The ten-episode prequel series to Yellowstone came to a close with the ending of 1883, which also skillfully set up the Dutton family’s future. The story of the Dutton family’s acquisition of the Montana land that would eventually become the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch began in 1883.
The main characters of the show are Shea Brennan (Sam Elliott), the head of the wagon train that the Dutton family rides to the American West, and James Dillard Dutton (Tim McGraw), his wife Margaret (Faith Hill), their eldest daughter Elsa (Isabel May), who serves as the show’s narrator.
In the franchise timeline, the show takes place more than 135 years before Yellowstone. As they travel west, the family encounters peril, tragedy, and the dissolution of their tribe from the beginning of 1883.
Every generation of the family prioritizes protecting the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, and understanding the hardships the founders had to face helps to put the vigilance of future ranchers in perspective.
The 1883 conclusion also includes a promise on the true owners of the Dutton land, a development that had an immediate bearing on 1923, Yellowstone, and other areas.
1883 Ending Explained
The conclusion of 1883 provided a striking image of how people involved in the Westward Expansion endured, fell in love, and ultimately perished in their travels. Elsa, who tragically suffered a fatal wound, chose the location in Paradise Valley where she wanted James to bury her.
Josef eventually took off his wedding ring and started to repair his house a year after his wife passed away and he had to have his leg amputated. The family of Thomas and Noemi also located a place in Oregon where they made their home. Shea eventually made it to the beach, where he committed suicide.
The 1883 finale of the play detailed how the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch was built with the blood of pioneers, a tale of sad death and hopeful optimism for the show’s residents. Elsa selected “Paradise,” a valley that eventually became Yellowstone Ranch, as her final resting place.
Even though the Duttons eventually arrived at the location of their planned property, James and Margaret had to lose their cherished daughter Elsa in the process. Future generations of Duttons would suffer for decades as a result of the brutality and bloodshed that brought the ranch to an end in 1883.
With Elsa’s passing, the Duttons of Yellowstone’s first chapter came to an end. Elsa was the very centre and soul of 1883; she was more than just the storyteller. To put it plainly, Elsa’s death signalled the start of a whole new chapter in the Dutton family’s history.
It’s also critical to recall Elsa’s manner of death: severely injured during a violent altercation between the group of Lakota warriors and the white settler caravan in 1883.
Elsa’s passing predicted the conflicts that currently exist between Native American tribes and the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch since James and Margaret promised to colonize the land wherever Elsa chose to pass away.
