Texas cowhand, E.C. Abbott, recalling the early days of riding the trail:

“Here [were] all these cheap long-horned steers overrunning Texas; here was the rest of the country crying for beef – and no railroads to get them out. So we trailed them out, across hundreds of miles of wild country that was thick with Indians . . . In 1867 the town of Abilene was founded at the end of the Kansas Pacific Railroad and that was when the trail really started.”

Longhorns – a tough breed of cattle brought over by the Spanish. They gradually spread across Texas.

Much of Texas was an OPEN RANGE – not fenced in or divided into lots.

Ranchers added to their herd by rounding the longhorns up and burning a symbol into the animals’ hides – BRAND – to show they belonged to them.

Towns near the railroads to Towns near the railroads to market and ship cattle.market and ship cattle.

Cattle drives to these towns became a yearly event.

Markets for beef were in the north and the east.

Cattle increased in value.

Two of the Two of the largest long largest long cattle drive cattle drive trails.trails.

Chisholm Trail and Goodnight-Loving Trail

Many cowhands were

vaqueros – Hispanic ranch hands who developed many skills to use on the drives – riding roping, branding.

Eventually, ranching replaced the long drive.

Ranchers got rich when prices “boomed”.

“Boom” was followed by a “bust.” Overgrazing depleted grasslands, cattle glutted the beef market – prices fell.

Offered 160 acres of free land to anyone who paid a filing fee and worked the land for 5 years.

Brought 1,000’s of new settlers,

Immigrants

Single women (could acquire land too.)

Homesteaders

Push Factors

• are negative things that force people to make changes. (Bad things where you are)

1. Overcrowding

2. escape from poverty

3. escape religious or racial persecution

Pull Factors

• are positive things that make people want to make changes (Good things somewhere else)

1. Positive Letters

2. Newspaper or magazine articles

3. The Homestead Act

4. new start

5. Advertising by railroad companies

African-Americans who sought land further west, fearing their safety in former slave regions.

By 1881 more than 40,000 African-Americans migrated to Kansas. (Some had to return South due to lack of money.)

As the Plains farmers were called, needed new methods and tools.

Planting seeds deep within the ground where there was more moisture.

Last part of the Plains to be settled.

Congress had designated it as “Indian Territory.”

Government gave into years of pressure from land dealers and settlers’ groups and opened the Oklahoma Territory to homesteaders.

More than 10,000 lined up at the edge of this land waiting for the bugle to sound, so they could stake their claim.

Eager homesteaders that charged into the OK territory.

Had slipped in early to claim most of the best land

Shortly after the Oklahoma land rush, the government announced in the 1890 census that the frontier no longer existed.

Settlement had changed the Settlement had changed the Plains dramatically. No one felt Plains dramatically. No one felt these changes more than the these changes more than the Native AmericansNative Americans who had lived who had lived their for centuries.their for centuries.