Transforming the West

Native Americans and the West Plains Indians – many tribes that live on the Great Plains Diversity:  Some were settled farmers  Others used horses to hunt buffalo Similar culture:  Life revolves around extended families, cooperation, consensus  Religious and harvest celebrations

Native Americans and the West Threats to their way of life:  Miners and settlers start moving to the plains in the 1850s Exhausted the grassland that buffalo needed Railroads hire people to kill buffalo  9 million killed!  Ruins the Native way of life

Native Americans and the West Conflicts with the military:  After the Civil War, military troops sent West to protect new settlers  Misunderstandings  brutality Sand Creek – Gold rush brings 100,000 settlers, who take all the Indians’ resources Natives are starving, government won’t fulfill its treaties Leave their reservations to hunt buffalo, steal livestock Military massacres a peaceful band of Indians at Sand Creek

Native Americans and the West New government policies:  Government sets up new reservations, ‘persuades’ Natives to move there  Fort Laramie Treaty – Sioux agree to move to South Dakota for $ and provisions Treaties are deceptive, unfair But still lots of skirmishes in the Plains  Government stops signing treaties and just makes executive orders

Native Americans and the West Custer’s Last Stand  Sioux who refuse to sign the Fort Laramie Treaty and move - led by Sitting Bull  Colonel Custer is sent to drive them out of the Black Hills to the reservation  Custer is outnumbered, reckless Troops are wiped out  Now people want to crush the Indian rebellion

Native Americans and the West “Saving” the Indians:  Some Americans are outraged at the government’s actions Helen Hunt Jackson - A Century of Dishonor  Want to ‘save’ them Create schools, make them give up their customs  Backfires Break up reservations and tribes, make them citizens and independent farmers  Dawes Severalty Act – gives individual Indians 160 acres, taught to farm Outcome – speculators buy up all the best Indian land Leaves Native Americans worse off

Native Americans and the West The End of Resistance:  Sioux are starving in the 1880s Turn to a prophet – Wovoka – who sees the apocalypse coming Tells Indians to return to traditional ways  The Ghost Dance  Military is afraid of this movement Sitting Bull is killed Massacre at Wounded Knee

Settling the West

The Railroads Pacific Railroad Act 1862  Transcontinental railroad is built  Chinese, Irish workers build it Benefits of the railroads:  Can fight Indians more easily  Railroad companies sell their land Settlers from the East, immigrants Encourage them to grow cash crops – wheat, corn, cotton

Homesteads Homestead Act of 1862  160 free acres if you farm the land for 5 years  400,000 people move  But railroads, speculators take the best land  In dry plains, you need more than 160 acres to survive Timber Culture Act – 160 more acres if you plant trees Desert Land Act – 640 acres if you irrigate it Difficult psychological adjustment

New Farms, New Markets Improvements in farming:  New strains of wheat and corn  Steel plows, better planters, other tools  Barbed wire Cash crop farming:  Increased demand for crops  Dangerous – if you only sell one crop, you are dependent on the railroads, the market Unpredictable weather

New States & Societies New states: Kansas, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, etc.  Socially conservative, but allow women to vote Mormonism spreads:  Communities in conflict with non-Mormons  Mormons try to be independent, but… U.S. v. Reynolds Government forces them to integrate into society Mexican Americans in the Southwest  Discrimination, exclusion  Most are left in poverty

Exploiting the Land

Mining Gold discovered throughout the West  Comstock Lode in Nevada  Starts with individuals trying to get rich Need expensive equipment, huge investments to mine it  Boom-and-bust towns  Environmental costs

Cowboys and the cattle frontier Open-range cattle boom – 1860s and 70s  Ranchers can make fortunes raising cattle in Texas, driving them north to ship to the east  Cities grow where the railroads are Early periods of violence Not as violent as movies like to show  Cowboys don’t see the $$ Short-lived  Railroads end long-range drives  Cattle prices decline  Barbed wire

The Oklahoma Land Rush, 1889 Settlers are pushing for land in Indian Territory (now called Oklahoma)  Government makes 2 million acres available People rush in to claim homesteads  Curtis Act – 1898 – dissolves the Indian territory The myth of land  Americans want it!  But later they will pay…

The Myth of the West

The ‘Myth’ of the West The Turner Thesis  Frederick Jackson Turner’s lecture  Says that the frontier is closed  Idealized view of the West Popular culture spreads this image  Writers – the ‘frontier’ is a place of adventure, romance, escape  Wild West Shows

The National Parks Movement People are awed by the beauty of the West  Some call for saving the land  Regulation of water, public lands  Doesn’t happen Yellowstone National Park – 1872 – to preserve it from settlement  Starts the conservation movement – led by John Muir and the Sierra Club