Chapter 16, The American WEST
• Probably 100,000 Native Americans lived on the
great Plains at mid 1800’s with at least 30 tribal
groupings in the Eastern End, the Mandan,
Arikaras, and Pawnees planted Corn & beans and
lived in permanent villages, European diseases
ravaged the populations. The Hunting populations,
Kiowa, Comanche, Arapahos, Cheyenne, Blackfeet,
crows, & The Sioux were more dispersed and so
suffered from less exposure to those diseases.
• The Teton Sioux Moved westward in the mid
1700s acquired and mastered horseback riding
and were the most powerful tribe on the plains.
Either dominating or expelling other tribes in the
region.
Their lifestyle
centered around
Hunting, and the
plains had an
abundance of grazing
animals such as the
Buffalo & the
Antelope.
• As early as 1850, plans were taking place to build a
TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD but until the civil
war determined Northern dominance and a
Northern route, the project had been delayed. In
1869 the Railroad had been completed in
Promontory Point Utah, with the Central Pacific
railroad moving Eastward from Sacramento and the
Union Pacific moving Westward from Omaha
Nebraska.
and the Union
Pacific moving
Westward from
Omaha
Nebraska.
• The federal government subsidized the Project…
giving generous land grants and millions of dollars
in loans to the railroad companies. The Central
Pacific took much longer to progress Eastward, as it
was difficult to plow through the Sierra Nevada
Mountain Range. The Union Pacific employed
Primarily Irish immigrants whereas the Central
Pacific employed primarily Chinese immigrants
• The building of the railroad encouraged westward
settlement of the great Plains… lands that had been left
to the Indians. With the migration the Buffalo and the
Indians both had to go. The extermination of the
Buffalo would help to starve the Indians into
submission, removing the buffalo made room for
grazing cattle on the plains, and Eastern Tanneries had
learned how to cure buffalo hides which helped create
a lucrative market.
• In 1862 President Lincoln signed the HOMESTEAD
ACT into law Giving 160 acres of land in the great
plains to anyone who was willing to develop, live
and work on the land for five years…. Even better, if
you raised cattle government land was available for
grazing of cattle. From 1862 to 1885 Open range
ranching was available and profitable.
• The cattle Boom on the plains ended in 1886 after
the killing winter of 1885/86 destroyed most of the
cattle and sending ranchers into debt. Theodore
Roosevelt Had just come out to the west to become
a Rancher and after his herd was destroy he went
back east and back into politics.
• Some Women were liberated from traditional gender
roles by moving out to the plains, where farm work was
shared by families and women took on “men’s” work .
And when husbands died women took over the entire
responsibility of the farm.
• Former slaves mostly from Louisiana and Mississippi
also headed for homestead lands after
Reconstruction ended in 1870’s and protection from
the troops ended… Primarily to Kansas. They were
called EXODUSTERS. To get to Kansas, the
Exodusters had to cross the Mississippi River and
after a time the river boat captains refused to allow
more Freedmen to pass across the river.
• Because of the limitations of water supply, farmers
used an agricultural technique known as “dry Farming”
It involved deep planting to bring subsoil moisture to
the roots and quick harrowing after rainfalls.
Unfortunately dry farming technique needed 300 acres
to support a family farm. For this reason the Great
plains farms tended to be bigger than Eastern farms.
• The Plains states required the railroads to get their
product to market and the railroads all ended in
Chicago. The Stockyards that cattle ranchers took
their livestock to the slaughter houses were in
Chicago. This makes Chicago the economic capital
of the Great Plains.
• Railroads advertized to the public about the land
opportunities… In order to sell the land the federal government
granted them. It effectively changed the attitude of the public
which had been told of the Great American Desert, and before
gold was discovered in the Black Hills, they believed it was too
dry for farming. Now they were beating a path to the Great
farm land. A land that had belonged to the native Americans.
The Great Plains Indians fought back in the expectation that if
they exacted a high enough price in blood, than Whites would
leave them in peace.
Red Cloud’s war for
the Powder River
1868
• Red Cloud was the Oglala Lakota Sioux
Chief Who successfully battled the
White armies and was able to keep the
sacred Powder River for the Sioux… Red
Cloud Had Captain Fettermen and 79
soldiers chase after a decoy (Crazy
Horse on the right) who led all 80 men
into an ambush.
Sand Creek Massacre 1864
• The Slaughter at Sand Creek
was not an isolated event,
and all tribes of Indians were
not likely to trust treaties
after this event.
The Sand Creek Massacre
was an atrocity in the
Indian Wars that occurred
on November 29, 1864,
when a 700-man force of
Colorado Territory militia
attacked and destroyed a
peaceful village of
Cheyenne. Killing mostly
Women and Children &
Taking body parts for
trophies
Sitting
Bull &
Crazy
Horse
• In 1876, Col. George Armstrong
Custer believed he needed one
more great Indian victory to
Launch his Presidential
campaign, attempted to attack
an unsuspecting tribe of
Cheyenne and Sioux, But the
Indians, Under the leadership
of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
they quickly turned the assault
around and wiped out Custer
and his men at the Battle of
Little Big Horn. The U.S.
military pursued Sitting Bull
and his tribe Briefly ran off to
Canada, but it was too cold so
he returned with his tribe
surrendered and settled in a
reservation. Although Sitting
Bull did appear in Buffalo Bill’s
Wild west Show for a time.
In Arizona The Apache
put up a great
resistance Cochise Was
chief, but he was
eventually brought into
a reservation
• Geronimo was another
Apache chief Who made
attacks on Mexican and
Americans for several
decades until he was forced
to surrender in 1886
• Some white Reformers created
the Indian Rights Association &
advocated the Assimilation of
Indians into the White Culture.
Eventually the idea of
assimilation gain favor in US.
Policy for Indians and The Dawes
Severalty ACT of 1887 was
passed. This law broke up
reservations into 160 acre lots
that were distributed to each
adult male. Children were sent
off to boarding schools to be
taught the White way.
• Many Whites believed that they were helping the Indians by
removing the culture from the children at boarding schools,
where children as young as five had been forcibly removed
from their families, and punished for speaking in their home
language or for practicing their own religious traditions. In her
book, “BECOMING WHITE” Gertrude Simmons Bonnin
recalled that White Teachers did not understand the
psychological impact of cutting the hair of Indian Children.
• By 1890 all the tribes had been reduced to living on small
reservations and compelled to become farmers, but drought had
wiped out the crops and promises of supplies to help the Indians
get through the winter turned into one more lie the white man
gave them. But a new Prophet named Wovoka Came along ,
promising that if the Indians danced a great GHOST DANCE, the
White man would disappear and the plains would be restored to
the old ways. Wovoka never talked of War, but settlers in the area
became alarmed and called in the Calvary.
• The Calvary brought in Sitting bull, In
December of 1890, who had been
quietly on his reservation and had
opposed Wavoka’s teaching, but the
military was afraid and when they
decided to put Sitting Bull in a jail, an
unarmed Sitting Bull struggled and
was shot by “Dog soldiers” Including
Little Big Man, Who had just 10 years
before threatened to kill any chief
that agreed to give away Indian land.
BIG FOOT (Who was ill at the time) and his Tribe agreed to surrender
themselves to the soldiers, but the military demanded that the
Indians surrender their rifles and the Indians said that the promise of
food had never arrived and they needed their rifles for hunting. The
Indians were aware of past cases where tribes had surrendered their
weapons, only to be shot down in cold blood, and they were not
trusting the soldiers this time. The Soldiers opened fire.
• The battle of Wounded Knee was short, 25 soldiers
were killed, 146 Indians were killed including
women and children who were shot down as they
tried to flee. Wounded Knee was the last battle for
the Plains Indians. The division of tribal lands into
160 acre parcels, proceeded without hindrance.
Wounded Knee
• On New Years Day
January 1891, The
bodies of the Indians
were dug out of the
Snow and tossed into
a mass grave
MINING
• The Original attraction for settling out west was the
discovery of minerals that brought wealth. The
Discovery of gold in 1848 in California , turned San
Francisco into the Hub of the Mining economy for
everything West of the Rockies, Denver was also a
community that blossomed as a Mining center.
Montana developed as a result of the discovery of
copper deposits.
• Following the Mexican American War, Many Americans
migrated to the former territories of Mexico and felt
free to take land away from the Mexicans as they had
from the Indians. As the Tejanos were forced back
across the border they felt justified in periodically
jumping back across the border to raid the wealth of
the lands they had taken from them. This continued
right up through WWI.
• Americans have always had problems with Immigrants settling in on
American soil. The Nativist movements in New England opposed
Irish, Scots, Polish and other Eastern Europeans transplanting
themselves. But they seemed particularly opposed to immigration
of Asians. Employers in the 1800’s had high praise for Chinese work
ethic, but White Workers hated them because they were willing to
work for low wages and whites stereotyped them as being Immoral.
Chinese were originally flocking to The gold rush in 1849, were
mostly male and by 1860 numbered about 9 % of California’s
population. Led (ironically by a former discriminated class ) by
Dennis Kearney , an Irishman, Who campaigned that “The Chinese
Must Go” Discrimination toward the Chinese was so great that the
federal government responded by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act
in 1882, barring Chinese immigration to the United States
• Japanese immigrated to California as well, and by
1910 they made up half of California’s agricultural
labor force. They too found Prejudice and legal
restrictions.
• California was fertile ground for writers;
• Mark Twain began his career as a prospector in the
California gold camps and as a columnist for a San
Francisco Newspaper. And Helen Hunt Jackson,
Who wrote “A Century of Dishonor” about the
Genocide of Native Americans, also wrote about the
Spanish Culture in California.
• John Muir Explored much of California and fell in
Love with Yosemite. He spent many years trying to
insure that Yosemite woiuld be preserved as a
National Park…. And through his efforts it
eventually did.
END OF THE AMERICAN WEST CHP 16