Post- Civil War Western Migrations

and the Western Frontier

America After the Civil War: 1870-1900 Industrialization & Urbanization

Reconstruction & Rise of Jim Crow Segregation

Ranching, Mining, & Farming

The United States by 1890

Established new states & closed the

frontier by 1890

Colorado

Washington Montana North Dakota

South Dakota

Idaho

Wyoming

1876

1889 1890

Western raw materials fueled eastern factories

..but this came at the expense of the Native Americans

Settling the West

The Mining Bonanza John Sutter’s partner, James W. Marshall

discovered several flakes of gold at Sutter’s Mill 24 Jan 1848:

The Mining Bonanza Spring 1859: Two Mormon miners discovered

a deposit of almost pure silver ore in Nevada on grazing lands belonging to Henry Comstock

The Mining Bonanza

Mining was the 1st magnet to attract settlers to the West

California (1849) started the gold rush, but strikes in Pikes Peak, Colorado & Carson River Valley, Nevada (1859) set off wild migrations to the West:

The Comstock Lode = $306 million

John Mackay’s Big Bonanza made him richest man in world

John Mackay earned $25 a minute from his gold/silver lode in Sierra Mountains

Mining Regions of the West

Discoveries of gold & silver led to overnight mining towns

Created need for local gov’t, law enforcement, sanitation,

businesses, prostitutes

Mining Regions of the West

Individual “placer miners” took little skill or money to start, but could not reach deep lodes

Mining Regions of the West

Corporations had the expensive machinery (“hydraulic mining techniques”) to extract

most of the gold in the West

The Cattle

Bonanza

In the 1860s, Cattle Ranching Boomed

Many Ranchers used the

“Open Range” to graze longhorns

The Cattle Bonanza

By the 1870s, long

“Cattle Drives” brought

Cattle to Miners

The Cattle

Bonanza

By 1867, ranchers started using trains to ship cattle to Chicago

A cattle bought for $4 in Texas sold for $40 in Kansas

The Cattle Bonanza ½ of all cowboys

were black & ¼ were Mexican

By 1880, the “open range” was ending: Wheat growers,

homesteaders, & barbed wire blocked the range

Many switched to raising sheep

But “range wars” erupted over grazing

rights between cowboys, farmers, &

“sheep-boys”

The Cattle Bonanza

The Lincoln County War (1878):

Broke out in New Mexico between two factions

led by John Chisum and Lawrence Murphy over

Cattle Grazing Rights and Dry Goods Trade

Billy the Kid Pat Garrett

The Cattle Bonanza

The Pleasant Valley War (1886-1892):

Broke out in Arizona between the Cattle-herding

Grahams and the Sheep-herding Tewksburys

Lawlessness of the West Pearl S. Hart Jesse James Wild Bill Hickok

Wyatt Earp

Doc Holliday

The Farming Bonanza The U.S. gov’t offered incentives for

farmers to settle the West: Homestead Act (1862)—gave 160 acres of

land if families pledged to live there for 5 years

Other gov’t acts helped develop western lands by planting trees & building irrigation systems

Due to land grants, RRs were the largest western landowners

500 million acres doled to businesses but only 80 million to homesteaders

2/3 of all homesteaders failed to farm their land

The Farming Bonanza

In 1870, homesteaders pushed West & adapted to the harsh farming conditions:

Farmers used dry farming techniques & planted tougher varieties of wheat

New machinery sped harvesting & planting; led to bonanza farms

By 1890, the U.S. became a major crop exporter

The Farming Bonanza

A pioneer sod house

By the1880’s, ranchers started calling the new

prairie farmers “Sodbusters”

Exodusters Exodusters were black

farmers who moved West to escape Southern crop liens

& Jim Crow Laws

The Mormons

Brigham Young led his Mormon followers to the new territory of Utah to establish a new homeland

Rails Across the Continent In 1862, Congress authorized the

transcontinental railroad:

1st transcontinental railroad connected the west coast to eastern cities in 1869

Chinese workers made up a large percentage of laborers on the

Central Pacific’s Western Route

Irish workers made up a large percentage of laborers on the Union Pacific’s Eastern Section

Federal Land Grants to Railroads by 1871

The national gov’t doled $65 million & millions of acres in land grants

(received reduced rates for shipping)

The Transcontinental Railroad

In 1870, RR companies developed the 1st time zones to better schedule the RR system; the US would not adopt time zones until 1918

The Plains Indians In 1865, 2/3 of all Indians lived on the Great Plains

Most tribes were subdivided into bands of 100s which made it difficult for the

U.S. to negotiate treaties

Their culture was dependent upon the buffalo & the

horse

The Plains Indians

Rapid Western expansion in the 1850s brought a new Indian “concentration policy” with distinct boundaries for each tribe

“as long as the

waters run and

grass grows”

The Indian Wars

Concentration did not last as whites ignored these boundaries: The Sand Creek Massacre

Chivington’s Order: “Kill & scalp all, big & little”

Congress investigated & condemned Chivington’s attack

The Indian Wars

Discoveries of Gold caused whites to ignore these boundaries: The Sioux War of 1876

George Custer’s attempt to destroy up the Sioux

Resulted in the Sioux slaughter of Custer’s 7th Cavalry

The Indian Wars

The warlike nature of some tribes led to numerous conflicts: The Apache Wars

The U.S. Army fought the Apache for 40 years

The wars continued until Geronimo surrendered in 1886

The Indian Wars (1870’s – 1880’s)

Black soldiers in the U.S. army called “buffalo soldiers” were used to fend off

Indian attacks in the West

The Indian Wars

The U.S. army was ordered to stop Sioux “ghost dances” & machine

gunned 200 men, women, & children

“Custer’s Last Stand” set off demands for revenge among Americans

The Final Fling In 1889, Congress responded to demands

to open the Oklahoma Territory settlement

About 100,000 “Boomers and Sooners” flooded into the last “Indian Lands”

White Settlers claimed 2

million lands of homestead

Creeks and Seminoles were displaced once

more by the U.S. Army