UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Honor among Thieves: Horse Stealing, State-Building, and Culture in Lincoln County, Nebraska, 1860 - 1890 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1h33n2hw Author Luckett, Matthew S Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Honor among Thieves: Horse Stealing, State-Building, and Culture in Lincoln County, Nebraska, 1860 – 1890 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Matthew S Luckett 2014 © Copyright by Matthew S Luckett 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Honor among Thieves: Horse Stealing, State-Building, and Culture in Lincoln County, Nebraska, 1860 – 1890 by Matthew S Luckett Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Stephen A. Aron, Chair This dissertation explores the social, cultural, and economic history of horse stealing among both American Indians and Euro Americans in Lincoln County, Nebraska from 1860 to 1890. It shows how American Indians and Euro-Americans stole from one another during the Plains Indian Wars and explains how a culture of theft prevailed throughout the region until the late-1870s. But as homesteaders flooded into Lincoln County during the 1870s and 1880s, they demanded that the state help protect their private property. These demands encouraged state building efforts in the region, which in turn drove horse stealing – and the thieves themselves – underground. However, when newspapers and local leaders questioned the efficacy of these efforts, citizens took extralegal steps to secure private property and augment, or subvert, the law.
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