Chapter 13

The American West

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The 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 IndiansBuffalo provided food, clothing, and shelter for the

nomadic lifestyle of the Plains Indians. They did not believe land should be bought and sold, and white farmers felt it should be divided. They followed the buffalo herds as they moved north and south with seasonal changes.

Government Policy In the 1850s United States government policy

toward the Indians changed from pushing them farther West to sending them to reservations.

Destruction of the BuffaloThe buffalo-centered way of life was threatened.

The vast buffalo herds were reduced to just a few buffalo by U.S. Army policy and hunting by railroad passengers.

• Treaties - 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. Through different treaties various.

• Sand Creek Massacre - Chief Black Kettle wanted peace and led his people back to the Sand Creek reservation. Army troops attacked and massacred surrendering Cheyenne. Congressional investigators condemned Colonel John M. Chivington’s actions, but no one was punished in the Sand Creek Massacre.

• The Battle of the Little Bighorn - LTC George Armstrong Custer led his troops headlong against Sitting Bull and the Sioux at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and lost. The Sioux encircled his troops and killed them all. The battle was a temporary victory for the Sioux. The U.S. government was determined to put down the threat to settlers.

• The Battle of Palo Duro Canyon ended the Indian Wars on the southern Plains. In the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, more than 1,000 Indian ponies were slaughtered, and food stores destroyed. The surviving Comanche moved onto the reservation.

• The Ghost Dance. Wovoka initiated the Ghost Dance, a religious movement that expressed losses suffered by Native Americans and hope for a better future. Sitting Bull had joined the Ghost Dance movement, which newspapers suggested a signal of a planned uprising because Sitting Bull had a vision of victory over the soldiers.. The military then ordered the arrest of Sitting Bull. He was killed in a skirmish when they tried to arrest him.

• The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred the day after the surrender. Shooting began after a gun went off, and the fleeing Sioux were massacred. This action marked the end of the bloody conflict between the army and the Plains Indians. James Forsyth was removed from command for his role in the Wounded Knee Massacre. One survivor of the massacre was Black Elk.

Resistance in the NorthwestThe government took back nine-tenths of the

Nez Percé land when gold miners and settlers came into the area.

Fourteen years later they were ordered to abandon the last bit of that land to move into Idaho.

Chief Joseph tried to take his people into Canada, but the army forced their surrender less than forty miles from the Canadian border.

Chief Joseph and many others were eventually sent to northern Washington.

When the Nez Percé surrendered to the U.S. Army in 1877, Chief Joseph said, “I will fight no more forever.”

Resistance in the Southwest The Apache people were moved onto a

reservation near the Gila River in Arizona. Soldiers forcefully stopped a religious

gathering there, and Geronimo and others fled the reservation.

They raided settlements along the Arizona-Mexico border for years before finally being captured in 1886.

Geronimo and his followers were sent to Florida as prisoners of war. The capture and imprisonment of the Apache leader Geronimo in 1886 marked the end of armed resistance in the Southwest. After that, Native Americans were forced to live on reservations.

• The U.S. government’s two main motivations for creating Indian reservations were to gain control over western territories and to convince Native Americans to live like white Americans.

• The Bureau of Indian Affairs manages Native American reservations. The BIA 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 gave the head of each Indian family 160 acres of land and made them 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.

The Main Idea

Many people sought fortunes during the mining and cattle

booms of the American West.

Discovering gold and silver

After the California gold rush, Colorado was next. Most who went there were disappointed, but the silver in the Comstock Lode in the Carson River valley in Nevada lasted for more than 20 years.

The Klondike gold rush

A Seattle newspaper announced the Klondike gold strike on July 17, 1897.

The Yukon Territory was the site of a huge gold rush, but getting there was treacherous. Canadians required miners to bring a year’s worth of supplies with them, and that was a difficult task. Reports of “gold for the taking” were false.

Mining camps and towns

Thousands of men poured into mining areas. Camps were hastily built. Intense rivalry among competing miners often led to violence. The people in the mining towns formed Vigilante committees to combat theft and violence because there was no law enforcement.

Camps become towns

Some camps developed into towns, with hastily constructed buildings of stores and saloons.

As towns developed, women and children came to join the men, making the towns more respectable. Townspeople established churches, newspapers, and schools.

• Placer mining allowed individuals to pan for gold, but soon equipment was needed to dig deeper within the earth. Placer mining soon declined as the surface deposit of ore ran out. Mining demanded more expensive and sophisticated equipment.

• By the 1880s mining for ore in the West was dominated by large mining companies. Large companies were formed to invest in hydraulic mining and hard-rock mining. Prospectors became employees, working dangerous jobs for these companies.

• Miners began to organize unions to negotiate safer working conditions and better pay. Mining companies resisted, and violence broke out. At Cripple Creek, Colorado, the Western Federation of Miners faced off against the corporate mining interests. When it was over, 30 men were left dead and the union was defeated.

• In hydraulic mining, water under high pressure was used to blast away dirt and expose the desirable minerals.

• Hydraulic mining caused sediments to be released into rivers, choking them and causing flooding.

• Hard-rock mining is a form of mining in which deep shafts are cut in the earth to extract ore.

Origins of ranching

• The Spanish were the first ranchers in the West, raising cattle under dry and difficult conditions.

• The Spanish bred the hardy Texas longhorn because they could live on grass alone, could travel long distances with little water, and were immune to Texas fever. They also started sheep ranching. Grazing lands were needed for both.

• Cowboys believed that sheep ruined grass by eating the grass’s roots which led to violent encounters between the two groups.

Demand for beef

•Growing populations in the East fueled demand for beef, which led to an increase in cattle ranching.

•Cattle were bred in the Plains states then driven to railroad market towns by cowboys where they were shipped east to meatpacking center such as Chicago.

•One of the most famous cattle trails was the Chisholm Trail. The Chisholm Trail began in San Antonia, Texas, and ran north through Fort Worth, Texas, to Abilene, Kansas, and Ellsworth, Kansas. The trail was used to move cattle from range lands to major rail centers where they were shipped to cities in the East.

• The Sioux wanted the Bozeman Trail closed because the trail passed through Sioux hunting grounds.

Ranching as big business•Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire, allowing ranchers to enclose grazing lands. •Enclosure of the open range led to conflict between landless cattle owners and the ranchers and farmers who enclosed the land. Cattle ranchers often did battle against sheep ranchers and farmers. •Thousands of cattle migrating south to avoid harsh blizzards in 1885-1886 were trapped by fences. •Privately owned ranches spread quickly, and investors transformed the cattle business into big business. Two years of severe winters brought huge losses to the industry.

The 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

Incentives for settlement of the Great Plains came mainly from Congress and the railroads.

In 1862, Congress passed three acts to turn public lands into private property to encourage settlement of the west.

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 of 1862 gave lands to states for colleges for agriculture and the mechanic arts, however, not all states build colleges. Many sold the land for cash to fund education. It was the first time that the Federal government provided assistance for higher education.

Railroads encourage settlement Railroads received land from the government .

Railroads reaped profits by selling most of their land to settlers. They placed ads in eastern newspapers and even in Europe to lure homesteaders to the West.

• The Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 opened 2 million acres of 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.

Closing of the frontier• In 1890 the Census Bureau issued a statement

that essentially said the frontier is closed, “there can hardly be said to be a frontier line.” This was true because the unsettled areas were so small and isolated.

• Historian Frederick Jackson Turner stated in a famous essay about the losing of the frontier and how the westward movement helped shape the American character. He believed that the frontier experience made us unique.

White settlersMiddle-class businesspeople or farmers from the Mississippi Valley moved

west. They could afford money for supplies and transportation.The immigrants were often not prepared for the ordeal they would face on

the frontier and were often taken advantage of.African American settlersSome fled the violent South and the Ku Klux Klan.Benjamin Singleton urged his own people to build communities in Kansas. Rumors of land in Kansas in the late 1870s brought a large number of

Exodusters (African Americans). Exodusters also settled in Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois.

European settlersLured by economic opportunity, they came

from Scandinavia, Ireland, Russia, and Germany.

They brought their farming experience with them.

Chinese settlersInitially came for the gold rush or to build

railroadsThey turned to farming, especially in

California, establishing the fruit industry there.

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

• New farmers found farming the Plains different because they faced harsh climate, scarce water, and lack of lumber.

• Farmers installed windmill-driven pumps and used irrigation techniques. They used the earth for shelter, first building dugouts into hillsides, then making sod houses.

• A sod house was a home made out of strips or blocks of dense grass with the roots and soil attached. Sod houses were used in the Plains because there were no trees and sod provided shelter from the heat and cold in the treeless plains.

• New farming equipment helped. James Oliver developed a sharper plow edge which could turn prairie sod.

• Combine harvesters used one operation to cut wheat, separate grains, and remove the husks.

• Giant bonanza farms operated like factories, with expensive machinery, managers, and laborers performing specialized jobs.

• They reaped great profits during good seasons. However, they could not handle the boom-and-bust farming cycles well, and by the 1890s, most bonanza farms had been broken up.