Chapter 11 The South and West Transformed

After the Civil War, the South started to industrialize by producing textiles, cigars, lumber, coal, iron, and steel. Some urban centers rose up in Nashville and Birmingham. Railroads helped to connect the South but the South still lagged behind because of the lack of labor (education) and investment (not that many banks and the ones that were around had a tough time getting poor farmers to invest deposits).

Cash Crop Cash Crop: A crop that is grown to be sold for cash…cotton remained the dominant cash crop in the South after the Civil War. The problem of relying on one crop was risky as demonstrated when the boll weevil beetle destroyed cotton in the 1890s. Texas farmers banded together and formed the Farmers Alliance to negotiate better prices and get the government to get the Railroad Co. to lower rates. At first, farmers asked black farmers to join thinking it would be stronger.

Civil Rights Act of 1875 Guaranteed black patrons the right to ride trains and use public facilities such as hotels. The Supreme Court ruled that decisions about who could use public accommodations was a local issue, to be governed by state or local laws.

Native Americans Natives relied on buffalo for clothing, food and tools. 12 Buffalo roamed the mid- west plains but in the 1870s white settlers slaughtered buffalo for fun and for hides. In the 1860s the government set up reservations (areas set aside for Indian use) 13 Because white settlers found gold and silver on the land that had been given to them. Also, they wanted to build Railroads.

Slaughter of the Buffalo

The Sand Creek Massacre In 1862, the government started pushing the Sioux off their land and into the Dakotas. In 1864, a Colorado militia destroyed a group of Cheyenne and Arapahos who were gathered at Sand Creek. Troops opened fire killing many men, women, and children even though they tried to raise the U.S. flag. 15 Plains Natives joined together to repel white settlement but the government sent troops to stop the revolts.

Assimilation The government was going to build a road through Sioux lands but the Sioux ambushed some troops and killed them. Indian Peace Commission wanted the Indians to assimilate to white culture and farm. They signed the Fort Laramie treaty in 1868 that said the government wouldn’t build the road and the Sioux should live on the reservation and farm.

Battle of Little Big Horn Sioux chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull tried to drive out the settlers looking for gold in the Dakotas. 17 In June of 1876, George Custer led 250 of his men to surprise 2,000 Indians on the Little Big Horn river and Crazy Horse killed them all with his men. 16 Sitting Bull retreated to Canada and Crazy Horse surrendered.

Sitting Bull: Crazy Horse

George Armstrong Custer and Custer’s Last Stand

Chief Joseph and the Nez Perces In 1877 in Idaho, the Government wanted to move the Nez Perces to make room for whites even though these people had become Christian and started raising horses and cattle. 20 Chief Joseph led his people 1300 miles to Canada but was stopped at the border and moved to Oklahoma. 19

Wounded Knee The Natives started a religious revival called the Ghost Dance in which they thought whites would be banished and the buffalo would return. 22 The Government didn’t like this so they tried to stop it. In 1890, they tried to arrest Sitting Bull, but ended up killing him. They then went to Wounded Knee, South Dakoa and killed 100 more men, women and children

The Ghost Dance

Responses Helen Hunt Jackson and A Century of Dishonor: She wrote this book to defend Natives tell of all the broken government treaties.21 In response to some of these critiques the government passed the Dawes Severalty Act of This replaced the reservation system and gave each Indian family 160 acres of land and it could not be sold or transferred for 25 years. Missionaries also helped the assimilation process by providing boarding schools for Native American Children

Mining Towns Spring Up! Where ever gold and silver were found, towns sprang up like Pikes Peak, Colorado and Carson River (City), Nevada. There was a lot of lawlessness and vigilantes like Wyatt Earp who were hired to protect the towns. Some towns were boomtown – towns that only thrived while there was something to mine but others continued like Denver.

Economic Competition Big companies came in and made mining a big business. With more mining you needed more water to rinse out the good minerals The bad water would wash into farmers crops and so there was a dilemma. The government supported mining.

Transcontinental RR The U.S. government gave money to companies and land grants In 1863, Central Pacific built eastward from Sacramento while Union Pacific built West from Omaha with the work of Chinese and Irish immigrants. 8 The two tracks met in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah. 7 Towns sprouted up and between 1864 and territories became states.

Beef…It’s what’s for dinner! Since there plains (aka a lot of grass) and there were Railroads to transport meat, cattle ranching boomed. At first, there was the open- range system where the longhorns (a Texas cow) would roam freely and people would brand their cows so they knew who the cows belonged to. The Mexican Vaqueros (cowboys) had developed the culture.

Cattle Drives Cattle drives – Around spring, the cowboys would round up the cattle to bring them up to the closest Railroad to go to the East or West markets…it was a tough job and trek. Cattle drives and open range went away because of barbed wire and branding and supply of beef exceeded demand 36

Homestead Act – 1862, government gave 160 acres to anyone willing to live there for 5 years, dig a well and build a road. 3 Blacks who moved out to the land were called “exodusters” after Moses going to the promised land. Women tended to the family, worked in a boardinghouse, baked, cleaned the laundry.

Lonely Pioneers: Farmers Because many farmers couldn’t afford wood, they would build Sod Houses – stacks of sod in the form of a house. 6 Morrill act of 1862 – Granted land to states to establish agricultural colleges and hopefully spur better ways to farm!! 4 Barbed wire, the plow and windmill all helped.

Manifest Destiny Fulfilled The land in the West spawned rivalries between the different farmers/industrialists on how to use it…some wanted it for grazing, some for mining and so on. There was a lot of ethnic tension in the West as 80% of the Asian, Mexican and Native populations lived there. Some of the “homesteaders” were called sodbusters to mock their way of life. This bias did not deter some to come for land in 1889 in the Oklahoma Land Rush where the government was offering free land in the Oklahoma territory. 5 Some had already come and taken it though – they were the “sooners.” By 1890, the national census said there was no longer a square mile that did not have a white person on it (in the US)