Clash of the

Cultures•Indians stood in the way

•White man diseases

•Cholera

•Typhoid

•Small pox

•Environmental

•Hunted bison

Clash of the

Cultures•Treaties

•Fort Laramie (1851)

•Fort Atkinson (1853)

•Beginnings of reservation system

•Established boundaries for tribes

•Tried to separate Indians into 2 colonies

•North and South of white settlement

Making the Treaty of Fort

Laramie

Clash of the

Cultures•Misunderstandings

•Natives didn’t recognize authority outside their families

•Nomadic culture – didn’t stay put

•1860s – federal gov’t herded the Indians into smaller confines

•Great Sioux Reservation

Clash of the

Cultures•Reservation life

•Gov’t promised they would be left alone and provided with food, clothing, and supplies

•Moth eaten blankets, spoiled beef, etc.

African Americans• Exodusters- former

African American slaves that fled the South to escape the racial violence. Many became Farmers, cowboys, and lawmen.• Buffalo Soldiers- name

given to the 4 all black regiments of the US army that fought on the frontier by the Native Americans they fought against.

-Massacre at Sand Creek, 1864

John Chivington leads Army unit in massacre of Cheyenne

• Surprise attack at dawn kills over 400 natives, mostly women and children

-Fetterman’s Massacre, 1866

• 80 soldiers killed

-Fetterman’s small army band crushed by Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Red Cloud’s warriors

Receding Native Population

-Another Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)

-Guaranteed Sioux reservation

-Gold found in the Black Hills of the Dakotas (Great Sioux Reservation)

-Sioux try to defend

-Army sends George Armstrong Custer

•To move Sioux off the land

-Little Bighorn, 1876

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull lead warriors as Custer and all his men were killed

•“Custer’s Last Stand”

Receding Native Population

-Nez Perce Indians, 1877

-US authorities tried to herd them onto an Oregon reservation

-Led by Chief Joseph, they refused to go to reservation

•Fled into Canada with the Army chasing them down

-chased by the Army for over 1000 miles until captured

• Were told they could return home to Idaho

• Instead sent to dusty Kansas

•40% died from disease

“Hear me, my chiefs, my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more against

the white man.”~Chief Joseph

Receding Native Population

•Apache Tribes

•AZ and NM

•Led by Geronimo

•Pursued into Mexico by US troops

Receding Native Population

Transcontinental Railroad

• Iron arrow through the heart of the West

The buffalo provided the Plains Indians with more than just a high-protein

food source:

1. The skull of the buffalo was considered sacred and was used in many Native American rituals.

2. The horns were carved into bowls and spoons.

3. The bones of the buffalo were made into hide scrappers, tool handles, sled runners, and hoe blades. The hoofs were ground up and used as glue.

4. The hide was by far the most precious part of the buffalo. Native American clothing, tepees, and even arrow shields were made from buffalo hide.

Buffalo

-Buffalo Bill

•Killed over 4000

•18 months

•Worked for Kansas Pacific RR

•Fewer than 1000 buffalo left by 1885

Assimilation

-”Century of Dishonor”

Helen Hunt Jackson

Believed US treated Indians terribly and should try to live in peace with them

-Some people supported assimilation of Indians

Natives give up beliefs and way of life for white culture

Dawes Act-Dawes Severalty Act passed, 1887

• 160 acres to each family (to farm)

• Goes against land ownership beliefs

• most of land was eventually taken

• Indians had to behave like “good white settlers” for 25 years to get the title to the land

End of the Indian Lifestyle

-Ghost Dance Movement

•Dance to renew and save Native way of life from destruction

Sioux spiritual dance

Dance was outlawed

•Scared white people

•Sitting Bull performs dance, is arrested, and eventually shot

-Wounded Knee, 1890

massacre of several hundred Sioux (300)

•U.S. troops round up and unarm Sioux group

•Massacre entire group

-Indian era comes to an end

The Plains Indians

“The history of the Government connections with the Indians is a shameful record of broken

treaties and unfulfilled promises.”

“There is not among these three hundred bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the hands either of the Government or of white

settlers”

“It makes little difference…where one opens the record of the history of the Indians; every page

and every year has its dark stains.”

~Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor

Chapter 26 pt. 2

Gold

California Gold Rush of 1848 – •Within 1 yr. CA

doubled in size because of 49ers moving west looking for gold

•Colorado• 59ers• Pikes Peakers

Gold

•Comstock Lode - Nevada•Largest amount of

precious metal ever discovered.

•Big Money•Required big machinery•Corporations

Women in the Westmore freedoms than

back East

Beef Bonanzas

-Transcontinental RR•Cattle could be shipped•Long Drive

•Driving cattle to the RR•Open plains•Free grass

-Obstacles •Barbed wire•Bad weather•Overexpansion•Overgrazing

-Escape•Ranches•Winter feed• Import blood bulls•Wyoming Stock-Growers’ Association - organize

Land• Homestead Act- Federal

government awarded 160 Acres of land (for free) if you promised to stay for 5 years and cultivate it.

• Rain scarce• Tough sod sodbusters• Dry farming – shallow cultivation• Drought resistant crops

• Barbed wire• Irrigation projects

Posters such as these would promote free or reasonably cheap

land in the West, attracting more and more white settlers.

Oklahoma Land Rush

-Sooners•Federal gov’t made land in OK available

• Jumped the gun

-April 22, 1889•Legal opening•50,000 people at the line•High noon•Sooner State

Fading Frontier

-End of the frontier

Frederick Jackson Turner

“Frontier Thesis”

• Claimed that frontier captured American spirit and made America unique

-National Parks-Yellowstone 1872-Yosemite and Sequoia 1872

-Safety Valve-Hard times in the city = people move to frontier

-Not true – most didn’t know how to farm

“Now…the frontier has gone and with its going has closed the first

period of American history.” ~Frederick Jackson Turner

Farm Factory

-Cash Crop•One product per farm•Purchase what is not grown

•Montgomery Ward – 1st catalogue 1872

-Tied •Banking•Railroading•Manufacturing

•Twine binder – harvesting wheat faster

•Bonanza farms – HUGE•Agribusiness

Problems w/ one crop

-Deflation Dooms•One crop•Price determined by world market

•Static money supply•Not enough $•Prices forced down

•Machinery• Increased output•Lowered price = more debt

•High mortgages (8-40%)

-Unhappy Farmers•Grasshoppers and boll weevils•Floods and droughts•High land taxes•High freight rates

The Grange

• AKA Patrons of Husbandry

• Oliver Kelly

• Original Objective – enhance lives of farmers through social, educational, and fraternal activities (picnics & concerts)

• Ultimate Goal – farmers as a whole

• Regulation of RR

• “Granger Laws”- mid-western state laws that regulated railroad abuses

• Granger laws ruled unconstitutional in Wabash v. Illinois, 1887

“We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations

will either own the people or the people

must own the railroads.” ~Omaha Platform,

1892

Prelude to Populism

• Farmer’s Alliance

• Fight against the RR and manufacturers

• Weakened

• Ignored landless tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and farm workers

• Excluded Blacks

• Colored Farmer’s National Alliance

“That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to

any private corporation for any purpose.” ~Omaha

Platform, 1892

Populism – People’s Party

• Nationalizing RR, telephone, & telegraph

• Graduated income tax

• Federal sub-treasury

• Loans for crops stored in gov’t warehouses until prices rose

• Free and unlimited coinage of silver

• Mary Elizabeth Lease

• “Raise less corn and more hell”

• 1892 – Election

• Won congressional seats and 1 million votes for Weaver (presidential candidate)

“That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private

corporation for any purpose.” ~Omaha Platform, 1892

Free Silver Crusade

• Panic of 1893• Farmers in deep debt

• General Jacob S. Coxey

• Marcher

• Demanded gov’t relieve unemployment by public works

• Pullman Strike

• Eugene V. Debs – organized American Railway Union

• Pullman Palace Union – cut wages by 1/3

• Strike

• Richard Olney – atty, general

• Injunction – mail

• Debs – 6 months in jail

Populists promoted “free silver,” in which money would be backed by gold and silver rather than gold

alone. This would increase the money supply and lead to inflation, the rise of prices, which would

allow them to charge more for their farm products. However, each dollar would be worth less than if

backed by gold alone.

End of the Populists

-1896 election

-William McKinley-Rep.

-Puppet of Marcus Alonzo Hanna

Gold Standard• Using only gold to

back all money (worth more)

-William Jennings Bryan-Dem./Pop.

Free Silver/bimetallism

“Cross of Gold Speech”

-McKinley wins election• People fear inflation

and not being able to afford goods and services

-Populism dies

William Jennings Bryan delivering the “Cross of Gold” speech in Omaha

“We reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your

cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; destroy our

farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country…”

“Having behind us the producing mass of this nation…we 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 man

upon a cross of Gold.”

William Jennings Bryan, Democratic Convention Speech, 1896

McKinley

- Dingley Tariff Bill- High tariffs 46.5%- More $ to gov’t

- Prosperity- Rush of 1897

- Gold Standard Act of 1900

- Paper currency be redeemed in gold

William Jennings Bryan delivering the “Cross of Gold” speech in Omaha

William Jennings Bryan standing outside the White

House after losing the Presidential election to William

McKinley. Although he won many votes, Populism

eventually dies out.