Post Civil War Expansion

19th Century Westward Expansion

• Monroe Doctrine

• Manifest Destiny

• Nationalism

• Industrialization

Use these maps:http://annenbergmedia.org/biographyofamerica/prog16/feature/index.html

What were the ideologies that guided westward expansion?

How had the United States changed since the end of the revolutionary war?

• 14 new states created after the Civil War• By mid-1880s buffalo herds destroyed• Homestead Act of 1862 facilitated land settlement• 1887 Dawes Act grants citizenship and land ownership to Indians• Indians tribes lose 86 out of 130 million acres between 1887-1934•Male violent culture exaggerated in the movies (44 shootings 1877-1883)

What was the effect of the movement and the settlement of the West?

What was the major impact of the building of the transcontinental RR?

Millions of acres of the public domain was passed on to individuals and immigrants

RR Land Grants Which cities in the United States were located in the railroad land grants?

St Louis, San Francisco, Denver, Topeka, Billings, Helena, Seattle, Santa Fe, Sacramento, Omaha, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City

The Fight for the WestThe Main Idea

Native Americans fought the movement of settlers westward, but the U.S. military and the persistence of American

settlers proved too strong to resist.

• Culture of the Plains Indians

– Buffalo provided food, clothing, and shelter for the nomadic lifestyle of the Indians. They did not believe land should be bought and sold, and white farmers felt it should be divided.

• Government policy

– Instead of continuing to move the Indians westward, the government changed its policy. Indian land was seized, and they were forced onto reservations.

• Destruction of the buffalo

– The buffalo-centered way of life was threatened, with vast herds driven to extinction by reduced grazing lands and hunting for sport and profit.

How was the stage set for conflict between white settlers and Native Americans in the West?

By Treaty: After the massacre, Cheyenne and Sioux stepped up their raids. In return for closing a sacred trail, the Sioux agreed to live on a reservation. Other nations signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty and were moved to reservation lands in western Oklahoma.

By force: Stage 1 Army troops attacked and massacred surrendering Cheyenne. Congressional investigators condemned the Army actions, but no one was punished in the Sand Creek Massacre. Stage 2: George Armstrong Custer led his troops in headlong battle against Sitting Bull and lost. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was a temporary victory for the Sioux. The U.S. government was determined to put down the threat to settlers. Stage 3: The Battle of Palo Duro Canyon ended the Indian Wars on the southern Plains. With their ponies killed and food stores destroyed, surviving Comanches moved onto the reservation. Finally: The Wounded Knee Massacre when fleeing Sioux were massacred a day after they surrendered to the US Calvary. This action marked the end of the bloody conflict between the army and the Plains Indians.

What were the Indian Wars and their consequences?

What was life like on the Reservation?

The government wanted control over all the western territories and wanted Indians to live like white Americans.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs began to erase the Indian culture through a program of Americanization. Indian students could speak only English and could not wear their traditional clothing. They learned to live like Americans.

The Dawes Act of 1887 broke up many reservations and turned Native Americans into individual property owners. Ownership was designed to transform their relationship to the land. The Indians received less productive land, and few had the money to start farms. Most of the land given to the Indians was unsuitable for farming.

What caused the cattle boom?

Demand: Growing populations in the East needed food. The age of the cattle drive had arrived. Cowboys drove the cattle to towns with railroads to be shipped to meatpacking centers such as Chicago. One of the most famous cattle trails was the Chisholm Trail.

New Breeds: The Spanish were the first ranchers in the West, raising cattle under dry and difficult conditions. They cultivated the breed known as the Texas longhorn.

New Technologies: Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire, allowing ranchers to enclose grazing lands; the increase in railroad networks; and the mechanization of meat packing in Chicago transformed the cattle business into big business.

Farming the PlainsThe Main Idea

The government promoted the settlement of the West, offering free or cheap land to those willing to put in the hard work of

turning the land into productive farms.

New legislation: In 1862, Congress passed three acts to turn public lands into private property. The Homestead Act gave 160 acres of land to heads of household. The Pacific Railway Act gave land to the railroad companies to build lines. The Morrill Act gave lands to states for colleges for agriculture

Railroads: After the building of the transcontinental RR. RR Co placed ads to lure homesteaders to the West. The Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 opened unassigned Indian land to settlers. Over 50,000 people took part in the rush to stake a claim on these 2 million acres of land.

What incentives encouraged farmers to settle in the West?

Who were the groups that settled the West?Migrants

White settlers

• Middle-class businesspeople or farmers from the Mississippi Valley moved west.

• They could afford money for supplies and transportation.

African American settlers

• Some Black Utopians urged their own people to build communities.

• Some fled the violent South.

• Rumors of land in Kansas brought 15,000 Exodusters who also settled in Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois.

Immigrants

European settlers

• Lured by economic opportunity, they came from Scandinavia, Ireland, Russia, and Germany.

• They brought their farming experience with them.

Chinese settlers

• Initially came for the gold rush or to build railroads

• They turned to farming, especially in California, establishing the fruit industry there.

• Most Chinese were farm laborers because they were not allowed to own land.

What were some of the technologies that

encouraged western expansion? Farmers installed windmill-driven pumps and used irrigation techniques. They used the earth for shelter, first building dugouts into hillsides, then making sod houses. James Oliver developed a sharper plow edge. George Stockton Berry of Lindsay, California developed the steam-driven “Combine Harvester” which used one operation to cut wheat, separate grains, and remove the husks.