• Aim: How was the West settled?

• We’ve talked about the impact industrialization had on the city, but what impact do you think it had on the west?

Settlement of the West

• US govt encouraged settlement• Homestead Act 1862 – 160 acres of land

to anyone who wanted it (and could survive the trip)

• RR helped movement out west• Advertisements in Europe

Life out West

• Harsh weather and hard work

• Insects

• Entire families helped run their lands

• Sod houses

Change in Art & Literature: Added Allure

• “Rock Mountain School”: celebrated the West on large canvases – led to tourism of the west

• Fredric Remington

• The Virginian, Roughing It, Huckleberry Finn, & the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Winning of the West

Technological Advances• Iron Plow – for thicker ground• Barbed Wire – keep cattle in• Reapers – harvest crops• Wind Mills – wells

Frederick Jackson Turner• Frontier Thesis – the existence of the

frontier has been a key factor in shaping the US

• End of the frontier – no more “good” land left

• Safety value – escape the east

• Growth of democracy –

–govern themselves

–Universal suffrage

Disappearance of the Frontier

• 1890s- no more free land

• Change in prices of crops

• People become dependant on banks

• Formation of Populist Party to help the farmers

• Aim: How did the Populist Party try to solve the problems of the farmers?

Economic Problems of Farmers

• The more they harvested the less they earned

• Borrow $ to purchase machinery and seed – when prices fell – debt because of high interest

• No more free land

• RR charge high rates for shipping

Grange Movement

• 1867 farmers try to help each other• Form cooperatives – pool $ to buy seed and tools• They urge farmers to vote and participate in

government

Success of Populist Party

• Did not win an election

• BUT bring forward ideas that major parties could not ignore

• Aim: What changes did the Populists want to make?

• Do Now: Describe the Grange Movement

Financial Demands• Coin silver – increase $ supply

• Graduated income tax

• Establish a fed loan program to allow farmers to store products in govt warehouses

Transportation Demands

• Get govt to own and operate RR

• Is this necessary?

Demands for Gov’t Reform

• Elect US senators by popular vote• Limit Pres to single term• Secret ballot• Initiative – people introduce bills• Recall – remove corrupt officials• Referendum – allow people to pass

bills with the vote

Elections of 1896

• William Jennings Bryan-Dem (pop)

• William McKinley – Rep

• McKinley wins

• 271/176 electoral votes

• 7 mill to 6.5 mill popular vote

• “Cross of Gold Speech”

•Having behind us the producing masses of this

nation and the world, supported by the commercial

interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers

everywhere, we will answer their demand 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.”

The WestThe Populists

The Right Way Is Not Necessarily The White Way

Aim: How did white settlers affect the life of Indians on the Great Plains?

• We’ve talked about the impact industrialization had on the city, but what impact do you think it had on the west?

Horses and Buffalo

• Horses Allowed Indians to become better hunters

• Nomadic warriors– Traveled to look for Buffalo– Used buffalo for everything

Destruction of Buffalo

• Rifle v. Bow and Arrow• 1865 15 mill Buffalo• 1880 600• White settlers killed them for: profit,

sport, food for migrant miners traveling west, fad, demand for buffalo leather for machine belts

Fight Removal

• Settlers move west and have conflict with the Native Americans

–Good farmland

–Intercontinental RR• Govt set up reservations

• Indians fight back

Sand Creek Massacre• Cheyenne clashed with local militia in 1864.• Chief Black Kettle, tired of fighting, planned to surrender.• Camped along Sand Creek on the way to Ft. Lyon• U.S. Army + 700 volunteer arrived.• Chief Black Kettle raised the U.S. flag - reassured his

people would be safe• Suddenly, the troops opened fire 133 of Black Kettles

tribesmen (105 women & children), were killed• Chivington defeated his actions, declaring, “it s right and

honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.”

• American public deemed it a massacre

Dawes Act1887

• Congressman Henry Dawes, author of the act, once expressed his faith in the civilizing power of private property with the claim that to be civilized was to "wear civilized clothes...cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey [and] own property."

• The Dawes Act, authorized by the President, had a negative effect on American Indians, as it ended their communal holding of property by which they had ensured that everyone had a home and a place in the tribe. It was followed by the Curtis Act, which dissolved tribal courts and governments. The act "was the culmination of American attempts to destroy tribes and their governments and to open Indian lands to settlement by non-Indians and to development by railroads.”

• 160 acres per family were allotted

• Land owned by Indians decreased from 138 million acres in 1887 to 48 million acres in 1934.

• The stated objective was to stimulate assimilation of Indians into American society. Individual ownership of land was seen as an essential step.

• In 1868 the Gov. admitted its failure and granted the Navajo reservations in AZ & NM. they rebuilt their communities, concentrating on sheep raising, weaving and silversmithing by the 1880’s their economy had stabilized and population began to increase

Sitting Bull & the Black Hills• Dakota Territory

• Gold Black Hills

• Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 Great Plains off limits to white settlers

• U.S. Gov. did not uphold the treaty Sitting Bull had a vision inspired Crazy Horse & others to plan an attack at Rosebud creek

• General Custer surprised and defeated by Crazy Horse and his men

Battle of Little Bighorn

• Crazy Horse + 3,000 more Indians, camped at the valley of Little Bighorn

• Few days after Rosebud, Custer attacked (although out numbered). Standing on a near by ridge, Custer was badly defeated

Result of Little Bighorn

• Led to outrage of the general public, and inspired thousands of cavalrymen to cover the area and force chief, after chief to surrender.

• Sitting Bull remained defiant & refused to surrender

• 4 yrs later unable to feed his people, Sitting Bull went south to surrender.

• On July 19, 1881, he had his young son hand his rifle to the commanding officer in Montana, explaining that in this way he hoped to teach the boy "that he has become a friend of the Americans." Yet at the same time, Sitting Bull said, "I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle." He asked for the right to cross back and forth into Canada whenever he wished, and for a reservation of his own on the Little Missouri River near the Black Hills. Instead he was sent to Standing Rock Reservation, and when his reception there raised fears that he might inspire a fresh uprising, sent further down the Missouri River to Fort Randall, where he and his followers were held for nearly two years as prisoners of war.

• Aim: Did the US Gov’t abuse their relationship with the Native Americans?

• Do Now: Who do you think the Great Plains belong to?

Assimilation

• “Absorption o American Indians into “white America”.”

• Indian schools some on reservations, many were boarding schools

• Proper clothes, no more native language, cut their hair, etc.

Wounded Knee

Cowboys• Myth: symbol of life in the west,

freedom, natural, rugged

• Reality: Loneliness, no family, exposure to the elements

• Origin: techniques from Mexican cattlemen, use of horses to control cattle, confederate veterans

• Generalities: young, unmarried, mostly white,

“All in all, my years on the trail were the happiest I ever lived. There were many hardships and dangers…but when all went well, there was no other life so pleasant. Most of the time we were solitary adventures in a great land…and we were free

& full of zest of darers.”

Long Drives

• Consisted of about 10 cowboys

• About 3,000 heads of cattle

• Covered hundreds of miles, over a several month span

• Had to try to keep the cattle safe

• cowboys and their cattle had to cross rivers, some times loosing hundreds of cattle along the way.

Range Wars• Sheep herders from the west coast started to move

further east to compete for grass & water

• Farmers threw up fences to protect their claims. Blocking trails, and breaking up the open range.

• Law, the government or military could not be everywhere at all times, so ranchers & farmers had to take matters into their own hands. Informal, undeclared, violent conflicts erupted

• Farmers argued that the sheep destroyed the land, and left no food for cattle to graze.

Arizona Range Wars

• “Pleasant Valley War”: between two feuding AZ families, lasted for about a decade.

• Both sides suffered several murders

• Hit-men were hired

End of the Cowboy

• Several factors led into the end of the life of the stereotypical cowboy

–Supply & Demand

–Barbed wire

–Extremes in weather

The Mining Boom• Life cycle of a mining boom:

discovery, miners flood in creating an instant town, extraction by hand, extraction by corporations, depletion, ranchers and farmers move in and establish a more permanent economy.

• Some mining camps blossomed into cities nearly over night.

Mining• The corporate miners, who were sent far under

ground overwhelmingly minorities.

• Extremely hot Death of heat stroke. Or pneumonia.

• Poor ventilation accumulations of CO2, stagnate air lung cancer or disease

• Frequent cave-ins, explosions, fire, injury/death from heavy machinery

• Until safety measure 1 in30 miners were disabled, 1 in 80 were killed

Mining Methods• Within a few yrs after a strike, most of the easily

accessible mineral deposits were “worked-out” mining deeper ores required resources & technology far beyond the means of the average prospector well-financed companies

• Hydraulic Mining: high-pressure water ripped away gravel & dirt to expose minerals devastated environment

• Hard-Rock Mining: sinking deep shafts to obtain ore locked in veins of rocks

• Mining camps violent

–Tensions between ethnicities

–Gamblers and swindlers

–Conflicts over claims

–Absence of law enforcement

•Deadwood, South Dakota Wild Bill Hitchcock