the american pageant chapter 26 the great west and the agricultural revolution, 1865-1896 copyright...

The American Pageant

Chapter 26

The Great West and the Agricultural

Revolution, 1865-1896

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

The Clash of Cultures on the Plains

• Post Civil War, the Great West = – relatively untamed, wild, full of Indians,

bison, and wildlife– sparsely populated by a few Mormons and

Mexicans.• White settlers begin to populate the Great West

– Indians = caught in the middle• turned against each other• were infected with White man’s diseases, • stuck battling to hunt the few remaining

bison

• Sioux– become great riders, hunters, & fighters

• Spanish introduced the horse to them• federal govt tried to pacify the Indians by

signing treaties – Fort Laramie (1851) & Fort Atkinson (1853)

• U.S. failed to understand:– that such “tribes” & “chiefs” didn’t

necessarily represent groups of people in Indian culture

– in most cases, Native Americans didn’t recognize authorities outside of their families.


• 1860s- U.S. govt intensified its efforts – herded Indians into still smaller & smaller

reservations (like the Dakota Territory)• Indians were often promised that they

wouldn’t be bothered further after moving out of their ancestral lands– often, Indian agents were corrupt & pawned

off shoddy food & products to their own fellow Indians

– White men often disregarded treaties, though• frequently swindled the Indians.


• many Native American tribes fought back– Indian vs. White skirmishes emerged

between roughly 1864 to 1890 in theso-called “Indian Wars.”

– Post-Civil War, the U.S. Army’s new mission became—• clear Indians out of West for White

settlers– sometimes Indians were better equipped

than the federal troops • arrows could be fired more rapidly than a

muzzle-loaded rifle• Invention of the Colt .45 revolver (six-

shooter) & Winchester repeating rifle changed this


• Sand Creek, Colorado: (1864)– Colonel J.M. Chivington’s militia massacred

~400 Indians in cold blood—• Indians who had thought they had been

promised immunity & Indians who were peaceful & harmless

• 1866:– Sioux war party ambushed Captain William

J. Fetterman’s command of 81 soldiers & civilians who were constructing the Bozeman Trail to the Montana goldfields, leaving no survivors• one of the few Indian victorie

Receding Native Population

The Fate of the Indians • A crisis came on the northern plains

(1875) – Indian Office ordered Sioux to vacate

their Powder River hunting grounds & withdraw to the reservation.

• On June 25, 1876: – George A. Custer & his troops were

surrounded & annihilated by Chief Crazy Horse’s Sioux & Cheyenne warriors at Little Big Horn.

• Pursued relentlessly by the army – Sioux bands gradually gave up &

moved onto the reservation– (1877): Part of both the Dakota &

Oklahoma Territories were taken away, because whites were looking for gold & still more farmland.

• Nez Percé Indians also revolted:– gold seekers made the govt shrink

their reservation by 90%– Tortuous battle

• Chief Joseph finally surrendered his band after a long trek across the Continental Divide toward Canada–buried his hatchet and gave his

famous speech saying, “From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”


• Apache =– most difficult to subdue – led by Geronimo– they finally surrendered after being

pushed to Mexico– afterwards, they became successful

farmers


• The Indians were subdued due to: – (1) the railroad, which cut through

the heart of the West– (2) the White man’s diseases– (3) the extermination of the buffalo– (4) wars– (5) the loss of their land to White

settlement.


Bellowing Herds of Bison

• In the early days, tens of millions of bison dotted the American prairie– by the end of the Civil War, there were still 15

million buffalo grazing– the eruption of the railroad really started the

buffalo massacre• Many people killed buffalo for

– Meat– Skins– Tongues– sport

• They took only one small part of their bodies (like the tongue) and just left the rest of the carcass to rot

• By 1885:• fewer than 1,000 buffalo were left• in danger of extinction• Those left were mostly in Yellowstone

National Park.

Bellowing Herds of Bison

The End of the Trail

• Helen Hunt Jackson– Wrote A Century of Dishonor &

Ramona – Creates sympathy for the Indians in

the 1880s• Humanitarians

– wanted to kindly help Indians “walk the White man’s road”

• hard-liners stuck to their “kill ‘em all” beliefs,

• no one cared much for the traditional Indian heritage & culture

The Fate of the Indians

• The Indians: – Had lost their ancestral lands– Faced an alien future of farming– Were confronted by a winter of starvation– At the same time, news of “salvation” came

from a holy man called Wovoka • predicted the disappearance of the whites• Encouraged the Ghost Dance as a ritual

to prepare for the regeneration.

The Fate of the Indians

• Frenzy of Wovoka’s Ghost Dance swept through the Sioux encampments in 1890, – alarmed whites called for army intervention.

• The bloody battle at Wounded Knee: – Erupted when soldiers attempted to disarm a

group of Wovoka’s followers; – final episode in the long war of suppression of

the Plains Indians. – Thereafter, the division of tribal lands

proceeded without hindrance. • As whites flooded the newly acquired land, Indians

became the minority.

The Dead at Wounded Knee (p. 472)

• In December 1890 US soldiers massacred 146 Sioux men, women, and children in the Battle of Wounded Knee in south Dakota. It was the last big fight on the northern plains between the Indians and the whites. Black Elk, a Sioux holy man, related that “after the soldiers marched away from their dirty work, a heavy snow began to fall…and it grew very cold.” The body of Yellow Bird lay frozen where it had fallen.

• The Dawes Severalty Act (1887)– dissolved the legal entities of all

tribes– if the Indians behaved the way Whites

wanted them to behave (become farmers on reservations), they could receive full U.S. citizenship in 25 years (full citizenship to all Indians was granted in1924)

– Irony? an immigrant from a foreign nation could become a citizen much, much faster than a native-born Native American.


• Reservation land not allotted to Indians under the act was sold to railroads.

• In 1879, the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania was founded:– To teach Native American children how to

behave like Whites (erasing their culture)• Dawes Act

– by 1900 they Native Americans lost ½ their land that they had held 20 yrs before

– plan would outline U.S. policy toward Indians until 1934 • Indian Reorganization Act would help

Indian population rebound & grow.


Mining: From Dishpan to Ore Breaker• Gold discovered in CA in late 1840s• 1858, same happened at Pike’s Peak in

Colorado.– “Fifty-Niners” flocked out there, but w/in a

month or two, the gold runs out• Comstock Lode in Nevada

– discovered in 1859– more than $340 million of gold & silver =

mined• Smaller “lucky strikes” drew money-lovers to

Montana, Idaho, and other western states– Anarchy in these outposts seemed to rule– most turned to ghost towns

• After the surface gold was found– Then ore-breaking machinery was brought

in to break the gold-bearing quartz (very expensive to do)

• Women – found new rights in these Western lands

however– gained suffrage in Wyoming (1869) (the first

place for women to vote), Utah(1870), Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1896)

• Mining adds to folklore & American literature (Bret Harte & Mark Twain).

Mining: From Dishpan to Ore Breaker

• As cities in east grew (late 19C)– demand for food & meat increased

sharply• transcontinental railroads

– Provided means to market meat to East profitably

– Cattle could now be shipped to the stockyards under “beef barons” like the Swifts and Armours• meat-packaging industry thus

sprang up

Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive

• “Long Drive” – Texas cowboys herded cattle across

desolate land to railroad terminals in Kansas

– becomes the feeder of the slaughterhouses

– Dodge City, Abilene, Ogallala, & Cheyenne became favorite stopovers.• At Dodge City Wyatt Earp & in

Abilene, Marshal James B. Hickok maintained order

Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive

Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive• railroads

– made the cattle herding business prosper – Also destroyed it, how?

• brought sheepherders & homesteaders – built barbed-wire, invented by Samuel

Glidden, fences that erased the open-range days of the long cattle drives.

• Blizzards (winter of 1886-87) left cattle starving & freezing

• Breeders began to fence their ranches & to organize (i.e. the Wyoming Stock-Growers’ Association)

• legends of the cowboys were made here, but live on in American lore

The Farmers’ Frontier• Homestead Act of 1862

– Settlers get 160 acres of land • Must live on it for 5 years, improve it, &

paying a nominal fee of ~$30.00• Or they could get land after only 6 month’s

residence for $1.25 an acre• led ½ million families to buy land & settle out West• often turned out to be a cruel

– the dry Great Plains, 160 acres was rarely enough for a family to earn a living & survive

– often, families were forced to give up their homesteads before the 5 years were up• droughts, bad land, & lack of necessities forced

them out

The Farmers’ Frontier

• Homestead Act (continued):– fraud grew:

• almost 10X as much land ended up in the hands of land-grabbing promoters than in the hands of real farmers

• Sometimes cheats would not even live on the land–They would say that they’d

erected a “twelve by fourteen” dwelling—which later turned out to be 12X14 inches


• Taming Western Deserts– Railroads such as the Northern Pacific helped

develop the agricultural West• after the tough, horse-trodden lands had

been plowed & watered, proved to be surprisingly fertile

– Settlers push further west past the 100th meridian (which = the magic 20-inch per year rainfall line = more difficult to grow crops), why?• higher wheat prices

– resulting from crop failures around the world


• How did the solve this problem?– Background: geologist John Wesley Powell,

said that little rain fell meant that successful farming needed massive irrigation

– To counteract the lack of water (& a 6 year drought in the 1880s)• farmers developed “dry farming”

– shallow cultivation methods to plant & farm

– SPOILER ALERT: over time it created a finely pulverized surface soil that contributed to the notorious “Dust Bowl” several decades later


• A Russian species of wheat—tough and resistant to drought—– brought in & grown all over the Great

Plains– other plants were chosen in favor of

corn• Huge federally financed irrigation

projects soon caused the “Great American Desert” to bloom– dams that tamed the Missouri and

Columbia Rivers helped water the land

The Far West Comes of Age

• Great West experienced a population surge, – people moved onto the frontier

• New states like Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, & Wyoming were admitted into the Union

• Not until 1896 was Utah allowed into the Union, by the 20C– only Oklahoma, New Mexico, &

Arizona remained as territories.

The Far West Comes of Age

• Oklahoma:– U.S. govt made available land that

hadformerly belonged to the Native Americans

– 1000s of “Sooners” jumped the boundary line & illegally went into Oklahoma, often forcing U.S. troops to evict them.

– April 22, 1889:• was legally opened• 1907, Oklahoma became the

“Sooner State.”

The Far West Comes of Age• 1890:

– for the first time, the U.S. census announced that a frontier was no longer discernible

• Turner Thesis– inspired by the closing of the frontier – stated that America needed a frontier

• public didn’t seem to notice that there was no longer a frontier– later, they began to realize that the land was

not infinite,– concern led to the first national park being

opened, Yellowstone, founded in 1872, followed by Yosemite and Sequoia (1890)

The Fading Frontier

• frontier =– a state of mind – symbol of opportunity

• “safety valve theory” – frontier =a safety valve for folks who, when it

became too crowded in their area, could simply pack up & leave, moving West.

• few city-dwellers left the cities for the West (they didn’t know how to farm)

• West increasingly became less & less a land of opportunity for farms– was good for hard laborers & ranchers.

The Fading Frontier

• free acreage did lure some immigrant farmers to the West—– Esp. farmers that probably wouldn’t

have come to West if land not = cheap—

– lure of West may have led to city employers raising wages (keep workers in the cities)

• cities, not the West, may = the safety valves– busted farmers & fortune seekers

made Chicago & San Francisco into large cities

The Fading Frontier

• Americans expanded west over 100s of years – trans-Mississippi west is where the

Indians made their last stand– Anglo culture collided with Hispanic

culture– America faced Asia

The Farm Becomes a Factory

• Farmers– now increasingly producing single

“cash” crops• they could then concentrate their

efforts, make profits, & buy manufactured goods from mail order companies such as:– the Aaron Montgomery Ward

catalogue (first sent in 1872) –or from Sears.


• Large-scale farmers takeover:– new inventions in farming lowered the

# of people needed to farm• a steam engine that could pull a

plow, seeder, or harrow,• new twine binder• the combined reaper-thresher sped

up harvesting– Farmers tended to blame banks &

railroads for their losses rather than their own shortcomings.


• Mechanization of agriculture led to enormous farms, such as:– those in the Minnesota-North Dakota

area & the Central Valley of CA– Henry George described the state as

a country of plantations and estates.• California vegetables & fruits

– raised by ill-paid Mexican workers– made handsome profits when sold

East

Deflation Dooms the Debtor

• In the 1880s, American farmers found ruin:– world markets rebounded, produced

more crops, & forced prices down– Paying back debts = especially

difficult in this deflation-filled time – not enough money to go around for

everyone– Less money in circulation was called

“contraction”

Deflation Dooms the Debtor

• Farmers faced annual losses– lived off their fat as best they could– 1000s of homesteads fell to mortgages &

foreclosures– farm tenancy rather than farm ownership =

increasing.• ***fall of the farmers in the late 1800s was

similar to the fall of the South & its “King Cotton” during the Civil War: – depending solely on one crop was good in

good times – disastrous during less prosperous times

Unhappy Farmers

• late 1880s to early 1890s = hard time to farm:– Droughts– grasshopper plagues– searing heat waves– Taxes:

• City, state, & federal governments gouged the farmers, ripping them off by making them pay painful taxes when they could least afford to do so.

Unhappy Farmers

• More harassment:– railroads (by fixing freight prices)– the middlemen (by taking huge cuts

in profits)• 1890- ½ of the U.S. population still

consisted of farmers– but they were hopelessly

disorganized.

The Farmers Take Their Stand• National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry

(1867)– Better known as The Grange– founded by Oliver H. Kelley – Purpose = to improve the lives of isolated

farmers through social, educational, & fraternal activities

– Claimed over 800,000 members in 1875• the Grange changed its goals:

– improvement of the collective plight of the farmer

– found most success in the upper Mississippi Valley,

– eventually, managed to get Congress to pass a set of regulations known as the Granger Laws, but afterwards, their influence faded.

The Farmers Take Their Stand

• The Greenback Labor Party – also attracted farmers– 1878, the Greenback Laborites

earned over a million votes & elected 14 membersof Congress

– In 1880, they ran General James B. Weaver, a Civil War general, but he only polled 3% of the popular vote.

Prelude to Populism• The Farmers’ Alliance, (late 1870s) = coalition

of farmers – sought to overthrow the chains from the

banks and railroads that bound them– programs only aimed at those who owned

their own land– ignored tenant farmers– it purposely excluded Blacks.– members agreed on the

• (1) nationalization of railroads• (2) the abolition of national banks• (3) a graduated income tax• (4) a new federal sub-treasury for

farmers.

Prelude to Populism

• Populists were led by – Ignatius Donnelly from Minnesota – Mary Elizabeth Lease– both spoke eloquently & attacked

those that hurt farmers (banks, railroads, etc.).

• The Alliance was still not to be brushed aside, and in the coming decade:– they would combine into a new

People’s Party (AKA, the Populist Party) to launch a new attack on the northeastern citadels of power.

Coxey’s Army & the Pullman Strike• The Panic of 1893:

– fueled the passion of the Populists– Many disgruntled unemployed fled to D.C.

calling for change– Most famous of these people = “General” Jacob

Coxey.• “Coxey’s Army” marched on Washington with

followers & many newspaper reporters. They called for:

– Relieving unemployment by an inflationary government public works program.

– an issuance of $500 million in legal tender notes

• March fizzled out when they were arrested for walking on the grass

Coxey’s Army & the Pullman Strike

• Pullman Strike in Chicago– led by Eugene Debs=dramatic

• helped organize the workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company.

– company was hit hard by the depression & cut wages by about 1/3.

– Workers struck, sometimes violently.– U.S. Attorney General Richard Olney called in federal

troops to break up the strike• His rationale: the strike was interfering with the

transit of U.S. mail (which was attached to Pullman Cars)

• Debs went to prison for 6 months and turned into the leading Socialist in America.

Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan• McKinley

– leading Republican candidate in 1896 – respectable & friendly former Civil

War – had served many years in Congress

representing his native Ohio.– the making of another Ohioan, Marcus

Alonzo Hanna, who financially & politically supported the candidate through his political years

Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan• McKinley (continued)

– conservative in business– preferring to leave things alone– platform was for the gold standard,

even though he personally was not– called for a gold-silver bimetallism—

provided that all the other nations in the world did the same• Not likely to happen

Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan• Democrats were in disarray

– unable to come up with a candidate, until William Jennings Bryan, the “Boy Orator of the Platte,” came to their rescue.

• 1896 Democratic Convention(Chicago)– Bryan delivered a movingly

passionate speech in favor of free silver. In this “Cross of Gold Speech” he created a sensation and won the nomination for the Democratic ticket the next day.

Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan• Democratic ticket called for unlimited

coinage of silver with the ratio of 16 silver ounces worth as much as one ounce of gold– Democrats who would not stand for

this left the party– Some Democrats charged that they’d

stolen the Populist ideas, and during the Election of 1896, it was essentially the“Demo-Pop” party.

Class Conflict: Plowholders Versus Bondholders

• Election of 1896:– McKinley won decisively (271 electoral

votes) – mostly from the populous East and upper

Midwest– Bryan’s 176, mostly from the South and the

West.• This election = perhaps the most important

since the elections involving Abraham Lincoln– was the first to seemingly pit the privileged

against the underprivileged– it =a victory for big business and big cities

• Election of 1896 (cont)– could be called the “gold vs. silver”

election– it was clear then that Americans were

going w/gold– Middle Class preserved their

comfortable way of life – Republicans seized control of the

White House of 16 more years

Class Conflict: Plowholders Versus Bondholders

Republican Standpattism Enthroned

• McKinley took office in 1897– was calm & conservative– worked well with his party– avoided major confrontations

• The Dingley Tariff Bill – raise more revenue– raising the tariff level to whopping

46.5%

the american pageant chapter 26 the great west and the agricultural revolution, 1865-1896 copyright...

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