His 112 Chapter 17

1. His 112Chapter 17 The West

2. Movement West • Before Civil War, many had ventured west • California was a popular destination because of the Gold Rush in the late 1840s • Thousands of newcomers had flocked to California • After Civil War many more moved westward: farmers, land speculators, railroad men, and laborers

3. Obstacle for settlers: Native Americans • Americans’ quest for personal property proved disastrous for the Indians • Picture, p.499 • Americans • Stripped the land of trees • Slaughtered buffalo for hides, burrowed into mountains looking for minerals, and dug up the soil in the Plains to build sod houses • They did so with the help of the military, railroad builders, and land laws

4. Native Americans’ traditional way of life was doomed • By 1890s, almost every Indian nation of the Great Plains had been relocated to often inferior, inadequate lands • Map, p. 494

5. Native Indian Culture • 2 Cultural Groups • Nomadic or semi-nomadic -- depended on hunting and gathering; hunted buffalo for food, hides, & sinew for bows; Shoshone, Apache, Cheyenne, Dakota,& Crow • Settled -- depended on farming and gardening; Zuni, Hopi, Navajo, & Pawnee Almost all had a highly formalized culture and religions that regarded their relationship with nature as sacred

6. We have this quote from Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Tribe in Washington Territory, 1854 • “This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself

7. There was usually the sexual division of labor • Men hunted, fished, fought in wars, and held powerful positions • Women raised children and crops; oftentimes family descent was traced through the mother – matrilineal descent • Women could also play important roles in the political, religious, social, & economic affairs of the tribe

8. Americans made treaties with Native Americans but often broke them • Indians were pushed onto smaller and smaller reservations as more Americans got possession of their land • Between 1850 and 1877, a policy of concentrating Indians on reservations accelerated • Map, p. 494

9. Indians found their hunting grounds gone and the buffalo herds destroyed • They then were forced to become more dependent on the federal government for the basics of life • However, they didn’t go quietly; they tried to defend their lands that often ended in massacre for them • P. 494,495

10. Examples: • August, 1864 – Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux attacked settlements in Kansas. The army, in turn, raided a sleeping Cheyenne village killing 100+ warriors, 800 horses, and capturing 53 women and children This was an effort by the U.S. army to convince the Indians to confine themselves to the reservations

11. 1870a - Kiowa, Comanche, & Cheyenne raided Adobe Walls, a trading post in Texas, setting off the Red River War; they were put down fiercely by the army • Most were massacres for the Indians with one exception: Battle of Little Big Horn or Custer’s Last Stand in June, 1876 • Custer and 200 men faced 1500 – 5000 Indians led by Sitting Bull • Custer and his entire force were wiped out

12. There were some Americans who felt massacres were not the answer • 1879 – Richard H. Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania • It attempted to teach Indians white American ways, so they could succeed in American society • In doing that, they destroyed the Indians culture and traditions • Picture, p. 498

13. Helen Hunt Jackson wrote in her book, A Century of Dishonor (1881), about the U.S. government’s record of broken treaties • She helped arouse the support of those looking for another answer to the “Indian Problem”, as it was called • Humanitarians helped change the Indian policy with the passage of The Dawes-Severalty Act, 1887

14. Dawes-Severalty Act • Severalty means to treat Indians as individuals, not as members of a tribe or nation • This Act: • Reversed the reservation policy • Dissolved community-owned tribal lands • Granted land allotments to individual families • Government would retain ownership of land for 25 years to keep Indians from selling land to speculators • Granted citizenship to all who accepted land

15. U.S. Indian Policy • 3 Main Features • Indians would become “more civilized” by learning how to manage their own property • Indians would lose their “barbaric” habits more quickly if their children were sent away to boarding schools • Bureau of Indian Affairs tried to suppress traditional Indian religious ceremonies and funded white church groups to set up religious schools to help Indians become good Christians

16. These policies were for the Native Americans, but they had no say in the policy • The policy was ineffective • Land allotments were rarely carried out • Most native children in boarding schools ran away • Whites continued to use violence against Native Americans • Example: Wounded Knee

17. Wounded Knee • In 1880s Sioux were experiencing more government restrictions • Meat rations were reduced • Cattle were dying Sioux turned to the popular prophet, Wovoka, who promised to restore them to their original dominance on the plains if they did the Ghost Dance They did and it helped reaffirm their own culture

18. 1890 the Ghost Dance reached the Dakota Territory • Sioux who practiced it gathered at Chief Sitting Bull’s cabin • This movement Ghost Dance Movement scared the white policemen who tried to arrest Sitting Bull • Sitting Bull’s bodyguard shot a policeman who ,in turn, shot Sitting Bull

19. This led to an outbreak of violence at Wounded Knee: • 200 Native Americans including 7 babies and many women were killed within minute As a result, Indians had to once again abandon their traditions They lived in poverty where alcoholism and unemployment were growing problems

20. The West was won at the expense of the Native Americans • 1900 - 250,000 Native Americans in U.S. • 1800 - 600,000 Native Americans in the U.S. • 1492 - 5 million+ lived in the area that became the U.S.

21. Settlement of the West • 1870 -1900 - Whites, Africans, Hispanics, and Asians settled 430 million acres west of the Mississippi • They went for adventure, religious freedom (Mormons), opportunities in farming, mining, ranching, and other jobs • Individuals, whole families, and sometimes an entire town would pick up and move west

22. Beginning in 1849 many wished to go to California or Oregon for the gold • 1849 – 1880, a half a million made their way west • They walked, rode a horse, or were part of a wagon train • Wagon trains left the Missouri River area in the spring hoping to reach their destinations before snow fell

23. It was a hard journey, and many died along the way • You could find your way along the Oregon Trail by following the grave markers • As railroads pushed further west, they began to replace wagon trains • 10 May 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad from the west connected with the Union Pacific Railroad from the east to form the nation’s 1st transcontinental railroad

24. The 2 systems met at Promontory Point in Utah and a golden spike was hammered into the ground • Many moved west to get government land • 1862 – 1890, the government tried to attract settlers to the midwest and west with the passage of the Homestead Act

25. The government gave away 48 million acres under this act • Government sold 100 million acres to private citizens and corporations • It granted 128 million acres to the railroads

26. Homestead Act • 160 acres were given to anyone who: • Paid the $10 registration fee • Promised to live on the land for 5 years • Promised to cultivate and improve the land Europeans from England, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Czechoslovakia came to America looking for land Americans in nearby states also claimed land under the Homestead Act

27. By 1900, 600,000 families claimed land under this act • However, only 1 acre in 9 went to settlers • The rest went to land speculators • Not all settlers stayed because life proved too difficult for them

28. Timber Culture Act of 1873 – allowed settlers to claim an additional 160 acres if they planted trees on a quarter of it • Timber and Stone Act of 1878 – applied to lands unfit for cultivation; valuable only for its timber and stone • Anyone in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington could buy 160 acres for $2.50 per acre

29. Speculators always found loopholes, so they could get more land for less money • Water could be hard to come by; however, using irrigation, dams, and canals often solved the problem • Railroads benefited the most from government land policies, and they became the largest landholders

30. To attract settlers to land near railroads, railroad companies • Offered long-term loans and free transportation to new territories • Advertised in the U.S. and in foreign countries • Millions of Americans and 2.2 million immigrants moved westward • Picture, p. 503

31. Life on the Plains • Scarcities of essentials • Little lumber for housing and for fuel • Water was scarce • Climate was unpredictable • Insects were plentiful • Social isolation • New farm equipment helped increase crop yields: grain binders, threshers, seeders, combines, mowers, and rotary plows

32. As per railroad advice, farmers grew a cash crop and then shipped it to market on the train • Farmers could make lots of money if demand was high • They could also lose if there was a glut of a certain crop

33. 1889 – 1906: Oklahoma land , not already settled, was sold in lotteries or auctions • Reservation land was being broken up by the Dawes Act • This was known as the Oklahoma Land Rush

34. The Cowboy • It was a tough, dirty, lonely, and boring life • Some only did it for 2 years and moved on to something else • They were of different races and nationalities: 1/5 were black or Mexican who found freedom on the trail • Nat Love was the son of Tennessee slaves who became a chief brander Cowboys were also glorified in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show

35. Ranching Frontier • Indian removal and railroad construction cleared the way for Cattle Ranching • They practiced open-range ranching • Ranchers would buy a few acres bordering a water source • Then they would turn their herds loose on adjacent public lands that no one wanted to own because of lack of water • Ranchers could then control thousands of acres while only owning a hundred or so

36. Demand for beef grew so herds grew • Ranchers felt prairie grasses would run out if fencing did not occur • This closed off the open range • Farmers began using barbed wire fences to keep cattle away from their crops; this started range wars • Farmers won

37. Grover Cleveland in 1885 tried to observe the law by removing cattle from the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation • This pushed 200,000 more cattle on already overgrazed land • Bad winters and drought killed almost 90% of the cattle in some areas

38. Mining • Many went west for the California Gold Rush of 1849 • There were hopes of getting rich quick in gold, silver, or quartz • Others went west to provide services: food, clothing, laundry • Mining towns were established and labor was unionized • Foreign miners were not welcome in California

39. A foreign miners’ tax was passed; they had to pay a $20 licensing fee • There were riots against Chinese laborers in different places in the west • Some felt the Chinese were taking jobs away from white Americans during recession times • Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 that closed off Chinese immigration for 10 years

40. The mining boom was over by the 1890s • It was miners that helped populate Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, and Oregon and bring them into the Union • These miners also poured billions of dollars into the American economy • The Frontier was declared closed by 1900