The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution

1865-1896

Culture Clash on the Plains

• 1860—Native Americans numbered about 360,000 – stood in the path of white pioneers

• White settlers undermined Indian culture – Spread diseases like cholera and smallpox– Put further pressure on declining buffalo herds– Warfare intensified among tribes for hunting

lands

Pacifying the Plains Indians

• Fort Laramie (1851) and Fort Atkinson (1853)– Marked beginnings of reservation system

– Established boundaries for territory of each tribe

• Treaty makers misunderstood Indian culture– “chiefs” and “tribes” fictions of white imagination

– Native Americans usually recognized no authority outside immediate family

– Idea of nomadic culture alien to concept of defined territory

“Great Sioux Reservation”

• Dakota Territory

• Gave up ancestral land for promises to be left alone and provided with food, clothing, and other supplies – Officials palmed off moth-eaten blankets,

spoiled beef, and defective provisions

Indian Wars

• Sand Creek, Colorado, 1864 – Colonel Chivington’s militia massacred 400 Indians

who thought they were promised immunity

• 1866, Bozeman Trail Construction – Sioux war party attempted to block construction– Ambushed Cptn. Fetterman’s command of 91 soldiers

and civilians in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains– Left no survivors

• 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie: – Gov’t abandoned Trail

General George A. Custer

• 1874: led “scientific” expedition into Black Hills– Announced he discovered gold– Sioux took to warpath

• 1876: Battle of Little Bighorn – Custer and 264 men completely wiped out by

Sioux led by Sitting Bull – US Army hunted down Indians involved in

following months

Fire and Sword Policy

• Finally ghettoized onto reservations where they could have cultural autonomy but were dependent on government

• Cheaper to feed than fight

• Ignored to death for generations

• Brought down by railroad, disease, alcohol and virtual extermination of buffalo

Bellowing Herds of Bison

• 1865: 15 million grazing in the West – Food supply of railroad workers

• Massacre of herds began with building of railroads– Slain for hides, choice cuts, and amusement

• Fewer than 1000 alive by 1885 with danger of complete extinction

End of the Trail

• 1880s saw stirring of national conscience• Helen Hunt Jackson

– A Century of Dishonor chronicled record of government ruthlessness in dealing with Indians

• Humanitarians wanted to treat Indians kindly• Hard-liners insisted on current policy of

containment and brutality – Neither respected the culture

Dawes Severalty Act 1887

• Wiped out tribal ownership of land and set up individual family heads with 160 acres

• Would receive citizenship after 25 years– 1924—citizenship granted to all

• 1879: Carlisle Indian School, PA – Separated children from families – Learned white values and customs – 1890s expanded network of boarding schools

Mining

• 1858: Discovery of gold in Colorado • 1859: Comstock Lode in Nevada

– $340 million mined from 1860-1890

• Transformation in mining industry – From independent “dishpanners” to

mechanized corporations – Brought in costly machinery and trained

engineers

Mining Opportunities

• Women found some opportunity running boardinghouses – Won vote in Wyoming (1869), Utah (1870),

Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1896)

• Helped fund Civil War, the building of railroads, and intensified conflict between whites and Indians

Beef Bonanzas

• Problem of marketing steer solved with transcontinental railroads – Cattle could be shipped to stockyards and then

meatpacking factories – Refrigerator cars perfected transportation

• “Long Drive” – Cowboys drove herds numbering in thousands over

plains to reach railroad terminals – Drive profitable as long as grass was available &

escaped Indians, stampedes, and other hazards – 1866-1888: 4 million steer moved

Unmaking of the Long Drive

• Rails that brought cattle east returned with homesteader and sheepherder

• Built barbed-war fences too numerous to be cut down

• Winter of 1886-87

• Overexpansion and overgrazing

Homestead Act of 1862

• Allowed settler to acquire as much as 160 acres by living on it for five years, improving it, and paying $30 – Land given away to encourage rapid filling of West

• Corporations used “dummy” homesteaders to grab best land containing timber, minerals, and oil – “improved” land by building 12 X 14 dwellings—in

inches, not feet!

Prairie Geography

• Windswept, mostly treeless, tough sod – Once broken, land proved fruitful, with settlers

building homes from sod

• Pushed onto marginal lands beyond 100th meridian – So little rain fell that agriculture needed

massive irrigation – “dry farming”—method of frequent shallow

cultivation that created finely pulverized surface

Kansas emigrants

The railroads provided would-be "sodbusters" with transportation to get to the land that was being opened for settlement. (Kansas Collection, University of Kansas Libraries)

Kansas emigrants

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Great American Desert Blooms

• Began to plant drought-resistant grains like sorghum

• Barbed wire, invented by Glidden in 1874, built fences on treeless prairies

• Federal financed irrigation projects – 45 million acres in 17 states

Far West Comes of Age

• 1889-1890: Congress admitted 6 states – North & South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho,

Wyoming

• Made available to settlers vast stretches of land in Oklahoma – April 22, 2869, Oklahoma opened

– 60,000 inhabitants by end of the year, made into a territory

– 1907—became the “Sooner State”

Fading Frontier

• 1890: superintendent of census declared frontier to be closed – Frederick Jackson Turner’s “The Significance

of the Frontier in American history (1893)

• Establishment of national park system– Yellowstone in 1872, Yosemite & Sequoia in

1890

“Safety Valve”

• Theory stated that during hard times, the people turned to farming

• Actuality: – Few moved out of cities during depressions – Most did not know how to farm or were

unable to raise the money for equipment – More moved from cities like Chicago, Denver,

and San Francisco than eastern cities

Farm Becomes a Factory

• Large-scale farmers tied to banking, railroads, and manufacturing – Needed expensive machinery to plant and

harvest crops (twine binder and combine)

• Mechanization drove many farmers off their land, increasing ranks of factory workers

Deflation Dooms Debtor

• Low prices and deflated currency chief worries of farmers – Not enough money to go around – The more they grew, the lower the prices,

driving them deeper into debt

• Growth of tenancy over ownership– 1880—1/4 farms operated by tenants

Unhappy Farmers

• Grasshoppers, boll weevils, floods, and droughts wreaked havoc on farmers

• Gouged by farmers from local to federal levels – Land overassessed

– No protection on world market

• In the grip of railroads– Freight rates high, sometimes lost less if burned crops

for fuel

Farmers Take Their Stand

• National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry (1867)– Enhanced lives of farmers socially, educationally,

fraternally – 1875 claimed 800,000 members – Raised goal from self-improvement to improvement

of farmers’ plight– Enjoyed political success in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa,

and Minnesota – Strove to regulate railway rates and storage fees

Greenback Labor Party

• 1878—polled 1 million votes and elected 14 members to Congress

• 1880: ran General James B. Weaver as presidential candidate– Old Granger and favorite of Civil War

veterans – Polled 3% of popular vote

Populism

• People’s Party emerged out of Farmer’s Alliance in 1890s – Nationalizing railroads, telephones, telegraphs – Graduated income tax and “subtreasury”– Free and unlimited coinage of silver

• Ignatius Donnelly (MN) elected to Congress 3 times

• Mary Elizabeth Lease

Coxey’s Army

• “General” Jacob S. Coxey– Set out for DC in 1894

with supporters

– Wanted gov’t to relieve unemployment

– Arrested for walking on the grass

Coxey's ArmyJacob Coxey's "army" of the unemployed reaches the outskirts of Washington, D.C., in 1894. Note the new electrical or telephone poles. (Library of Congress)

Coxey's Army

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Pullman Strike

• Pullman Palace Car Company hit hard by 1893 depression– Cut wages by 1/3, but did not cut rent at company town

• Workers struck and held up traffic from Chicago to Pacific Coast

• Crushed by federal troops – First time government used injunction to break a strike – Workers held in contempt imprisoned w/out jury trial

King DebsThis famous cartoon about the Pullman strike, originally published July 14, 1894, in Harper's Weekly, shows Eugene Debs, head of the American Railway Union, sitting atop a railway bridge that has been turned to cut off all rail traffic. The railroad cars behind him are labeled "fresh vegetables," "beef," and "fruit," to emphasize the perishable nature of the products that could not be delivered, and others are identified as "U.S. Mail." In the background, factories have "closed" signs on them. This cartoon, and others like it, helped to mobilize opinion against the strikers. (Library of Congress)

King Debs

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Election of 1896

• Republican candidate– William McKinley – Leaned towards hard-

money policy– Declared for gold

standard – Largely creature of

Marcus Hanna– Hanna believed in

“trickle down” effect

• Democratic Candidate– William Jennings

Bryan– Plea for silver – Inflation through

unlimited coinage of silver

– Caused rift with “Gold Bug” Democrats

“Cross of Gold” Speech

• “We will answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them: ‘You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.’”

– William Jennings BryanJuly 1896

Populist Dilemma

• Democratic majority took their platform for silver

• Endorsed “fusion” with Democrats and Bryan for president, sacrificing identity

Election of 1896 Results

• McKinley triumphed– 271 to 176 electoral votes – 7,102,246 to 6,492,559 popular votes

• McKinley carried populous East and the upper Mississippi River valley

• Bryan’s states included South and West

Consequences

• Heralded advent of new era in politics– Resounded victory for big business, big cities,

middle-class values, financial conservatism

• Heralded Republican grip for next 16 years, and for all but 8 of next 36 – Accompanied by diminishing voter

participation, weakening of parties, and fading issues of money and civil-service reform

– Replaced by concern for industrial regulation and welfare of labor

Republican Stand-pattism Enthroned

• Tariff issue rose to the front – Wilson-Gorman Tariff not raising enough

revenue – 1897: Dingley Tariff Bill (46.5%)

• Prosperity began to return in 1897

• Gold Standard Act of 1900 established backing of paper money by gold