1.  Did Reconstruction achieve its goals? If so, which goals and how so? If not, why not? You may refer to your notes and Reconstruction packets in answering this question. Hint: Start first with asking yourself “What were the goals of Reconstruction?”

2. Which statement best explains why Reconstruction ended?  A) Reconstruction policies were no longer needed when the Southern states rejoined the Union.  B) African Americans prospered financially.  C) Reconstruction was intended to be a short-term event that would end in 10 years.  D) Enforcement of Reconstruction Acts decreased because of political compromise.

3. Which of these is the strongest evidence of the federal government showing its power over state governments during the Reconstruction period?  A the creation of the sharecropping system  B the migration of carpetbaggers into southern states  C the military occupation of former Confederate states  D the creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau

4. Three groups of pioneers settled this last frontier: Miners Cattlemen/Cowboys Farmers

5.  Mining is the first boom in the West  The California Gold Rush is the first of several booms.  Ex. The Comstock Lode: Huge Mineral Deposits  Most of the new strikes can only be exploited by large mining companies.

6.  Congress supported the building of railroads with land grants and loans.  Railroads drastically sped up the process of settlement and commercial exploitation of the West.  Railroad map of the US, 1884

7.  Two huge railroad companies The Union Pacific Railroad company and Central Pacific Railroad met at Promontory Point, Utah on May 10, 1869.  Used mostly immigrant labor for the backbreaking dangerous work.

8.  At first, no one fenced in their cattle (open-range system)  Each spring, ranchers hired cowboys to round up and drive their cows across the open range all the way up to the nearest railroad junction (cow towns like Dodge City, Kansas – home of Wyatt Earp) to ship to eastern markets.  This was called “the long drive.”

9.  Invention of Barbed Wire – so large tracks easily and cheaply fenced by farming Homesteaders, and later, fellow ranchers  Beef Prices dropped because of oversupply, then…  Extreme and bad weather during 1880’s – brutal winters and summer droughts – cattle starved. So ranchers began to grow hay/grains to feed cattle (instead of foraging) – more fencing and more tender meat breeds become favored.  Add to this the invention of the refrigerated rail car A circa 1870 refrigerator car design. Hatches in the roof provided access to the ice tanks at each end

10.  Railroads sold land leftover from their land grants  Homestead Act 1862: Government gave 160 acres of Great Plains real Estate to anyone who applied and was willing to stay there for 5 years and improve (aka Farm) the land.  Land was now cheap and available for settlement in the West, so people (both American and immigrant) came to make new lives for themselves.  A “sodbuster” home

11. What does 160 acres look like? Redskins Stadium and its surrounding parking areas

12.  Life on the prairie was really hard (locust “storms”, blizzards, droughts, windstorms, loneliness). So the government passed the Morrill Act in 1862 (and again in 1890) to establish agricultural colleges so that new farming techniques and inventions could be explored. Morrill Hall, on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park (a land-grant university), is named for Senator Justin Morrill, in honor of the act he sponsored.University of Maryland, College ParkJustin Morrill Morrill Hall, on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park (a land-grant university), is named for Senator Justin Morrill, in honor of the act he sponsored.University of Maryland, College ParkJustin Morrill Morrill Hall, on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park(a land-grant university), is named for Senator Justin Morrill, in honor of the act he sponsored. -Wikipedia

13.  Black settlers moving west to find their “promised land” (Exodus of the Bible)

14.  What conflicts would have arisen between all the different types of people who were settling the last (western) frontier of America? And who was the perpetual loser in all this?

16.  Indians have been left alone in the Western Planes while the area was deemed unusable for Americans, but…  With John Deere’s steel plow; the discovery of gold and silver in the West; and railroads crossing the continent, settlers now see this “Great Desert” as inhabitable…  By late1860’s most Native Americans will have been forced onto reservations, a policy begun by Andrew Jackson’s government in the 1830’s.

17.  Disease: killed tribesmen and weakened the native peoples.  Killing the Buffalo: The Buffalo herds supported the Plains Indian’s way of life. They are wiped out by over-hunting and by the spread of the railroads.

18.  Many Native Americans, especially Plains Indians (ex. Sioux & Comanche), rebel as their way of life is threatened, as treaties are broken, and as they are forced into smaller and smaller (& impoverished) areas.  Indian attacks on American settlements, stagecoach lines, etc. were met with US Army force, especially after the Civil War.  The Indian Wars are fought on and off from 1860 to 1890 in the Western States…

19.  Red River War in Texas, 1874-75 (Comanche defeated)  In 1875, Gold is found in the Black Hills of Montana and South Dakota, and there is a gold rush for Sioux hunting territory, leading to the Battle of Little Big Horn…  June, 1876 - General George Custer led his 250 troops vs. 2,000 Sioux, led by Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Custer is killed, bringing an onslaught of US forces against the Souix to avenge Custer. (Sioux defeated)

21.  In 1877, US federal government (Bureau of Indian Affairs) decides to move the Nez Perces people of Idaho to a smaller reservation to make room for white settlers.  Chief Joseph decides, instead, to lead his people on a trek to Canada over 1300 miles, but is stopped short at the border, and his people are moved to a barren reservation in Oklahoma.

22.  A religious movement that appealed to Native American desperation in late 1880s.  Indians thought it would bring them protection.  Worried White Government officials, who thought it would lead to further rebellion...

23.  1890 – the Government order the arrest of Sitting Bull, who had escaped during Little Big Horn. He is killed, and his people fled…  US troops caught up with them at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.  More than 200 men women and children are massacred by the US Cavalry, ending the Ghost Dance War and the Indian Wars in General.

24.  The reservation policy was an obvious failure (and expensive to maintain).  The new plan was to force Indians to become farmers and assimilate to white culture. The Dawes Act of 1887, split up the reservation lands and gave it to individual Indians in parcels of 160 acres, dealing with Native Americans as individuals rather than as Nations.

25.  Boarding schools in which Indian children were taught to be white.

26.  Some people worked on behalf of the Native American cause, including people like Helen Hunt Jackson.  Her book criticized the government’s numerous broken treaties and dishonorable dealings with Indian tribes.

28. Following the Civil War millions of men and women have migrated to the West to stake their claim to farmland and pursue their American Dream, but by the late 1880’s, it was turning into a nightmare:  Falling Prices of Farm Products  Rising Cost of Farming Equipment  Rising Railroad rates (monopolies) and Banking interest rates The farmers were going into debt producing necessary crops, while industrialists, bankers and businessmen were getting rich! And the government seemed to be on the side of big business!!!

29.  -First in the Midwest, then in the West and the South  The Grange was organized in 1867 (Oliver Kelly)  The Grange tried to educate farmers on farming techniques and advocated for lower railroad costs.  The Grangers were somewhat successful in achieving some of their goals (“Grange Laws”).

30.  Although the Grange declined in the late 1870’s other Farming Alliances continued to grow and spread.  This spread resulted in the forming of the Populist party in 1892.  The “people’s party”, Populists stood for seeking remedies to the “problems” of political corruption, unresponsive government, and inadequate monetary supply.  Populist support reached across regional/sectional political divisions…appealing to farmers in the south and west and industrial workers in the north (whether black or white) against the industrial elite.  Achieved a great deal of success in 1892, electing governors, senators, and congressmen and getting some electoral votes for their presidential candidate

31.  Unlimited coinage of silver  Government ownership of the railroads and telegraph companies.  Bank Regulations  Less government corruption  Graduated income tax

32.  The populists have to decide whether to support their own candidate and continue building support for their small party or support the Democratic Candidate William Jennings Bryan, who, while a Democrat, proposed many Populist ideals…

33.  The “boy orator’s” address to the 1896 Democratic National Convention  Electrifying…he became the 1896 Democratic Candidate  In it, he supported the idea of free silver and other Populist platform ideas….thus the dilemma.

34.  Democrats/Populists (aka Bryan) lost both the 1896 and 1900 elections, despite good fights, to Republican William McKinley.  The Populists lingered on for another decade, but basically disappeared as a feasible alternative to Democrats and Republicans after 1900.  However…what is the Populist Legacy…what kind of lasting impact did populism provide?