The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution 1865-1896
AP Notes Chapter 26
Describe the nature of the cultural conflicts and battles that accompanied the white
American migration into the Great Plains and the Far West…
 1860 – 360,000 Native Americans – scattered in the trans-Missouri west – stood in the way
of the white advance
o diseases
o shrinking buffalo population
o warfare among tribes for limited hunting grounds
Explain the development of federal policy towards Native Americans in the late nineteenth
century…
 Treaties
o Fort Laramie 1851
o Fort Atkinson 1853
o Reservation system – Dakota Territory and Indian Territory (Oklahoma)
 Promised food, clothing, and supplies – cheated by agents
 Warfare between Indians and U.S. Army
o Buffalo Soldiers……
o Sand Creek, Colorado 1864……
o Sioux attack of Captain William Fetterman – 1866 on the Bozeman Trail…..
o Treaty of Fort Laramie – 1868 …..
o Battle of the Little Big Horn….
o Chief Joseph and the Nez Perces….
o Geronimo…
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
Taming of the Native Americans
o Railroads
o Diseases
o Extermination of the Buffalo
o Booze

Reaction of humanitarians? Helen Hunt Jackson

Response of the hard-liners?

White expectations for Native Americans?

Ghost Dance and the Battle of Wounded Knee…

Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 …..

Consequence of the Dawes Act….
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Analyze the brief flowering and decline of the cattle and mining frontiers…
 Silver mines in the Rockies – Pike’s Peak - 1858
 Comstock Lode – 1859
 Boom towns became ghost towns
 Required machinery and eastern investments after initial strikes
 Significance of gold and silver?

Marketing of the Texas Longhorn?

The Long Drive….

Conflict between cattle ranchers, homesteaders, and sheepherders (barbed wire)…..

What was significance of the Homestead Act of 1862?

What were the short-comings of the Homestead Act?

What were the hardships/obstacles involved in farming the Great Plains?
Explain the impact of the closing of the frontier, and long-term significance of the
frontier for American history.

Frederic Jackson Turner - “The Significance of the frontier in American History”


National Parks – Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Sequoia
“safety – valve”?
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Describe the revolutionary changes in farming on the Great Plains…

Problems associated with large scale farming that was necessary in the Great Plains …..

Bonanza farms …..
Describe the economic forces that drove farmers into debt, and describe how the Grange,
the farmer’s Alliances, and the Populist Party organized to protest their oppression….

Reasons for farm debt…
o Deflation…
o Natural disasters affecting farmers…
o Taxes and tariffs…
o Corporations and processors…
o Middlemen…
o Railroads…

The Grange … Oliver H. Kelley

The Farmers’ Alliance…

The People’s party – Populists
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
Coxey’s Army….

The Pullman Strike…

What happened in the Election of 1896?
o William McKinley and Mark Hanna – what is the function of government?
o Republican platform?
o Democrats were unhappy with Cleveland – why?
o Who emerged as the leader of the Democrats and why?
o Democratic Platform?
o Populist candidate? Why?
o Why did McKinley win?
o What was the significance of the McKinley victory?
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