CH 26: GREAT WEST AND AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION

INDIANS EMBATTLED IN THE WEST• After the Civil War, Great West was still wild and untamed

• Full of Indians, bison, wildlife, very few people, and still wonders to see

• As white settlers move into the West, Indians are caught in the middle

• They are turned against each other, infected with disease, and forced to find the dwindling bison herds for food

• The Sioux even took a page out of the white man playbook

• They displaced the Chippewas in the midwest and then justified their actions that the same had been done to them

• Throughout the short history of white man/Indian contact, the Indians had become great fighters and horse riders

• In attempts to pacify the Indians, various treaties had been signed with the chiefs

• Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) and Treaty of Fort Atkinson (1853)

• The government failed to see that most tribes didn’t operate with a unified ‘chief’ but rather a family head that operated as the leader

• During the 1860s, the government tried to intensify their efforts to contain Indians

• They were placed onto reservations, such as the Dakota Territory

• Usually, Indians were promised they wouldn’t be bothered again after moving

• And they were often sold inferior products and bad food by the Indian agents who worked with them

• Treaties were disregarded and Indians were most of the time ripped off

• Out of frustration, many Native tribes began to attack whites

• The Indian Wars (1868-1890) was the collective group of these skirmishes

• Often, the Indians were better equipped than the federal army fighting them

RECEDING NATIVE POPULATION• 1864, Sand Creek, Colorado

• Col JM Chivington’s militia massacred about 400 Indians in cold blood

• 1866, a Sioux war party ambushed Capt. William J Fetterman’s command of 81 soldiers and civilians who were constructing the Bozeman Trail to the Montana gold fields. They left no survivors

• Black Hills of South Dakota, Col Custer had found gold there and a gold rush was created.

• The Sioux reservation was in the middle of the land, which caused the Sioux, led by Sitting Bull, to go on the war path

• Custer and the Sioux fought at Little Big Horn (1876) and all of Custer’s men were wiped out

• The Nez Pierce Indians also revolted against a gold rush on their lands had caused the federal government to shrink their lands in Montana by 90%

• The Nez Pierce battles of 1877 were led by Chief Joseph and eventually surrendered after trying to seek asylum in Canada

• The most difficult tribes to subdue were the Apache in the southwest (Arizona and New Mexico)

• They were led by Geronimo but eventually surrendered to the US army in 1886

• Three factors defeated the Indians:

• Railroad which went right through lands

• Disease

• Near extermination of the buffalo

BELLOWING HERDS OF BISON• Prior to western settlement, tens of millions of Bison

lived on the American prairie

• By end of the Civil War, there was still about 15 million grazing, but the increase in rail road production meant that a massacre was coming

• Many killed buffalo for their meat, skins, or tongues. Many more however killed them for sport or just for a single use

• The rest would be left to rot

• By 1885, fewer than 1,000 buffalo were left and in threat of extinction.

END OF THE TRAIL• Missionaries often attempted to get the Indians to convert

• 1884, they convinced the government to outlaw various rituals

• One they wanted to get rid of was the ‘Ghost Dance’ which the Native Americans believed would bring about their messiah, their ancestors and animals that had left, and also the white man would disappear

• The Lakota Sioux still practiced that, but had not been violent towards others

• At the Battle of Wounded Knee of 1890 (Massacre), 200 Lakota were killed and several dozen wounded

• Dawes Severalty Act of 1887

• Promised full US citizenship to Native Americans who started behaving more ‘American’

• Dissolved traditional tribes and forced them to live on parcels of land (160 acres for a family)

DAY 1WRITE THE QUESTION IN THE SPACE PROVIDED

• A: Explain two reasons why white settlers and Native Americans were at odds during the late 1800s.

• B: Explain the outcome of the large majority of conflicts between white settlers and Native Americans during the late 1800s.

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• C: Identify AND describe three reasons for the decline of Indian strength and population during the late 1800s.

• D: Provide two reasons why bison were driven to near extinction.

MINING

• Gold was discovered in California in late 1840s

• Pike’s Peak in Colorado in 1858 (only lasted for two months)

• Comstock Lode in Nevada discovered in 1859, both gold and silver, more than $340 million

• Other ‘lucky strikes’ also drew people to Montana, Idaho, and other western states

• People would come and leave quickly, anarchy ruled, and usually what was left was a ghost town

• Surface gold was the first to be found, and for those that had resources, mining equipment was brought in to break up the ore

BEEF BONANZAS AND LONG DRIVE• Two beef barons controlled the beef industry

• The Swifts and the Armours

• They used the transcontinental railroads to ship cattle across the nation to the stockyards

• Meat packaging also began during this period

• The ‘Long Drive’ emerged to feed the slaughterhouses

• Texas cowboys would heard cattle across desert and plains to the railroad terminals

• Cities such as Dodge City, Abilene, and Cheyenne grew

• Railroads created a prosperous cattle business, but also drew local herders and homesteaders who put up barbed wire fences

• The fences, and the blizzards of 1886-87 hurt the cattle industry

FREE LAND FOR FREE FAMILIES

• The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed people to get 160 acres of land for the promise of living on it for five years, improving it, and paying about $30

• 500,000 families then bought land and settled out West because of this

• In reality, 160 acres was not enough to survive on in the Great Plains

• Families were often forced to give up their homesteads before the five years was up due to bad land and droughts

• Fraud was rampant, as many land grabbers bought up ten times more than actual farmers, wouldn’t even live on the land, and built 12x14 houses (which under later investigation was actually 12x14 inches)

TAMING WESTERN DESERTS• Railroads had a key role in developing the agricultural

west

• The land was actually very fertile once you dug it up

• Most rarely pushed west of the 100th meridian to grow wheat

• Very little rain on the prairie, so most thought you’d have to install massive irrigation methods

• Farmers developed the technique of ‘dry farming’ where they would use shallow cultivation methods to plant and farm

• [leads to the soil being too fine eventually and to the “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s]

• A Russian type of wheat was brought in which grew well in droughts

• Corn was also a large crop of the plains

• The Great American Desert soon became a bread basket with the help of dams on the Missouri and Columbia rivers that helped to water it

DAY 2WRITE THE QUESTION IN THE SPACE PROVIDED

• A: What does the Dawes Act attempt to do?

• B: Why would ghost towns pervade the American West in the late 1800s?

• C: Describe three reasons settlers moved West during the late 1800s, and for each, name one drawback they encountered.

• D: Describe three new farming techniques or advances that helped farmers on the Great Plains.

THE FAR WEST COMES OF AGE

• Because of the advances in mining, cattle, and farming, the Great West gains in population.

• New states of Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, and Idaho

• In Oklahoma, the government made available land that was formally owned by Native Americans.

• April 22, 1889, high noon, land was opened up but some cheated and claimed the better land first.

• These illegal land grabbers entered Oklahoma too soon (Sooners)

• The 1890 census for the first time could not tell where the American frontier was

• The American frontier was officially closed

• Land was no longer infinite, and let to attempts to save the more pristine aspects

• Yellowstone National Park (1872)

• Yosemite and Sequoia (1890)

• Frontier Thesis (Frederick Jackson Turner)

• Stated that American democracy was due to an ever expanding frontier

• Warned that American dynamism, innovation, and democratic ideals would disappear

FOLDING FRONTIER• Frontier is a state of mind and symbol of opportunity

• Safety Valve Theory

• Available for people who experienced failure or it became over crowded could move West

• Few city dwellers actually went West, as most didn’t know how to farm

• Cities more often were the safety valve as bankrupt farmers and those seeking fortunes went to the larger cities

FARM BECOMES A FACTORY• Farmers were now concentrating on

single ‘cash’ crops

• Meant more profits and ability to buy manufactured goods by mail order

• Aaron Montgomery Ward catalogue (1872)

• Sears, Roebuck, & Co (1893)

• More money was entering into farming

• But new inventions were too

• Mechanical and steam engines that could pull a plow, seed, and till. A mechanical reaper/thresher that sped up harvesting.

• The number of farmers needed was cut drastically.

• Mechanization in farming led to enormous farms and thus many farmers out of work

• Further harm came from natural economic trends in the 1880s

• World markets were booming and more farm products were being produced

• This drove the prices down and many farmers found themselves heavily in debt and prices dropping

UNHAPPY FARMERS AND DEBTORS • Debts were even harder to pay as the era was one of deflation

• Basically, not enough money was available to pay off debts

• Farmers operated year to year, many having to foreclose on their farms

• The fall of farmers in the late 1800s was much like the fall of King Cotton in the South

• Depending on one crop is good during good times, but devastating during hard times

• To make matters worse, nature was not with the farmers in the 1880s and 1890s

• Droughts, grasshopper plagues, heat waves

• Farmers found themselves taxed, being gouged by the railroad companies for carrying their products, and prices being fixed by the harvester, barbed wire, and fertilizer trusts

• In 1890, half of the US population were farmers, but they were politically and economically disorganized.

FARMERS TAKE A STAND

• 1867, the National Grange movement takes off, founded by Oliver H Kelley

• Intended to improve the lives of farmers through social, educational, and fraternal activities

• Spread to over 800,000 members by 1875

• Also started to represent the collective plight of the farmer

• Managed to get Congress to pass a set of ‘Granger Laws’

• The Grange was also successful in setting up cooperatives for farmers to get better rates

• 1878, Greenback Labor Party was at its height and got 14 members elected to Congress

• Was very attractive to farmers because they advocated for cheap and inflationary money

PRELUDE TO POPULISM• Farmers Alliance founded in late 1870s was a

coalition of farmers meant to go against banking and railroad interests

• Advocated for the nationalization of railroads, abolition of national banks, a graduated income tax

• Would eventually in the 1880s form to become the People’s Party (Populist Party) which would back farming and labor interests and cheap money policies

• The Populist Party would gain national political attention

• William Jennings Bryan, a populist, would gain the Democratic presidential nomination in 1896

• Advocated for the silver standard, which would cause inflation

• ‘Cross of Gold’ speech

DAY 3WRITE THE QUESTION IN THE SPACE PROVIDED

• A: What effects would the idea of the frontier closing have on the American psyche?

• B: Describe two reasons many farmers found themselves in debt in the late 1800s.

• C: Explain why farmer organizations such as the Grange and Populists would advocate for a greater emphasis on money backed by silver.

• D: How did organizations like the Grange attempt to assist farmers?