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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/be060630.png]]

Sub-trope of TheWestern, Dawn of the Wild West involves stories set in the western part of North America between the late 18th century and the 1840s, which was a time of continental exploration (e.g., Lewis and Clark), [[HunterTrapper fur trapping]], trailblazing, and [[UsefulNotes/ManifestDestiny westward expansion]].

In stories covered by this trope, you'll usually encounter [[BoldExplorer bold explorers]], [[MountainMan mountain men]], [[TheMissionary missionaries]], and UsefulNotes/NativeAmericans. The latter's depiction will [[DependingOnTheWriter vary considerably]] and be often [[ValuesDissonance colored by the attitudes from the time the work was produced.]]

There are also stories about [[ThePioneer pioneers]] under this trope but [[SettlingTheFrontier their efforts to settle and civilize the "savage" land]] often involve wilderness that's ''east'' of the Mississippi. Stories about pioneers moving into the Far West (i.e., the North American Great Plains and territory west of the Rockies) signify the end of the time period covered under Dawn of the Wild West trope (i.e., the early 1840s).

In addition, this trope covers works about the Battle of the Alamo and the Texas War for Independence.

As indicated in the title, this trope covers the beginning of the period covered in the WildWest and represents the DawnOfAnEra. It's the opposite of TwilightOfTheOldWest which covers the EndOfAnAge for the WildWest.

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!!Examples:

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[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Creator/DCComics ''Hawk, Son of Tomahawk'' was about the half-Indian son of the Revolutionary War hero ComicBook/{{Tomahawk}} and was set in the early years of the 19th Century in the American midwest. The backup, ''Firehair'', was set around the same time, though Hawk and Firehair never met.
* Writer Creator/ReneGoscinny and artist Albert Uderzo launched ''ComicBook/OmpaPaTheRedskin'' a year before they started working on ''Franchise/{{Asterix}}''. It is a comedy series about Oumpah-Pah, a warrior of the tribe of the Shavashavas in New France (modern Canada) in the 18th century.
* The massive [[FrancoBelgianComics French historical adventure series]] ''Les Sept Vies de l'Épervier'' ("The Seven Lives of the Sparrowhawk") takes is set during the 17th century, and a number of its albums take the heroes and heroines across the Atlantic to the wilds of New France.
* ''Tejano'' was a back-up feature that ran in ''ComicBook/JonahHex'' about the exploits of a band of Texas Rangers during the days of the Texas Republic.
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[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/AcrossTheWideMissouri'' is a 1951 film starring Creator/ClarkGable as a fur trapper in the Rocky Mountains during the 1820s.
* Movies about the Battle of the Alamo and the Texas War for Independence fall under this trope and include 1960's ''Film/{{The Alamo|1960}}'' starring Creator/JohnWayne, 2004's ''Film/{{The Alamo|2004}}'', and the 1939 Sam Houston biopic ''Film/ManOfConquest''.
* ''Film/AlmostHeroes'' is set in the early 1800s and depicts the attempt of an inept pair of Lewis and Clark rivals (Creator/ChrisFarley and Creator/MatthewPerry) to explore the western half of North America.
* The East German Film/DEFAWesterns included the Cooper adaptation ''Chingachgook, die große Schlange'' (1966, based on ''[[Literature/TheLeatherstockingTales The Deerslayer]]'') and two biopics about famous chiefs, ''Tecumseh'' (1972, mainly set in the UsefulNotes/WarOf1812) and ''Osceola'' (1973, Second Seminole War in Florida during the 1830s).
* ''Film/DrumsAlongTheMohawk'', directed by Creator/JohnFord and starring Creator/HenryFonda, is about settlers in the wilderness of Western New York contending with the threats posed by the Mohawks and the British during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution.
* ''Film/TheFarHorizons'' is a 1955 film depicting (very inaccurately) the Lewis and Clark expedition that starred Creator/FredMacMurray as Lewis, Creator/CharltonHeston as Clark, and Creator/DonnaReed as [[QuestionableCasting Sacagawea]].
* ''Film/FirstCow'' is set in the North American Pacific Northwest during the 1820s when settlement by non-Natives was just beginning and the U.S. and Britain vied for control of the region.
* ''Film/HowTheWestWasWon'': The first part of the movie involves the migration of the Prescott family through the wilderness of Illinois country during the 1830s.
* ''Film/JeremiahJohnson'' featured Creator/RobertRedford as a trapper in the Rocky Mountains during the 1840s.
* ''Film/TheLastOfTheMohicans'': This adaptation of one of James Fenimore Cooper's ''Literature/TheLeatherstockingTales'' is set in colonial New York during the French-Indian War and has been filmed several times with the most recent version being the one from 1992 starring Creator/DanielDayLewis.
* The duology consisting of ''Film/TheMaskOfZorro'' and ''Film/TheLegendOfZorro'' spans three decades of this era, beginning during the closing days of the Mexican War of Independence and ending with California statehood in the U.S.A. The world it's set in gradually loses its Old World trappings and begins to look more and more like the WildWest.
* ''Film/{{Mohawk}}'' is set in 1814, towards the end of the UsefulNotes/WarOf1812.
* ''Film/NeverGrowOld'' is set on the California Trail in 1849.
* ''Film/NorthwestPassage'' is about two men joining Rogers' Rangers in a raid on the Abenakis in a pre-independence America.
* ''Film/Prey2022'' is set in the early 18th century, when French trappers are just beginning to encroach on Indigenous communities in the West.
* ''Film/Ravenous1999'' is set around a [[BleakBorderBase frontier fort]] in California during the 1840s, just as westward expansion is beginning and [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty wagon trains are getting lost in the mountains]].
* Both ''Film/TheRevenant'' (2015) starring Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio and ''Film/ManInTheWilderness'' (1971) starring Creator/RichardHarris are film adaptations of the story of trapper and scout UsefulNotes/HughGlass who was [[BearsAreBadNews mauled by a bear]] and left for dead by an expedition exploring the northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountains in the 1820s.
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[[folder:Literature]]
* The ''[[Literature/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girls]]'' character Josefina lives in what was then Mexico, but is now New Mexico, in the 1820s.
* The four novels that make up [[Creator/LarryMcMurtry Larry McMurtry's]] ''Berrybender Narratives'' take place in the American West of the 1830s.
* ''Literature/BloodMeridian'' by Creator/CormacMcCarthy is based on the exploits of the Glanton gang, a band of violent marauders who terrorized the U.S./Mexico border region in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The book is exceptionally bleak, showcasing the brutal violence, racism, and sexual abuse which characterized life on the frontier for many in this period, and it's often been read as a sort of [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstruction]] of more idealized depictions of the birth of the Wild West.
* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' introduces the concept of a vast, largely unexplored, region of the Central Continent, which is described in ''The Compleat Discworld Atlas'' in a way very suggestive of EagleLand in its formative years in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and which ticks practically all the boxes for this trope.
* James Fenimore Cooper's ''Literature/TheLeatherstockingTales'' take place in the "wild west" of colonial America (i.e., western New York). As does his pessimistic trilogy ''The Littlepage Manuscripts'' (''Satanstoe'', ''[[PunnyTitle The Chainbearer]]'', and ''The Redskins''). Cooper goes even further east with ''The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish'', a frontier story set in 17th century Connecticut.
* Creator/JTEdson's ''Ole Devil'' novels are set during the Texas War of Independence (1835-37).
* One of the earliest German [[TheWestern Western]] novelists, Friedrich Gerstäcker, became successful with ''Die Regulatoren in Arkansas'' (1846, "The Regulators in Arkansas") and ''Die Flußpiraten des Mississippi'' (1847, "The River-Pirates of the Mississippi"). In the 20th century there was Fritz Steuben (real name: Erhard Wittek), who wrote a cycle of eight novels about the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and a few other books, including ''Mississippi-Saga'' about the 17th-century French explorer Sieur de la Salle.
* Johnston [=McCully's=] ''Franchise/{{Zorro}}'' stories (and the movies and TV series based on them) take place in California when it still belonged to Spain and Mexico so they would fall under this trope.
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[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* The mini-series based on the Creator/JamesMichener novel, ''Series/{{Centennial}}'', is set in Colorado, and details much of the early history of the North Platte River plains. Beginning in 1795, the first five episodes follow the coming of traders and settlers until a town is formed in 1868.
* ''Series/DanielBoone'' is set in Kentucky during the late 18th century.
* The Disney version of ''UsefulNotes/DavyCrockett'' takes place in the early part of the 19th century beginning in newly-settled Tennessee and ending in 1836 in Texas at the Battle of the Alamo.
* ''Series/Frontier2016'' chronicles the North American fur trade in late 1700s Canada, and follows Declan Harp, a half-Irish, half-Cree outlaw who is campaigning to breach the Hudson's Bay Company's monopoly on the fur trade in Canada, which has become corrupt and engages in illegal activities to enrich itself.
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[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' is set during the Revolutionary War, with the large untamed frontier west of the Alleghenies to explore.
** Ditto for ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRogue'', the prequel to III which takes place during the earlier French-Indian War.
* A generation of Americans who were schoolchildren in the 1980s and early 1990s learned about hunting buffalo, floating their covered wagons across rivers, and dying of dysentery in 1848 on ''VideoGame/TheOregonTrail''.
* The Lewis and Clark level of ''[[VideoGame/WhereInTimeIsCarmenSandiego1997 Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?]]'' takes place here, of course.
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