1. Chapter 16 Conflict in the West 1865-1912
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2. The Tribes of the West and the U.S. Government
The Civil War changed the lives of American Indians.
Once the Civil War ended, whites’ relationships with Indian tribes, especially on the Great Plains, took on greater significance.
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3. The Comanche Empire
The Civil War and Reconstruction opened new opportunities for the Comanche.
Developed a rich trade with New Mexicans who became known as comancheros
Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty
Provided for a Comanche reservation
Also gave them the right to hunt on open plains below the Arkansas River in Indian Territory (Oklahoma)
The Comanche saw the Civil War as a great gift. The US Army and Texas Rangers and other whites were called to fight each other on distant battlefields. In 1700 The Comanche's were a small tribe who had recently moved into what is now the Southwest US. They developed expertise using two European imports, rifles and horses, becoming the much-feared “Lords of the South Plains They built a life based on hunting buffalo. They made alliances, traded and fought bloody battles while they stole horses and supplies as wells as kidnapped settlers and other tribal people. By the early 1800s, although they were without a permanent capital, borders or bureaucracy, the Comanche ruled an empire that was equal in size and power to the United States or the Republic of Mexico.
IN 1867 a US delegation led by William Tecumseh Sherman, hear of the army in the West, came to Medicine Lodge Creek in Texas. The Army team showed up with 500 well-armed soldiers in dress uniform. The Comanche also arrived with all their war paraphernalia, their horses striped with war paint, the riders bedecked with war bonnets and their faces painted red.
The chiefs finally signed the treaty, but it left much open to interpretation. The Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty provided for a Comanche reservation but also gave them the right to hunt on open plains below the Arkansas River in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The Government thought they would become farmers while venturing on occasional hunting trips. The Comanche thought the reservation would make a great winter campground.
Quanah Parker was the son of a Comanche chief and Ann Cynthia Parker a white Texan who had been captured by the Comanche. He was the fiercest opponent of compromise with whites. On September 28, 1874, US forces attacked Parkers main encampment and though nearly all of the Indians fled. Thee Comanche began to surrender in small groups, coming to the army post at Fort Sill in Indian Territory over the course of the winter where they gave up their horses and their rifles moved to the reservations assigned to them.
Quannah Parker was only 27 when he surrendered to federal authorities. Over the next 4 decades, be became the principal chief for the Comanche and led them from warfare to farming and ranching. He was a tough negotiator for expanded land allotments. He did very well for himself and was friendly with Theodore Roosevelt.
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4. The Navajos and the Apaches
In early 1863, the army invaded Apache lands and soon confined some 400 Apaches at a new reservation at Bosque Redondo in central New Mexico.
The Bosque Redondo reservation was a complete failure.
When Union Brigadier General James H. Carleton arrived in New Mexico learned that Confederates in the regions had already been defeated, he ordered his troops to attack the Apaches and Navahos instead. The army invaded Apache lands and captured 400 Apache at Bosque Redondo. Carleton appointed Christopher “Kit” Caron to lead the attack on the much larger Navajo of 10,000. Carson walked into their encampment and destroyed everything. Some 6000 Navajos had surrendered instead of dying of starvation and eventually 8,000 were forced on the “Long Walk” 300 miles south to Bosque Redondo.
The reservation was a complete failure. The two tribes had not interest in working together. The Comanche saw the confined reservation as an opportunity to attack old enemies.
The arid land of New Mexico could not support thousands of families. After the government deemed it a disaster they agreed to move the Navajo back to their native lands and they were able to expand. The Navajo tribe had become the Navajo Nation. The tribe tripled in size in 6 years.
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5. The Modocs, the Nez Perce, and the Pacific Coast Tribes
The Nez Perce, the tribe without whom Lewis and Clark would have perished, had lived in Oregon and Idaho for a long time but were a deeply divided tribe
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce after his 1,500 mile trek: “I will fight no more forever.”
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6. The Lakota Sioux—From Fort Laramie to the Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee
June 25, 1876, Little Bighorn River, Montana
Custer’s 264 men encounter an Indian force of 2,000, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
Dec. 29, 1890, Wounded Knee, 146 Indians are killed, including 7 infants
The Sioux were the largest group of tribes in the Northern Great Plains they fought battles with the U.S. Army. There were 3 groups. Teton, Santee and Lakota Sioux. In December 1866 the Lakota attacked and killed US troops. Rather than risk further fighting the government sought peace with the Lakota as well as the Cheyenne and Arapaho allies. In the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Lakota Sioux led by Red Cloud promised to avoid war, and the army agreed to abandon three provocatively placed forts. It should be seen as victory for the, Sioux one faction, led by Sitting Bull, derided the treaty, reservation life, and the government annuities that were promised say “ You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack and a little sugar and coffee.” Indeed the treaty that Sitting Bull critized did not protect the Lakota at all. Less than 10 years later gold was discovered in the Black Hills and miners and settlers descended on the region, the government ordered the Lakota to leave winter camps and settle near the agency headquarters. The Lakota resisted The Great Sioux War of began.
General Philip Sheridan led a huge that attacked and defeated the Sioux The government then broke up the Great Sioux Reserve in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory, creating six smaller reservations.
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7. Ghost Dance
Wovoka initiated this movement promising a return of the buffalo and the disappearance of the white people.
The Sioux would need to take up the dance and return to their ancient ways, freeing themselves of dependence on white culture
Whites were afraid and the army was sent to investigate.
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8. The Plains Indian Wars MAP 16-1, The Plains Indian Wars
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9. Government Policy—The Grant Peace Plan and the Dawes Act
Grant’s Peace Policy - a new effort to end the Plains Indian wars by creating a series of reservations on which tribes could maintain their traditional ways
Native American schools
IN 1862 a Republican Congress passed and Lincoln signed the Homestead Act to make more federal land available for white settlement . The act provided 160 acres of federal land to a family that would settle and maintain the land for 5 years. It did not specify where the land would come from.
Ulysses Grant became president in 1869, he initiate a new Indian Peace Policy- Grant’s Peace Policy His thinking was shaped by the terrible blood shed he had seen in the Civil War and by his identification with the emancipation of slaves. He wanted to end the corruption that he saw in the Indian Bureau, and he wanted to treat the Indians with dignity. His goal was peace. At the same time, Grant wanted room for white settlement and was certainly not planning to keep whites out the vast tracts of western land that the Indian used for hunting.
The Carlisle Indian School was built in old army barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Twenty five Indian boarding schools, eventually both Catholic and Protestant were built on the Carlisle model between 1879 and Using federal tax dollars, these schools taught religion, western customs, and values to the Indian students. Indian students resisted the goal of the boarding school to transform them and resistance was harshly punished.
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10. Dawes Act
Dawes Severalty Act (1887) - attempts to turn Indians into farmers and landowners
160 Acres to each Indian family and US citizenship
After 25 years could sell their land or continue farming
Congress passed the General Allotment Act, (Named Dawes after MA Senator Henry Dawes). The Dawes Act divided the reservations into 160 acre tracts to be assigned to each family. After a 25 year waiting period, Indian families could see the land like their white neighbors. Indians who took possession of a homestead also became US citizens.
The provisions in the Dawes Act led to negative results. Indian culture was tribal and communal, and hunting was a major activity: the Act pushed them to be farmers and join an individualistic culture that many found alien. The most immediate impact what that after each family was allotted its 160 acres the surplus was given to white families. Later after the 25 year wait, Indian families sometimes sold their land, giving them a profit, but alienating them from their tribe. The act was an economic and cultural disaster.
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11. The Impact of the Transcontinental Railroad, 1869
Pacific Railway Bill of 1862
Union Pacific built westward from Omaha
Central Pacific eastward from Sacramento
Companies received 20 square miles of land along the track for each mile of track built
U.P. - 1,086 miles, C.P miles
The Pacific Railroad Act passed easily in The Union Pacific hard physical labor was mostly done by Irish workers. The Central Pacific was done by Chinese laborers.
Although travel to the California Gold Rush in 1849 took 6 to 8 weeks, by the 1870s a person could travel across the United States in 10 days
Trains however needed to follow a schedule if passengers and freight were to depart and arrive on time and collusions were to be avoided. Schedules, particularly coordinating trains over great distances, required something no one had considered before- standardized time.
On Sunday6 November 18, 1883, known as the “Day of Two Noons”, all but the most isolated American communities adjusted their clocks to plance thme in one of the four time zones into this the nation was being divided- time zones that still regulated life today.
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12. The Transformation of the West
The American West was transformed by:
The defeat of the Indian tribes
The Homestead Act
Changes in speed and transportation-time brought on by the railroads
Of course, not all new settlers in the American West got along with each other
Not all of the new settlers in the American Wests got along with each other. Cattle ranchers depended on vast wide-open spaces to feed and move their herds. Farmers seeking to establish160 acre homesteads depended on barbed wire to fence off their land, and keep cattle out. Older residents from North Mexico had relied on vague property lines and communal grazing lands while the newly arrived Americans wanted precise lines and built fences. Settlers seeing to establish farms or build towns depended on law and order while others outlaws and gunfighters that the best way to make a fortune was to take it from others.
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13. Cowboys, Cattle, the Open Range, and Barbed Wire
Drive cattle to railheads in Kansas, then to Chicago via the railroad
Abilene, Kansas - first cowtown
first herd of Texas cattle went to Chicago
Barbed wire - Joseph Glidden (1873)
Texas Longhorn cattle was the result of interbreeding cattle of Spanish origin with Anglo American stock was perfect for the region. They could survive on easy to find grass did not need additional feed, and were resistant to Texas Fever which was a tick born disease that killed other cattle. They also found the dried out bunchgrasses retained its protein and fed cattle well even in winter.
At the end of the Civil War there was 5 million cattle in west Texas. The Comanche took their share, but years of breeding and not being slaughtered their numbers grew exponentially. Veterans returned to reconnect with families and reestablish their herds. They did not call them roundups, they called them cow hunts. There went out to see what was left and brand it up. There were not called ranchers They did not own or maintain ranches. Unbranded cattle were known as mavericks were free for the taking. The huge King Ranch was one of several huge ranches in Texas and New Mexico. Richard King owned more than 84, 000 acres after the Civil War eventually expanding up to 1,270,000 acres.
Beef became extremely affordable, pork was advertised as unwholesome and hard to digest. Cattle were the easiest to raise at this time.
In 1867, Joseph G. McCoy founded Abilene, Kansas one of the first Cattle towns. Herders would “drive” the cattle to Abilene to load onto railcars and connect to railroad lines. In 1867, some 30,000 cattle made their way along the Chisholm Trail, and over the next 20 years, 2 million more followed.
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14. Connecting the Nation MAP 16-2, Connecting the Nation
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15. Cattle Trails and Rail Lines
MAP 16-3, Cattle Trails and Rail Lines
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16. Latino Resistance in the Southwest
Throughout much of the West, the battle between those who wanted to fence and control the land, and those who wanted free grazing land for their herds was one of the great divides.
Latino resistance took different forms across the Southwest.
The White Caps were a secret organization and did not like the fences they would cut the fences, destroy the posts and opened the range again. In response to widespread fence cutting, the territorial governor requested federal troops. In spite of federal troops, most citizens of San Miguel County were sympathetic with the White Caps.
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17. Farmers and Farm Towns Sodbusters
Whites and blacks flocked to the Plains
Typical house built of sod
Isolated
Constant struggle against nature
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18. Mining and Miners California Gold Rush of 1849
Henry Comstock - Comstock Lode, Nevada, produced $306 million gold & silver
Independent miners replaced by large corporations
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19. Outlaws, Gunfighters, and Mythmakers—Legends of the Old West
Wyatt Earp
Frank and Jesse James
Billy the Kid
“Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show” in the 1880s
Annie Oakley
Contrary to Hollywood, Cowboys and Indians pretty much stayed their distance from each other. There was plenty of violence among whites, bar brawls, cattle rustling, hired gunfighters to eliminate people for land developers and ranch owners.
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20. Becoming States Territories become states
California (1850), Minnesota (1858), Oregon (1859), Kansas (1861), Nevada (1864), Nebraska (1867), Colorado (1876)
1889 and 1890: North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming.
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21. Early States Granting Women Suffrage
MAP 16-4, Early States Granting Women Suffrage
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