Looking to the West, 1860-1900
Great Plains, Pacific Northwest, and the
Southwest develop
Start a
new
life
Own a
farm
Move
west
Pacific Railways Acts of 1862 and 1864
 Passed during the Civil War when the Northern




Republics dominated the Congress (no Southern
opposition)
Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads
Received huge land grants from the federal
government
10 square miles of public land on each side of track
Railroads profited from selling land near tracks

Farmers needed railroads to transport goods to city
Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862
Created to
provide support
for state
colleges
Millions of acres
to state
governments to
be sold to
support state
colleges
Sold to land
speculators
(people who
bought large
sections of land
to make a profit
Homestead Act 1862 – 160 acres of public land to
anyone who met these requirements
21 or head of a
family
Had to farm for
5 yrs to get
ownership
Build house and
live there 6
months a year
Citizen or
applied for
citizenship
$10 registration
fee
By 1900 – 600,000 claims of 80 million acres
PROBLEMS
Expensive to make homestead
liveable (cost nearly $1000)
Prairie sod was hard to plow,
water was scarce, and climate
was harsh
Many gave up
before 5 years
Hard to survive
No farming
experience
Fraud – speculators
purchased the
property illegally
Life in the West
Used buckets
from rivers
“prairie fever”
(typhoid
fever)
Water
Dug
wells
Used cisterns to
collect rainwater
Many men left
homesteads to seek
work to supplement
crops
Women stayed behind
to make clothing,
soap, candles,
preserved food
African Americans in the West
Most settlers were white, but 1000s of
African Americans moved West to
escape violence
1879 – Benjamin Singleton – Exodus
to the West
Exodusters – 50,000 Af. Americans
Had little money and possessions,
lacked farming experience, couldn’t
escape racial hatred
Frontier Women
Filed land claims on
their own!
Endured long periods of
solitude
Ran the homestead
while husbands were
away
Women’s Suffrage in the West
1887
Kansas
1890
Wyoming
• Syracuse – all female
town council
• Argonia – first female
mayor
• 1st state with a
constitution giving
females the right to
vote!!
Native Americans – 1830s Jackson removed… to
the Great Plains
Cherokee
Seminoles
Chickasaw
Choctaw
Creek
Indian Territory
 Located in today’s Oklahoma
 Page 181 – Look at Map
Railroads and Settlers
 Settlers felt they had a right to the land
 Some settlers signed treaties with natives, but both
sides had different intentions of what the treaties
meant
 The Federal Government wanted to place natives on
Reservations (federal land set aside for natives)
Navajo
• 1865
• Agreed to
reservation
in New
Mexico
Apache
Cheyenne
• Surrendered
1871-1873
• Continued
raids until
Geronimo
surrendered
in 1886
• Surrendered
in Colorado
after a
massacre at
Sand Creek
Sioux – fought westward expansion!
1865 – 1st Sioux
War
• Federal Government
to build a road
through Sioux land
• Sioux ambush and
slaughter 80
soldiers in
December 1866
Agreed to move
to reservation in
Dakota Territory
1875 – 2nd Sioux
War (Chief
Sitting Bull)
• Miners into Black
Hills - search of gold
1876
• Lt. Col Custer
• Sent to round up
the Sioux
Battle of Little
Big Horn
• 200 soldiers
killed plus Custer
Federal
government
sends more
soldiers
• 1876 – Sioux
captured
• 1881 – Sitting
Bull captured
Battle of Wounded Knee 1890
Soldiers
attempt to
Shots fired –
arrest
After Sitting
200 Sioux
Bull’s Death followers who
killed
left the
reservation
Nez Perce - Northwest
1850s-1860s
• Many Nez Perce
sign treaties
• NOT ALL!
Largest group
refused to give in
• Idaho,
Washington,
Oregon
• Chief Joseph
Ordered to an
Idaho Reservation
• Nez Perce attack
white horse
thieves
• Fled to Montana
where soldiers
attacked
 September 30, 1877
 Nez Perce headed to Canada, but was blocked by the
military
 Many died while being held in the Indian territory,
including all of Joseph’s children
 Eventually Nez Perce were moved to a reservation in
Washington state
Change in Culture of the West
Christian
missionaries
ran schools
on
reservations
Buffalo
began to
disappear
by 1870s
National
rights
movement
for natives
developed
1884 – crime
for natives to
practice their
own religions
Dawes Act of 1887
Gave separate
plots of land to
native families
headed by a
male
But, natives
had no
interest in
farming and
no experience
1887-1934
land
ownership
among
natives
actually
shrank
Indian Territory (Oklahoma)
Congress gave
permission for
settlers to settle 2
million acres in
Indian territory
April 22, 1889
Oklahoma land rush
Boomers – staked
off 100s of claims
Sooners – snuck
across the line early
and staked a claim
May 2, 1890 –
Oklahoma Territory
eventually open to
settlers completely
Farming on the Plains
Rainfall
unpredictable
Grasshoppers,
locusts, boll
weevils
Extremes in
weather
drought
Farming
 Dry farming – crops that do not require a great deal
of water
 1870s – improvements – plow, harrows to break
ground, seed drills
 1875 – steam powered threshers
 1890s – corn huskers and corn binders
 1862 – Department of Agriculture – added under the
Morrill Act
 1880s and 1890s – formulated statistics on markets,
studied crop and plant diseases
 Distributed publications on crop rotation,
hybridization, topsoil
 Bonanza farms – farms controlled by large
businesses and managed by professionals
 Single cash crops
 Surplus – prices fell
Debt
 Farmers bought to much land and had to mortgage
 1849 – California Gold Rush (Sutter’s Mill,
California 1848)
 1859 – rumors of gold strikes in the area of Pike’s
Peak, Colorado
 “Pikes Peak or Bust!”
 Nevada – Comstock Lode
 Mining towns led to gambling and drunkeness
Mining Techniques
 placer mining – shoveled loose dirt into boxes and
ran through water
 1850s and 1860s – deeply buried gold which was
harder to get
 Larger companies had to do the mining
Cattle Industry
 Texas – early 1800s
 Longhorn cattle
 1860s and 1870s – booming period
 Plains – areas to pasture
 Demand for beef in large cities
 Railroad aided in cattle industry
 Long drive – cowboys would move cattle from place
to place (18 hours in the saddle)
Changes in the cattle industry by the 1880s
 1874 – Joseph Glidden – invented barbed wire
 Overstocking of cattle
 1885 – beef prices began to fall
 1885 – 1886 – hard winter (loss of 85% of cattle)
Problems
Debt up
Crop
prices
down
Competition
from other
nations
Tariffs
 Tariffs – encourage the sale of goods produced at
home by taxing imports
 Hurt farmers


Raised price of manufactured goods
Foreigners had no $ to buy American crops
 Helped farmers
 Protecting them from farm imports from other countries
Money Issue
 Value of money is linked to amount in circulation
 If money supply goes up =value of money goes down
 CAUSES INFLATION
 Reduce the supply of money and the value of money
goes up
 CAUSES DEFLATION
 After Civil War – period of deflation
 Monetary policy – printing/producing money or not
Disagreement over which is best
Inflation
Deflation
 Farmers want more money in circulation
 Manufacturers and other businesses want less
money in circulation
 1873 – nation went on the Gold Standard
 Silverites were mad! Silver miners and western
farmers are furious.
 Want free silver – unlimited coining of silver to
increase the supply of money
 1878 – Bland Allison Act – required government to
purchase and coin more silver, increase $ supply,
and cause inflation
 Vetoed by President Hayes
 Congress Overrode his veto
 However, the treasure refused to buy more than the
minimum under the law and refused to circulate
silver dollars
1890 – Sherman Silver Purchase Act
 Government was required to purchase an amount of
silver each month
 Repealed in 1893
 1867 – The Grange (Patrons of Husbandry)
 Farms form cooperatives
 Save money by buying in large quantities
 Greenback Party – wanted to circulate more paper
money to cause inflation
 Elected 14 members to Congress in 1878
 Power faded because of the focus on silver
Farmer’s Alliances
Attacked
monopolies
Wanted farm
credit
Wanted state
department of
agriculture
Wanted
railroad
regulation
Wanted more
money in
circulation
Natural Disasters with no Federal Help
 1882 – Mississippi flooded
 1886 – 1887 – drought
 1887 - blizzard
 1876-1892 – no president won a majority of the
popular vote
 Not powerful presidents – usually protected
American industry
 1887 – Texas Seed Bill – seed grain to aid drought
victims
 Grover Cleveland vetoed it
 “though the people support the government, the
government shouldn’t support the people”
 1887 – Interstate Commerce Act
 Regulated railroad prices
 Illegal to give special rates
 Developed the Interstate Commerce Commission
 1890 Sherman Anti-trust Act
 Curb power of trusts and monopolies
 Lax enforcement
Populists
 1890s – success in the South
 People’s Party – Populists
 1. increased circulation of $
 2. unlimited minting of silver
 3. progressive income tax – percentage increases
 4. government ownership of communication and
transportation
 5. 8 hour workday – opposed use of Pinkertons
(private police forces)
Populists
 Focused on poor whites and blacks
 1892 – James Weaver – won barely a million votes
 Grover Cleveland won
 Angered laborers when he ended the Pullman strike
 Angered farmers by supporting gold
 Angered manufacturers by supporting tariff

1893 – depression – millions out of work
 1896 – William McKinley vs. William Jennings
Bryan
 McKinley – for the gold standard
 Bryan – for silver – LOST
 Bryan – most known for his “Cross of Gold” speech
 Silver movement died
 Returned to gold standard (more gold found
worldwide)
 Farm prices rose
 Populism died
 Progressivism developed
Frontier - disappearing
 1900 – West
 U.S. territories, state constitutions, statehood

Frontier fading

Tenant farming on the rise
1872 – Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming, Montana, Idaho)
1st National Park
1890 – Superintendent of the census declared the end of the
frontier


Turner Frontier Thesis 1893
 Frederick Jackson Turner
 Speech detailing the importance of the frontier and
the end of the frontier
 Frontier – individualistic, restless, socially mobile
America
 Didn’t take into account women, minorities,
government
Frontier Realities
 Men and women
 Whites, African Americans, Chinese, and Japanese
 Chinese – railway workers
 9,000 African American cowhands
 “buffalo soldiers” – all black regiments
 1883 – Buffalo Bill Cody – Wild West Shows
1912 – Juliet Low – Girl Scouts – girls have been made
too soft