The Last West & New South

The West: Settlement of the Last Frontier After the Civil War, many Americans began

settling the vast arid territory in the West that included the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Western Plateau.

The plains west of the 100th meridian had few trees & usually received less than 15 inches of rainfall a year.

The open grasslands of the plains supported more than 15 million buffalo which in turn, provided food, clothing, shelter, & tools for many of the 250,000 American Indians living in the West in 1865.

The West: Settlement of the Last Frontier By 1900, the great buffalo herds has been

wiped out b/c western lands were hunted, fenced in by homesteaders & ranches, crisscrossed by steel rails, & modernized by new towns.

The rush for natural resources seriously damaged the environment; most significantly, the American Indians who lived in the region paid a high human & cultural price as land was settled by miners, ranchers, and farmers.

The Mining Frontier The discovery of gold in CA in 1848 caused the first

flood of newcomers to the territory then a series of gold & silver strikes in what became the states of CO, NV, ID, MT, AZ, NM.

The discovery of the Comstock Lode (produced more than $340 million in gold & silver by 1890) was responsible for NV entering the Union in 1864.

About 1/3 of western miners were Chinese & native born Americans resented the competition. Miner’s Tax (CA) of $20 for foreign born miners.

In 1882, with pressure from western states, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which prohibited further immigration in to the US by Chinese laborers.

Mining Frontier

Mining not only stimulated the settlement of the West but also reshaped the economics & politics of the nation.

The vast increase in the supply of silver created a crisis over the relative value of gold & silver-backed currency, which became a bitter political issue in the 1880’s & 1890’s – Populist movement & “free silver coinage”.

Populist Movement & “Free Silver Coinage” Anyone possessing gold bullion could deposit it @

a mint to where it would be processed into gold coins for a “tax” – “free silver movement” would apply principle to silver.

More silver “currency” = inflation. They wanted a 16 to 1, silver to gold value ratio – actual 32 to 1…value of gold would diminish hurting “creditors” which were big business men in RR, factories, finance…robber barons!

This movement became associated with Populism, Unions, farmers, & fight for ordinary Americans against RR’s, monopolies, bankers.

JP Morgan vs. Cross of Gold JP Morgan and the Panic of 1893 William Jennings Bryan (NE) @

Democratic National Convention, Chicago (1896) gave the “Cross of Gold” Speech; considered one of the greatest political speeches in American History.

Supported “bimetallism”/”free silver” which would bring prosperity; farmers liked it to pay back debts with inflated $.

Farming Frontier The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged farming on

the Great Plains offering 160 acres of public land free to any family that settled on it for a period of 5 yrs; about 500,000 families took advantage of the act.

The “sodbusters” on the dry, treeless plains often built their homes of sod bricks; water was scarce, wood for fences nonexistent.

The invention of barbed wire by Joseph Glidden (1874) helped farmers fence in lands.

Sever weather, falling crop prices, cost of new machinery caused failure of 2/3 of Homesteaders by 1900.

Those who managed to survive adopted “dry farming” & deep plowing to access moisture

Closing of the Frontier The OK Territory, once set aside for American

Indians, was open for settlement in 1889 & hundreds of homesteaders took part in the last great land rush in the West. (Far & Away)

Frederick Jackson Turner’s “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893) said it promoted independence & individualism; social leveler; its closing would be harmful – no fresh start or outlet for discontent of cities.

1890 census – largest movement of Americans was to the cities & industrialized areas; dominance of rural America was on a delcine

American Indians in the West About 2/3 of western tribal groups lived on

Great Plains; nomadic tribes had given up farming of colonial times after intro of horse by Spanish; they became skillful horse riders & developed a way of life centered on hunting the buffalo.

In the late 19th century, their conflicts with US gov’t were partly the result of white Americans having little understanding of their loose tribal organization & nomadic life; the settlement of miners, ranchers, homesteaders on American Indian land let to violence.

American Indians in the West The Indian Appropriation Act of 1871

ended recognition of tribes as independent nation by the federal gov’t & nullified treaties.

Sioux War led by Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse; before being defeated, they ambushed & destroyed Colonel George Custer’s command at Little Big Horn in 1876.

December 1890, US Army gunned down 200+ American Indian men, women, children in the “battle” (massacre) of Wounded Knee.

American Indians in the West The injustices done to American Indians were

chronicled in a best-selling book by Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor; although it created sympathy, it also created support for ending Indian culture through assimilation.

The Dawes Act was designed to break up tribal organizations; divided up tribal lands into plots of up to 160 acres; US citizenship was granted to families that stayed on the land for 25 yrs & “adopted the habits of civilized life”

The New South The South was recovering from the devastation of the

Civil War; some southerners promoted a new vision for a self-sufficient economy built on modern capitalist values, industrial growth, & improved transportation.

Henry Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, spread the gospel of the New South Creed that argued for economic diversity & laissez-faire capitalism – modernized economy.

Despite the growth, the South remained a largely agricultural section & the poorest region of the country AND northern financing dominated southern industry; controlled 75% of southern RR’s

The New South The poverty of the majority of southerners was

not caused by northern capitalists – 2 factors chiefly responsible: 1 – late start at industrialization, 2 – poorly educated workforce.

Without adequate edu., the workforce faced limited economic opportunities.

Postwar econ remained tied mainly to growing cotton; b/t 1870 & 1900 the # of acres planted in cotton more than doubled

By 1900, more than half of the white farmers & ¾ of the black farmers were sharecroppers forced to borrow supplies from local merchants (crop lien) = virtual serfs tied to the land by debt.

The New South

George Washington Carver, an African American scientist at Tuskegee Institute in AL promoted the growing of such crops as peanuts, sweet potatoes, & soybeans.

The Tuskegee Institute was est. to provide a practical skills needed to be successful @ farming & other trades typical of rural South.

Segregation With the end of Reconstruction in 1877 & the

withdrawal of federal troops, it left southerners to work out solutions on their own for social & economic problems.

During Reconstruction, federal law protected southern blacks from discrimination but with the return of Southern Democrats, state laws were passed that favored segregation – Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the SC ruled Congress could not legislate against the racial discrimination practiced by private citizens – included RR’s, hotels, & other businesses use by the public.

Plessy v. Ferguson

In 1896, the landmark case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the SC upheld a Louisiana law requiring “separate but equal accommodations” for white & black passengers on RR’s & saying LA did not violate the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection before the law.

This federal court decision supported a wave of segregation laws, commonly known as Jim Crow laws, that southern states adopted – required segregated washrooms, drinking fountains, park benches, & other facilities in virtually all public places.

Loss of Civil Rights Various political & legal devices were invented to prevent

southern blacks from voting – literacy tests, poll taxes, & political party primaries for whites only.

Many southern states adopted so-called “grandfather clauses” which allowed a man to vote only if his grandfather had cast ballots in elections before Reconstruction – upheld by the SC in 1898 (literacy test)

In southern courts, African Americans were barred from serving on juries; if convicted of crimes they were often given stiffer penalties – lynch mobs killed more than 1,400 men during the 1890’s.

Economic discrimination – kept out of skilled trades & factory jobs (whites & immigrants), remained engaged in farming & low-paying domestic jobs.