Calamity Jane

Calamity Jane (May 1st 1852 with Princeton, Missouri - 1903, Deadwood, South Dakota) was an adventurous during the famous Conquête of the West for its capacities to track the Amerindian, to kill game and to draw with the Revolver.

Biography

Its true name was Martha Jane Canary . It is born on May 1st, 1852 in Princeton with the Missouri. Ella has two brothers and three sisters of which it is the elder one. Their parents leaving them often delivered to themselves, she very early learns how to deal with them. Child, it likes much to have fun outside and early learns how to go up to Cheval, newcomer to be drawn up soon most obstinate of them.

In 1865, the family leaves for the Montana. She is then thirteen years old. During the voyage, which lasts five months, it takes part in the Chasse with the men. His/her mother (Charlotte Canary) dies during the voyage. The same year, the family emigrates again, this time for Salt Lake City, Utah, where his/her father dies in 1868. At this point in time it begins the adventurous life which will make it famous. It joined later two years the general Custer in the capacity as scout (guide, scout). It makes countryside in Arizona against the Indiens. It is at that time that it starts to wear clothes of men. It carries out dangerous missions, takes part in several campaigns and becomes very skilful with the shooting.

According to its memories, it is for its period scout that it gains the nickname of Calamity Jane . In the Wyoming, it is ordered to him to leave with a detachment. Left for several days, the group of Soldat S undergoes several Indian skirmishes during which six soldiers are killed and of many others seriously wounded. From return towards the fort, to a few kilometers only of this one, the detachment falls into a ambush. The Capitaine is wounded. Being turned over, Martha realizes that the Officier will fall from his horse. It gallops then towards him and catches it before it falls. It hoists it on its horse, in front of it, and brings back it at the height, saving the life to him. Once cured, the captain would have said to him, while joking: “I baptize you Calamity Jane , the heroin of the plains. ”. This nickname would have left it never again.

During its campaigns, it is the first white woman to penetrate in the Black Hills, then controlled by the Sioux, of which they are the crowned mountains. It must then join the Custer general with Little Big Horn. During its voyage, it is forced to cross to the stroke the Rivière Platte, following what it falls ill. It is repatriated at the height Fetterman, where it remains fourteen days. Then, having recovered, it gets under way for Fort Laramie. There, it meets William Hickock. It does lot of mileage with him until Deadwood. Then it ensures the connection, in the capacity as mail, between Custer, still in Black Hills, and Deadwood. One day of August 1876, his/her friend Wild Bill Hickock is killed out of a ball behind the head in a Saloon of Deadwood. Although one lends to Calamity Jane an adventure with this last, it would seem that they were not in fact that very good friends, without more, and that the father of its newborn is other than a lieutenant with whom it would have had a connection some time.

It would then have left to research the assassin, one named Jack McCall, and would have caught it to deliver it to justice. But this one would be escaped. It was taken again some time, considered then hung later.

It leaves Deadwood in 1877 with the seventh of cavalry. The following year, it does a little prospection. Then it makes shuttles between various forts and cities with an attachment of Bœuf S, the most resistant animals for this kind of ways in this precise area. It does not cease changing activity and travelling, energy of the Wyoming, towards the Oregon, or towards the California, raising Bétail or convoyant it.

In 1885, with El Paso, it meets Clinton Burke, Texan with which it Maria, finally wanting to stop some share. Two years later, it puts at the world a little girl. The family leaves then for the Colorado, where they open a hotel. Then they still travel from city downtown to return in Deadwood, seventeen years after the departure of Martha. His/her former friends are charmed to re-examine it; some want to put in writing its adventures and others propose to him to play them. Meanwhile her husband leaves it. It is then committed with the De luxe hotel Museum of Mineapolis in 1896. It then takes part in several spectacles centered on the myth of the Western American ( Wild West Show S ), sails about it at the time.

She dies the 1903. Two of his/her friends transport his body of the town of Terry in Deadwood, where the members of the Société of the Pioneers of Black Hills organize its Funérailles. Equipped with white, placed in a Coffin upholstered, its body is exposed in the inner room of a saloon, where all the inhabitants of Deadwood can come to make him a last good-bye.

It is buried with Mont Moriah Cemetery (Deadwood), beside Wild Bill, according to its will.

Some Films

Televised series S

  • Deadwood , of Walter Hill (2004), with Robin Weigert in the role of Calamity Jane.

Cartoons

  • In the series of cartoons Lucky Luke , Calamity Jane briefly appears in an album of Lucky Luke against Joss Jamon , represented, in an incorrect way, like criminal. It reappears, under a very different aspect, in another album, Calamity Jane , of which it holds the high-speed motorboat with Lucky Luke, then in another album, Chasse for the phantoms . In its appearances, Jane is described like a very male and vulgar woman.
  • a cartoon entitled Calamity (text and drawing of Sylvie Fountain, BFB editions, Paris, 2004) recalls, while being inspired freely by the Lettres to his/her daughter , the life of the adventurous one. It is through the eyes of his/her daughter, become adult and part to inquire into the life of his/her mother, that the history is recalled.

Cartoons

  • Calamity Jane remakes its appearance in the animated adaptation of Lucky Luke .
  • Calamity Jane is the heroin of the animated series free - American “ the Legend of Calamity Jane ”, where it is represented like a red-headed woman beautiful, courageous and intrepid.

Book

Its only book is Calamity Jane, letters with his/her daughter . Authenticate, this correspondence, which is spread out over 25 years, of Jane to his/her daughter (Jane Hickok Burkhardt Mc Cormick, it bore the name of its 3rd husband), lights the one day old character different. She reveals another facet of her personality: that of the maternal love, very touching in these letters; Calamity Jane always wanted to keep the contact with his/her daughter, while at the same time it them forever sent. Calamity Jane gave his/her daughter, whom it had had with Wild Bill Hickok (James Butler Hickok) in 1873, in adoption very quickly with a couple of origin English E (Jim O' Neil and its wife): it is this Mister who yielded them to him, having received them from Calamity Jane, before its death, in 1912. Its Birth certificate was registered on a page of the Bible. His/her daughter worked in a Musée of the area and it is only with its death, in 1951, when the museum closed, that a lady recovered these letters which kept them until somebody is interested in it: recently the actor and realizer French Grégory Monro, found the original manuscript of the letters of Calamity Jane and made them republish with its corrections and of the new letters. Fire of its passion for Calamity Jane, Grégory Monro conceived an exposure homage for a Parisian Museum, in which was exposed of world exclusiveness, the famous manuscript. Grégory Monro carries out documentary on the legend of Calamity Jane and also works on a feature-length film for the secret held moment. One believed the handwritten letters lost, after one 1st publication in 1941, when the girl of Calamity Jane had read them for the 1st time at the radio for the Fête of the mothers.

Discs

Anne Sylvestre devoted an album of songs to the account of the life of Calamity Jane.

Chloé Mons surrounded by Alain Bashung and Rodolphe Burger left a CD, “trotts It of Calamity Jane” (Last Band), composed of extracts read of the book “Calamity Jane, Lettres with his/her daughter” (ED. Payot and Rivages) and of songs inspired by this text.

See too

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