The West: Miners, Ranchers, Farmers, and
Native Americans, 1865-1914
Chapter 5 Section 1 & 2
1
The Plains Indians
 The Great Plains: region between
Mississippi River and Rocky
Mountains.
 Spanish introduction of horses in
the 1600s changed way of life for
Indian nations
 Plains region: area reserved for
Indians in the early 1834
 There was great diversity in the
region, although most tribes relied
upon the buffalo
2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ4T9CQA0UM
Family Life
• Lived in small tribes
• Moved around (nomadic)
• Men hunted, dealt with horses, played games
and relaxed
• Women did everything else
• Religions
– Polytheistic
• Powerful spirits controlled events in natural world
Thar’s gold in them there hills!
• 1848 Sutter’s Mill, CA
• 1858 Colorado
• 1874 Black Hills of South Dakota
• 1850’s Government rescinded on the Great
Plains as area reserved for Indians and started
placing them in specific locations across west
• Manifest Destiny at it’s finest!
5
Clashes on the Prairie
• Settlers
– Cattle industry
• Miners
• Railroad
• Indians placed on reservations across west
– Treaties defined specific boundaries for each tribe
• Indians continued to hunt on their traditional
lands
Sand Creek Massacre, November 29, 1864
ZCheyenne return to Colorado’s
Sand Creek Reservation for winter
ZColonel Chivington ordered an
attack on the camp. His troops
murdered men, women, children,
and the elderly killing over 150
Cheyenne.
7
Treaty of Fort Laramie
• Bozeman Trail
– Trail that ran through
Sioux hunting grounds in
the Bighorn Mountains
• Sioux attack troops and
settlers
• 1868 - Treaty said Sioux
would agree to live on
reservation along the
Missouri River
• Sitting Bull never signed
it
Battle of Little Bighorn, 1876
Thousands of miners head
to Black Hills of Montana in
search for gold
The Lakota Sioux chiefs
Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
attack settlers.
Sitting Bull has vision
Colonel George A. Custer
and 250 of his soldiers were
attacked on June 25 at the
Little Bighorn River.
Custer
Custer and his men were
all killed in what is known
as “Custer’s Last Stand.”
Crazy
Horse
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10
Dawes Act of 1887
• Assimilation – plan under
which Indians would give
up their beliefs and way
of life and become a part
of white culture
• Wanted to end traditional
Native American way of
life
• 160 acres given to head of
households
Senator Henry L. Dawes
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Several attempts were made to assimilate
Indians into the American way of life during
the mid-1800s.
Indian school, Pine Ridge, SD
12
Schools opened across the nation and were used to strip
Native Americans of their traditional culture. Curriculum
focused on manual labor skills.
Cantonment, OK
Making tin utensils at Carlisle, PA
Art class at Carlisle, PA
School at Pima reservation, AZ
13
Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890
Army troops followed
the Indians to the
Wounded Knee Creek.
As the Lakota
prepared to
surrender, a shot was
fired.
Army troops shot and
killed nearly 300 men,
women, children and
the elderly.
last major violent
clash between the
U.S. government and
Native Americans.
14
End of Buffalo
• Shot for sport
• Shot because they got
in the way of the
railroad
• Used bones for ash
• 1800 – 65,000 000
roamed the plains
• 1890 – 1000 remained
• 1900 – wild herd
sheltered at
Yellowstone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkDqzpNsg6U
Growth of the cattle industry
As the population of
the U.S. increased, a
greater demand for
meat led to growth in
the cattle industry.
Huge profits could be
made if the cattle could
be driven overland to
be transported to the
east.
16
Cowboys
Diverse group of men
including Americans,
Mexicans, African
Americans, Native
Americans, as well as
various European
immigrants
Extremely demanding
job, often requiring 18
hours a day in the
saddle, harsh weather
conditions, loneliness,
low pay, and possibility
of stampede or death by
dragging or disease
Cowboys earned approximately
$570 a month in 2006 dollars
17
Cattle drives
In order to get live
cows to the east,
ranchers needed to
move them to the
railroad.
Major trails were
blazed between grazing
land and cow towns.
18
Decline of the Cattle Kingdom
In the mid-1880s, the
cattle ranching business
was devastated by
several factors,
including:
Overexpansion
Lowered prices due
to overproduction
Battles over land
usage with farmers
who used barbed
wire
Bad weather
Cattle diseases
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Winter of 1887-1888
One of coldest recorded
winters on the Great Plains.
In Lincoln, NE, for example,
36 days of the winter were 0°
or below.
Thousands of cattle died as a
result of the freezing
temperatures as well as
starvation from lack of food.
This effectively ended the
Cattle Kingdom.
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