Into the West Chp 13

Prospecting

Mining Centers: 1900

• 1) BONANZAS!!! Comstock-Nevada, over 30 years mined ~400$ in gold and silver

• Black Hills-Dakota Terr. (SD) Deadwood became a boomtown when gold was found in Indian Territory

• Colorado-Lots of gold and silver in the mountains beneath the surface, big strikes produced ~1 billion $ (today billions)

• Montana-Large amounts of copper• All these strikes put these areas on the

map and on the fast track to statehood

Mining (“Boom”) Towns--Now Ghost Towns

Calico, CA

2) Life in Mining Towns

• Boom towns sprung up overnight• Mostly men, very brutal b/c of GREED!• Not many got rich individually, people that

did well were large-scale mines, merchants and saloon owners

• Law and civil authorities were not usually around at first so vigilance comm were formed to enforce some laws & standards

Land Use: 1880s

The Bronc BusterFrederick Remington

• 3) Started on the Great Plains/Open range-Cattle left out in the wild left from Spanish & some from U.S. & French

• 4)Mavericks-Unbranded cattle up for grabs.

• 5)Cattle drives were organized to round up the cattle & drive them to the markets

• One herd have 2,500 and 8-10 cowhands• Tough life-large % were African-Amer. And

Mexican-Amer. (Heavy SA influence)

Black Cowboys

6) Decline of the cattle industry

• Too many people involved• Really nasty winters 86-87• Open range was being fenced off• Few ranchers survived, now fenced off

pastures, cowboys now ranch hands

The Range Wars

SheepHerders

CattleRanchers

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

7) Homestead Act

• FREE LAND!!!! Homestead Act ’62-For a small fee settlers could get 160 acres of land if they were 21 or head of family, had to build a house, live there 6 months of year, farm for 5 years in a row before official

New AgriculturalTechnology

“Prairie Fan”Water Pump

Steel Plow [“Sod Buster”]

8) Technology

• Barbed Wire, Dry farming, steel plows, steel wind mills, hybrid breeds of plants

• The plains was harsh, hard to plow through the tough sod, scarce water

Barbed Wire

Joseph Glidden

9) Wheat Belt (Bread Basket of America)

• Eastern edge of the Great Plains which was most of the Dakotas, Kansas, and Nebraska

• Cheap land and new farming methods made farming wheat profitable

Homesteads From Public Lands

Frontier Settlements: 1870-1890

Regional Population Distribution

by Race: 1900

Black“Exoduster”Homestead

ers

Blacks Moving West

10) Weather and other hardships

• Droughts, harsh winters, windstorms• To get through hard times farmers

mortgaged their land sometimes they couldn’t keep up their payments and lost their farms

• Sometimes they worked for the new owner or moved on to something else

• 11) The Plains Indians roamed or moved around to with the seasons and to follow food. They would cross vast distances in search of the buffalo.

The Buffalo• The buffalo or bison

was an extremely important part of the plains people’s lives.

• They used virtually every part of the buffalo from the hide for clothing, to the stomach for holding water.

• At one time, an estimated 60 million buffalo roamed the plains of the present day United States and Canada.

A buffalo can weigh up to 2,000 pounds and live as long as 30 years. Run 35-40 mph

• 12) The intro of the horse enabled the Plains Indians to become a very effective hunter. It also was important economically, politically, socially, and for sport.

Promontory Point, UT(May 10, 1869)

Railroad Construction

• 13) Instead of a century it would only take about a decade to kill almost all the buffalo and take away Indian land.

• By 1869 there were only about 800 buffalo left compared to 50 million of 1600.

• Railroad split Indian lands and nations in half and interrupted wildlife migration.

• Great for settlement and progress. Provided cheap easy transportation of goods and people.

1876-77 - Sioux War for the Black Hills, involving the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahos, under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. 1876, the Battle of Little Bighorn.

1871 - General Sheridan issues orders forbidding western Indians to leave reservations without permission of civilian agents.

1871 - White hunters begin wholesale killing of buffalo.

1871 - Indian burial grounds invaded by whites seeking bones for manufacture of buttons.

• According to the National Bison Association there are only 350,000 buffalos in North America today.

• 90 % are privately owned:• Privately owned bison - U.S. - 244,000 • Privately owned bison - Canada - 100,000 Public

herds - U.S. - 10,000 • Public herds - Canada - 3,000 • Native American herds - 7,000• Bison in zoos - 750 • Bison outside U.S & Canada - 300

• 1860-1890 Indians fought to protect their way of life, lands, and to stop the waste of the buffalo.

• Govt. solution is divided btw Dept. of War and Dept. of Interior Btw killing and reservations

• Made treaties with only certain nations neglecting others

• Govt. spends millions on each adult man Indian killed

U.S. Indian Policy???

The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great Plains

The Buffalo Soldiers & the Indian Wars

Eskimo

Aztec

DelawareIroquois

ComanchePueblo

Apache

Navajo

Cheyenne

ShoshoneArapaho

CreekCherokee

PowhatanShawnee

Choctaw

SiouxCrow

Omaha

Mohawk

OttawaNez PerceWampanoagOjibway

Blackfoot

Pawnee

Haida

Nootka

Shasta

PomoIowa

ErieKickapoo

Algonquin

CaddoAttacapa

CreeHuron

Biloxi Seminole

Inuit

Maya

Taino

Hopi

Cochimi

YumaSerrano

Paiute

Tlingit

Chippewa

Capt. William J. Fetterman

80 soldiers massacredDecember 21, 1866

14) Fetterman’s Massacre• Conflict with the Lakota Sioux in Wyoming• Lakota under Crazy Horse ambushed a small

army detachment under a Capt. William Fetterman whom was outlooking what he thought to be a small group of Indians. All 80 soldiers were wiped out.

• Sandcreek Mass-CO Clashes btw settlers/miners & Cheyenne & Arapaho, raiding 1860-64 200 settlers killed, Indians routed to camp, battle ensues, Chivington??? 14 soldiers, 200? Indians including women and kids died Truth?

The Battle of Little Big Horn1876

Chief Sitting Bull

Gen. GeorgeArmstrong

Custer

• 14) Little Bighorn-Dakota Terr. 1874 Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse lead attacks against miners & settlers. June 1876 Cheyenne & Sioux kill all of Gen. Custer’s men, only a horse survives

• Wounded Knee-Final surrender of the Sioux 1881, unknown who fired first. During “Ghost Dance” (NA revival movement 190 unarmed Indians are killed (some women & kids)

Arapahoe “Ghost Dance”, 1890

15) Dawes Act

• Broke up Indian Nations• 160 acres to farm and after 25 years they

would have full title to the land and become citizens

• Indians had no concept of land ownership and hard time adapting to new life from 1887-1943 dishonest govt agents & speculators got 86 mill of 138 acres set aside for Indians

The Dawes Act and Assimilation Indian children, seen as the key to assimilation, were forcibly taken from their homes and sent to school.

In 1887, the government instituted the Dawes Act to accelerate assimilation by dissolving the reservations and allotting land to individual Indians. Most tribes resisted, refusing to give up their culture and unique ways of life.

Native children at the Carlisle Indian school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This school forced native children removed from their home to be acculturated to white culture. Many of the children died because of bad food and conditions.

Indian Reservations Today

Crazy Horse Monument:Black Hills, SD

Lakota Chief

Korczak Ziolkowski, SculptorCrazy Horse Monument

His vision of the finished memorial.

Mt. Rushmore: Black Hills, SD

Promontory Point, UT(May 10, 1869)

Railroad Construction

Dime Novels…mostly fiction!

William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West

Show

“Buffalo Bill” Cody & Sitting Bull

Legendary Female Western Characters

Calamity Jane Annie Oakley

Farmers Organize!!!

• Farmers form The Grange to fight for protection against unfair RR rates, monopolies, govt. policy, money issue

• Women took important roles in org.• Grange is still around and important

The Populists

• 1891 the People’s Party was founded to voice the interests of farmers & little guy using the ballot box

• William Jennings Bryant was their man for the Presidency in 1896 gives famous Cross of Gold speech in support of free silver, but fails to carry Northeast/cities

• McKinley wins with hardly any campaigning around at all

Populist Platform

• Increased circulation of money• Unlimited minting of silver• Progressive income tax/Rich pay more• Government ownership of transportation

and communication systems• Legacy: By 1897 more gold in supply let

crop prices rise, free silver and populism fade. Goals live on w/ Progressive, etc.