Chapter 17: In the Wake of War

I. In the Wake of WarA. Glorification of wealthB. Tired of sacrificeC. “Politicians [clung] too long to outworn issues” - Bryce

King John (1595): "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily... is wasteful and ridiculous excess."

D. Senate Dominates – “Government of the people, by the people, for the benefit of Senators”

Leland Stanford (CA) James “Bonanza” Fair (NV) Philetus Sawyer (WI) Nelson Aldrich (RI)

E. Relative Political Peace - “The Most Spectacular Degree of Equilibrium in American History”1. “Bloody Shirt”2. Grand Army of the Republic3. Tariffs – McKinley “Reduce the tariff and labor is the first to suffer”

4. Currency Reform – Greenbacks5. Civil Service Reform – Rampant Patronage

E. Relative Political Peace - “The Most Spectacular Degree of Equilibrium in American History”1. “Bloody Shirt”2. Grand Army of the Republic3. Tariffs – McKinley “Reduce the tariff and labor is the first to suffer”

4. Currency Reform – Greenbacks5. Civil Service Reform – Rampant Patronage

F. Blacks after Reconstruction 1. “A new Era of Good Feeling” or “sickly conciliation”? 2. Sharecropping, Debt, Prisoner Labor

“By state legislation, by frauds, by intimidation, and by violence of the most atrocious character, colored citizens have been deprived of the right of suffrage.” – President Hayes

“Time is the only cure” – President Garfield

“Separate schools were of much more benefit for the colored people” – President Cleveland

2. Mississippi & Georgia first to disfranchise Blacks

a. By 1890 – other states followedb. Poll Taxes / literacy tests

“to protect them just as we would protect a little child and prevent it from injuring itself with sharpened tools” –LA politician

3. Supreme Court’s Rolea. Civil Rights Cases (1883) –

1a. Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional2a. No recourse from discrimination by privately

owned facilities3a. 14th Amendment protected against states, not

individuals

b. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) 1a. Segregation legal in public accommodations

as long as facilities of equal quality are provided.

“If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.”

c. Complete segregation commences

d. Northerners generally supported discrimination

e. Halted black education progress1a. Only accommodating schools survived 2a. Tuskegee Institute (1881) – Booker T. Washington3a. 1895 “Atlanta Compromise”

“Cast down your bucket where you are.” “Dignify and glorify common labor”“Agitation of questions of racial equality is the extremist folly”Called on whites of “our beloved South” to help. If so, you will be “surrounded

by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has ever seen”

e. Rising White Violence1a. Lynchings – 100 a year from 1890 – 19102a. White fear

II. The West after the Civil War A. Large Foreign Populations B. Open Spaces & Big Cities

C. Agricultural, Extractive & Commercial

• D. Chinese• 1860’s: Chinese labor welcomed with

Burlingame Treaty• 1880’s: Build up of Anti-Chinese antipathy &

Nativism• 1882: President Arthur Passes Chinese

Exclusion Act

D. Plains Indians 1. Eastern groups in Indian Territory 2. California groups decimated by forty-niners 3. Plains Indians remained independent & strong

a. Importance of buffalo b. Importance of horses c. Gold rush increased American urgency to push aside

Indians1851 – Thomas Fitzpatrick at Fort Laramie, Wyoming “Concentration” policy – limits to hunting grounds

E. Indian Wars 1. Agreements quickly broken

a.Colorado 1859 b.Kansas & Nebraska 1860 c. Sand Creek Massacre 1864

2. 1867 – New policy – Reservations a. Black Hills & Oklahoma b. Forced to be farmers

3. Resistance 4. Corruption in Department of the Interior

“No branch of the national government is so spotted with fraud, so tainted with corruption…as this Indian Bureau” – Garfield 1869

“We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them, and it was for this and against this that they made war. Could anyone expect less?” – General Sheridan

5. 1874 – Gold discovered in the Black Hills – Sioux revolt 1a. 1876 – Colonel George A. Custer (264 men) v Rain-in-

the-Face, Crazy Horse & Sitting Bull (2500 Sioux).

6. Destruction of Tribal Life a. Buffalo decimation

1860’s – 13 to 15 million1890’s – Almost Extinct

b. Last leaders capturedChief Joseph of the Nez Perce 1877Geronimo of the Apache 1886 Sitting Bull killed at Wounded Knee 1890

Geronimo

7. “Indian Problem” a. Dawes Severalty Act of 1887

Split land into individual allotments – assumed the creation of small agricultural capitalists

Destroyed cultureCorruption – lease agreements and high taxes By 1934 – 86 of 138 million acres no longer owned by Indians

III. Get Rich Quick A. Boomtowns

1. Thousands drawn by strikes 2. Claims, high prices, low yields, hardship, violence &

collapse…repeat 3. Get rich quick attitude 4. Shady characters & inhospitability to women 5. Large profits made by those with access to substantial

capital

B. Failiure of the Homestead Act of 1862 (160 Acres) 1a. Too expensive 2a. No experience – harsh climate 3a. Corruption 4a. “Bonanza Farms” – Eventually plains becomes

“Breadbasket” C. Timber & Stone Act of 1878

1a. Acquire quarter section of forestland for $2.50 an acre if “unfit”

D. Western Railroad Building 1. Government unwilling to build itself 2. Had to subsidize because of risk 3. Public did not favor direct outlays of money…thus land

Pacific Railway Act (1862) Around 200 million acres given to RR lines

75% to 4 lines: Union Pacific-Central Pacific Line ….NEB-SF 1869 (Civil War Vets/Irish) Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe….. KC-LA 1883 Southern Pacific ….SF-NO 1883 Northern Pacific ….Duluth-Portland 1883

4. Uneconomical and bad planed because of race to finish

E. Cattle Kingdom 1. Industrial Growth in the East – Rising

population – Increased demand for food 2. Drive Texas cattle north – feeding on

“open” federal land to RR 3. 10 million head driven north by 1880s 4. Soon cattlemen discovered Texas stock

could survive in northern Plains – Open Range Key was control of small amount of land

with water Cattle could graze on public domain

land Overcrowding led to conflict Fencing of public domain land – 1874

Barbed Wire invention by Joseph F. Glidden “Barbed Wire Wars” Wired public domain land restricted cattle

movement – drifting cattle piled up against wires and died by the thousands

1886 – Death of Open-Range Cattle – 90% of cattle dead

IV. End of the bonanza days of the West A. Big companies taking over resources B. Frontier gone – was always an intellectual construction of

white settlers Home for Indians “Expression of human progress?” “March Westward of Civilization?”

John Gast’s American Progress(1872)