Chapter 13

• Trace the growth of the mining industry in the
West
• Describe the ways that new technology changed open-range ranching
• Explain how and why people began settling the
Plains
• Trace the growth of commercial farming on the plains
• Discuss conflicts that arose between the Plains
Indians and American settlers
• Summarize the problems caused by attempts to assimilate Native Americans

• Hydraulic Mining
• Henry Comstock
• Open Range Cattle
• Chisholm Trail
• Barbed Wire
• Homestead Act
• “Great American
Desert”
• Dry farming
• Bonanza Farms
• Oklahoma Land Rush
• Morrill Act 1862 1890
• Nomads
• Indian Peace
Commission
• George A. Custer
• Ghost Dance
• Dawes Act

• Mining huge industry
• Ranchers cattle and sheep on public land
• Farmers fail--- bad weather, high cost of storing and transporting
• New inventions--- steel plow mechanical reapers and windmills make it possible —barbed wire
• Farmers make own party
• Railroads connect the west
• Plains Indians are destroyed

• West is rich in gold, silver, and copper
• Brought settlers
• Placer Mining--shallow deposits used picks, shovels, and pans

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Henry Comstock--- miner found Silver ore
Brought hoards of people to Nevada
Became a boom town
Silver gone
This cycle was repeated
Gold --- Colorado, Dakota Territory, Montana
Northern Greater Plains developed
Railroads built
Congress divides the territory –North and South
Dakota Montana

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Small mining gives way to big business
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Surface materials were quickly taken
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Ended up in hands of eastern bankers
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Miners were first to realize importance of west
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Added to nations wealth
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Paper backed by gold and silver
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Mining improved the supply of money

 Gold encouraged building for railroad
 Connected East to West
 Omaha, Nebraska and end in
Sacramento California
 First Transcontinental Railroad
 Union built Omaha to West
 Central Pacific stared in Sacramento
 Met at Promontory Point, Utah

 Get people to the mines
 Allowed western settlement
 Made it possible to move cattle back east
 Quick way to transport goods
 Made ranching and farming profitable

 Cattle Ranches--- too dry
 Texas Longhorns
 Ranches were able to grow
 Open Range – grassland owned by government provided land ranchers could graze cattle ---free unrestricted
 Long drives from Texas to sale
 Chisholm Trail – route to Abilene major route town filled with cowboys and miners

 Driving Cattle becomes popular
 Sheep herders moved their flock
 Cattle farmers blocked
 “range wars” barbed wire makes appearance
 Livestock is prevented from roaming
 Long Range Drives are ended
 Cattle now raised in fences, longhorns disappear, and cowboys become ranch hands

 “Great American Desert”
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Construction of railroads and credit to prospective settlers
Pamphlets and Posters “ticket to prosperity”
 Homestead Act--- 10 dollars (registration fee) claim up to 160 acres and after living there for 5 years receive title
 More willingly to move

 Dry Farming --- Plant deep where there was moisture
 Steel plows, seed drills, and reapers
 Wheat became the crop
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More people moved
Wheat Belt – Dakotas, western parts of
Nebraska and Kansas
 Farms covered up to 50,000 acres called
Bonanza farms – big farms

 1880’s United States leading exporter
 Prices drop
 Farmers had to mortgage land
 Homesteaders head home
 What is a homesteader??????

 1889 last of frontier closed--- Oklahoma
 10,000 people raced to stake claims
 Oklahoma Land Rush

• Morrill Acts 1862
1890 –
• Granted land to colleges to teach
• Agriculture, Military
Tactics, Mechanic
Arts
• Alabama Polytechnic
Institute

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Great Plains were inhabited
Nomads
Placed belief in power of natural world
Buffalo main food source
Settlers began moving
Buffalo decrease
Direct cause railroads –used for food and killed for blocking and destroying railroad tracks
Killed just for hides ---
Plains depended on them –food, shelter, tools. Weapons

 Government wanted Native Americans to farm
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Killing of buffalo
Move to reservations —stop being nomads ---
 Causes conflicts
 Settlers number grew =conflicts

 Sand Creek Massacre – Native
Americans distrust white men --why???
 Colorado militia slaughtered innocent women and children ----
 Do not get charged with a crime
 Fetterman Massacre---
 Battle of Little Big Horn

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Ranchers, miners, farmers
Forced relocation (not honor treaties)
Attack wagon trains and ranches
Sioux in Minnesota
Dakota Sioux agreed to live on reservation
Government issued annuities ---payments
Ended up with the traders
1862 Congress delayed payments
Starving to death

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Little Crow asks traders for food
Myrick ---
“let them eat grass…”
Found dead
Uprising
Hundreds are slaughtered
Tribunal many put to death
Several Indian uprising Fetterman’s Massacre and Sand
Creek Massacre
Indian Peace Commission--- 2 large reservations
Indian Peace Commission
2 large reservations
Indian Affairs (federal agency)

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Many left reservations
Overrun with gold miners
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Battle of Little bighorn
1876--- Custer leader
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Underestimated fighting capabilities
Launches attack
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Native Americans actually win
Custer is painted as victim of massacre
 Army stepped up

 Ghost Dance --- defied government order
 Symbolic dance –settlers disappear, buffalo return, and return of deceased ancestors
 Government tried to break it up
 Battle ensued 25 soldiers and 200 Native
Americans died

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A Century of Dishonor 1881--- described the abuse
Assimilation---- break up reservations
Families could be self supporting
Dawes Act --- 1887 allotted 160 to each head of household
Single –80 children 40
Land sold to settlers $ going to fund
Fails --- dependant on buffalo for food
Had to adapt to settlers way of life

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Grange --- fraternal order of farmers
Upset : High Tariffs, income did not keep up with rest of economy, hard time paying debts, bade weather, expensive machinery, high rates to ship,
Form own political party =Grange
To unite farm families
Coops and farmers alliance ---cheap seed and fertilizers
Farmers alliance = exchanges ---force prices up interest rates down

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Ocala Demands ----
Free unlimited coining of silver coins (reduce inflation)
Tighter regulations on railroads
Suppport for the sub treasury plan (government warehouses
End protective tariffs
Graduated income tax
Direct election of Senators

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Greenbacks --- formed to fight inflation
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More money in circulating less it is worth pay debt off
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Railroads –monopoly on transportation
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Warehouses ---store crops till price rose – called the sub treasury plan - government loan money to pay off crops –farmer could hold the crop in warehouse till price rises

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People’s Party
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Help farmers
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Sherman Solver Purchase Act 1890– keep farmers voting Populist --- treasury purchase 4.5 million ounces silver per month
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Put up a candidate for President

• Obviously, there was animosity between the
Native Americans and the people making the move out west. Describe the federal governments attempt to resolve the conflict
(including the consequences of it) and the attempt to assimilate Native Americans into
American society.
• Dawes Act, allotments, Indian Peace
Commission, Battle of Little Bighorn, and
Wounded Knee

• Comstock Lode
• Transcontinental Railroad ---where it started and ended and importance
• Sherman Silver Purchase Act
• Farmers Party –why formed and what it stood for
• Grievances of Farmers
• Ocala Demands
• Sub treasury plan
• Governmental control of Native Americans ---what did they want
• Importance of railroads

• Promontory Point, Utah
• What closed the frontier
• Impact of mining
• Disappearance of Buffalo --- what caused it
• Farmers alliance
• Cooperative