The WestExploiting An Empire inthe Late-19th Century

Horace Greeley’s Mantra

“Go West, young man,

go West!”

“An almost unbroken stream of emigrants from horizon to horizon”

• Americans moved West without compunction or pang of conscience

• They believed that God prospered their enterprises

The “Great Plains”**• Rich soil

• Almost treeless, flat sea of grassland and prairie

• Rainfall of 15 inches per year—not enough to support extensive agriculture

• Climatic extremes

• Buffalo bonanza—some 13-15 million lived on the Plains 16—D & E

Climatic Extremes**• Hot summers and

grasshopper plagues• Grass fires in fall• Severe cold in winter

with “Northers” and blizzards

• Floods from melting snow in spring

Great Plains Buffalo

Some 13-15 million lived on the Great Plains**

Commemorated on an earlier

version of our nickel

Around 66% of the Native Americans lived on the Great

Plains—most were:• Nomadic**

• Warlike**

• Dependent on buffalo to preserve their culture

• Dependent on horse

Dependent on buffalo to preserve their culture

• Hides for teepees, blankets, robes, and clothes

• Sinew and tendon for thread and bowstrings

• Bones for tools • Horns for eating utensils• Dung for fuel• Tongue for hairbrush • Hooves boiled and made into glue

Crushing of Native American Culture 16—E

• Indian Removal Policy of President Andrew Jackson (1830s)

Laramie, Wyoming—1851**

• Treaty to contain Indians to certain assigned areas

• Neither Indians nor U.S. government could enforce

• Indians fought against people who regularly broke their promises to them—U. S. military mercilessly struck back Thomas Fitzpatrick,

architect of the Laramie Treaty

The Great Sioux War of 1865-1867**

• An Indian reaction against the invasion of gold miners

• Congressionally created Peace Commission (four civilians and three generals) decided on policy of small reservations to isolate and eventually civilize Native Americans

• Policy drove Indians off old hunting grounds and locked them into poverty and isolation

Crazy Horse—a typical Sioux Braves who

responded violently to the invasion of the Black Hills

by gold-rushers**

The “New Indian Policy” of the 1860s • Confine Indians

to reservations

• Continuing conflict

• Corruption in Bureau of Indian Affairs**

George Armstrong

Custer

Sitting Bull

Crazy Horse

Battle of the Little Big Horn—June 26, 1876

Chief Joseph and the Nez Percé

• In 1877, they tried to flee across 1,321 miles from the reservation to Canada

• They defeated a pursuing army but ran out of food, horses, and ammunition

• Upon surrender, Chief Joseph declared his immortal words, “I will fight no more forever.”**

Wounded Knee—December 29, 1890**

• Restless Teton Sioux of South Dakota revived the practice of Ghost Dances

• The U.S. Army intervened to stop the dancing

• The Seventh Cavalry caught retreating Indians and took them to an army camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota

• A short fired in this camp prompted soldiers to open fire with machine guns resulting in the death of some 200 Indian men, women, and children

The Buffalo Holocaust• 1860s—food for

railroad crews • 1870s—Eastern

market for buffalo robes; 2-3 million hides sold per year

• Of the 13-15 million buffalo in 1860 only a few hundred left by 1900

The Recovery of the buffalo population today

Calls for reform of American Indian Policy• Susette La Flesche—an Omaha

Indian—drew attention to Indian grievances through writings & lecture tours**

• Helen Hunt Jackson wrote A Century of Dishonor (1881)—outlined broken treaties between U. S. & Indians and Ramona (1884)—the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of Indian policy

The Dawes Act of 1887• Implied Indian ways

were inferior to white ways

• Aimed to bring Indians into mainstream of American life by making them live like the white man

• The Indians resistedSenator Henry

Dawes

Settlement of the West

• Adventure

• Escape from drab routine of factory life

• Better health

• Escape of religious persecution

• To improve one’s lot in life—to strike it rich

Motives to Migrate

Government Incentives—Homestead Act of 1862**

• Small fee ($10) gets160 acres of government land to homestead (too small for the dry climate; amount was increased in 1909 to 320 acres and again in 1916 to 640)

• 20% to small farmers—rest of land to speculators • 600,000 farmers claimed by 1890 • The government gave away some 48 million acres

under this Act• Corporations and individuals purchased another

100 million acres • 128 million acres went to railroad countries

A Homestead Cabin on the Frontier

The Oklahoma Land Rush**

• President Benjamin Harrison opened the Oklahoma District at noon on April 22, 1889

• Some 100,000 people participated in the land rush for homesteads

• “Boomers” or “Sooners” were those who jumped the gun and got there before the official race began (cf. Far and Away) by sneaking through the border patrols and stake a claim on the best land early

Mining the American West 16—G

• California Gold Rush of 1849—Sutter’s Mill

• The Comstock Lode—silver and some gold worth about $300 million near Virginia City** (right in 1877)

Who came—The Strong & Youthful

• Prospectors out to get rich • Claim jumpers • Gamblers

• Saloon keepers • Sellers of supplies (the ones

who made the most money)** • Stanford and Huntington

became wealthy through their general stores

Leland Stanford

Conditions in Early Mining Towns

• Poor, inadequate housing

• Lawlessness—vigilante justice (self-appointed law enforcement = a short-term Solution)

• Ghosts towns after deposits played out

Cowboys and Cattle Trails—the Financial possibilities of the open

range 16—C 1• Joseph G. McCoy—the man who

conceived the idea of taking cattle to the railhead in Kansas to the market in Chicago

• Made possible transporting cattle from the Great Plains to the

•Population centers of the East•Texas price = $3-5 per cow vs. Railhead price = $30-50**

Cattle Trails

•Western Trail•Goonight-Loving Trail•Chisolm Trail•Sedalia and Baxter Springs Trail

**Cattle “Bust” 16—C• Overgrazing of the plains

(note competition for grazing land between cattle & sheep)

• Conflicts, quarrels over land & water rights

• Theft of cows from open herds—led to barbed wire fencing around 1874

• Weather—winters of 1885-1886 & 1886-1887 brought blizzards & sub-zero temperatures

Cattle ranching becomes “Big Business” 16—C

• Fenced land & barbed wire

• Wells to protect against dry weather

• Hay in tough winter months

By the spring of 1887, 80-90% of the cattle had died—the last roundup on the

northern range took place in 1905

Closing of the American Frontier• The Superintendent of

Census, in 1890, declared that there is hardly a “frontier line” any longer 16—E & F

• Frederick Jackson Turner—recommended that, with the “closing of the American frontier,” the U. S. turn to trade

In Turner’s view, the settlement process had shaped U.S. “customs and character; gave rise to independence, self-confidence, and individualism; and fostered invention and adaptation.”

Later historians challenged Turner’s thesis, arguing that family and community were also important in development of the

frontier.

Omission of Contributions** • Native Americans 16—E• Chinese miners and laborers• Mexican herdsmen 16—C 2

The vaqueros developed techniques

such as branding,

roundups, and roping**

The West--America’s First Empire