The West

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The West

• Ch 14 Notes

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14.1 The Lure of the WestPush-Pull Factors

• Events that force you or attract you to move
  westward
• Push Factors
• Second chance
• Ethnic and religious repression
• Crowding in the east
• Pull Factors
• Cheap land (government incentives) for farmers,
  former slaves
• Fresh start
• Jobs
• Gold (get rich quick)

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Government Acts

• Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864
• Gov gave away large land grants to the Union
  Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads to build
  the first transcontinental railroad
• Railroads sold portions of their land for profit
• Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862
• Gave state govs millions of acres which were sold
  to build land grant colleges (agriculture and
  Mechanical arts)
• Often sold to land speculators people who bought
  up land in the hopes of selling later to make big
  profits

4
Homestead Act (1862)

• For small fee settlers could have 160 acres of
  land if they met certain conditions
• Must be 21 or the head of a family
• American citizens or immigrants filing for
  citizenship
• House must be a certain size (12x14) and lived
  in at least 6 mos of the year
• Had to farm the land for 5 years in a row before
  claiming ownership (getting the deed)

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Immigrants were Attracted to the West

• Germans arrived in later 1800s and settled from
  Texas to the upper Missouri River
• Farmers
• Scandinavians settled into northern plains from
  Iowa to Minnesota to the Dakotas
• Dairy farming
• Irish, Italians, European Jews, and Chinese
  settled in concentrated communities in West Coast
  cities
• Eventually moved to the interior
• Mining, railroad construction, and other trades
• Mexicans and Mexican Americans contributed to the
  growth of ranching in the southwest
• Exodusters settled just west of the Mississippi
  River between the ranchers and the Germans
• farming

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14.2 Life of the Plains Indians

• We must remember the Native Americans were
  already settled throughout the west
• Native Americans on the Great Plains
• Life revolved around the buffalo
• Spanish brought them horses
• Many became nomads
• Warfare among Indian nations rose
• Rise of warrior societies led to decline in
  village life and increase in nomadic groups

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Indians and the US Government

• Uneasy peace for the most part during building of
  the transcontinental railroad and California gold
  rush of 1848 with many moving to the west coast
• By the 1860s Americans found that the interior
  had a lot of positives and wanted to live there
• Led to clashes

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Causes of Clashes

• Settlers felt justified in taking Indian land
  because they would use it more efficiently
• To Native Americans, the Americans were just
  invaders
• Initially the gov tried to negotiate treaties
  with the Indians
• Some involved purchasing Indian land
• Some involved moving Native Americans onto
  reservations

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Effects of Treaties

• Produced misunderstandings
• Not always forthright with the Indians
• Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was
  supposed to manage the reservations and get
  supplies to them but this was corrupt
• Settlers stole land, killed buffalo, diverted
  water supplies, and attacked Indian camps
• Native Americans reacted in frustration and anger

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Government Changes Plans

• 1871 the gov declared it would make no more
  treaties and recognize no Indian chiefs
• For 30 years, fighting occurred between the two
  sides
• Army not coordinated
• Poor living conditions, many duties, hazards
  involved
• Indians were outnumbered, outgunned, had more
  casualties (especially from disease)

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Important Battles in Indian Wars

• Sand Creek Massacre, 1864
• Black Kettle and other chiefs were promised
  protection if they brought their people to camp
  at Sand Creek and they did
• Col. John Chivington and his men attacked the
  encamped Cheyenne and Arapaho
• Indians flew white flag and American flag
• Chivingtons men slaughtered b/w 150-500 people,
  many women and children

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Leading up to the Battle of Little Big Horn, 1876

• Sioux on northern plains resisted white expansion
• In 1865 the gov decided to build the Bozeman
  Trail through prime Sioux hunting ground
• Chief Red Cloud launched a 2 year block of the
  project
• 1866 Sioux killed gt80 soldiers near Fort Phil
  Kearny
• Ended in Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 where US
  abandoned Bozeman Trail and created large Sioux
  reservation

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• Black Hills in South Dakota and Wyoming were
  included (sacred land)
• 1874 gov sent Lt. Col. George A. Custer to
  investigate rumors of gold in Black Hills
• Hostilities resumed when a treaty for the land
  was signed but not by all the important leaders
  of the Sioux
• June 1876 Custer was sent to round up the Indians
• Sioux attacked Custer and his men, wiping out
  more than 200 soldiers in just under an hour

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Reaction to Custers Last Stand

• Americans were stunned
• Army forced most of Sioux back to their
  reservations
• Crazy Horse was killed after surrendering in 1877
• Sitting Bull and few others escaped to Canada but
  starvation forced their surrender and return to
  reservations

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Events Leading to Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890

• Indian prophet, Wovoka, promised a return of
  traditional life if people performed purification
  ceremonies
• Included the Ghost Dance, people whirled in
  circles holding hands
• Dancing scared gov agents watching over
  reservations
• Army dispatched to arrest Sitting Bull and stop
  the dancing

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Ghost Dance and typical costume
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Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890

• Sitting Bull was shot and killed
• His followers (350 people) surrendered and were
  rounded up at a creek called Wounded Knee
• There the army tried to disarm them and shot rang
  out
• Soldiers opened fire, killed more than 200 Sioux
• Massacre at Wounded Knee was last major episode
  of violence in the Indian Wars

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New Gov Policies

• Many Americans were horrified by the govs
  policies
• Helen Hunt Jacksons 1881 book A Century of
  Dishonor protested what she saw as the govs
  broken promises and treaties
• Most reformers believed that Native Americans
  needed to be civilized
• Give up traditions, become Christians, learn
  English, adopt white dress and customs, farm or
  learn a trade

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• 1879 the first US Indian Training and Industrial
  School in Carlisle, PA was opened
• Children as young as 5 were placed in these
  schools
• Assimilated into American culture process by
  which one society becomes a part of another, more
  dominant society by adopting its culture
• Dawes Act, 1887
• Each Native American family headed by a man
  received 160 acres
• Landholder was granted US citizenship and subject
  to local, state, and federal laws
• Believed it would make Indians self-supporting
  and create pride of ownership

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Reality of the Dawes Act

• Much of land was not suitable for farming
• Many Indians had no interest in farming or
  experience with agriculture
• Some sold their land to speculators or were
  swindled out of it

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Indian Territory

• Present-day Oklahoma
• 55 Indian nations forced into there
• During 1880s squatters overran the land
• Congress agreed to buy out Indian claims to the
  region
• April 22, 1889, thousands of homesteaders lined
  up to claim land
• By sundown the boomers had staked claims to
  almost 2 million acres
• Some came early, sooners, and grabbed the best
  lands
• Oklahoma Territory was created in 1890
• Remainder of Indian Territory was opened to
  settlement

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14.3 Mining, Ranching, Farming out West

• Gold in CA in 1848 drew many
• 1859 Pikes Peak, CO
• Nevadas Comstock Lode (400 mill in gold and
  silver over 30 yrs)
• Denver opened up the American interior
• By 1861 fed gov created Colorado Territory out of
  Kansas Territory
• Homestake Mine, 1877, produced a billion s
  worth of ore

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Early Mining

• Panned for metal in surface soil or in streambeds
• Placer mining used this on a larger scale
• People came at rumors of a new strike
• Larger strikes led to settled towns and cities
• Merchants, farmers, and other business people
  came to supply miners needs

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Panning for gold
Placer mining
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Changes in Mining

• Easily gathered metals disappeared fast
• By late 1850s and 60s most that remained were
  in quartz and buried
• Prospectors went home, left ghost towns
• Large corporations took over mining
• Used mine shafts, hydraulic pumps, and dynamite
  (1870s)
• Mining was big business

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Cattle Boom

• Mexicans taught Americans ranching in early 1800s
• Used Texas longhorn cattle which thrived on
  grassy, dry plains
• Before Civil War, pork was meat of choice
• After it the nation went on a beef binge
• Breeders began importing eastern purebreds to
  make better quality longhorn

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Getting Cattle East

• Shipping was expensive by rail
• Invention of refrigerated railroad cars in 1870s
  made it so cattle were slaughtered before
  transported
• Cut transportation costs in half
• Widespread cattle ranching became possible with
  removal of Native Americans and near extinction
  of the buffalo

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Cow Towns

• First, Texas herds were driven north across the
  open range to their markets
• 1867 J.G. McCoy est the town of Abilene, KA the
  first town built specifically for receiving
  cattle
• Other cow towns were built along rail lines
• Cheyenne, WY, Dodge City, Wichita, and Ellsworth
  in KA

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More on Cow Towns

• Cow towns were part of the wild west
• Until farmers came along
• Cattle trades, banking, and other commerce took
  place in larger towns
• Abilene thrived for only a few years but was used
  heavily
• Wichita was next, then Dodge City, until they
  became fenced in by farmers
• In the cattle industrys 2 decades of prosperity
  (1867-1887) as many as 8 mill TX cattle were
  rounded up and shipped east

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Cowboys Life

• The long drive herding thousands of cattle to
  railway centers scattered across the plains
• Chisholm Trail was one of several trails that led
  to cow towns
• Cowboys Americans, Native Americans, immigrants,
  African Americans
• Trail names, survived on physical endurance,
  little need of sleep, sense of humor
• Earned more the further north he worked b/c
  needed warmer clothes

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Long Drive Trails
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Long Drive

• Up at 330 AM, in saddle by 4
• 2 experienced cowboys in front, other men beside
  the herd, across 10s of miles, few others in the
  rear pushing stragglers along
• Spend 18 hrs/day in saddle and had to be on
  constant alert
• Greatest nightmare stampede
• Invented lullabies and ballads to sing and keep
  herds calm

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• Leading cause of death was being dragged by a
  horse
• Diseases and infections also took lives
• Dont forget lightening, stampedes, and gunfights
• Lonely along the trail
• In cattle country men outnumbered women 10 to 1
  in the west as a whole, men outnumbered women 2.5
  to 1 in 1870 (not counting African Americans)

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Cattle Becomes Big Business

• Cattle barons owned huge cattle operations
• Millions of acres and hundreds of thousands of
  cattle
• By 1885 about 3 doz cattle barons reigned over
  gt20 million acres of rangeland
• Often cowboys who made it on their own
• Charles Goodnight who with his partner blazed the
  Goodnight-Loving Trail through the southwest to
  Cheyenne, WY

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Cattle Bonanza Ends

• Mid 1880s when a combo of over-expansion, price
  declines, cold winters, dry summers, and cattle
  fever drove thousands into bankruptcy
• Cattle ranching survived but on a smaller scale

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Farming the West

• Life was rugged for homesteaders
• First order of business build a home
• Dugout or soddie b/c no trees
• Next sodbusting- plowing fields for planting
• Problems floods, prairie fires, dust storms,
  droughts, bugs like grasshoppers which would
  ravage the fields and carry diseases
• Money was always a worry

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Farm Debt

• Falling crop prices created rising debt
• Once invested in machines, had to focus on
  raising crops the machines were designed for
• If prices for that crop fell, they couldnt pay
  off debts which had interest rates of 25 or more
• In mid-1880s after a series of droughts many
  people headed back east

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Family Life

• Men sodbusting, walking miles to borrow a
  neighbors ox/plow dragged the field to break up
  clots, planted, hoed, and harvested, threshing
  and binding in off season or in bad year the
  husbands lent themselves out for labor in
  construction or odd jobs
• Women raised and schooled kids, cooked, cleaned,
  made and washed clothes, preserved food, raised
  food crops, made soap and butter, raised
  chickens, milked cows, spun wool for sale, and
  managed money

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• Often a lonely life
• Childrens labor was crucial
• Boys and girls as young as 4 collected wood for
  fuel or carried water
• Older children sometimes hired out for work
• Settlers relied heavily on one another, raising
  houses and barns together, sewing quilts, husking
  corn, and providing other forms of support

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New Technology

• Dry farming water conservation techniques
• Farmers welcomed any new machinery
• During 1870s improvements multiplied
• Plow that made several furrows at once, harrows
  (break up the ground before planting), and
  automatic drills to spread grain
• Steam-powered threshers there by 1875
• Cornhuskers and cornbinders by 1890s

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Knowledge Increased Too

• USDA, created under the Morrill-Land Grant Act,
  collected statistics on markets, crops, and plant
  diseases
• Provided info on crop rotation, hybridization,
  and soil and water conservation

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Farming Becomes Big Business

• New machines increased farm output enormously
• Owners of large farms hoped to reap a bonanza
  by supplying food to growing eastern populations
• Result bonanza farms operations controlled by
  large businesses, managed by professionals, and
  raising massive quantities of single cash crops

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• Huge output caused problems
• When supply of crop rose faster than demand,
  prices fell
• Farmers produced ever larger quantities of the
  product, adding to oversupply
• Great Plains remained region of small family
  farms into the 1900s
• Farmers way of life prevailed over miners and
  ranchers

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Frontier Myths

• Many wild towns of the West calmed down fairly
  quickly or disappeared
• Church denominations and social clubs with
  womens auxiliaries devoted to charitable works,
  theatrical productions traveled through the west
• 1872, the gov moved to preserve western lands and
  created Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming,
  Montana, and Idaho
• 1890 the Census Bureau announced official end of
  the frontier

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Wild West Died Quickly
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Frontier Life

• Turners Thesis claimed that frontier had played
  a key role in forming the American character
• Many myths exist about frontier life and have
  been promoting stereotypes about the west
• Reality west was place of freedom and
  opportunity for young men

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• 1912 Juliette Low founded the American Girl
  Scouts to praise women homesteaders for their
  strength and intelligence and to prevent women
  from becoming too soft
• Era of the wild west produced many of the
  nations most cherished images of itself

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14.4 The Farmers Complain

• 1873 and 1893 national railroads failed and
  caused national panics
• Farmers had to deal with falling crop prices and
  loans being called in because of bank failures
• Many businesses failed and unemployment soared
• Laissez-faire historically the gov did not get
  involved with the economy

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Farmers Ask for Help

• Want gov to get involved with the economy
• Tariff tax on imported goods
• Helped US businesses
• Hurt US farmers
• Raise prices of farm machinery
• Other countries put tariff on American products
• Viewed tariff as proof the government favored
  eastern manufacturing over western farmers

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Money Issue

• Bimetallic standard (gold silver)
• Value linked to money supply
• If more supplied, the value dropped
• Inflation value drops because of increased money
  supply
• loose money monetary policy
• Farmers like b/c pay less back for loans

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• Deflation value increases due to decreased money
  supply ( of goods drops)
• tight money monetary policy
• After Civil War the gov tried to take paper money
  (greenbacks) out of circulation deflation
• Farmers protested

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1873 Financial Panic

• National railroad collapsed
• To help financial panic, Congress put the nation
  on the gold standard
• No silver anymore
• Reduced money supply deflation
• Goldbugs conservatives that liked tight money
  and the gold standard (business men)
• Silverites (farmers) wanted bimetallic standard
  back and free silver policy (unlimited coining of
  silver)
• Greenbacks supported green paper , liked loose
  money, joined the silverites

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Bland-Allison Act (1878)

• Required federal gov to buy more silver and coin
  it, causing inflation (more silver in
  circulation)
• Step in right direction for silverites
• Passed by Congress, Pres. Hayes vetoed it,
  Congress overrode veto
• Limited effect because Treasury bought and coined
  the amount required but didnt put it into
  circulation

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Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890)

• Increased the amount of silver the fed gov had to
  purchase every month
• Goal put it into circulation
• Gov almost went bankrupt in financial panic of
  1893
• Foreign investors pulled gold out of our country
• President Cleveland blamed Silver Purchase Act
  and it was repealed in 1893

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The Grange

• Oliver Kelley founded Patrons of Husbandry in
  1867
• Began helping farmers form cooperatives through
  which they bought goods in large quantities at
  lower prices
• Pressured state legislators to regulate
  businesses on which farmers depended, like grain
  elevators and railroads

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Farmers Alliances

• Eventually farmers formed other political groups
• 1880s the Farmers Alliances
• Launched attacks on monopolies like railroads
• Farmers Alliance in the South became very
  powerful
• Allowed women to serve as officers and won
  support for womens political rights

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Natural Disasters Led to Urgency in Farmers
Alliance Programs

• MS River flooded in 1882
• TX suffered 21 mos drought 1886-87
• Blizzards struck the west in 1887
• Farmers wanted to know why the gov didnt respond
  to help

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Government Responses

• Splintered during this period
• Farmers differed on how much help, if any, was
  needed
• Business interests were not always strong enough
  to prevent legislation they disliked from
  becoming law
• Fragmented political parties had trouble getting
  support
• Every election from 1880-1892, no candidate won
  majority
• Rarely was Press party the majority in Congress
• Presidents frequently influenced by business

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Texas Seed Bill

• Provided seed grain to drought victims
• Pres. Cleveland vetoed the bill
• though people support the government, the
  government should not support the people

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Railroad Regulation

• Some consensus here people wanted some
  regulation
• Interstate Commerce Act regulated the prices
  that railroads charged to move freight b/w
  states, requiring rates to be set in proportion
  to distance traveled
• Made it illegal to give special rates
• Est idea that Congress could regulate the
  railroads
• Set up Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce
  the laws (ICC)

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Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)

• Meant to curb the power of trusts and monopolies
• Enforcement was lax

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Populist Party

• 1891 various small political parties formed the
  Peoples Party (The Populists)
• Increased circulation of money
• Unlimited minting of silver
• Progressive income tax
• Gov ownership of communications and
  transportation systems
• 8 hr workday opposed use of Pinkertons (support
  from industrial workers)
• Wanted white and African American support

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Presidential Elections

• 1892 Election
• Populist candidate James B. Weaver
• Cleveland won easily
• 1896 Election issue - currency
• Republicans ran William McKinley (gold standard)
• Democrats and Populists ran William Jennings
  Bryan
• Gave Cross of Gold speech
• McKinley won

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McKinleys Administration

• Tariff raised to a new high
• In 1900 after gold discoveries in South Africa,
  Canada, and Alaska increased the worlds gold
  supply
• Congress returned US to gold standard
• Surprising to many farmers, the prices of crops
  began to slowly rise
• Silver movement died
• So did Populism

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Populisms Legacy

• Goals of populism lived on
• Reformers called Progressives, used populist
  ideas and applied them to urban and industrial
  problems
• Launched a new era of reforms