1. 14.2
Explain how the Federal Government helped to settle the newly acquired territories.
Discuss the migrants to the Plains and what life was like there.

2. Bellringer
Why did settlers move to the Far West and Texas rather than the Great Plains?

3. Copy HW Read and outline p. 444-453 and take notes on the following:
The events surrounding the cattle boom
How the US government helped the cattle boom
Questions
1. What were the three land grants that helped to settle the west?
2. What were the causes/effects of the Battle of Wounded Knee?
3. What two branches were at odds over Reconstruction?
4. What was the case/decision in Marbury v. Madison?

4. Compare and Share HW
1. How did the Dawes Act change Native American culture?
2. What were the Jim Crow laws?
3. What were the Civil War amendments and what did each do?
4. What was the case and decision in Plessy v. Ferguson

5. Intro How could you get people to move to area?
Which of these tactics did the Federal Government use to get people to move to the Great Plains?
B – Dawes Act

6. People wouldn’t even buy it a cheap prices!

7. How the US Government helped to Settle the New Territories
LAND ACTS!
The Homestead Act (1862)
160 acres of free land in Great Plains
Am. Or prospective citizen could use
Had to farm and make improvements for 5 years

8. Sod houses, Hard Work and Isolation = Life of a Homesteader

9. Pacific Railway Act (1862)
Land given to RR companies to build transcontinental RRs
Congress gave Central and Union Pacific Railroads 10 square miles for every 1 mile of track laid
RR completed in 1869

10. Morrill Act (1862) A.k.a. Land-Grant College Act
Land Grants to states to set up agricultural colleges
Intent – help Western farmers

11. Land Grant College Act in NYS –Cornell University Built on Senator Ezra Cornell’s farm in Ithaca, NY

12. Land Grant College Act in Pennsylvania –Penn State –State College, PA campus

13. Congress Created The Department of Agriculture (1862)
Helped Plains farmers
Researched and Discovered new kinds of wheat
Agents taught dry farming – ways to conserve moisture
Promoted use of:
windmills to access underground water
New farming equipment

14. Migrants 1. White Americans from the East
Middle class farmers and businessmen
Most from the Mississippi Valley

15. 2. African Americans Many went to Kansas
Exodusters – escaping racial persecution in the South

16. 3. Immigrants Norwegians, Swedes and Danes Irish (former RR workers)
Germans
Russian Protestant Pacifists (easily able to farm the Plains – wheat)
Some Chinese

17. Life on the Plains Lack of water and trees – had to overcome
Difficult climate
Harsh winters
Blazing hot winters
Windy
Bonanza Farms – large
Sod Houses - dark and wet
INSECTS!
Family labor intensive
Isolated
Boring