U.S. Land Acquired in the 1800s

• Americans believed they should own all the land from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean; coast to coast.

The Gold Rush!
Eureka!!!!!!!

• Gold was discovered in California in 1849.
• In 1858 Gold was discovered in Colorado, near Pikes Peak.
• Silver was soon discovered in Leadville,
CO. (this all helped Denver become the
2 nd largest city in the west only San
Francisco was ahead.

Motherlode - a long alignment of hard-rock gold deposits stretching northwest to southeast in the Sierra Nevada of California
Lode also known as “vein” filled with mineral in the rock. (Big Chunk)

Prospecting - act of searching for gold, silver, copper, lead, or any other valuable metal.
Prospectorsthose who fought over claims and gold. In need of “law and order”
Vigilance Committeesself appointed volunteers who would track down and punish wrongdoers.

• Gold was discovered in
California in 1849.
• Discuss CA up until this
Point…Who are those that live there?
• The Comstock Lode, a
Bonanza, was later discovered.
• People who moved west to mine are called miners.
• Immigrants, such as Mexicans,
Chinese and the Irish, went to work in the mines.
• Immigrants were treated poorly with long hours, low pay and very dangerous work.

People moved West to find gold.
Henry Comstock-
American miner who “claimed” the largest greatest single mineral strike in history.

Gold or Silver strike
1. Miners arrive and build a small town.
2. More people come to sell supplies.
3. Real houses get built.
Boom Town
1. Gold or silver production falls – decreases.
2. Miners move on.
3. The town is abandoned.
Ghost Town.

What does this picture say about working on a mine?

African Americans were called
Exodusters.
• Many African Americans moved to the West from the 1840s to late 1890s.
• They were escaping the difficult life in the South where Whites practiced
Jim Crow Laws and denied African Americans their new Constitutional
Rights.

• African Americans were called Exodusters after the book from the Bible called the
Exodus .
• This book described how the Jews escaped from slavery in Egypt.
• The African Americans were escaping slavery in the South, just as Jews escaped slavery from Egypt. That is why they were called Exodusters.

The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the first land rush into the
Unassigned Lands .
“Sooners”- people who participated in the run entered the unoccupied land early and hid there until the legal time of entry to lay quick claim to some of the most choice homesteads.
In California, Spanish Mission styles were gone..But in their place
HACIENDAS, which were ranches that covered thousands of acres.
But with the GOLD RUSH, this dramatically changed things and led to many conflicts in the future.

LONGHORN
ROUNDUP
“LONG DRIVE”

Ranchers and Cowhands drove the cattle to the Transcontinental Railroad.
Joseph McCoy- Kansas cowboy, who urged Texas ranchers to send their herds to use the Union
Pacific to transport Cattle.
Nat Love- Famous Black cowboy

Why did the Cattle Kingdom fail?

• People staked their claim by finding a section of land that was marked.
• Then they registered the piece of land with the government.
• After cultivating the land for five years, it was theirs for free.

• People moved West to stake their claim.
JOSEPH GLIDDENan
American farmer who patented barbed wire.

Plowfarms, plows and families in front of their sodhouses.

• Farmers had to cut through thick, hard earth called sod.
• Winters were harsh; cold, windy with a lot of snowstorms called blizzards.
• Summers were hot and had little rain.
• Farmers had to use a technique called dryfarming (growing crops that needed little water.)
• Sometimes grasshoppers would eat all the crops.

• Farmers could not repay their debts.
• The Populist party tried to help farmers. They wanted government to reduce railroad rates and to help with (falling) decreasing prices for grain.
• Populists wanted all the silver mined in the West to be turned into coinage (money).
• Free silver would make it easier for farmers to repay their debts.
• The United States did not turn silver into money.

The Transcontinental Railroad finished in 1869.

Many Immigrants, such as Irish, Mexicans and Chinese were building the Railroad.
“Gandy Dancers” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02
5QQwTwzdU

These are the states on the Plains.
• Homesteaders came to the Plains to farm the land.
• Miners searched for gold.
• Railroad companies built the train.
• Exodusters came to
Kansas to start a new life and later became miners and Homesteaders and worked on the railroad.
• Immigrants worked on railroads and in mines and became
Homesteaders.

• Native Americans lived here first.
• Native Americans and Whites came into bloody conflicts over the land.
• They tried to protect their lands, but finally, the United
States government forced them onto reservations.

The buffalo is used for tepees, clothes, tools, food and more.

The buffalo hide business becomes popular and settlers kill millions of buffalo.

• The United States government made many treaties with the Native Americans not to fight and not to touch certain areas of their land.
• For example, The Fort Laramie Treaty was a treaty made with the Cheyenne tribe, where
Americans said an area of land belonged to the
Cheyenne forever!
• However, when gold was discovered there, the
Americans forced them to sign a new treaty giving up the land.
• The United States government broke many treaties with the Native Americans.

Many Wars Many Heroes
• Sioux War of 1876
• The Apache Wars
• Battle of Little Bighorn
• Sitting Bull and
Crazy Horse
Geronimo
Lakotas & Cheyenne
• Nez Perces
Chief Joseph

Indians defend their lands, but are defeated in the end.
Sand Creek Massacre- What Happened?

Native Americans are forced onto reservations.

The Dawes Act divided Indian land and gave some to the Indians in hopes they would become farmers. But they sold it to Whites for low prices.

Native Americans prayed for a new world without Whites in the Ghost
Dance Religion.

Laws today protect Native
American Reservations.