Cattle Kate
On July 20, 1889, 29-year-old Ella Watson died at the end of a rope, for the crime of ‘cattle rustling’, lynched by six cattlemen in an alcoholic rage.
In 1877, Thomas Watson led his family to Lebanon, Kansas to claim land, offered by President Lincoln under the 1862 Homestead Act. Married at 18 to an abusive alcoholic, Ella applied for a divorce and headed west in 1885. In Rawlins, Wyoming she met James Averell, whom she secretly married in order to claim, in her own right, the 160-acre homestead. Ella’s claim bordered that of rich and hostile cattlemen, members of the exclusive Wyoming Stock Growers Association, who weren’t happy to have their roving herds hemmed in by the barbed wire of some upstart homesteader. The fact that Ella didn’t pack up and leave, despite huge obstacles placed in her way and repeated harassment, is a testament to her strength of character.
I was captivated by the introduction to Ella, her life flashing before her eyes. Her voice sang out to me from the first page. Poignantly and descriptively told with diary-like charm, her story is difficult to put down. With descriptions of her early childhood in Ontario, Ella weaves an irresistible tale of 19th-century frontier life – an arduous life of constant hardship – one which Ella relished. She was an avid reader and a superb cook, and we learn of her deep love for James, her generosity of spirit, her pride in her claim and her diligence in ‘proving’ (improving) it according to the Act. Her tragic end and the subsequent press smear campaign are a travesty of justice which the author works passionately to dispel, providing the reader with fascinating end-notes on her extensive research. Can she exonerate Ella of history’s damming reputation as a ‘cattle-rustler’? I believe she can. Recommended.
