Is this an accurate depiction of the African American experience during Reconstruction? Why/ Why not?

The Wild West and New South

Wild West By 1900 the buffalo herds were

virtually wiped out. By 1900 the West was mostly fenced

and homesteads were established. Railroads crossed the West and large

towns grew up around the rails. By 1900 most of the western lands

had been divided into States.

Gold The California Gold Rush

(1849) started a flood of miners to the West. They frenzied search continued well in to the 1890s.

Changes in mining technology created boom towns over night. (they could disappear just as quickly)

Growth Substantial finds caused investors

and companies to employ more experienced miners from Europe, Latin America, and China.

How do you suppose Native born miners reacted?

~ Miner’s Taxes~Chinese Exclusion Act of

1882

Effects Currency

issues Native

Americans Environment

Cow Towns Texas Longhorns roamed free in the

years following the Civil War. Railroads opened eastern markets for

cattlemen. A series of unfortunate events caused

the closing of the cattle frontier.

Homestead Act of 1862 The government tried to increase

interest in farming on the Great Plains by offering:• 160 acres of public land free if a family agreed

to settle on it for 5 years.• 500,000 families took advantage of the offer.• More than that had to buy their land (because

the good public land went to the railroad companies)

• By 1900 - 2/3 of the homesteaders’ farms failed

Turner’s Frontier Thesis By Frederick Jackson Turner “The Significance of the Frontier in

American History”. The frontier “fosters social and

political democracy” by breaking down class distinctions.

Wyatt Earp

Dawes Act 1877 Broke up the individual tribes 47 million acres were distributed to

Native Americans. The best lands were sold to white developers

Ghost Dance movement: last ditch effort by the Native Americans to resist U.S. domination. 200 Native Americans were killed at Wounded Knee

“Economically, it will ever remain true, that the government is best which governs least. The wants of a people are the sole proper, the sole possible, motives for production. Nothing can be substituted for them. Anything that seems to take their place is merely a debasement of them. The interests of producers, whether laborers or capitalists, secure, better than any other possible means, gratification of such wants.”

New South Laissez-faire, low wages for workers,

and government incentives encouraged business growth.

However, the South remained mostly farm land and poor.

Ida B. Wells and B.T. Washington

Grange Movement Were formed to fight the middlemen

and railroads Established cooperatives