the conquest of the far west chapter 16. societies of the far west the western tribes –pacific...
TRANSCRIPT
Societies of the Far West
• The Western Tribes– Pacific coast (Chumash, Pomo, Serrano, Maidu, Yurok, Chinook,
Ohlone) wiped out by Spanish disease
– Plains, Sioux Indians
• Hispanic New Mexico– Stephen Kearney tries to establish a gov’t in NM
with 1,000 whites that excludes the 50,000 Hispanics
The Chinese Migration Cont’d– Urban Life “Chinatowns”
• railroad completion = increase in Chinese urban population
Migration from the East– post war migration = much larger than
previous decades– Homestead Act of 1862 –
The Cattle Kingdom– long before US citizens invaded the SW, Mexican
ranchers had developed the techniques and equipment that the cattlemen and cowboys of the great Plains later employed
*Fake Smile*
The Cattle Kingdom Cont’d– Most cowboys in early years were Confederate Army
veterans…second largest group was African Americans
• The Cowboy Culture– rugged, free-spirited lifestyle romanticized =
contrast structured world of the East
Dispersal of the Tribes • White Tribal Policy
– Bad history
– “concentration” of Indian tribes in Indian territory w. “treaty chiefs”
• White Tribal Policy Cont’d– Indian Peace Commission
– Buffalo was essential to Indian way of life… slaughtered by whites
• The Indian Wars– Retaliation: originally on encroachers, later on
soldiers– Little Crow (Sioux) in Minnesota: 700 whites dead
/ 38 Natives hanged– Miners encroachment in Colorado
• The Indian Wars Cont’d– Montana and Bozeman trail
– California and “Indian Hunters”
– 1867 Peace, but 1870s tensions rise again
The Dawes Act (1877)– The Dawes Severalty Act provided for the
gradual elimination of tribal ownership of land and the allotment of tracts to individual owners
What must be understood:
Commercial Agriculture– independent farmer, self sustaining farmer,
replaced with commercial farmer similar to what industrialists were doing in the manufacturing economy
Farmers Grievances (Granger’s Farmer’s Alliances Populist Party )
– farmers generally had little understanding of world markets, thus concentrated their anger on immediate areas