A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES - Weebly...Copyright ©2011, ©2008 by Pearson Education, Inc.The American Journey: A History of the United States All rights reserved. , Brief Sixth

Copyright ©2011, ©2008 by Pearson Education, Inc.

All rights reserved.

The American Journey: A History of the United States, Brief Sixth Edition

Goldfield • Abbott • Argersinger • DeJohn Anderson • Barney • Weir • Argersinger

THE AMERICAN JOURNEY A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Brief Sixth Edition

Chapter

Transforming the West

1865-1890

19





Transforming the West

1865-1890

• Subjugating Native Americans

• Exploiting the Mountains: The Mining

Bonanza

• Using the Grass: The Cattle Kingdom

• Working the Earth: Homesteaders and

Agricultural Expansion

• Conclusion





A harmonious image of western expansion and

railroad construction





Learning Objectives

• What were the main objectives of federal

Indian policy in the late nineteenth

century?

• How did mining in the West change over

the course of second half of the nineteenth

century?

• What factors contributed to the

development of the range cattle industry?





Learning Objectives (cont'd)

• How did new technology contribute to the

growth of Western agriculture?





Subjugating Native Americans





Tribes and Cultures

• Throughout the West, Native Americans

had adapted their lifestyles and cultures to

the environment. The most numerous

groups lived on the Great Plains and the

Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and

Comanches were the largest.

• All tribes stressed community welfare over

individual interest.





Tribes and Cultures (cont'd)

• White and Native American values were

incompatible.





The joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific

railroads





Federal Indian Policy

• In the 1830s, the federal government

policy was to separate whites and Indians,

moving Native Americans west of the

Mississippi River.

• Expanding white settlement devastated

the Native Americans who already were

competing with each other for limited

resources on the Plains.





Federal Indian Policy (cont’d)

• By the early 1850s, white settlers sought

to occupy Indian territory and the land for

the railroad further cut into Indian land.

• The federal government implemented the

reservation system to relocate tribes,

promising annual provisions in return.





MAP 19–1 Indian Land Cessions, 1860–1894





Warfare and Dispossession

• Larger tribes resisted the U.S. government

plan and warfare swept the West from the

1850s to the 1880s.

• White aggression sometimes led to the

massacres.

• The Treaty of Laramie in 1868 was one of

the few times Native Americans forced

whites to retreat.





Warfare and Dispossession (cont'd)

• The coming of the railroad triggered

another war and the destruction of the

buffalo laid waste to the food supply of

many Native American tribes.

• The defeat of the Sioux and the Nez Perce

in the 1870s and the Apaches in the 1880s

largely ended Indian resistance in the

West.






Sand Creek Massacre

- The near annihilation in 1864 of Black Kettle’s

Cheyenne band by Colorado troops under

Colonel John Chivington’s orders to “kill and scalp

all, big and little.”






Treaty of Fort Laramie

- The treaty acknowledging U.S. defeat in the Great

Sioux War in 1868 and supposedly guaranteeing

the Sioux perpetual land and hunting rights in

South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana.

Battle of the Little Bighorn

- Battle in which Colonel George A. Custer and the

Seventh Cavalry were defeated by the Sioux and

Cheyennes under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in

Montana in 1876.





A hide painting depicting the Army’s 1870 winter

attack





Life on the Reservation:

Americanization

• Taking Native American land was

considered the first step in requiring Native

Americans to adopt white ways. Education

and religion were the vehicle for this

change often supplemented by military

force.

• In 1884, a criminal code made it illegal for

Native Americans to practice their tribal

religion.






Americanization (cont’d)

• Off-reservation boarding schools isolated

Indian children as they were taught white

ways.

• The Dawes Act of 1887 divided tribal lands

among individuals with disastrous results.

Wounded Knee Massacre

- The U.S. Army’s brutal winter massacre in 1890 of

at least two hundred Sioux men, women, and

children as part of the government’s assault on

the tribe’s Ghost Dance religion.






Americanization (cont’d)

Dawes Act

- An 1887 law terminating tribal ownership of land

and allotting some parcels of land to individual

Indians with the remainder opened for white

settlement.





Indian children sit under the U.S. flag





Exploiting the Mountains:

The Mining Bonanza





Rushes and Mining Camps

• Migrants to the West sought wealth by

exploiting the region’s natural resources.

Mining was the first stage of development

and often was characterized by rushes.

• As prospectors flocked to areas where

gold or silver had been found, ramshackle

mining camps emerged with an

overwhelmingly male population.





Rushes and Mining Camps (cont'd)

• The few women in the camps had limited

employment options with prostitution being

the largest source of jobs.

• Saloons were prevalent in mining camps.

Violence was frequent and often

associated with ethnic and racial

differences.





MAP 19–2 Economic Development of the West:

Railroads, Mining, and Cattle, 1860–1900





Opening restaurants and boarding houses, some

women earned money from their domestic skills in

mining camps.





Labor and Capital

• New technology made mining a complex,

expensive operation.

• Corporate mining devastated the

environment and transformed miners into

wage workers who worked under

hazardous conditions for low pay.





Labor and Capital (cont’d)

• Miners organized unions for protection.

The unions functioned as benevolent

societies, helped establish hospitals, set

up union halls that served as social and

education centers, and lobbied for mine

safety laws.

• Mining companies tried to crush unions

and labor relations often turned violent as

strikes and union busting occurred.





Chinese miners in Idaho operate the destructive

water cannons





Using the Grass:

The Cattle Kingdom





Cattle Drives and Cow Towns

• After the Civil War, industrial expansion

and the railroad enlarged the market for

Texas beef. Texans drove their cattle up

the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, Kansas.

Between 1867 and 1870, one and one-half

million cattle reached Abilene.

• The cattle trade simulated urban

development in cow towns, but not all

thrived.





Cattle Drives and Cow Towns (cont'd)

Chisholm Trail

- The route followed by Texas cattle raisers driving

their herds north to markets at Kansas railheads.





Rise and Fall of Open-Range Ranching

• Indian removal and the extension of the

railroad expanded cattle ranching to much

of the West. Ranchers used open range

for grazing but high profits attracted

corporate ranchers.

• Large companies quickly dominated the

cattle industry.





Rise and Fall of Open-Range Ranching

(cont’d)

• Overgrazing causing environmental

damage, droughts, and blizzards

destroyed the open-range cattle industry.





Cowhands and Capitalists

• The work of the cowboy was hard, dirty,

seasonal, tedious, often dangerous, and

paid low wages.

• Many early cowboys were white

Southerners who did not return to the

South. About 25 percent of the cowboys

were African Americans. Mexicans

developed most of the tools, trapping, and

techniques of the cowboy trade.





Cowhands and Capitalists (cont'd)

• The rise of corporate ranching led to

permanent employment, but traditional

cowboy rights often disappeared.

• Cowboys responded to change by forming

unions and striking.





Cowboys gather around the chuck wagon at the XIT

Ranch in Texas





Working the Earth:

Homesteaders and Agricultural

Expansion





Settling the Land

• The Homestead Act of 1862 stimulated

agricultural settlement. But restrictions

limited access to public land and most

settlers in the Great Plains purchased their

land.

• Western settlement was promoted by

newspapers, land companies, steamship

companies, and, most importantly, railroad

advertising and promotional campaigns.





Settling the Land (cont'd)

• Migrants flooded into every area of the

West. Various ethnic groups established

ethnic communities in specific areas.

• In the Southwest, the large infusion of

Anglos undermined traditional Hispanic

society.

Homestead Act

- Law passed by Congress in 1862 providing 160

acres of land free to anyone who would live on the

plot and farm it for five years.





MAP 19–3 Population Density and

Agricultural Land Use in the Late

Nineteenth Century





FIGURE 19–1 The Growth of Western Farming,

1860–1900





Government Land Policy





Mexican-American ranch family





Home on the Range

• The environment of the Great Plains

presented challenges to settlers.

• Women’s work included transporting

water, often over long distances. Some

women farmed the land themselves.

Married women operated the family farm

when their husbands worked elsewhere.





Home on the Range (cont'd)

• Plains settlers, especially women,

experienced isolation and loneliness. As

the local population grew, women worked

to form communities by organizing social

activities and institutions.





Sunday school meeting in Custer County, Nebraska





Farming the Land

• To develop the agricultural potential of

their land, farmers had to make substantial

adjustments that required using scientific,

technological, and industry advances.

• Barbed wire shielded crops from livestock.

• Dry farming helped alleviate the aridity of

the West, while mechanization and

technological innovation allowed large-

scale farming practices to develop.





Farming the Land (cont’d)

• Western commercial farmers depended on

the high demand of the outside markets.

But conditions varied making farming

problematic and led to foreclosures and

farmer protests.





Indian protesters

temporarily seized

control of the

Bureau of Indian

Affairs building in

Washington, D.C.,

in 1972.





A government boarding school, designed to isolate

Indian youth from their culture, looms over the old

tribal lodgings on the Pine Ridge Reservation





Conclusion





Conclusion

• In a few decades, millions of people

migrated to the West, transforming the

region at the expanse of Native

Americans.

• The new conditions stimulated discontent

and reflected the fact that western

developments connected to national urban

and industrial processes.

Documents

A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES - Weebly...Copyright ©2011, ©2008 by Pearson Education, Inc.The American Journey: A History of the United States All rights reserved. , Brief Sixth