CHAPTER 17- THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI WEST
I.
Native Americans and the Trans-Mississippi West
1. Indians living in the Trans-Mississippi West had been interacting with
the Spanish speaking population of the region and traded mutton and
produce with them for glass beads, metal hoes, knives, and guns.
2. Other contact with non-Indians caused serious problems for Native
Americans:
a. Diseases like measles, diphtheria, smallpox, etc.
b. Massacres caused reservation removal
c. Alcohol abuse
d. Impoverishment caused demoralization
3. By the 1890’s Indian relocation to distant and inferior lands had become
the fate of almost every tribe of the Great Plains
B. The Plains Indians
1. Two major sub-regions:
a. The Northern Planes (Montana southward to Nebraska) 
Flatheads, Blackfeet, Assiniboins, northern Cheyennes,
Arapahos, and Crows
b. The Planes (Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, eastern New Mexico,
and Texas)  Five Civilized Tribes, Pawnees, Comanches,
Kiowas, southern Arapahos, and Kiowa Apaches
2. All tribes were diverse, but each relied on family ties and tribal
cooperation
3. Many tribes like the Sioux practiced religious ceremonies of human
sacrifice and torture for purposed like the Sun Dance, a ceremony to
invoke the help of plant and animal spirits.
4. Tribes like the Blackfeet, Crows, and Cheyenne relied heavily on buffalo
for food and resources, and when the early-1870’s (1872-1875) brought
mass slaughter by colonists, the ways of the Native Americans were
ruined and settlers had new opportunities for settlement.
C. The Transformation of Indian Life
1. During the 1860’s the United States federal government took stricter
control over the west, setting aside smaller reservations for where
Indians were expected to settle
a. Tribes of Pueblos, Crows, and Hidatsas went peacefully
b. Other Tribes western Sioux, Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas,
Comanches, Nez Perces, Bannocks, and the Apaches resisted
with a series of bloody battles for western land
2. Fighting occurred on both sides, and both colonists and Native
Americans were massacred. The fighting caused a rekindling of debate
over federal Indian policy. Congress responded with
a. Halting construction on the Bozeman Trail
b. Sending a peace commission to end fighting between colonists
and Indians
c. Setting aside two large districts for Indians to set up residence
unmolested (with hope of converting them to Christianity)
d. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Board of Indian
Commissioners were founded to aid in the organization of
Native American tribes into reservation groups.
e. As colonists attempted to force Indians onto reservations, more
violence broke out on the Plains:
1. Red River War
2. Colonial George Armstrong Custer
D. Custer’s Last Stand
1. Conflict between Indians, particularly the Sioux, and the U.S. Army
escalated after Northern Plains Indians decided to ignore the
reservations and remain on their lands
2. In 1874 William Tecumseh Sherman sent Colonial Custer to the Black
Hills in South Dakota to look for gold and force concessions from the
Sioux, but the Indians selling price was too high.
3. When the Indians refused to return to their reservations, the U.S. Army
mobilized for an attack at Little Bighorn, which they lost terribly. There
were no American survivors.
a. The battle became known as Custard’s Last Stand
4. This Indian victory only made American troops harass and abuse tribes
across the Plains even more.
a. Fort Robinson Massacre
E. “Saving” the Indians
1. Concerned white Americans that were appalled with the treatment of
Indians began speaking out after the Fort Robinson Massacre
2. “Friends of the Indian” like Helen Hunt Jackson lobbied for the Dawes
Severalty Act, passed in 1887
a. The Dawes Act emphasized:
1. Treatment of Indians as individuals and not as members
of tribes
2. The distribution of 160 acres of reservation land for
farming, or 320 acres for grazing for each Indian family
that accepted the law’s provisions
3. Remaining lands were to be sold to speculators and
settlers
4. After 25 years, Indians would gain full citizenship in the
United States of America
3. The Dawes Act did not aid the Indians, but cut their reservation territory
by 65%. The lands still available were too rocky to farm, and many
Indians were falling into bad habits like alcoholism.
F. The Ghost Dance and the End of Indian Resistance on the Plains
1. In the 1880’s and 1890’s a movement known as the Ghost Dance arose
after the government continued to restrict the Indian rights, as a final
attempt to fight the white menace.
a. The Ghost Dance entailed wearing Ghost Shirts (cotton or
leather vests decorated to ward off evil) and moving in a circle,
accelerating until they reached a trancelike state and
experienced visions of the future.
2. After the Ghost Dance movement gained momentum and was deemed
a danger, Major James McLaughlin attacked the cabin of Sitting Bull and
caused a bloody battle.
3. Two weeks later on December 29, 1890 the 7th Calvary rounded up and
killed 340 Indians after and excited Native American man shot a gun
from under a blanket. Only one infant girl survived the massacre. All of
the frozen dead Indian corpses were put into a mass grave. The battle at
Wounded Knee was the last great Indian vs. America battle on the Great
Plains.
4. Some Indians like the Navajos adjusted well to reservation life and
adopted a corner of New Mexico and Arizona to live prosperously on.
II. Settling the West
1. As Indian resistance came to a close, more and more settlers were
moving westward to Oregon and California, first by wagon and
eventually by train.
B. The 1st Transcontinental Railroad
1. On May 10, 1869 the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in
Promontory Point, Utah.
2. This railway provided a coast to coast journey for Americans in a week’s
time, as opposed to several months.
3. Many immigrants worked to construct the railroad for low pay
a. Chinese
b. Irish
c. Mexican-American
d. African American
4. The Central Pacific Company was then the largest landholder in all of
America.
C. Settlers and the Railroad
1. Being such a large and influential land holder, the railroad company
greatly influenced the settlement of the area
a. The railroad drew
1. American families from the east
2. Germans
3. Irish
4. Russians
2. Railroads also influenced Agriculture
a. Northern Plains  Wheat
b. Iowa and Kansas  Corn
c. Texas  Cotton and tobacco
D. Homesteaders on the Great Plains
1. Liberalized land laws like the Homestead Act of 1862 drew more settlers
westward.
a. The Act promised 160 acres to anyone who would pay a $10
registration fee and live on the land for five years and improve
it.
2. The Act drew American settles as well as others:
a. British Islanders
b. English
c. German
d. Irish
e. Swedish
f. Dutch
g. Norwegian
h. Czechoslovakian
3. Unfortunately, the Homestead act did not function as Congress
intended and only one in every nine acres distributed went to a settler.
To rectify this Congress passed:
a. 1873 Timber Culture Act
1. Gave an additional 160 acres if settlers planted trees on
40 acres
b. 1877 Desert Land Act
1. Made available 640 acres at $1.25 an acre on the
condition that the owner irrigate part of it within three
years
c. 1878 Timber and Stone Act
1. Permitted the purchase of up to 160 acres of forest land
for $2.50 an acre
E. New Farms, New Markets
1. Progress in farm mechanization allowed for improved farming for many
western farmers.
a. Steel plows
b. Spring tooth harrows
c. Wheat planters
d. Improved grain binders, threshers, and windmills
e. Barbed wire
2. Farming was entering a period of unparallel prosperity, but agriculture
was a risk due to expensive land and equipment and shifting prices.
3. Because of usually dry years in the 1870s and grasshopper infestations,
the United States entered a major economic depression between 1873
and 1878.
F. Building a Society and Achieving Statehood
1. Settlement on the frontier was not easy, and many pioneers moved
back to the East or Midwest within a decade of settling down in the
West.
a. Immigrants from Germany and the Netherlands consistently
stayed longer after moving to the West
2. From the settlers that stayed, strong communities burgeoned. This
included:
a. Churches
b. Sunday schools
c. Barn raisings
d. Quilting and husking bees
e. Lyceums
f. Libraries
g. Masonic halls
h. Hotels
i. Opera houses
Frontier farmers made strong community bonds and tended to be
conservative, although Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming were the
first states to permit women’s suffrage.
4. Statehood:
a. 1861  Kansas
b. 1864  Nevada
c. 1867  Nebraska
d. 1876  Colorado
e. 1889  North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington
f. 1890  Wyoming and Idaho
g. 1896  Utah
h. 1907  Oklahoma
i. 1912  Arizona and New Mexico
G. The Southwestern Frontier
1. Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo 1848  ended the Mexican War
a. Ceded to the United States California, Arizona, and New Mexico
2. Violence between Americans and Mexican-Americans occurred in
western territories
a. Juan Cortina 1859
b. Las Gorras Blancas 1888
1. Vigilante group angered by land disputes
c. Beeville and Laredo 1894 and 1899
1. Riots expressing anti-Catholicism and projecting
Mexican-Americans as violent and lazy
3. Many Mexican-Americans faced discrimination, but others enjoyed
success or projected a positive image of Mexican-American traditions:
a. Estevan Ochoa
b. Bret Harte
c. Helen Hunt Jackson
III. Exploiting the West
1. Many Americans went westward as adventurers or wealth chasers, only
to be disappointed with the lack of “bonanzas” (promises of wealth) and
a boom-and-bust economy that left many adventure seekers
desperately poor.
B. The Mining Frontier
1. The gold rush began in California in 1949, and a series of mining booms
followed
a. Sierra Nevada
b. Frasier River
c. Comstock Lode on the Carson River
d. Clear Creek
e. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaskan Klondike
2. Towns sprung up across the west at each new promising site
3. Even though most miners never made it as big as they expected, the
influx of gold ($81 million) and silver stimulated America’s economy and
lured foreign investors, helping the United States into the world
economy.
3.
C. Cowboys and the Cattle Frontier
1. During the 1860’s and 1870’s cattle drives were the new “bonanza” and
the American Cowboy was the glorified figure of rough-hewn integrity
and self-reliant strength
2. Cowboys earned little pay, and were usually young men in their teens
and early twenties who drove cattle for a few years and then moved on
to a different livelihood.
3. Driving cattle was sometimes perilous, with cattle thieves that operated
along the trails
a. Billy the Kid
4. About 1/5 of all cowboys were Black or Mexican, and enjoyed the
freedom of discrimination the trail provided
a. Deadwood Dick
b. Bose Ikard
5. Real life cowboys lead hard, dirty lives but were glorified in mythic
representations by literature and the media
6. Typical western conflicts were range wars and “Cattle Kings,” but few
cowboy gun battles.
7. 1885-86 brought two of the coldest and snowiest winters on record
combined with summer droughts, destroying 90% of some cattle in
regions and bringing the days of the cattle “bonanza” to an end.
D. Bonanza Farms on the Plains
1. “Agribusiness”
a. The wheat boom in the Dakota territory started an agricultural
“bonanza”
2. After the Panic of 1873 when the North Pacific Railroad bonds began to
plummet and banks began to fail, many people began purchasing
enormous factory like farms and produced gigantic harvests
a. Cass and Oliver Dalrymple  “king” of wheat growers
3. During the 1880’s wheat boomed, but beginning in 1890, many Red
River farmers were destitute due to:
a. Overproduction
b. High investment costs
c. Too little or too much rain
d. Excessive reliance on one crop
e. Depressed grain prices on the international market
E. The Oklahoma Land Rush
1. As farmers in the Dakotas and Minnesota were experiencing poor
harvests, many settlers began moving to land in the center of Oklahoma
previously set aside for Indian use.
2. At noon on April 29, 1889 thousands of settlers moved to the 2 million
acres set aside for them in Oklahoma.
3. These settlers enjoyed much economic prosperity despite a rough start,
but found themselves right in the middle of the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s.
IV. The West of Life and Legend
1. Although what actually happened in the American West was much
different that the stories portrayed by books, movies, and television;
the Legendary West that emerged was just as influential as the real
thing.
B. The American Adam and the Dime-Novel Hero
1. The portrayal of early biographies of western frontiersmen represented
them as virtuous, simple, innocently moral, and uncorrupted by the
vices of society. These men were glorified as the American Adam, and
the west as a place of romance and adventure.
a. Daniel Boone
b. Novels of James Fenimore Cooper
c. Huckleberry Finn
d. Kit Carlson
2. Dime novels depicting Western heroes also emerged
a. Buffalo Bill Cody
b. Edward Judson
3. Inspired by the public’s enthusiasm for Western heroes, Cody created
the Wild West Show in 1883 which presented mock “battles” or army
scouts and Indians, in dramas of good versus evil.
C. Revitalizing the Frontier Legend
1. The Legendary Myth of the West as a place to escape from society and
settle moral conflicts, and much of the art of the 1880’s reflected that
a. Teddy Roosevelt  The Winning of the West
b. Fredric Remington  Sculptures and paintings
c. Owen Wister  The Virginian
1. Novel depicting an honest, strong, compassionate man,
quick to help the weak and fight the wicked.
2. This idealized west glossed over the negative
a. Brutalities of Indian warfare
b. Forced removal of Indians to reservations
c. Racism towards Blacks and Mexican-Americans
d. The risks of commercial agriculture and cattle growing
e. The boom-and-bust mentality rooted in the selfish exploitation
of natural resources
3. Without the railroad, the extensive western development that occurred
would not have been possible.
D. Beginning a Conservation Movement
1. One important by-product of western legend was a conservation
movement to protect national parks.
a. John Wesley Powell  In The Exploration of the Colorado River
of the West and Its Territories and Report on the Lands of the
Arid Regions of the United States
1. Recognized the unique beauty of the Colorado River
basin and the need to readjust the use of water in the
dry western terrain
b. Henry A. Washburn was sent to survey land for the Northern
Pacific Railroad but instead petitioned Congress to preserve it as
a national park. The area became Yellowstone National Park
c. George Perkins Marsh  Man and Nature
d. John Muir  Sierra Club, Yosemite National Park