The Johnson County War (1892)

Johnson County was in Wyoming, a region of the High Plains.
During the 1860's and 1870's, when farmers began to move onto the plains, this area was avoided at first.
Partly because there was fierce resistance from the Indians to white settlement.
But the cattlemen set up ranches in Wyoming in the 1870's and were firmly established there by the 1880's when the farmers came.
Some of them had become wealthy and were trying to occupy more and more territory across the Plains.
In Wyoming, these cattle 'barons' had formed themselves into the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. It had a membership of around a hundred cattlemen who at the Cheyenne Club. They were a powerful force in the county.
In 1890 Wyoming became a state.
This strengthened the position of the cattle barons as the state governor and a number of senators (members of the state assembly) joined the Cheyenne Club and supported the big ranchers.
In the process of acquiring more land, the barons came up against farmers and small cattle ranchers who resisted them and refused to give up their land.
These farmers were accused of rustling cattle - a hanging offence.
Although it is likely that some of them really were rustlers, this provided a very convenient way of removing resistance, especially as 'justice' was in the hands of the vigilantes who worked for the barons.

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