CHAPTER 17: The Transformation of the Trans-Mississippi West

1. CHAPTER 17:The Transformation of theTrans-Mississippi West

3. Native Americans and theTrans-Mississippi West Westward migration destroyed the traditional Indian way of life. Native Americans were placed on reservations, ending traditional, nomadic cultures Throughout the mid to late 1800s, the Indians desperately, but unsuccessfully fought to preserve their traditional ways of life.

4. The Assault on Nomadic Indian Life The 1850s discovery of gold and silver in the Rockies brought 1000s of miners, and pressure on the US government to make Indian lands available to white settlement The government�s response was to establish the reservation system. Most Indians opposed this � the 1860s-1890s was a period of constant fighting between Indian tribes and the U.S. army.

5. Custer�s Last Stand Custer was sent into the Black Hills (SD) to force all Indians back onto reservations. Custer attacked a force of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians encamped on the Little Bighorn River (Montana). The Indians, led by Chief Sitting Bull, vastly outnumbered Custer�s men and killed them Most Americans, viewed the Indians as uncivilized barbarians standing in the way of progress Outraged by the slaughter at Little Bighorn, pressure grew for the US government to �solve� the Indian problem � to destroy Native American resistance. After a five year campaign to destroy the Sioux through attacks on villages and food supplies, the Sioux were defeated and Sitting Bull was forced to surrender.

6. �Saving� the Indians A vocal minority of Americans were outraged by the federal government�s flagrant violation of its Indian treaties. Humanitarians concluded that the only way to save the Indian was to force him to abandon Indian culture, settle as farmers, and become assimilated into American society Reformers established boarding schools to teach Indians trades and American cultural ways

7. The Ghost Dance and the End of Indian Resistance on the Great Plains, 1890 Desperate Sioux turned to Wovoka, an Indian mystic who promised that their lands would be returned to them if they returned to traditional ways, exemplified by the Ghost Dance The Ghost Dance movement spread throughout the Sioux, unifying Indian resistance � US military officials believed it needed to be stopped At Wounded Knee (SD), in 1890, a gun fired while US cavalry was rounding up 340 starving men, women, and children of the Sioux tribe. The soldiers retaliated with cannon fire, slaughtering 300 Indians. This slaughter effectively ended Plains Indian resistance.

8. Settling the West

14. Southwestern Borderlands

15. Racism in the Southwestern Frontier

16. Exploiting the Western Landscape

17. Mining in the West Heavy publicized stories of gold strikes drew hundreds of thousands of easterners and immigrants west in search of riches In reality, mining is a boom-and-bust economy Few become rich, most remained dirt poor Large corporations, with mechanized mining equipment, quickly pushed out solitary miners panning or digging by hand Millions of ounces of gold and silver stimulated immigration, funded eastern industrial growth, and helped move the US into the world economy Progress came at a price � the environmental cost of extracting ore was staggering (air, water pollution, and the destruction of forests)

18. Cowboys and the Cattle Frontier Encouraged by railroads eager to sell land, open-range cattle ranching was promoted as a way to get rich quick, and boomed in the 1860s and 1870s Profits to herd owners could be huge, but unstable market conditions could as easily lead to ruin Little of the profit filtered down to the cowboys on the cattle drives, whose lives were harsh and pay low Barred from many other lines of work, nearly 20% of the cowboys were black or Mexican By the 1880s, the days of the open range and cattle drives had ended � a victim of easier rail transport and competing demands upon the land

19. Wheat and Early Agribusiness The Panic of 1873 caused Northern Pacific Railroad bonds to plummet. The railroad offered land in the Red River Valley of North Dakota in exchange for its depreciated bonds Speculators bought up 10,000 acre plots, invested heavily in massive farm machinery and gave birth to � �agribusiness� Early success inspired migration to North Dakota and led to a wheat boom in 1880 By 1890, a combination of drought and collapsing prices due to world-wide overproduction had destroyed profits, leaving large numbers of both large-scale and small farms in the Great Plains states bankrupt. In contrast, agribusiness was booming in California, where fruit and vegetable giants were growing, aided by newly developed refrigerated train cars, which could ship to midwestern and eastern markets without spoilage.

20. The Oklahoma Land Rush, 1889 By the 1880s, land hungry settlers were eyeing Indian Territory (Oklahoma), demanding that the government open it to farmers In 1889 the government confiscated 2 million acres from Native Americans, and opened it to settlers. At noon, April 22,1889 thousands of settlers stampeded onto the land to stake claims. A number of earlier settlers (�Sooners�) had sneaked onto the land illegally and begun claiming and plowing the land.

21. The West of Life and Legend The American frontier was seized upon by critics of industrialization, who romanticized the west as a place where true American virtues of truth, honor, and rugged individualism still existed. The western myth ignored the role played by government, railroads, and big business in the settlement of the west. The romanticizing of the west did, however, lead to the development of the national parks system, and the first efforts at environmental conservation.