Chapter 16: The Conquest of the Far West

American History: A Survey

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Various Concepts of Property Create Conflicts of Interest

animal pelts and hides

valuable minerals

cattle and grazing territory

timber

transportation routes

oil

water

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To study the history of the American West, you will need a to deal with multiple points of view:

Conflict: Settlers and Native Americans

Conflict: among and factions within tribes

Conflict: Miners and farmers

Conflict: Ranchers and Free Grazers (open range)

Conflict: (the image of self reliance and rugged individualism vs. resentment of the federal government for not helping enough)

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United States: Population Distribution

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Summarize this in one sentence:

“If Hollywood wanted to capture the emotional center of Western history, its movies would be about real estate. John Wayne would have been neither a gunfighter nor a sheriff, but a surveyor, speculator, or claims lawyer. The showdowns would occur in the land office or the courtroom; weapons would be deeds and lawsuits, not six-guns. Moviemakers would have to find some cinematic way in which proliferating lines on a map could keep the audience rapt.” -Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (1987)

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United States, 1860s

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Push and Pull Factors Many are looking for new economic opportunities in the West

Key Concept 5.1 (IIB)

Push Factors Pull Factors joblessness after the Civil

War, no available land, little opportunity

business failures

religious repression (Mormons moving to present-day Utah)

opportunity to own land

Homestead Act

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Gold Rushes

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Exodusters Key Concept 5.1 (IIB)

After the Civil War, thousands of African Americans moved westward to escape the violence and exploitation that followed Reconstruction.

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THE HOMESTEAD ACT OF 1862 KEY CONCEPT 5.1 (IIB)

The Homestead Act offered 160 acres of land to anyone

who met these requirements.

Settlers had to be at least 21 years old or the head of a

family.

Settlers had to build a house and live on the land

at least six months each year.

Settlers had to be American citizens or immigrants who

had filed for citizenship.

Settlers had to farm the land for five consecutive

years.

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Settlement of the Great Plains

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Government Policies and the West

The Homestead Act, the Morrill Land-Grant Act, and various government subsidies to railroads are all examples of government policies that expanded the amount of land available to railroads and settlers.

Drawing on methods used to defeat the Confederacy, Civil War generals like Philip H. Sheridan set out to destroy the foundations of the Indian economy – villages, horses, and especially the buffalo.

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Large-Scale Agriculture

The future of western farming ultimately lay with giant agricultural enterprises relying heavily on irrigation, chemicals, and machinery – investments far beyond the means of family farmers.

Bonanza Farms: no single family could do all the work required on irrigated farms – only cooperative, communal farming could succeed.

“California is not a country of farms, but…of plantations and estates,” wrote journalist Henry George in 1871, urging the government to take action against “land monopoly” and to “give all men an equal chance” to achieve economic independence.

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Transcontinental Railroad

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The Transcontinental Railroad

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Transcontinental Railroads

Time Zones: In 1883, the railroads adopted a national system of time zones to improve scheduling.

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brought a tidal wave of troops, farmers, miners, and cattlemen to the Great Plains

created towns (and markets) along the railroad routes (and increased demand for iron and steel)

played a key role in the near-extinction of the buffalo herds and dealt a devastating blow to tribal culture (helped force Native Americans onto reservations)

The Railroads: Consequences for the Great Plains

Key Concepts 5.1 (IIC) and 6.3 (IIA)

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The Politics of the Gilded Age

The railroad companies used the land grant as collateral to fund construction; and to sell land to pay off debts. The land was better than free. The directors knew where the tracks would go, so they bought up prime land ahead of demand and then sold it at profit to retire the company’s debt and enrich themselves.

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The relationship between people and the land: stewardship or ownership?

“During the ninety-five years between the legal founding of America on July 4, 1776, and the abandoning of treaty making with the Indians by the U.S. Congress Appropriations Act of March 3, 1871, the United States ratified 371 treaties with American Indian nations. In all cases the treaties were international instruments executed between sovereign nations. Throughout the following century and to the present day all 371 treaties have been violated, broken, ignored, or otherwise abrogated by the United States.”

- Blood of the Land: The Government and Corporate War Against the American Indian Movement (1982)

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Assimilation or annihilation? Key Concept 6.2 (IIC)

Chief Joseph Geronimo

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Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1876

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A Native American Perspective

“The most popular and enduring subject of Indian humor is, of course, General Custer. There are probably more jokes about Custer and the Indians then there were participants in the battle. All tribes, even those thousands of miles from Montana, feel a sense of accomplishment when thinking of Custer. Custer binds together implacable foes because he represented the Ugly American of the last century and he got what was coming to him.”

-Custer Died For Your Sins (1969)

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Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor

Written by Helen Hunt Jackson, this book aroused public awareness of the federal government’s long record of betraying and cheating Native Americans.

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The Dawes Act of 1887 Key Concepts 5.1 (IIC) and 6.2 (IIC)

Goals Consequences Inspired in part by Century

of Dishonor, the Dawes Act was a misguided attempt to reform the government’s Native American policy.

The Dawes Act dismantled the Native American concept of shared land in favor of the principle of private property.

By 1900, Indians had lost 50 percent of the land they had held just two decades earlier.

The forced-assimilation doctrine of the Dawes Act remained the cornerstone of the governments’ official Indian policy for nearly half a century.

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The Ghost Dance Key Concept 6.2 (IIC)

The dance was a sacred ritual expressing a vision that the buffalo would return and White civilization would vanish.

The army attempted to destroy it at the so-called Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890, fearing that the ceremony would cause an uprising.

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Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890 Key Concept 6.2 (IIC)

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Indian Citizenship Key Concept 5.1 (IIC)

Western courts ruled that the citizenship rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not apply to them, and in Elk v. Wilkins (1884) the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, even thought John Elk had left his tribe in Oklahoma and lived among white settlers in Nebraska. The Court questioned whether any Indian had achieved the degree of “civilization” required of American citizens.

By 1900, roughly 50,000 Indians had become American citizens by accepting land allotments under the Dawes Act. Many more would have to wait until 1919 (for those who fought in World War I) and 1924, when Congress made all Indians American citizens.

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Indian Treaties and Citizenship Key Concepts 5.1 (IIC) and 6.3 (IIA)

Back in the 1830s, the U.S. Supreme Court had declared Indians no longer sovereign but rather “domestic dependent nations.” On a practical basis, however, both the U.S. Senate and agents in the field continued to negotiate treaties as late as 1869. Two years later, Congress passed a bill to abolish all treaty making with Indians.

Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903) that Congress could make whatever Indian policies it chose, ignoring all existing treaties. Indians were henceforth wards of the government. Rulings such as Lone Wolf remained in force until the New Deal of the 1930s.

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The Cattle Boom

Ranchers and other entrepreneurs used the opportunity to drive cattle in Texas north to railheads in Kansas to sell to northern markets.

One reason for the cattle industry boom was the large supply of wild cattle in Texas and the Southwest.

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The Cattle Boom

The expansion of the railroad contributed to the cattle ranching boom. However, the development of the railroads also put an end to the long cattle drives.

An increase in the demand for beef occurred because there was an increase in the population and wealth in the northern urban areas.

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Klondike Gold Rush, 1896

Gold was found along the Yukon River and caused the largest gold rush in North American history.

Many people, after being hit hard by the Panic of 1893, decided to try their luck panning for gold.

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Effects of Western Settlement Key Concept 5.1 (IIB,C)

Towns/cities grew around mining, farming, and ranching

People migrated westward in response to the Homestead Act and other incentives

Overgrazing and erosion occurred due to increased human activity in the west

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The Frederick Jackson Turner Thesis

In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave a celebrated lecture, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in which he argued that on the western frontier the distinctive qualities of American culture were forged: individual freedom, political democracy, and economic mobility.

Turner argued that the existence of cheap, unsettled land had played a key role in making American society more democratic, and that the frontier helped create a strong, individualistic American spirit. According to Turner, the frontier played a key role in stimulating American nationalism and individualism.

But Turner seemed to portray the West as an empty space before the coming of white settlers.

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AP U.S. History Tip

According to the historian Frederick Jackson Turner, the frontier helped shape the democratic attributes of the American character and culture. In his famous 1893 essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” Turner put forth the thesis that as Americans moved to the West, they had consistently regenerated the societies and cultures they had previously created in the East. In the process, they had cultivated a unique American system based on democratic values and individualism, Turner’s thesis has prompted considerable discussion between historians who support his view and those who challenge it. Keep this in mind should you be presented with a College Board free-response question that deals with topics such as Manifest Destiny and the New Imperialism of the late nineteenth century.

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What was the primary motivation for the Kansas Exodus of many African-Americans to the West following the Civil War?

(A) Finding employment as sharecroppers

(B) Escaping the racial tensions of the South

(C) Finding employment in railroad construction

(D) Creating an independent state for African-Americans

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