Ch. 8 and 16 The West

Great Plains

Native Americans lived on the great plains, mainly in the grasslands of the West-central part of the United States.

They were nomads which means they were always on the move and on the hunt. Their way of life relied on buffalo and horses.

Horses allowed them to hunt and buffalo was what they hunted. They used buffalo for clothes, food, shelter, and many more important needs of life.

While men hunted women attended to the cattle, and the children. Women prepared the buffalo hides, children learned of their culture, stories and myths.

Buffalo

Buffalo Skulls: Genocide?

• Statistics…. Bison were described as having "wild and ungovernable temper";[

they can jump 6 feet vertically• 60-70 million to 286

Buffalo – Genocide 40 million to 256

Maps of the American West

Settlers Move West

After the Civil War thousands of settlers moved to the Great Plains. They moved for many reasons a major reason was the Homestead Act. Congress offered 160 acres to anyone who would live on it and farm it.

The other major motivating factor was the discovery of gold, silver, and other valuable minerals. throughout the west. Unfortunately, often these “strikes” were found on Native American Indian lands.

White people were not the only people to move, as many African Americans moved from the South to the West in what became known as the great Exodus.

The U.S. Government Restricts Native Americans and the Bloody Battles Continue……

Why did Indians and settlers fight each other?

• Along the Great Plains, Native Americans and white settlers often clashed – mainly over land and resources.

• One of the more tragic clashes occurred in 1864. The army was on the side of the settlers. The Cheyenne, living in an area of Colorado known as Sand Creek, had attacked settlers. In response, the army attacked and killed about 200 Cheyenne in an incident known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

Treaty of Fort Laramie• In this treaty, most Sioux agreed to live on a reservation

– land set aside solely for Indian use.• But Sitting Bull, an important Sioux leader, never signed

the treaty…..

1. Indian MonumentsThe Holy land of the Sioux

The Black Hills, South Dakota: Mt. Rushmore

Custer’s Last Stand

Crazy Horse Monument

2. Assimilation• By the 1880s the national conscience began

to stir uneasily over the plight of the Indians. Helen Hunt Jackson pricked the moral sense of Americans in 1881 when she published “A Century of Dishonor.” The book chronicled the sorry record of government ruthlessness and chicanery in dealing with the Indians.

• Hence, when the U.S. government realized the Native Americans were not going to give up their land peacefully, a “humanitarian” movement decided to assimilate, or integrate the Native Americans, their land, beliefs, and culture, into white society.

• The Indians weren’t impressed by this gesture, however, so the U.S. passed the Dawes Severalty Act, which in effect, forced them to assimilate.

• Essentially, the 19th century humanitarians who advocated “kind” treatment of the Indians had no more respect for traditional Indian culture than those who sought to exterminate them.

3. Bozeman Trail

Dawes Act. 1887The Dawes Severalty Act was designed to

promote this Indian “assimilation”.

It broke up reservations giving land to each Native American family for farming.

The plan, however, failed. Native Americans

were cheated out of the best land.

As a result, they had little success farming, and even worse, by 1900, whites had killed nearly all the buffalo.

4. The Dawes Act 1887

5. RESISTANCE!• But not all Native Americans accepted the Dawes Act’s

stipulations.

• Some strongly resisted the reservation plan, most notably Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe and Geronimo of the Apache.

• The Nez Perce Indians of Idaho were goaded into war when gold was discovered on their reservation and whites began to move in.

• These men resisted the U.S. cavalry for months before finally surrendering only because their followers were all dying from starvation and exposure.

Chief Joseph & Geronimo

6. Wounded Knee – The End of the Indian Wars• Tribes were losing buffalo and their

land, so Native Americans turned to spiritual rituals to ask for help. They began a dance called Ghost Dance.

• Tribes believed this dance would conjure up the spirits from the past who would help them regain their land and bring the buffalo back. The U.S. was alarmed. They found such behavior unstable and threatening.

• Thus, the U.S. military attempted to arrest Sitting Bull, who had helped begin the dance. During his arrest a fight broke out and Sitting Bull was killed.

Wounded Knee After Sitting Bull was killed the Army rounded

up 350 Sioux, herding them to Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota.

When the Army ordered the Sioux to give up their weapons, one Native American fired his weapon, and the army fired back……..

300 Sioux were killed.

End of War• After the “Battle” of Wounded knee in 1890, the Native American Indian

Wars finally came to an end after 400 years of conflict dating all the way back to the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

• At the end, in addition to the power of the federal military, the Plains Indians were finally forced to surrender by the coming of the railroads and virtual extermination of the buffalo.

• Eventually, after one more final slap in the face in which the U.S. government opened up Oklahoma Territory (supposedly Indian Territory “forever”) in 1889 for white settlement (the Oklahoma Land Rush), the Native Americans’ situation slowly began to improve:

– Native American were granted full citizenship in 1934, under the Indian Reorganization Act. Congress reversed the Dawes Act and restored the tribal base of Indian life.

– The census of 2000 counted more than 1.5 million Native Americans, urban and rural.

“Indians” by Anthrax• We all see black and white

When it comes to someone else’s fightNo one ever gets involvedApathy can never solve

Forced out-brave and mightyStolen land-they cant fight itHold on-to pride and traditionEven though they know how muchTheir lives are really missin’were dissin’ them...

On reservationsA hopeless situationRespect is something that you earnOur Indian brothers getting burnedOriginal AmericanTurned into second class citizen

• Cry for the IndiansDie for the IndiansCry for the IndiansCry, cry, cry for the IndiansLove the land and fellow manPeace is what we strive to haveSome folks have none of thisHatred and prejudice

(Mosh part) War dance!!!Territory, its just the body of the nationThe people that inhabit it make its configurationPrejudice, something we all can do withoutCause a flag of many colors isWhat this land is all about!!!!

“Hotdogs and Hamburgers” by John Mellencamp

• Drivin’ down a dry summer’s dayOld Route 66 and I was just a kidMet a pretty little Indian girlAlong the wayGot her into my carAnd tried to give her a kissI’ll give you beads and wampumWhatever it takes, girlTo make you trade.She jumped into the back seatAnd she kinda flipped her lidShe said, you’re trying to getSomethin' for nothin’like the pilgrims in the olden days

We rode for a whileTill the sun went awayAnd I realized it was a sort of an honorBein’ around this girlI felt embarrassedOf what I tried to do earlier that dayShe was the saddest girl, I ever knewShe told me stories about the Indian nationsAnd how the white man stole their lives awayAnd although she kinda liked meShe could never trust meAnd when the sun comes upWe’d go our different ways

• Chorus:Now everybody has got the choiceBetween hotdogs and hamburgersEvery one of us has got to chooseBetween right and wrongAnd givin’ up or holdin’ on

So I dropped her offAt some railroad crossing in TexasAn old Indian man was waiting thereHe smiled and thanked meBut he saw right through meI could tell, he didn’t like meFor my kind, he didn’t careBecause to him, I was the white manThe one who sold him somethingThat he already ownedAnd it was like he’d been ridin’ in theCar right there with usAnd I felt ashamed of my actionsAnd the way the west was really wonSo I drove down the highwayTill I came to Los AngelesTo the town of the angelsThe best this country can doI got down on my kneesAnd I asked for forgivenessI said, Lord, forgive usFor we know not, what we do

7. Chief Sealth’s (Seattle) Letter to President Franklin Pierce - 1850

• How can you buy or sell the skyOr the warmth of the land it's strange to usWe don't own the freshness of the airOr the sparkle of the waterHow can you buy them from usThe white man doesn't understand our waysFor he's a stranger who comes in the nightAnd takes from the land just what he needs

He treats his brothers like his enemiesWhen it's completed he moves onHe leaves his father's grave and his birthrightHis birthright is forgotten

The air is precious to the red manFor all things share the same breathThe white man won't notice the air he breathesLike a man dying for many days

The whites must treat the beasts of his landAs his brothers not his enemiesTell me what is man without the beastsI'll bet he will die of loneliness

One thing we know that the white man willWe know our god is the same godYou may think you wish to own himOwn him as you wish to own our landBut he is the body of manAnd the earth is precious to himContinue to contaminate your bedAnd you will suffocate in your waste

8.Cattle Becomes Big Business

• “Stampede By Lightning” Fredric Remington

What caused the cattle business to grow?

• Cattle ranching became a big business after the Civil War.

• Ranchers raised longhorns, a sturdy breed

first brought to the Americas by the Spanish.

• American cowboys learned from vaqueros, the first cowboys who worked on Spanish ranches in Mexico.

The Long Drive• Growing cities spurred the demand for beef.

• Cattle ranchers drove their cattle over many trails, like the Chisholm Trail, from San Antonio, Texas, to Kansas where they were shipped by rail to Chicago.

• Between 1866 and 1885, about 55,000 cowboys worked the plains. About 12% of these were Mexicans and about 25% were African-American.

Open Range

• Open Range Free Grazers vs. Barbed Wired Ranchers

A Day in the Life of a Cowboy

• A cowboy's life was difficult. Cowboys worked between 10 to 14 hours a day in all kinds of weather.

• They worked hard all spring and summer. In the winter, they lived off their savings or went from ranch to ranch and looked for odd jobs.

• In the spring, cowboys rounded up their cattle and headed them out on the long drive up one of the cattle trails.

The End of the Open Range

• The days of the open range and cattle drives did not last long.– Bad weather in the 1880s wiped out many

ranchers and their cattle.– Other ranchers started using barbed wire to

fence in their ranches, getting in the way of the cattle trails.

– And eventually, railroads were built along the old trails to ship the cattle instead - which was much more efficient than attempting to drive cattle for 1000 miles.

– The glory days of the cowboy were largely at an end by the end of the 1880s.

The Old West: Myths & Legends

Western Characters: Myth vs. Reality: Who can you identify?

• Wyatt Earp• Buffalo Bill• Billy the Kid• Calamity Jane

• Many of these became famous through myth promoted by wild west shows and dime store novels through writers who were good at “stretching the truth”

11. Mining: From Dishpan to Ore Breaker• The mining frontier played a vital role in attracting the first

substantial white population to the West.

• Gold was discovered in California in the late 1840s, and the subsequent “49ers” came in a flood to find their fortune.

• In 1858, the same happened at Pike’s Peak in Colorado. “Fifty-Niners” flocked out there, but within a month or two, the gold had run out.

• The Comstock Lode in Nevada was discovered in 1859, and a fantastic amount of gold and silver worth more than $340 million was mined.

• Smaller “lucky strikes” also drew money-lovers to Montana, Idaho, and other western states. Anarchy in these outposts seemed to rule, but after the area had been “mined out”, nothing was left but “ghost towns”.

• After the surface gold was found, ore-breaking machinery was brought in to break the gold-bearing quartz. Of course, only well-financed individuals could afford this machinery, so most folks were left out.

• An astounding development for women occurred out West at this time as they found new rights in these lands, gaining suffrage in Wyoming (1869) (the first place for women to vote), Utah (1870), Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1896).

• Mining also added to American literature and folklore.

Mining-Pull Factor of Migration 3% achieved wealth

• Prospectors, 49rs. • Placer Mining– Long Tom- Surface• Quartz Mining-- Underground

Western Mines- California, Colorado

Placer Mining Quartz Mining

• The Homestead Act of 1862 assumed that public land should be administered in such a way as to promote frontier settlement. – It allowed folks to get as much as 160

acres of land in return for living on it for five years, improving it, and paying a nominal fee of about $30.00. Or, it allowed folks to get land after only six month’s residence for $1.25 an acre.

– Before the Civil War, the U.S. government had sold its lands for revenue, but now, it was practically giving it away!

– This act led half a million families to buy

land and settle out West, but it often turned out to be a failed venture since a major problem faced by settlers on the Great Plains was the scarcity of water.

– Often, families were forced to give up their homesteads before the five years were up, since droughts, bad land, lack of necessities, and other hardships forced them out.

– Also, fraud was often spawned by the

Homestead Act, as almost ten times as much land ended up in the hands of land-grabbing promoters than in the hands of real farmers. Sometimes these cheats would not even live on the land, but say that they’d “improved” it by erecting a “twelve by fourteen” dwelling…..uh,12 by 14 INCHES!

– Railroads such as the Northern Pacific helped develop the agricultural West, a place where, after the tough, horse-trodden lands had been plowed and watered, proved to be surprisingly fertile.

– Due to higher wheat prices resulting from crop failures around the world, more people rashly pushed further westward, past the 100th meridian (which is also the magic 20-inch per year rainfall line), where it was difficult to grow crops.

• Here, as warned by geologist John Wesley Powell, so little rain fell that successful farming could only be attained by massive irrigation.

• To counteract the lack of water (and a six year drought in the 1880s), farmers developed the technique of “dry farming,” or using shallow cultivation methods to plant and farm, but over time, this method created a finely pulverized surface soil that contributed to the notorious “Dust Bowl” several decades later.

– A Russian species of wheat—tough and resistant to drought—was brought in and grew all over the Great Plains, while other plants were chosen in favor of corn.

– Huge federally financed irrigation projects soon caused the “Great American Desert” to bloom, and dams that tamed the Missouri and Columbia Rivers helped water the land.

• Indeed, the area of the country in which the federal government has done the most to aid economic and social development is the West.

• The Great West experienced a population surge, as many people moved onto the frontier.

• New states like Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming were admitted into the Union. – Not until 1896 was Utah allowed into the Union, and

by the 20th century, only Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona remained as territories.

– In Oklahoma, the U.S. government made available land that had formerly belonged to the Native Americans, and thousands of “Sooners” jumped the boundary line and illegally went into Oklahoma, often forcing U.S. troops to evict them.

– On April 22, 1889, Oklahoma was legally opened, and 18 years later, in 1907, Oklahoma became the “Sooner State.”

• In 1890, for the first time, the U.S. census announced that a frontier was no longer discernible.

• The “closing” of the frontier inspired the Turner Thesis, which stated that America needed a frontier as a sort of “safety valve”.

• At first, the public didn’t seem to notice that there was no longer a frontier, but later, they began to realize that the land was not infinite, and concern led to the first national park being opened, Yellowstone, founded in 1872, followed by Yosemite and Sequoia (1890).

• The frontier was a state of mind and a symbol of opportunity.

• The “safety valve theory” stated that the frontier was like a safety valve for folks who, when it became too crowded in their area, could simply pack up and leave, moving West.

– Actually, few city-dwellers left the cities for the West, since they didn’t know how to farm; the West increasingly became less and less a land of opportunity for farms, but still was good for hard laborers and ranchers.

– Still, free acreage did lure a host of

immigrant farmers to the West—farmers

that probably wouldn’t have come to the

West had the land not been cheap—and

the lure of the West may have also helped

lead city factory employers to raise wages

in order to keep workers in the cities.

• In reality, it seems that the cities, not the West, were the safety valves, as busted farmers and fortune seekers made Chicago and San Francisco into large cities.

• For hundreds of years, Americans had expanded west, but it was in the trans-Mississippi west that the Indians made their last stand, where Anglo culture collided with Hispanic culture and where America faced Asia.

• Farmers were now increasingly producing single “cash” crops, since they could then concentrate their efforts, make profits, and buy manufactured goods from mail order companies, such as the Aaron Montgomery Ward catalogue (first sent in 1872) or from Sears.

• Large-scale farmers tried banking, railroading, and manufacturing, but new inventions in farming, such as a steam engine that could pull a plow, seeder, or harrow, the new twine binder, and the combined reaper-thresher sped up harvesting and lowered the number of people needed to farm. – Farmers, though, were inclined to blame

banks and railroads for their losses rather than their own shortcomings.

• The mechanization of agriculture led to enormous “bonanza” farms, such as those in the Minnesota-North Dakota area and the Central Valley of California. – Henry George described

the state as a country of plantations and estates.

– California vegetables and fruits, raised by ill-paid Mexican workers, made handsome profits when sold to the East.

14. Western Technologies

• We will evaluate the impact of new inventions and technologies of the late nineteenth century

• Barbed Wire

• Telegraph

• John Deere Steel Plow

• McCormack Reaper

• Railroads (Steam Power)

• Foundries (Iron to Steel Process)

Inventions That Tamed the Prairie• Steel Windmill Barbed Wire

• Steel Plow Reaper

vs. The Railroads

Issue #1 Which has a Greater Impact on taming the “Frontier of America”?

• Inventions or the Railroad?

• In 1890, for the first time, the U.S. census announced that a frontier was no longer discernible.

• The “closing” of the frontier inspired the Turner Thesis, which stated that America needed a frontier as a sort of “safety valve”.

Issue #3 The Robber Barons

• What should the role of government be in Business and the economy?

• The building of the transcontinental railroad caused many settlers to migrate to the Great Plains.

• From 1850 to 1871, the federal government gave huge amounts of land to any company that would make tracks through the West.

• In 1867 Central Pacific began laying tracks from Sacramento, California to the east. Meanwhile Union Pacific began laying tracks from Omaha, Nebraska. The two eventually met in Promontory, Utah.

• Most of the work was done by Irish and Chinese immigrants.

• The railroads then sold the land around the railroads to settlers willing to farm it. Some companies even brought in European immigrants to farm the land.

The Transcontinental Railroad

• Another large influence for the increase in settlers was the Homestead Act. This gave anyone 160 acres who would farm it for five years.

• More than 400,000 homesteaders had flocked to the Great Plains by 1900, but the law did not always work as the government had planned. Only 10% of the total land was actually owned and farmed by families, as the government had planned.

• The rest was claimed by miners and cattlemen.

• The government began passing more laws in an attempt to settle more of the West.

• Kansas invited African Americans to help settle the state, and they became known as exodusters since they were leaving the poverty of Reconstruction South for a new life with land of their own.

• In 1889, Oklahoma offered a major land giveaway in which 2 million acres were settled in 24 hours (regardless of the fact that the government had originally told the Native Americans that this would be Indian Territory forever).

As more settlers gobbled up land, the government became concerned about preserving the wilderness. In 1872, the government set aside land in Wyoming to create Yellowstone National Park, and millions of acres more have been set aside since.

From 1850 to 1900 the number of people living west of the Mississippi grew from 1% of the population to 30%.

These new settlers didn’t have trees so they built houses of sod, called soddys. Often these houses were built into hills.

Homesteaders were often far apart from one another. They had to be self sufficient. Women worked in the fields with men and also ran the house, took care of the kids, and cooked.

Farming the Great Plains was not easy business, but several new inventions helped to make the task easier.

To ease the strain the steel plow was created. This broke through tough soil with ease. A new reaper cut wheat faster to free up time for other work.

The government also created the Morrill Act which helped establish agricultural colleges to help people improve their farming techniques and to research and experiment with new types of crops.

• Many farmers went in to debt as they purchased the newly created expensive machines, but if crop prices fell, they had a difficult time getting out of debt.

• This led to some farmers growing a single crop across the entirety of a huge farm. This was commonly known as bonanza farming.

As a huge drought hit the Great Plains between 1885 and 1890, many bonanza farms folded. They couldn’t compete with smaller farms, who were more flexible in what they could grow.

Also, the high price of shipping crops via the railroad added to the farmers’ debt.

As a result, many farmers found themselves growing as much produce as they could (particularly grain), and on as much land as they could acquire – which, unfortunately, only increased their debt.

But….farmers were not defeated by these conditions. Instead, these challenging conditions drew farmers together in a common cause……a fight for change!

The Farmers’ Alliance