I N D I A N S , I N D U S T R I A L I Z A T I O N , & F A R M I N G

LOOKING WEST

INTRO. LANDS FOR SETTLEMENT

• Following the Civil War, many Americans head west

• Essential question:

• Why go West?:

• Food

• Raw Materials

• New Beginnings

• Land

• Business Opportunities

• Escape Prejudices

• Religious

• Racial

I. BIG BUSINESS

• Railroad Acts of 1862-1864

• Railroad companies receive land rights to build land in the west

• Companies make huge profits off of sold land to settlers

II. GOVERNMENT LANDS

• Morrill Land-Grant Act

• Lands set aside for agricultural colleges

• “Agricultural & Mechanical” Colleges

• University of Massachusetts

• University of Connecticut

• Texas A & M University

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL, AMHERST 1879

II. GOVERNMENT LANDS

• Homestead Act

• Offered land to American citizens or immigrants who have filed for American Citizenship.

• Offered 160 acres of land to any “head of household” willing to cultivate the land for at least five years

• Thousands of Americans take the opportunity

• Dry-Farming

• Leads to depleted soil over time

III. AFRICAN-AMERICANS

• Thousands of former slaves flee the South in the 1870s.

• Escape violence, Escape Prejudice, & Escape exploitation

• Exodusters:

• 25,000 African-Americans who moved from the South to Kansas

• They walked from the South to Kansas so they appeared “out of the dust”

IV. CONFLICT WITH INDIANS

• Following the Civil War, almost all Native Americans lived west of the Mississippi River

• Post 1862

• Railroad companies purchase lands in the West

• Great Plains are inhabited by Native American tribes

• Whites-settlers and Indians have opposing views on land use and settlement:

• Indians believe land could not be owned

• Plains Indians were “nomadic”

IV. CONFLICT WITH INDIANS

• Buffalo is Indians main food source

• Hunted by White settlers

• Railroad Companies offered hunting expeditions

• By the end of 1870s, the Buffalo had disappeared from the Great Plains

• Indian tribes sign treaties with governments for land

• Promised the entire “Great Plains” region in 1834

• By the 1870s, White settlers had infringed on land previously promised to Indians.

V. RESERVATIONS

• 1860-1880s

• US government places Indians on Reservations

• Lands that were least desirable to Whites

• Dakotas, Montana, & Oklahoma

• Many tribes fight this move in court

• Supreme Court decisions in 1884 & 1886 denied Indians the rights to become full citizens

• US government pays little attention to tribal variations

• Placed warring tribes on the same reservations

VI. THE END OF THE TRAIL

• 1881- A Century of Dishonor

• Helen Hunt Jackson

• Exposed government treatment of Indians

• 1887-Dawes Severalty Act

• Dissolved Tribes

• Gave family heads 160 acres

• Attempt assimilate as farmers

• Failed miserably

• Disease and Poverty

VII. VIOLENCE ERUPTS

• 1864

• Sand-Creek Massacre

• 1866

• Bozeman Trail Massacre

• 1876

• Battle of Little Big Horn

• Montana

• Sioux and Cheyenne Indians Kill the entire 7th Calvary led by Colonel George Custer

• “Custer’s Last Stand”

• Massacre is led by Sitting Bull

• 1877

• Nez Perce Indians

• Forced onto reservation

VII. VIOLENCE ERUPTS

• 1890

• Massacre at Wounded Knee

• South Dakota

• This event ends the Indian Wars

ROMANTICISM OF THE WEST

VIII. MINING & LUMBER

• Mining

• Chance to find gold, iron, coal, silver, oil & copper drove thousands west

• “Prospectors” were relentless optimists

• Very difficult to find anything…especially gold

• Areas of Colorado, Montana, Idaho

• Many prospectors “stake their claims…”

• Mining companies would purchase large areas of land and rent to workers

• Anaconda Company-Butte, Montana

IX. VIEWS ON MINING…

• "There is no legal objection to a pollution of the atmosphere until it results in damage to somebody, which gives him the right to formulate a cause of action or to complain. We have a perfect right to carry on a legitimate business, and if incidentally we should pollute the atmosphere nobody has the right to complain until specific damage gives him a cause of action.“

• Inter Mountain, May 19, 1909

X. LUMBER

• Timber & Stone Act 1878

• Stimulated settlement in the Pacific Northwest

• Allowed citizens the chance to buy land

• Land unfit for living, but valuable for lumber

• Lumber companies took advantage

• Companies buy 3.5 million acres of land by 1885

XI. FRONTIER SOCIETY

• Population in 1880 in the consisted of mostly men

• 2:1 ratio

• Women provided cooking, laundry, and “other services” in the mining towns

• Minorities included:

• Irish, Chinese, Blacks, Mexicans, & Indians

CHINESE IN BUTTE, MONTANA

XII. WOMEN IN THE WEST

• Women Suffrage

• Began in the west before the 19th amendment

• Wyoming is the first territory to allow women the right to vote:

XIII. BEEF BONANZA (CATTLE RANCHING)

• Transcontinental RR

• Solved meat shipment problems

• Long Drive

• Bringing cattle to RR’s from Texas

• Very dangerous and long

• Barbed wire increased difficulty

• Wyoming Stock Growers Association

• Organized to overcome obstacles of cattle ranchers

• Reality of Cowboys vs. Folklore

XIV. THE FAR WEST COMES OF AGE

• Population growth spurs entrance of 9 new states to the Union:

• 1876- CO

• 1889-90- ND, SD, MT, WA ID, WY

• 1896-UT

• 1907-OK

XV. THE FADING FRONTIER

• 1890

• Frontier closes

• Turner’s Thesis

• Setting aside land

• Yellowstone- 1872

• Yosemite- 1890

• Safety Valve Theory

• Western Cities became a sanctuary for failed farmers

XVI. FARM BECOMES A FACTORY

• High prices led to a concentration of cash crops

• Wheat

• Corn

• Use profits to buy other goods

• Mechanization increased efficiency and production

• Bonanza Farms

• Set the stage for the gigantic agribusiness we have today

XVII. COXEY’S ARMY AND THE PULLMAN STRIKES

• Jacob Coxey

• Led an “army” of unemployed to DC

• Wanted to relieve unemployment with a public works program

• Eugene Debs

• Organized the ARU (American Railway Union)

• Pullman Strike

• 1894

• Model town– cut wages but rent remained the same

• Debs leads strike and eventually imprisoned

• Federal troops used to break the strike

• AFL did not support the strikers

• “We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shops, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman Church, and when we die we shall go to the Pullman Hell.”

XVI. PRELUDE TO POPULISM

• Farmer’s alliance

• Late 1870s- goal to break grip of RR’s and manufacturing

• People’s Party (Populists)

• Emerged from the alliance

• Platform included nationalizing RR’s, telephones and telegraphs; instituting a graduated income tax,; creating a federal subtreasury to provide loans to farmers.

• Wanted free and unlimited coinage of silver

• Panic of 1893

• Strengthened the populists argument

• RR’s began downward spiral of bankruptcies

XIV. GOLDEN MCKINLEY AND SILVER BRYAN

• 1896 Presidential Election

• Republicans

• William McKinley

• Pro Gold Standard

• Democrats

• William Jennings Bryan

• Free Silver

• (16 oz. silver = 1 oz. of gold)

• Cross of Gold Speech

• Cities depended on farms

XX. CLASS CONFLICT: PLOWHOLDERS VS. BONDHOLDERS

• Election Results/Effects

• McKinley wins

• Ushers in a period of 16 consecutive years of Republican presidents and 28 of 36

• Country very much polarized

• North/East– McKinley

• Against inflation

• Wage earners and un-mortgaged farmers

• West/South – Bryan

• Debt ridden, strongly favor bimetallism to increase money supply

• Unprecedented voter turnout

• Ushers in new era of concern for regulation and welfare of labor