American social development has been continually beginning over again
on the Frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this
expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with
the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating
American character. The true point of view in the history of this nation
is not the Atlantic coast, it is the Great West.
- Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893
Louisiana Purchase
(1803)
Lewis & Clark
Expedition (1804-1806)
Mexican-American War
(1846-1848)
Manifest Destiny – no
more
Concentration is on war
Postbellum Period
People begin to move
West
Known as the “Great
Desert”
1900 – Heavily inhabited
Buffalo population is down
by 95%
Railroads choking out
Native American lands
Groups of Settlers:
Miners
Cattlemen
Farmers
Miners
Gold Rush – 1848
Settled much of CA and OR
Colorado
Pike’s Peak – 1859
100,000 inhabitants
Nevada
Comstock Lode (1864)
Speculators
Placer mining
Deep-shaft mining
Investment and capital
Boomtowns
Virginia City, NV
San Francisco, CA
Sacramento, CA
Denver, CO
Problems in CA:
Immigration – mostly
Asian
Miner’s Tax
$20/mo
ALL foreign-born miners
Chinese Exclusion Act of
1882
Eliminated immigration
from China
Renewed in 1892
The Cattle Frontier
Economic opportunities
Railroad
Postwar – opened up East to
the West
Cow Towns
Abilene, TX
Dodge City, KS
Chicago, IL
“Long-Drive”
Chisholm Trail
Goodnight Loving Trail
Conditions:
Workers
Mexican immigrants/blacks
(exodusters)
$1.00/day
Farming/grazing methods
1880s – overgrazing
1885-1886 – massive
drought
Killed 90% of cattle on
Plains
Privatization of property
Joseph Glidden (1874)
The Farming Frontier
Homestead Act of 1862
160 acres
500,000 moved west
2.5 million had to buy land
from RRs
Problems:
No building materials
Extreme hot and cold
No water
Solutions:
Sodbusters – sod bricks
“Dry farming”
Russian Wheat
“Hurrah for Greer
County! The land of the
free,
The land of the bedbug,
grasshopper, and flea;
I’ll sing of its praises,
I’ll tell of its fame;
While starving to death
on my government
claim.”
Antebellum: “one big
reservation”
“Indian Country” –
government
nomenclature
1834 – Indian
Intercourse Act
Whites must have a
“license” to move to the
West
Changes in 1848
Removal of Native
Americans
65% live on Great Plains
Tribes:
Sioux
Blackfoot
Cheyenne
Crow
Comanche
Conflicts with U.S.
Govt.
Reservation Policy
Used to open terrain
Settlers moved West
Transcontinental RR
being built
Native American
philosophies:
Family
NO Private Property
U.S. government attitude
towards indigenous:
Reservations!
Treaty of Fort Laramie
(1851/1868)
Indian Wars
November 1864 –
Massacre at Sand Creek
John Chivington
“Nits make lice”
1867 – Great Sioux War
7th Cavalry loses big!
Battle of Little Bighorn
Col. George A. Custer
Custer’s Last Stand
“Assimilationists”
Respond
Dawes Act (1887)
Wanted Native Americans to
assimilate
Give up Ghost Dance
Become “civilized”
U.S. Govt. divides up tribal
lands
47 million acres
FAILURE
Battle of Wounded Knee
December 28, 1890
Wounded Knee Creek,
SD
7th Cavalry – rounds up
350 starving Sioux
Demand Sioux to give up
weapons
Last of the Indian Wars
Frederick Jackson
Turner
“The Significance of the
Frontier in American
History” (1893)
Argument:
Frontier played a significant
role in forming American
identity
Individualism and
ruggedness
West was a safety valve for
East
By 1890 – West was closed
In your opinion, was Reconstruction a success or
a failure? Did southerners receive a “New South”
or was it the same old “Reconstruction South”?
In your answer be sure to discuss social, political,
and economic issues that “Reconstructionists”
faced during this time period.
With the people around you, identify:
What this document is saying about the South?
How does the document describe the conditions in the
South (social/cultural, economic, and political)?
Does this document exhibit or demonstrate the
potential for a New South or is it just the
Reconstruction South?
Still recovering from
Civil War
Henry Grady
Pro-industrialization
Pro-transcontinental RR
Atlanta Constitution
article
Economic Process
Cities
Birmingham, AL
Major symbol of
“New South”
Steel center
Richmond, VA
Tobacco center
Memphis, TN
Lumber capitol
CHEAP LABOR!
Textile industry
Georgia, SC, and NC
Made more cloth and
textiles than New England
1865 – 12 small cotton mills
1900 – 400 cotton mills
100,000 workers
Continued Poverty
Mostly agriculture
Poorest region in the
country
Northern investors
controlled ¾ of RRs
Money went to bankers
and to the North – not
Southerners
Poverty caused by:
Late entry into
industrialization
Poorly educated work force
Agriculture
Cotton prices drop
drastically
Farmers lost lands
Per capita income
declined
By 1900 – 50% of whites
were tenant farmers –
75% blacks
George Washington
Carver
Farmers Unite!
1890 – Farmers’ Southern
Alliance
1 million members
Colored Farmers’ Southern
Alliance
250,000 members
Both wanted political and
economic reforms
Poor whites and black united
for a common goal
Segregation
1877 – Federal troops exit
South
No more protection for
blacks
Democrats come into
local power
White supremacy
Separate races
KKK
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Jim Crow Laws
Grandfather clause
Poll tax
Literacy tests
Voting numbers fall
Louisiana
1896 – 130,334
1904 – 1,342
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