Between the end of the Civil War and 1900, more new farms were started in the U'S' than in any other

1
INTRODUCTION

• Between the end of the Civil War and 1900, more
  new farms were started in the U.S. than in any
  other time in our history
• The entire western half of the country was taken
  from the Indians and turned into farms and
  ranches
• Despite the fact that the U.S. was turning into
  an industrial and urban nation, the agrarian
  ideal remained an extraordinarily powerful force
  for millions of Americans
• But for the three million families who started
  new farms during this period, their dream often
  became a nightmare
• The result of this sort of suffering was a great
  surge of agrarian protest known as the Populist
  Revolt

2
THE WEST IN 1860
In 1860, the westernmost states were Minnesota,
Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas
These states were thinly settled. Texas, for
example, only had 2.4 people per square mile in
1868
Indian population of the West was approx.
300,000. Not a large number but appropriate for
a hunting people who ranged over huge tracts of
wilderness in search of game
3
Western Indian tribes had been promised in
various treaties that they would be left alone
As long as this idea held, the Western tribes
were safe
These promises were made at a time when most
Americans saw little reason to settle the West
Most Americans, until the Civil War, believed the
West could not support civilization. Maps
called the region The Great American Desert, an
area believed to be as worthless as the Sahara
Desert and incapable of supporting agriculture.
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FIRST ENCROACHERS

• Great California Gold Rush of the late 1840s was
  followed by similar rushes in Nevada and Colorado
  (1850s), Idaho and Montana (1860s), and South
  Dakota (1870s)
• All encroached on former Indian territory
• Ranchers moved into the Great Plains
• Cattlemen who found the endless prairies of the
  West ideal for cattle grazing
• Followed by farmers

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WHY FARMERS MOVED WEST I

• Completion of transcontinental rail line by Union
  Pacific Railroad
• Shortly after Civil War
• Linked east and west coasts by rail
• Made it possible to deliver crops grown in West
  to eastern markets at a reasonable cost

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WHY FARMERS MOVED WEST 2

• Shortage of trees in West made construction of
  fences and so forth very expensive
• Barb wire resolved this problem
• Still expensive to build a wooden cabin
• But settlers discovered they could build huts out
  of prairie sod
• Never saw sod houses as permanent but as
  temporary shelters

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WHY FARMERS MOVED WEST 3

• Limited rainfall remained a serious problem
• One solution was dry farming
• Another solution was to dig a well and draw water
  up for irrigation with a windmill
• These options worked well enough to convince
  potential settlers that they could turn the Great
  American Desert into a Garden of Eden

8
THE PROCESS

• White prospectors and/or farmers would pile up
  along the boundaries of Indian territory and then
  begin to filter into it
• Difficult for government to enforce these treaty
  violations
• And most federal officials did not even try to
• Federal government felt no moral or legal
  obligation to protect Indian land from white
  settlers
• So, most of the time, it didnt even try

9
LOUSY DEAL

• Government pressured tribes to renegotiate
  original treaties and confine themselves on
  reservations
• This meant that tribes would no longer be able to
  support themselves by hunting
• But the government promised to give them supplies
  until they could make the transition to
  self-supporting farmers

10
WAR

• Indians who did not want to accept life on the
  reservation had no choice but to resort to armed
  force
• U.S. army would not expel whites who trespassed
  on Indian territory but the full military power
  of the U.S. was turned on those Indians who tried
  to take matters into their own hands
• The result was the eruption of a series of Indian
  wars throughout the West in the 1870s and 1880s

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CUSTERS LAST STAND

• Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho won a few victories
  in the beginning
• The most famous occurred in 1876 when General
  George Armstrong Custer led a unit of the 7th
  Cavalry into a trap at Little Big Horn, west of
  the Black Hills
• Set by Sioux and Cheyenne
• All 264 of his men were killed

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WHITE ADVANTAGES

• Indians never really stood much of a chance
• Railroad gave federal troops superior mobility
• Repeating firearms gave Army tremendous advantage
  in firepower
• The buffalo, the principal source of food for
  most Western tribes, was wiped out by white
  hunters
• In 1865, there were 10 million buffalo in the
  West by 1890, there were only 1000 left

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LIFE ON THE RESERVATION 1

• By 1880, most Western tribes had been forced onto
  reservations and put under the control of white
  official charged with the duty of civilizing
  them
• Most of these officials lacked any understanding
  of traditional native culture and were determined
  to stamp it out completely
• Many were selected by eastern Protestant churches
  and regarded tribal religious beliefs and
  practices as stupid superstitions
• Therefore tried to force Indians to become good
  little Protestants

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LIFE ON THE RESERVATION 2

• White reservation teachers disdained Indian
  culture and customs
• Tried to alienate Indian children from their
  parents by teaching them that their entire
  history and belief system was ignorant and wrong
• When parents fought back and kept their kids out
  of school than had their government supplied cut
  off

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BACKGROUND TO DAWES SEVERALTY ACT

• Before 1887, reservation land was owned in common
  by the entire tribe
• Individual tribal members could not sell portions
  off
• Individual land ownership was completely alien to
  Indian tradition
• White reformers argued that the reason why
  Indians were not making progress on reservations
  was because tribal land ownership stifled the
  incentive for individual self-improvement
• Also sustained uncivilized beliefs and
  traditions

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DAWES SEVERALTY ACT OF 1887

• Did away with tribal ownership of land
• Each reservation family received 160 acres of
  land which became their private property
• Goal was to turn Indians into individualistic
  small property owners who would then be able to
  assimilate into white society more easily

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FAILURE OF THE DAWES ACT

• It was abused by white businessmen who tricked
  many Indians out of their allotments
• Rested on false assumption that Indians wanted to
  be American-style businessmen farmers
• Most did not
• Attempt to impose individualistic competitive
  behavior on a people with powerful tribal
  loyalties and a long tradition of common property
  ownership doomed the act to failure

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DISASTER

• Within 50 years of the passage of the Dawes Act,
  63 of the land Indians had received as
  individual allotments had slipped out of their
  hands
• And into the possession of white farmers,
  ranchers, and speculators
• Most of the land that remained in Indian hands
  was useless for farming
• Most Indians sunk into hopeless poverty
• Some did assimilate but most were caught in a
  hopeless no-mans land
• Result was poverty, disease, alcoholism, and
  apathy

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NEW STATES
Idaho and Wyoming 1890
North and South Dakota, Washington, and Montana
1889
Utah 1896
Between 1865 and 1890, 8 new states from the West
joined the Union
Colorado 1876
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HOMESTEAD ACT

• Many settlers attracted to the West because of
  the Homestead Act Promised 160 acres of free
  land to those who were willing to clear and
  then work it
• Getting suitable land with Homestead Act was not
  easy
• Available land was limited and often in
  undesirable locations
• Much of the best land was grabbed up by
  speculators All they wanted to do was hang on to
  it for a while and then sell it for as much as
  they could
• Fraud was widespread
• Government did not have agents to make sure
  people who obtained land actually lived and
  worked on it

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RAILROADS

• Much land was already owned by the railroads
• Federal and state authorities had offered the
  railroads huge tracts of land free in order to
  convince them to build lines through areas of
  light traffic
• Huge strips of land, sometimes extending 40 miles
  on each side of the line
• Railroads sold as much of this land as they could
• And because it was often advantageous to be
  located as close to a railroad as possible,
  farmers thought it was better to pay a higher
  price for this land than take free Homestead land

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LAND IN THE WEST

• Six out of seven new farms in the West were
  obtained by purchase from either the railroads or
  private land speculators
• The Homestead Act helped some families who were
  too poor to make a start at farming without it,
  but its overall impact was diminished by the
  manipulation of speculators and the lavishness by
  which western land was given to the railroads

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CONDITIONS IN THE WEST

• Harsh and bleak environment
• Winters were long and bitter and summers were
  blazing hot
• Frequent droughts devastated crops
• Plagues of grasshoppers destroyed every green
  thing for miles in every direction
• Tornadoes tore up everything in their path
• Corn and wheat were not well adapted to these
  conditions
• Previous experience in the Old Midwest and South
  did not prepare farmers for conditions in the West

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BUSTED DREAMS

• Prosperity was not easy to obtain for the Western
  farmer
• Farm incomes fluctuated wildly from year to year
• In bad years, farmers were buried under a
  mountain of debt
• Many lost their farms to creditors and were
  forced to return east or become tenant farmers

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VILLAINS

• Western farmers claimed they victims of ruthless
  railroads who overcharged them for shipping their
  products
• Claimed they were exploited by middlemen who
  handled their sales
• Paid them low prices and then sold their produce
  a hugely marked up products
• Claimed they were victimized by bankers who
  charged unfair interest for farm loans
• Claimed they were screwed by giant corporations
  in the east who demanded unfair high prices for
  manufactured products

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REALITY CHECK

• Western farmers had dreamed and worked hard to
  become independent and self-sufficient farmers
  and has instead ended up bankrupt and evicted
  from the homesteads they had sacrificed to create
• Yet, while we should be sympathetic to their
  plight, we should also find the real reasons for
  their hardship and suffering and not be satisfied
  with their own simplistic explanations for their
  problems

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GREED

• Farmers themselves were a big part of their
  problems
• Simply were not prepared for farming under the
  extreme environmental conditions of the West
• Others were greedy
• Had bought more land than they planned to farm,
  hoping to sell this extra land later at higher
  prices
• They were land speculators too

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DECLINING WHEAT PRICES

• Wheat prices fluctuated wildly from year to year
  and, overall, declined from 1865 to 1900
• Reason was because output outstripped demand
• Introduction of farm machinery after 1870
  multiplied productivity of average farm worker
• Increase in productivity was not accompanied by
  decrease in farmers producing wheat
• Too many people entered wheat farming for the
  overall economic well-being of wheat farming

29
CHRONIC OVERPRODUCTION

• Western farmers had no control over how much
  wheat would be produced in the country during any
  given year and thus had no control over the price
  for their crop
• All an individual farmer could do was try to
  harvest as much as he could, in the hope that an
  increase in his output would compensate for any
  drop in price per bushel
• But when every farmer followed this strategy, it
  result in such a huge annual crop that prices
  dropped even further

30
INTERNATIONAL MARKET

• Vast new tracts of foreign land opened up to
  farming after the end of the Civil War
• In Argentina, Australia, Canada, Russia, and New
  Zealand
• New international markets for American wheat also
  were created
• Creation of an international market for
  agricultural products gave American farmers new
  outlets for their crops
• But it also exposed them to worldwide competition
  and made them more dependent than ever on forces
  beyond their control

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EXPLANATION

• When American farmers had produced only for the
  American market, a poor harvest would at least be
  partially compensated for by a rise in prices
• But once the American farmer entered the
  international market, this compensating mechanism
  no longer operated
• Since a year of poor crops in South Dakota became
  disastrous if it coincided with bumper crops in
  Argentina or Australia
• Because this meant the international price for
  wheat would remain low even though South Dakotan
  farmers did not produce much that year

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REAL REASONS

• Speculative over-extension, overproduction, and
  the dangers of the international market were the
  root causes for the economic difficulties of
  western farmers during the late 19th century
• In comparison, the reasons that they gave for
  their plight were not all that important

33
RAILROAD RATES

• Farmers complaint that railroads charged them
  exorbitant rates to carry their crops to market
  was an exaggeration
• Although there were some abuses, railroad rates
  for agricultural products actually declined
  throughout the late 19th century

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COMPLICATED PROBLEM

• Western farmers claimed that Eastern banks
  depressed crop prices through the manipulation of
  the money supply
• Late 19th century was a period of severe
  deflation
• Average price for everything dropped 50 between
  1865 and 1890
• Cause was that the production of products (both
  agricultural and industrial) was growing faster
  than the money supply
• As supply of products grew faster than the supply
  of money needed to buy them, prices fell

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FEDERAL DECISIONS

• Money supply remained stagnant because of 3
  decisions made by the federal government
• Removal of paper money printed during Civil War
  from circulation
• Limited amount of silver coins minted in any
  given year
• Put country on gold standard
• Every paper dollar had to have a dollars worth
  of gold in Fort Knox to back it up

36
FARMER POINT-OF-VIEW

• Federal government made these decisions to
  stabilize U.S. currency after the unstable and
  inflationary period of the Civil War and to make
  American products competitive in the world market
• But many farmers saw these decisions as the work
  of corrupt politicians in the pay of Wall Street
• Argued that the deflation that resulted from
  these decisions hurt agriculture by depressing
  the price of agricultural products and only
  benefitted Wall Street

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A BETTER EXPLANATION

• Deflation affected all prices, not just
  agricultural prices
• Deflation did bring less cash for farmers crops
  but it also meant that they needed
  correspondingly less money to by manufactured
  products
• Price of wheat fell more sharply than prices in
  general
• But this was the result of unique conditions
  governing the supply and demand of wheat
• Not from monetary decisions that depressed
  overall price levels

38
THE BIG PROBLEM

• Grievances of farmers would be embodied in the
  program of Populist Movement of the 1890s
• A vast rural movement that tried to rectify the
  farmers plight
• But it is doubtful that farmers would have been
  helped that much even if the entire Populist
  program had been adopted
• Their analysis of the sources of their problems
  was incorrect and too superficial to yield
  effective remedies