P6 | APUSH | Wiley | Native Americans & the West: Note Guided & Sources, D___ Name:Life out West, 1870s-1900 Federal gov. sought to integrate the West as a replica of the North and

______________________________________________ Land redistribution (Homestead Act of 1862), which included

______________________________________________ from American Indians tribes Indian Wars of the 1870s; U.S. military victories Boom towns, cowboys, cattle ranchers, saloons; the “Wild, Wild, West”

Railroad subsidies Attempts to ___________________________________ American Indians (Dawes Act of

1887 + Indian Boarding School Movement) Farming agitation _______________________________Party Changes out West reflect a broader theme of U.S. expansion and imperialism

Homestead Act, 1862 Passed by the Lincoln administration Provided _______________________________________________________________ 1862-1900: approximately ___________________ families took up the government’s

offer; various European immigrant groups, African Americans, Chinese (until 1882), and white settlers from the East

Life out West was difficult: isolation, harsh climate and soil, and mining camps and frontier towns were filthy

“The wilderness should be settled because we are safer if we do. . . . The man who goes and encouragers the frontier is as much a solider as he who bears the musket.” (James Jones, TN governor)

“[W]hen we have territory which is not occupied, and it is covered by savages, Congress should be able to give the settlers the land, not for the purpose of a gift, but merely for the purpose of inducing them to plant themselves there to protect the rights of the whole country.” (Senator William Dawson of GA)

Life for American Indians Reservation life was difficult American Indians means of subsistence was lost when constricted to reservations and by the

______________________________________________, which were destroyed by new settlers and railroad companies Land was often ___________________________ for agriculture Corruption among the _____________________________________deprived Indians of the aid they were owed

Buffalo Buffalo were central to Plains Indians, providing many of

their basic needs: ______________________________________________, etc.

Railroads played a large role in their destruction William F. Cody killed 4,300 bison in 8 months, earning

nickname, “____________________________” 1800: 15 million | 1886: <________

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A Colorado boom town during the years of a silver rush (1890s); crowds flock to the saloons,

shops, and dance halls that lined Main Street.

“Reform”

Reformers wanted better treatment of natives, which, to them, meant ___________________________ ________________________________ exposed the gov.’s many broken promises and injustices in A Century of Dishonor (1881) ______________________________________________________ Congress phased out reservations, passed the Dawes Act

(1887), and funded Indian boarding schools

Excerpt from A Century of Dishonor by Helen Hunt Jackson, 1881

After living in the West for 20 years, Helen Hunt Jackson became interested in the government’s treatment of Native Americans. After completing extensive research, she wrote A Century of Dishonor in 1881, in which she outlined all of the inequities perpetrated against Native American Indians. She sent a copy to every member of Congress advocating for reform. Jackson's book was well received and Congress appointed a commission to look into Indian affairs. The result was the Dawes Act (1887), which broke up reservation land into individual plots. Though mostly well intentioned, the act resulted in further destruction of Indian land and tribal life.

There is not among these three hundred bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the hands either of the Government or of white settlers. The poorer, the more insignificant, the more helpless the band, the more certain the cruelty and outrage to which they have been subjected. This is especially true of the bands on the Pacific slope. These Indians found themselves of a sudden surrounded by and caught up in the great influx of gold-seeking settlers, as helpless creatures on a shore are caught up in a tidal wave. There was not time for the Government to make treaties; not even time for communities to make laws. The tale of the wrongs, the oppressions, the murders of the Pacific-slope Indians in the last thirty years would be a volume by itself, and is too monstrous to be believed. [Jackson is referring to the Yuki Genocide, among other tragedies.]

It makes little difference, however, where one opens the record of the history of the Indians; every page and every year has its dark stain. The story of one tribe is the story of all, varied only differences of time and place; but neither time nor place makes any difference in the main facts. Colorado is as greedy and unjust in 1880 as was Georgia in 1830, and Ohio in 1795; and the United States Government breaks promises now as deftly as then, and with an added ingenuity from long practice.

One of its strongest supports in so doing is the wide-spread sentiment among the people of dislike to the Indian, of impatience with his presence as a “barrier to civilization” and distrust of it as a possible danger. The old tales of the frontier life, with its horrors of Indian warfare, have gradually, by two or three generations’ telling, produced in the average mind something like an hereditary instinct of questioning and unreasoning aversion which it is almost impossible to dislodge or soften. . . .

President after president has appointed commission after commission to inquire into and report upon Indian affairs, and to make suggestions as to the best methods of managing them. The reports are filled with eloquent statements of wrongs done to the Indians, of perfidies [deceits] on the part of the Government; . . . These reports are bound up with the Government’s Annual Reports, and that is the end of them. . . .

The history of the Government connections with the Indians is a shameful record of broken treaties and unfulfilled promises. The history of the border white man’s connection with the Indians is a sickening record of murder, outrage, robbery, and wrongs committed by the former, as the rule, and occasional savage outbreaks and unspeakably barbarous deeds of retaliation by the latter, as the exception.

Taught by the Government that they had rights entitled to respect, when those rights have been assailed by the rapacity [greed] of the white man, the arm which should have been raised to protect them has ever been ready to sustain the aggressor.

The testimony of some of the highest military officers of the United States is on record to the effect that, in our Indian wars [of the 1870s], almost without exception, the first aggressions have been made by the white man. . . . Every crime committed by a white man against an Indian is concealed . . . . Every offense committed by an Indian against a white man is borne on the wings of the post or the telegraph to the remotest corner of the land, clothed with all the horrors which the reality or imagination can throw around it.

To assume that it would be easy, or by any one sudden stroke of legislative policy possible, to undo the mischief and hurt of the long past, set the Indian policy of the country right for the future, and make the Indians at once safe and happy, is the blunder of a hasty

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and uninformed judgment. The notion which seems to be growing more prevalent, that simply to make all Indians at once citizens of the United States would be a sovereign and instantaneous panacea for all their ills and all the Government’s perplexities, is a very inconsiderate one. To administer complete citizenship of a sudden, all round, to all Indians, barbarous and civilized alike, would be as grotesque a blunder as to dose them all round with any one medicine, irrespective of the symptoms and needs of their diseases. It would kill more than it would cure. . . . While they continue individually to gather the crumbs that fall from the table of the United States, idleness, improvidence, and indebtedness will be the rule, and industry, thrift, and freedom from debt the exception. The utter absence of individual title to particular lands deprives every one among them of the chief incentive to labor and exertion – the very mainspring on which the prosperity of a people depends.

All judicious plans and measures for their safety and salvation must embody provisions for their becoming citizens as fast as they are fit, and must protect them till then in every right and particular in which our laws protect other “persons” who are not citizens. . . .

However great perplexity and difficulty there may be in the details of any and every plan possible for doing at this late day anything like justice to the Indian, however, hard it may be for good statesmen and good men to agree upon the things that ought to be done, there certainly is, or ought to be, no perplexity whatever, on difficulty whatever, in agreeing upon certain things that ought to be done, and which must cease to be done before the first steps can be taken toward righting the wrongs, curing the ills, and wiping out the disgrace to us of the present conditions of our Indians.

Cheating, robbing, breaking promises – these three are clearly things which must cease to be done. One more thing, also, and that is the refusal of the protection of the law to the Indian’s rights of property, “of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

When these four things have ceased to be done, time, statesmanship, philanthropy, and Christianity can slowly and surely do the rest. Till these four things have ceased to be done, statesmanship and philanthropy alike must work in vain, and even Christianity can reap but small harvest.

1. What were Jackson’s key arguments?

2. Review at least two course documents that deal with Native Americans and compile a list of dishonorable ways they have been treated by the U.S. government. (Ideas: Period 1 documents on reservations, the genocide debate; Period 4 documents dealing with Indian Removal.)

Dawes Act, 1887 Dawes Act (1887): ____________________________________

___________________________________________________ Goals : end “dependency” of the tribes on the gov., enable

Indians to become individually prosperous, assimilate Indians—cultivating a desire for property-ownership, and open remaining reservation lands to eager white settlers

Indians resisted but ultimately __________________________ of their land by 1900

3. Based on the results of the Dawes Act, how do you suspect Helen Hunt Jackson would have felt about the law by 1900?

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Motives / Revealing Quotes Senator Henry M. Teller , outspoken opponent of allotment: “The real aim of allotment was to get Indian lands and open them to

settlement. The provisions for the apparent benefit of the Indians are but the pretext to get at his lands and occupy them . . . If this were done in the name of Greed, it would be bad enough; but to do it in the name of Humanity . . . is infinitely worse.”

Colonel Militia Major : “Indians are an obstacle to civilization . . . [that] should be exterminated.” William T. Sherman , General of U.S. Army during Indian Wars: “The idea is to remove all of them to a safe place and then reduce

them to a _____________________________________.” Richard H. Pratt , founder of an Indian boarding school: “These schools are necessary in order to kill the Indian and

_____________________________________.”

4. Contrast the intentions and results of the Dawes Act.

Intentions: Results:

Oklahoma Land Rush, 1889 By 1889, a portion of Indian lands opened up by the __________________________ were renamed Oklahoma and declared

open for settlement under the __________________________ of 1862 An estimated 50,000 people lined up for their piece of the available two million acres

Indian Boarding School Movement Part of the Dawes Act called for creating boarding schools for natives Purpose : ______________________________________________ “[K]ill the Indian and save the man.” —Richard H. Pratt, founder of Carlisle Indian school

Excerpts from the University of Washington – University Libraries – Digital Collections, on Indian Boarding Schools (1880s-1920s)

The goal of Indian education from the 1880s through the 1920s was to assimilate Indian people into the so-called melting pot white Americans hoped for, by placing them in institutions where traditional ways could be replaced by those sanctioned by the government. Federal Indian policy called for the removal of children from their families and in many cases enrollment in a government run boarding school. In this way, the policy makers believed, young people would be immersed in the values and practical knowledge of the dominant American society while also being kept away from any influences imparted by their traditionally-minded relatives.

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The Indian boarding school movement began in the post-Civil War era when idealistic reformers turned their attention to the plight of Indian people. Whereas before many Americans regarded the native people with either fear or loathing, the reformers believed that with the proper education and treatment Indians could become just like other citizens. They convinced the leaders of Congress that education could change at least some of the Indian population into patriotic and productive members of society. One of the first efforts to accomplish this goal was the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, founded by Captain Richard Henry Pratt in 1879. Pratt was a leading proponent of the assimilation through education policy. Believing that Indian ways were inferior to those of whites, he subscribed to the principle, "kill the Indian and save the man." At Carlisle, young Indian boys and girls were subjected to a complete transformation. Photographs taken at the school illustrate how they looked "before" and "after". The dramatic contrast between traditional clothing and hairstyles and Victorian styles of dress helped convince the public that through boarding school education Indians could become completely "civilized". Following the model of Carlisle, additional off reservation boarding schools were established in other parts of the country.

Meanwhile, on many reservations missionaries operated schools that combined religious with academic training. . . At these missionary run schools, traditional religious and cultural practices were strongly discouraged while instruction in the Christian doctrines took place utilizing pictures, statues, hymns, prayers and storytelling. Some missionary schools received federal support, particularly at times when Congress felt less inclined to provide the large sums of money needed to establish government schools.

All federal boarding schools, whether on or off reservation, shared certain characteristics. The Bureau of Indian Affairs issued directives that were followed by superintendents throughout the nation. Even the architecture and landscaping appeared similar from one institution to the next. Common features included a military style regimen, a strict adherence to English language only, an emphasis on farming, and a schedule that equally split academic and vocational training.

A typical daily schedule at a boarding school began with an early wake-up call followed by a series of tasks punctuated by the ringing of bells. Students were required to march from one activity to the next. Regular inspections and drills took place outdoors with platoons organized according to age and rank. Competitions were held to see which group could achieve the finest marching formation. Conformity to rules and regulations was strongly encouraged:

Everything happened by bells, 'triangles´ they were called. A triangle would ring in the morning and we would all run, line up, march in, get our little quota of tooth powder, wash our teeth, brush our hair, wash our hands and faces, and then we all lined up and marched outside. Whether it was raining, snowing or blowing, we all went outside and did what was called 'setting up exercises´ for twenty minutes. (Joyce Simmons Cheeka, Tulalip Indian School, memoirs collected by Finley)

We went from the tallest to the littlest, all the way down in companies. We had A, B, C, D companies. E Company was the Lazy Company, those that just couldn't get up and make it. They had all kinds of demerits for those people. They thought they'd shame them a little bit if they made an extra company and called it the Lazy Company. (Helma Ward, Makah, Tulalip Indian School, from interview with Carolyn Marr)

The foremost requirement for assimilation into American society, authorities felt, was mastery of the English language. Commissioner of Indian Affairs T.J. Morgan described English as "the language of the greatest, most powerful and enterprising nationalities beneath the sun." Such chauvinism did not allow for bilingualism in the boarding schools. Students were prohibited from speaking their native languages and those caught "speaking Indian" were severely punished. Later, many former students regretted that they lost the ability to speak their native language fluently because of the years they spent in boarding school.

Another important component of the government policy for "civilizing" the Indians was to teach farming techniques. Although few reservations in the Pacific Northwest had either fertile land or a climate conducive to agriculture, nonetheless it was felt that farming was the proper occupation for American citizens. So boys learned how to milk cows, grow vegetables, repair tools, etc. and even had lessons on the various types of plows.

The boarding schools had what came to be called the "half and half" system where students spent half of the day in the classroom and half at a work assignment or "detail" on the school grounds. The academic curriculum included courses in U.S. history, geography, language, arithmetic, reading, writing and spelling. Music and drama were offered at most schools. Young women spent

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either the morning or the afternoon doing laundry, sewing, cooking, cleaning and other household tasks. Older girls might study nursing or office work. The young men acquired skills in carpentry, blacksmithing, baking and shop. They chopped firewood to keep the steam boilers operating. The work performed by students was essential to the operation of the institution. The meat, vegetables and milk served in the dining room came from livestock and gardens kept by the students. The girls made and repaired uniforms, sheets, and curtains and helped to prepare the meals.

A standardized curriculum for Indian schools emphasized vocational training. Estelle Reel, who served as Superintendent of Indian Education from 1898 to 1910, was a strong advocate of this curriculum which gave primary importance to learning manual skills. No amount of book learning, she felt, could result in economic independence for Indian people. Others would claim that by limiting education to manual training the educators were condemning Indian people to permanent inequality. A former student at the Fort Spokane boarding school described typical work done by the boys:

Some of the boys were detailed to the garden...others were detailed to milk and care for the cows, feed the pigs and chickens and look after the horses, besides doing other chores. There was a large barn on the place, and the boys learned a lot about farming on a small scale. But for boys who had ambitions for becoming something else, Fort Spokane was far from being adequate. (Frances LeBret, as quoted in exhibit They Sacrificed for Our Survival: The Indian Boarding School Experience, at Eastern Washington Historical Museum)

Mandatory education for Indian children became law in 1893 and thereafter agents on the reservations received instructions on how to enforce the federal regulation. If parents refused to send their children to school, the authorities could withhold annuities or rations or send them to jail. Some parents were uncomfortable having their children sent far away from home. The educators had quotas to fill, however, and considerable pressure was exerted on Indian families to send their youngsters to boarding schools beginning when the child was six years old. Fear and loneliness caused by this early separation from family is a common experience shared by all former students. Once their children were enrolled in a distant school, parents lost control over decisions that affected them. For example, requests for holiday leave could be denied by the superintendent for almost any reason.For some students, the desire for freedom and the pull of their family combined with strong discontent caused them to run away. At Chemawa, for example, there were 46 "desertions" recorded in 1921, followed by 70 in 1922. Punishment of runaways was usually harsh, as the offenders became examples held up before their fellow students:

Two of our girls ran away...but they got caught. They tied their legs up, tied their hands behind their backs, put them in the middle of the hallway so that if they fell, fell asleep or something, the matron would hear them and she'd get out there and whip them and make them stand up again. (Helma Ward, Makah, interview with Carolyn Marr)

Illness was another serious problem at the boarding schools. Crowded conditions and only the basic medical care no doubt contributed to the spread of diseases such as measles, influenza and tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was especially feared and at the Tulalip Indian School the dormitories were kept cold by leaving the windows open at night. Several students were sent to sanitariums in Idaho or Nevada. In a letter issued to superintendents in 1913, the Indian Office advised disinfecting all textbooks at the end of each school year to reduce the chance of spreading disease. Hospital reports for Tulalip indicate that boys spent a total of 110 days in the hospital during one month and girls 125 days. Death was not an unknown occurrence either. At Chemawa, a cemetery contains headstones of 189 students who died at the school, and these represent only the ones whose bodies were not returned home for burial.

Not all experiences at the boarding schools were negative for students. In hindsight, former students acknowledge benefits they gained from their education, and there were happy moments for some. Sports, games and friendships are examples of experiences remembered in a positive light:

The boys played baseball, broadjumping and ran foot races, played mumbley peg and marbles, spin the top and a lot of other things for entertainment. (Frances LeBret, Fort Spokane Indian School)

We played baseball, football and a game we call shinney. They get two sticks and tie them together. You got a stick that was curved and you'd hit this and throw it. To score you had to hit a little pole. (Alfred Sam, Snohomish, interview with Carolyn Marr)

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Reflecting on her years spent in boarding schools, one elder stated:

On the reservations there was no electricity or running water. When kids came to the boarding school they had these things--showers and clean clothes--and they ate decent food. My mom died when I was 13 months old. I stayed with my grandmother who wasn't well...My main criticism of the boarding school is that it didn't allow you to do your own thinking. You marched everywhere, you were governed by the bell and bugle, you were told when to go to bed and when to get up, your whole life was governed. As a result, you didn't learn how to become an independent thinker. (Arnold McKay, Lummi, interviewed by Carolyn Marr)

By the 1920s the Bureau of Indian Affairs had changed its opinion about boarding schools, responding to complaints that the schools were too expensive and that they encouraged dependency more than self-sufficiency. A report on Indian education issued in 1928 revealed glaring deficiencies in the boarding schools, including poor diet, overcrowding, below-standard medical service, excessive labor by the students and substandard teaching. During FDR’s presidency, the 1930s witnessed many changes in federal Indian policy, among which was a shift in educational philosophy. Classroom lessons could now reflect the diversity of Indian cultures. States assumed more control over Indian education as more children enrolled in public schools.

5. What positive and negative elements can you identify from the Indian Boarding School movement? Do these elements convince you that the movement was a step in the right direction, or sound Indian policy?

Positive Negative

6. Some historians, anthropologists, and political scientists have recently argued that Indian policy in the post-Civil War era was an example cultural genocide. Agree or disagree with this assertion. [Cultural genocide is the systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other elements which make a one group of people distinct from other groups.]

Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890 Suffering Indian tribes turned to an Indian

___________________________who had a vision of a new world: native lands would be restored, the buffalo would return, and whites would disappear

Prophet promised that if they performed the ____________________________ ritual the vision would be realized (ghosts of their ancestors would return to earth—hence the word “ghost”)

Military leaders demanded the practice be stopped; dance was declared a “______________________________”

When the Sioux refused to stop the ritual, ________________________________ slaughtered hundreds at

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Wounded Knee Creek (current day South Dakota)

7. Record the key ideas from the Ghost Dance video clip:

Farmers & Railroads—This topic was covered in the Gilded Age Note Guide, but overlaps with the issues we’re exploring here.

8. For what reasons were farmers upset during the Gilded Age?

9. What was the Populist Party?

The Changing West In response to rapid disappearance of open land, the government set aside some public land to preserve the wilderness _________________________________________ (1st national park) established in 1872 As frontier disappeared, historian Frederick Jackson Turner discussed the role it had played in American

__________________________ and raised concerns over what would come of the future without a frontier (‘93)

Excerpts from F.J. Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” 1893The Frontier Thesis or Turner Thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that American democracy was formed by the American Frontier. He stressed the process of the moving frontier line and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. He also stressed that American democracy was the primary result of “a lack of interest in high culture. . . . American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried . . . in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier.” Turner maintained that the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, “dysfunctional customs.” The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles, nor for landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents. Frontier land was free for the taking. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. He won very wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals.

Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, continuous recession, and the advance of American settlements westward, explain American development.

Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications lie the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet changing conditions. The peculiarity of American institutions is, the fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of an expanding people – to the changes involved in crossing a continent, this winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of

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city life. . . .

Thus American development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a development for that area. American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is the West. . . .

The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought. It takes him from the railroad car and puts him in the birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin. It puts him in the log cabin of the Cherokee and Iroquois . . . . Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick; he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. In short, at the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man. He must accept the conditions which it furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and follows the Indian trails. Little by little he transforms the wilderness but the outcome is not the old Europe . . . . The fact is, that here is a new product that is American. At first, the frontier was the Atlantic coast. It was the frontier of Europe in a very real sense. Moving westward, the frontier became more and more American[;] . . . each frontier leaves its traces behind it, and when it becomes a settled area the region still partakes of the frontier characteristics. Thus the advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, at steady growth of independence on American lines. And to study this advance, the men who grew up under these conditions, and the political, economic, and social results of its, is to study the really American part of our history. . . .

Since the days when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the New World, America has been another name for opportunity, and the people of the United States have taken their tone form the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has been forced upon them. Movement has been its dominant fact, and unless this training has no effect upon a people, the American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise. But never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves. For a moment, at the frontier, the bonds of custom are broken and unrestraint is triumphant. There is not tabula rasa [a clean slate]. The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet, in spite of environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restrains and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier[;] . . . breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly . . . . And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period in American history.

10. According to Turner, how has the frontier shaped American identity and democracy? What does Turner say about American distinctiveness? [See context and excerpt.]

11. Do you agree with Turner? Why or why not? What other factors may have helped to shape American identity and democracy?

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