America’s Gilded Age

1870 - 1890

The Transformation of the West

Part II

The Taming of the “WildWest”

• Factors that make possible the settlement of the west– Manifest Destiny

– Genocide of the Indians

– Government Assistance• Homestead Act, Timber Culture Act, Desert Land Act,

• Timber and Stone Act

• Land grants to railroads

– Transcontinental Railroads

– Technological Advances

Essential Questions

1. What national issues emerged in the process of closing the western frontier?

2. Why does the West hold such an important place in the American imagination?

3. In what ways is the West romanticized in American culture?

Frederick Jackson Turner

The Significance of the Frontier

in American Society (1893)

• Argued that on the western frontier the distinctive qualities of American culture were forged – Individual Freedom – Political Democracy – Economic Mobility

• West a “safety value• Criticism most settlers

moved in family groups or as members of immigrant communities not as individuals pioneers

Key Tensions

Native Americans

Buffalo HuntersRailroadsU. S. Government

Cattlemen Sheep Herders

Ranchers Farmers

Key Tensions

Ethnic

Minorities

Nativists

Environmentalists Big Business Interests[Mining, Timber]

Local Govt. OfficialsFarmers, Buffalo Hunters

Lawlessness of the Frontier

“Civilizing” Forces

[The “Romance” of the West]

Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1851)

ColoradoGold Rush (1859)

Colonel John Chivington

Kill and scalp all, big and little!

Sandy Creek, CO Massacre

November 29, 1864

Capt. William J. Fetterman

80 soldiers massacredDecember 21, 1866

Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek (1867)

2nd Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1868)

Reservation

Policy

Gold Found in

the Black Hills

of the Dakota

Territory!

1874

The Battle of Little Big Horn

1876

Chief Sitting Bull

Gen. GeorgeArmstrong

Custer

Chief Joseph I will fight

no more forever!

Nez Percé tribal retreat (1877)

Helen Hunt Jackson

A Century of Dishonor (1881)

Bureau Of Indian Affairs

Boarding Schools

Carlisle Indian School, PA

Dawes Severalty Act (1887):

Assimilation Policy

Elk v. Wilkins (1884)

• John Elk, moved to U.S. territory, Omaha, Nebraska, where he renounced his former tribal allegiance and claimed citizenship

• Elk attempted to register to vote and was denied by Charles Wilkins, the registrar of voters of the Fifth Ward of the City of Omaha

• Legal Question - Whether an Indian, born a member of a tribe within the United States, is by his birth within the United States, a citizen of the United States, based on the Fourteenth Amendment, if he separates himself from his tribe?

• Ruling - Being born in the territory of the United States is not sufficient for citizenship; those who wish to claim citizenship by birth must be born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. The court's majority held that the children of Native Americans were "no more 'born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' within the meaning of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations."

Arapahoe “Ghost Dance”, 1890

Chief Big Foot’s Lifeless Body

Wounded Knee, SD, 1890

Indian Reservations Today

The Bronc BusterFrederick Remington

Black Cowboys

Colt .45 Revolver

God didn’t make men equal.Colonel Colt did!

Legendary Gunslingers & Train

Robbers

Jesse James

Billy the Kid

Dodge City Peace Commission, 1890

The Bonanza West

• Quest to “get rich quick” produces

– uneven growth

– boom-and-bust economic cycles

– wasted resources

– "instant cities" like San Francisco

Anaconda Copper Mining Co. (MT)

Mining Camp Life

• Camps sprout with each first strike

• Camps governed by simple democracy

• Men outnumber women two-to-one

• Most men, some women work claims

• Most women earn wages as cooks housekeepers, and seamstresses

Ethnic Hostility

• 25-50% of camp citizens were foreign-born

• French, Latin Americans, Chinese hated

• 1850--California Foreign Miner's Tax drives foreigners out

• 1882--federal Chinese Exclusion Act suspends Chinese immigration for 10 years

Effects of the Mining Boom

• Contributes millions to economy

• Helps finance Civil War, industrialization

• Relative value of silver and gold change

• Early statehood for Nevada, Idaho, Montana

• Invaded Indian reservations

• Scarred, polluted environment

• Ghost towns

Mining Centers 1900

Mining (“Boom”) Towns--

Now Ghost Towns

Calico, CA

The Cattle Bonanza

• The Far West ideal for cattle grazing• Cattle drives take herds to rail heads• Trains take herds to Chicago for processing• Profits enormous for large ranchers• Cowboys work long hours for little pay• Cowboys self-governing• By 1880 wheat farmers begin fencing range• Mechanization modernizes ranching• 1886--harsh winter kills thousands of cattle• Ranchers reduce herds, switch to sheep

The

Cattle

Trails

Land Use: 1880s

The Range Wars

SheepHerders

CattleRanchers

Why were there conflictssometimes between

Homesteaders and Cattle Drivers?

• Competition

– As more homesteaders settled the Plains there was less…

• Grazing land

• Access to water

– “Range wars” would sometimes take place

Frontier Settlements: 1870-1890

1887

Land

Promotion

Poster

for the

Dakota

Territories

Homesteads From Public Lands

What is the Message of this Picture?

The Realty--A Pioneer’s Sod House, SD

What challenges faced Homesteaders on the Plains?

• Isolation

• Natural disasters…

– Blizzards

– Droughts

– Insects/Pests

• “breaking” the soil

• Access to markets

• Lack of ground water

– Drove the need for effective windmills

The Farming Bonanza

• 1870-1890 farm population triples on plains

• African-American “Exoduster” farmers migrate from the South to escape racism

• Water, building materials scarce

• Sod houses common first dwelling

New Farming Methods

• Barbed wire allows fencing without wood

• Dry farming--deeper tilling, use of mulch

• New strains of wheat resistant to frost

• 1885-1890--drought ruins bonanza farms

• Small-scale, diversified farming adopted

Barbed Wire

Joseph Glidden

New Agricultural

Technology

“Prairie Fan”Water Pump

Steel Plow [“Sod Buster”]

Regional Population Distribution

by Race: 1900

Regional Population Distribution

by Race: 1900

Blacks Moving West

The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great

Plains

A Romantic View

The Buffalo Soldiers & the Indian Wars

African American & Chinese

Populations:

1880-1900

The Traditional View of the West

William “Buffalo Bill”

Cody’s Wild West Show

“Buffalo Bill” Cody & Sitting Bull

Legendary Female Western Characters

Calamity Jane Annie Oakley

The Fall of the Cowboy

Frederick Remington

Destruction of the Buffalo Herds

The near extinction of the buffalo.