1. Topic 3 Challenges in the Late 1800s

2. Enduring Understandings
As Americans continue to migrate, Native Americans & Mexican Americans in the W. were pushed aside
Mining, ranching, farming drew people to the Great Plains
Railroads!
Corruption & difficulties pushed farmers to reform

4. Oregon Trail
2170 miles
About 400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers, business owners

5. American Indians Under Pressure
Early 1800s, Gov’t moved Natives West
By end of Civil War, most Natives (about 250,000) lived in “Great American Desert” or Great Plains
Mountains, plains, deserts, non-forested
Poor soil, intense cold, winds, not enough rainfall

7. 1848 began the Gold Rush

8. Americans also wanted transcontinental railroad
Homestead Act
1862, encouraged W. migration
160 acres = live there for 5 years, dig a well, & build a road

9. Moved Natives to reservations

10. Assimilation Reservation system failed Gov’t hoped for assimilation
Adapting to white culture
Buffalo were killed off hoped N.A. would learn to farm

11. Americanization Movement
Dawes General Allotment Act
1887, divided reservation land into private family plots
Ended tribal landholding system
Tribal feasts, dances, funerals were outlawed
Missionaries set up boarding schools

12. West is Transformed Wild West Rough & tumble environment
Vigilantes: self appointed law enforcers

13. Boomtowns were set up quickly to accommodate miners
Thrived until gold/silver ran out
Became Ghost Towns

14. Building the Railroads
Unlike Europe, built by private enterprise
Land grants & loans
Dangerous

15. Central Pacific Company: Chinese immigrants
Union Pacific: Irish immigrants
1869, met in Promontory Utah

16. 1869, same year Suez Canal was completed
What is this telling you about the world?

17. Transforming the West

18. Cowboys & Cattle Drives
New industry, railroads could transport cattle back east
Cowboys learned from Mexican vaqueros
Open-range system ended mid 1880s
Supply of beef > demand
Prices fell
One major invention…

19. Farmers Settle Plains
Great Plains last part of US to be settled by white people
Originally set aside as uninhabitable
Settled by Homesteaders & Exodusters
Exodusters: African Americans who moved from S to W
Promised Land in Kansas & Oklahoma