the gods, you know, it came...

Joe Rogan 1:08:48 (laughs)

Elliott West 1:08:48 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:08:48 So strange.

Elliott West 1:08:49 So strange. Yeah. Now, it's not true, I think, that, uh... Once, there's some really interesting work that's been going on right now by, um, historian named Benjamin Badley, uh, who is studying in California, uh, in th- in the Gold Rush, there were Indians who said, "Oh, hm, they're gonna give me a bunch of stuff for this stuff." Right?

Joe Rogan 1:09:11 Of course, they-

Elliott West 1:09:12 And so they-

Joe Rogan 1:09:12 ... adapted.

Elliott West 1:09:13 ... they went to work, and there were, there were hundreds of Indians who were in the gold fields before the, uh, Fortunators came-

Joe Rogan 1:09:18 Really?

Elliott West 1:09:19 ... into uh, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:20 That was another interesting thing about your discussion with Steve Rinella, that we think of the 49ers as the miners, but there was 48ers.

Elliott West 1:09:26 That's right.

Joe Rogan 1:09:26 And they were from a variety of different countries.

Elliott West 1:09:28 That's right. That's right.

Joe Rogan 1:09:29 Tasmania.

Elliott West 1:09:31 Yeah, Australia.

Joe Rogan 1:09:32 Australia?

Elliott West 1:09:32 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:33 Wild.

Elliott West 1:09:33 Little parts of Asia, yeah. Yeah, remember the, the, um, gold was discovered, uh, in the, you know, the American river o- on, uh, January 24th, uh, 1848. So, you know, three weeks into 1848. Uh, uh, the word then began to leak out, made it to San Francisco, uh, and slowly, Greg, this is now 1840, this, this takes a long time for news to get from California to, uh, to the east, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:10:01 How did it primarily get there? Was it-

Elliott West 1:10:04 Well, there was, you know, there was traffic back and forth, but it's very slow, overland trails, overland, uh, over-

Joe Rogan 1:10:08 Right.

Elliott West 1:10:09 ... (mumbles) so for-

Joe Rogan 1:10:09 Months and months.

Elliott West 1:10:10 ... months and months. But, and when it came to the east, uh, a lot of people said, "Oh, come on." You know, one more rumor about the riches in the West and so forth. So it wasn't until December 4th, 1848, when the President, James Polk, in his annual message to Congress said, "Yep, it's true. It's true."

Joe Rogan 1:10:33 Wow.

Elliott West 1:10:33 "They found gold out there, and there's a lot of it."

Joe Rogan 1:10:36 (whistles) Wow.

Elliott West 1:10:37 "A lot, a lot of it. And, uh, people are making thousands of dollars, uh, tens of thousands of dollars out there." But the point here is that, uh, from January 1848, when gold was discovered, to the end of 1848, uh, you know, nobody in the East really either knew about this, there were rumors that, or bel- or believed it. So that's why th- we call the gold rushers Fortunators-

Joe Rogan 1:11:05 Hmm.

Elliott West 1:11:05 ... because it's the next year that they, they go out there in these extraordinary numbers. But the question then is, what, what was happening out there at the time? Right? (laughs) What has happened is that we had the Fortunators, people from, uh, Oregon, uh, people from Australia, uh, people from Tasmania, uh, people from Ch- uh, the first Chinese are ever coming over, uh. Especially people from the South, uh, Sonorans, people coming from Mexico, uh, Peruvians, Chileans. So when the Fortunators get out there, you know, the Americans get out there, uh, and they look around, they said, "Who are these people-"

Joe Rogan 1:11:45 (laughs)

Elliott West 1:11:45 "... (laughs) you- you know, taking, taking our gold?"

Joe Rogan 1:11:47 Right.

Elliott West 1:11:48 (laughs) So, so it's what I, uh, what I call in the book the, uh, second conquest of California. Uh, the first one, of course, in the, uh, in the war with Mexico. But then, uh, suddenly, you know, this is the richest place on Earth, quite literally, at that time. And it's being, uh, being, uh, the gold there is being mined by these people that we considered not Americans. Right? So we gotta get rid of them. Indians, right? Uh, the rest of them, there's this, what's called the Chile War, in which Chileans are, are, uh, driven out of the mines. Uh, so these people are con- are, are either driven out completely or they're confined to the edges, uh, while the, while the Fortunators, while the, while the Fortunators take over, including, of course, the Indians. This is what triggered, uh, the great, uh, the, one of the few cases in which this is clearly genocide, uh, in which there was a concerted formal effort, uh, to eradicate Indian peoples, uh, who were on these gold fields. You know, the, the California legislature, uh, funded bond issues to pay for militias to go kill Indians.

Joe Rogan 1:12:59 Wow.

Elliott West 1:12:59 Congress reimbursed...... California, the legislature, to pay for those, uh, to pay for those expeditions. Um, it was, it was what, uh, Ben Madely, who wrote th- the book on this, uh, calls a killing machine. Uh, uh, one of the few times in American history when we can say absolutely, "Yes, this was attempted, this was attempted genocide."

Joe Rogan 1:13:23 And it was specifically because of the commodity of gold.

Elliott West 1:13:26 Sure. Of course.

Joe Rogan 1:13:26 Wow.

Elliott West 1:13:27 Of course. Yeah. Uh, you gotta remember, this was (laughs) , you know, uh, this was the, by far the richest gold discovery in human history up until, up until that time.

Joe Rogan 1:13:44 (laughs)

Elliott West 1:13:44 More gold, more gold was mined in California in one year, 1852, then had been mined across the world in the entire 18th century.

Joe Rogan 1:13:57 Whew.

Elliott West 1:13:58 One year, one year. You know?

Joe Rogan 1:13:59 Wow.

Elliott West 1:14:00 There's a s- there's a story, uh, from the fella who was the head of the San Francisco Mint, uh, it was established in the mid-1850s, uh. He said that at one time, they were processing so much gold in that mint, (laughs) uh, that the, the furnaces couldn't handle it, and they discovered, uh, uh, to their horror, that gold dust was being blown out of the smokestacks. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:14:29 Wow.

Elliott West 1:14:30 And settling, uh, and settling on the area a- around there. So they had to send out people, you know, for, like, a quarter mile around the mint to sweep up the gold on the-

Joe Rogan 1:14:39 Whew.

Elliott West 1:14:40 ... on the (laughs) -

Joe Rogan 1:14:41 (laughs) And sift through it.

Elliott West 1:14:42 ... on the, on, on the roofs. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:14:43 Wow.

Elliott West 1:14:44 The gilded rooftops, you know? So-

Joe Rogan 1:14:46 Wow.

Elliott West 1:14:46 So this is a lot of, lot of gold, right?

Joe Rogan 1:14:48 That's insane.

Elliott West 1:14:50 And one result of that was, was that California, of course, gets this instant population. It never goes through a territorial period, they just go straight to statehood because there's so many people, right? Well, historically, uh, i- if the Indians were getting, uh, much of, uh, protection, it, it came from the federal government, uh. Well, the federal government has ... It's not a territory, you know, so it's entirel- it's the state government that's in charge there. And the state government, um, (laughs) state government's attitude was, "Get rid of 'em."

Joe Rogan 1:15:29 Wow.

Elliott West 1:15:29 "Get rid of 'em." And the population dropped from, um, estimated 150,000, uh, in 1848, uh, to, uh, 1900, uh, 16,000.

Joe Rogan 1:15:45 Wow.

Elliott West 1:15:45 100 ... So about 90, about 90%. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:50 Whew. Wow.

Elliott West 1:15:51 Yeah. It was one of the, uh ... You, you could picture it, uh, this way. Uh, I think we mention to most, most folks, you know, um, where were the great Indian wars? Where were the great Indian defeats? They think typically of the Great Plains, Little Bighorn, you know, Montana, uh, the Dakotas, uh, and the Southwest, New Mexico, Arizona. That's where the movies all are, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:16:20 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:16:21 Those are the ones that we're most aware of, uh, publicly. If the population in California, native population in California dropped as much as we think it did, that would be as if every native person in Montana, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, uh, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, uh, New Mexico, Arizona, uh, vanished.

Joe Rogan 1:16:54 Wow.

Elliott West 1:16:55 It was if they, they were all gone, all dead.

Joe Rogan 1:16:58 Wow.

Elliott West 1:16:59 And that was happening on this one, one state, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:17:02 One state.

Elliott West 1:17:03 ... Cali- Com-

Joe Rogan 1:17:03 Because of one commodity.

Elliott West 1:17:04 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:05 Wow.

Elliott West 1:17:07 It was a absolute nightmare, and yet who knows about it, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:17:13 Very few people.

Elliott West 1:17:14 Who's aware of that, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:17:15 Yeah. That's not really discussed that much.

Elliott West 1:17:18 Mm-mm.

Joe Rogan 1:17:19 Whew.

Elliott West 1:17:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:17:21 There's a fantastic book about Texas and about the Comanches called Empire of the Summer Moon.

Elliott West 1:17:26 Sure. Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 1:17:26 Have you read it?

Elliott West 1:17:27 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:17:28 Incredible book. Uh, it, uh, it details the difficulty that they had in trying to establish colonies, uh, both in, uh, New Mexico and in Texas.

Elliott West 1:17:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:17:39 Because of the Comanche, and-

Elliott West 1:17:41 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:17:42 ... that is an, uh, an absolutely amazing documentation of what took place in this area.

Elliott West 1:17:48 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, a part of that story, uh, has to do with what you, what we were talking about earlier, and that is horses.

Joe Rogan 1:18:01 Yes.

Elliott West 1:18:01 Right?

Joe Rogan 1:18:02 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:18:02 This was one of the great revolutions. I call it the other American revolution. (laughs) In the book, I call it the Grass Revolution. Um, 'cause remember, h- you know, horses now had, of course, started here, went to Asia, um, became extinct here, and the Europeans brought 'em back. Coronado was the first to, uh, to bring them into, uh, where they had been born, onto the South Plains.

Joe Rogan 1:18:29 And what year was this?

Elliott West 1:18:31 Coronado?

Joe Rogan 1:18:31 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:18:31 1540s. In the 1540s, um, and then the Spanish came, uh, for good, uh, at the end of the 1500s, uh, up in establishing Santa Fe along, along the, along the Rio Grande River. They brought horses, uh, and then wasn't until around 1680, uh, with the, this rebellion of, uh, Pueblo Indians in the Santa, in the, uh, Santa Fe area in, uh, that drove the Spanish out, uh, for 12 years, that these horses began to spread-... across the West. Now, they had- had begun to spread before, and, uh, we're- we're coming to understand now that there were probably more of them out there than we realized earlier, than we realized. But the explosive growth of horses out of N- New Mexico is- comes after 1680, uh. Uh, 1780, 100 years later, uh, Indian peoples across the plains, uh, in the Southwest and into the Rocky Mountains have all developed- adapted the horse- a- adopted and adapted to that horse into what we call horse cultures that is these ways of life that depend upon the horse. Without the horse, y- you can't do what you- what you want to do. It's like we have a car culture, right? Uh, uh, and this thing- this gave them, among other things, uh, great military power, economic power, uh, but also- also, uh, military power, uh. And the key to that, Joe, was, uh, the fact that (laughs) uh, horses are herbivores, right? And they're adapted to this- the second-largest grassland on Earth, uh, the Great Plains, uh. And when you put a human on a horse (laughs) , then um, then it becomes something else.

Joe Rogan 1:20:34 Mm.

Elliott West 1:20:35 It becomes what I call a horse-man. That is horse hyphen man, right? Uh, not a horseman. It becomes- it's- it's like you take these two animals and you fuse them-

Joe Rogan 1:20:46 Mm.

Elliott West 1:20:46 ... into one thing, right? And this animal, like a centaur, right? And this animal has, uh, the power, uh, and the speed, uh, and the grace, uh, and the beauty, mm, of a running horse, and it has the brain of a human being. It has the imagination, uh, and the, uh, innovation, right? (laughs) And the arrogance of a human being. So that's a new animal.

Joe Rogan 1:21:16 Mm.

Elliott West 1:21:16 It's bad news for the bison, really bad news for the bison, because the first time you have a grass-eating predator.

Joe Rogan 1:21:26 Ah.

Elliott West 1:21:26 You have a killer. You have a killer, uh, that can draw upon the same energy in the grasses that the bison do, uh, and it's ultimately fatal, uh, for them, right? But the same time, it becomes this- uh, these horse cultures become extraordinary, you know, military machines. Uh, and that's what the Comanches were. That's what the- that b- the book is about, uh, and that's wha- that's- that was this other American revolution. The same time that our revolution in the East is going on, there is this revolution in- in life and power in the middle of what's today the United States, or the rise of these native empires, yeah?

Joe Rogan 1:22:12 Mm.

Elliott West 1:22:12 The Comanches, uh, and the Lakotas and others. These become these sort of superpowers. They dominate. They dominate the middle of America, right? And they just kick the bejabbers out of the Spanish, uh (laughs) -

Joe Rogan 1:22:23 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:22:24 ... and of- and of others. It's not until the Americans show up, uh, with their numbers, uh, overwhelming numbers, you know, and with their new technologies, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:22:34 The pistol.

Elliott West 1:22:35 ... the pistol and the rifles, you know-

Joe Rogan 1:22:36 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:22:36 ... the railroads-

Joe Rogan 1:22:37 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:22:38 ... uh, and the others, uh, that they're able to, uh, finally that- that these- that these empires are- are- are broken. And of course, Little Bighorn, that's- that's the end of that particular cycle of it, you know? When there are Lakotas who, you know, they were the superpower of, you know, the- the middle of America, they and the Comanches were these, uh, formed in effect one great empire stretched from southern Canada all the way into Mexico, a native empire, right? Um, that's what we broke when we came in with the Little Bighorn in 1876 against the Comanches, what that book writes about 1874, um. It was also the last time that a horse culture arose on Earth. The first were about 5,000 years ago in Ukraine, and then, of course, that way of life spreads, spreads across, uh, Central Asia, the Mongols, you know? It spreads into northern China. It spreads down into, uh, uh, uh, in- into the- into the Mideast. Uh, it leads to the, you know, the great horseback empires (clears throat) you know, the Arabs and Northern Europe and then into Europe, uh, to the, uh, the great, you know, the great Iberian powers like Spain (clears throat) . All of these are horse, military horse cultures. It's a story that goes 5,000 years back, uh, and it- it ends, (laughs) it ends where the story began 50 million years ago with the beginning- with the first horses, right? It ends at the same place.

Joe Rogan 1:24:21 Wow.

Elliott West 1:24:21 What we see, when you look at the Little Bighorn, when you look at the defeat of the Comanches, when you look at the defeat of those other Indian trials, what you're- what you're seeing, um, is the end of a 5,000-year epic in world history, an epic that began at the same place.

Joe Rogan 1:24:40 That's incredible.

Elliott West 1:24:40 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:24:42 So the- the- the horse empire began in Ukraine?

Elliott West 1:24:46 The first time that we know, or we think now, the first time the people domesticated horses was in Ukraine, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:24:53 That's so fascinating.

Elliott West 1:24:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:24:55 How did they figure it out? And how did the Comanche figure out how to do it so much better than the other tribes?

Elliott West 1:25:02 That's a great question. Uh, there have been some very good books written recently-... on the Comanches, the, uh, the, the best in my opinion is by, uh, it's called The Comanche Empire that follows a story, you know, of the rise of Comanche power. It's by a good friend of mine, uh, um, Pekka. His name is, uh, Pekka Hämäläinen. (laughs) He's a native Finn, uh, who, who has written the great, the great book on, on this. I don't know. They just... Well, first place is, uh, I think Dan Flores would, uh, would stress this, they were in absolutely the right place, (laughs) Southern Plains. Dan has a book called Horizontal Yellow, which is the Comanche word for, for this area. This is where horses evolved. This is where they were born, this is where, um, uh, that they were best adapted. Uh, and the Comanche... That was the Comanche, that was Comancheria, that was, that was the Comanche em-... So they were in just the right place for this proliferation of horses, and they took advantage of it. Something about them (laughs) was able to, uh, to fashion, you know, to, to, to take advantage of this, uh, to a degree that, that few others, uh, that, that few others did. Uh, they were very, very good at it. And what Pe- Pekka's book does also is show that this was genuinely an empire. You know, they had their own foreign policy, you know? (laughs) They had their own economic system, where they had this intricate trade systems that they, uh, they would sort of outsource, (laughs) outsource the growing of, of, uh, of, of horses. They would... When the Americans came, you know, they would wait until the Americans were, uh, uh, developing horse herds, uh, as well as cattle and other things. Let them do the work. Let them use their grass, you know, to develop these horse herds and then we steal them.

Joe Rogan 1:27:05 Mm.

Elliott West 1:27:05 So, (laughs) so they're-

Joe Rogan 1:27:06 (laughs)

Elliott West 1:27:07 ... they're, they're outsourcing, right? Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:27:09 Wow.

Elliott West 1:27:10 Uh, they develop these trade networks of, uh, trading horses up to the northern plains where the winters are so severe, uh, that they, uh, they had terrible losses every year, so they would sell horses, trade horses up to the north. This is a very sophisticated arrangement, uh, but they were the masters of it, uh, and it, it served them well, uh, until the Americans show up, uh, in numbers.

Joe Rogan 1:27:34 They figured out how to geld stallions.

Elliott West 1:27:37 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:27:37 They figured out how to raise them.

Elliott West 1:27:38 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:27:39 And the amount of status and wealth that you had was dependent upon the amount of horses that you had.

Elliott West 1:27:45 Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:27:46 Which is very different...

Elliott West 1:27:49 From what you had before.

Joe Rogan 1:27:50 Yeah.

Elliott West 1:27:50 So that was quite common among other groups. And these horse cultures, they... You know, horses became sort of the, uh, coin of the realm, as you said.

Joe Rogan 1:27:58 Mm.

Elliott West 1:27:58 Who you were,