TV documentaries consistently fail to identify the timescale for this metamorphosis and at times appear to imply
that these international elements had been original features of the show.
Where Russell obtained his information for this remarkable statement he unfortunately neglects to inform us. It is
further regretted that this passage has been uncritically cited in book after book, resulting in serious and lasting
confusion.
Buffalo Bill�s Wild West, as organised in the spring of 1891, remained a Wild West show pure and simple, whose human
performers, with peripheral exceptions only, were cowboys, Indians and Mexicans, from the United States� western
frontier. Following an almost exhaustive study of the saturation press coverage and the programmes for the relevant
period, I have failed to source a single reference to the international elements listed above. The show format for
the initial part of the Glasgow winter season of 1891-92 was The Drama of Civilization, Steele Mackaye�s
pageant of the American West; it is hard to visualise what sort of contribution Germans, Cossacks and Gauchos could
have made. The conveniently rounded-up figure of �100 Sioux Indians� is likewise ill-informed; it is taken directly
from the Wild West�s inflated advertising claims.
It would certainly make perfect sense for a fundamental change of direction to have been charted at this time, as
the continuing supply of Native American performers was under threat following the catastrophic events of the
previous season, over the course of which around seven had died through a combination of disease and accidents, both
in and out of the arena. No doubt, therefore, such an adjustment must have been in serious contemplation.
However, the first occasion on which extraneous elements were incorporated into the Wild West came on the evening of
31st July 1891, when a benefit performance was given in Manchester, England, in aid of local Crimean War
veterans.
In Glasgow, a new and experimental version of the show, boldly entitled A New Era in History, was unveiled
to an invited audience on Friday, 15th January 1892, and to the
general public from Monday, 18th, until the season�s conclusion on Saturday, 27th February.
This involved �Stupendous Additional Attractions�, specifically thirty members of the Central African Schulis tribe,
a herd of six performing Burmese elephants and English Lancers.
For the London 1892 summer season, the show briefly reverted to its original and classic Wild West format, before
the �Cossacks� (actually ethnic Georgians), on Wednesday, 1st June, and gauchos, on Thursday,
23rd, were introduced in stages.
Buffalo Bills Wild West & Congress of Rough Riders of the World was not unveiled under that name and in its
concluded form until Chicago, in 1893.
The foregoing is consciously intended as a challenge to orthodoxy; anyone who believes that they have evidence
which refutes my position, please let me know.