Debate #2: For Buffalo Bill (Filipe Ribeiro, Francisco Cardoso, Madalena Vieira, Mandala de la Rivière)

First of all, as we are defending Buffalo Bill, we would like to remind all of you to contextualise Buffalo Bill, the wild shows, the buffalo slaughters, in order to understand the natural course or “flow” of change and evolution America was going through. Place yourselves in the 19th century, place yourselves in an America where places like New York, Chicago, Illinois, and California were bursting with life and new sensations, and where the so well-known Wild West shows would attract more than 20 000 people. Buffalo Bill helped the development of this America, where railroads were systematically being constructed, where the economy was growing and expanding, so naturally the culture was undergoing remarkable changes while the identity of the American hero as a frontier man was a substantial idea and notion being formed in the back of their thinkers’ minds. We defend this person as one of the co-founders of this new culture. Buffalo Bill was in fact the man who slaughtered thousands of buffalos but he was certainly the man who would provide the railway workers (and southern impoverished communities) with their meat, which became one of the pillars of the American economy. 
According to the famous Wild West shows and contrary to what is commonly believed, Buffalo Bill was never in favour of opressing the Native American communities, instead, he always endeavoured to convey their true nature. Admitting the fact he personally benefited from his shows, we also believe he genuinely wanted to create a bridge between these “two Americas”. We also have to place ourselves in the shoes of these millions of curious people who knew so little about the "real" Wild West, which was by then officially conquered.

First and foremost, the Native Americans in West shows were considered true actors, they were contracted performers, with a number of conditions.

Furthermore, he actively defended women’s rights, in and out of his wild west shows, he was therefore one of the early generators of gender equality.

He was one of the very few to get a legal permission by the American government for the existence of his show, and certainly one of the only who did not criticize nor caricature the native Americans.

Although he did not contribute consciously at the time, he created a genre which would become very popular in the artistic and cultural areas as cinema, literature and visual arts: the western genre, which is traceable in uncountable films series or books.

Last but not least, Buffalo Bill’s spectacle and legend was a crucial event for the perpetuation of the frontier myth in Western identity.