KT’s (ch. 16) p. 434-442
Caste System:
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The complex relationship b/t the Pueblos and the Spanish produced a Caste System.
The Spanish/Mexicans were at the top who owned the largest estates and controlled the trading
centers at Santa Fe and else-where.
Pueblos who were subordinate and largely free were below them.
Apaches, Navajos, and others (some captured in war and enslaved for a fixed time) and men and
women who voluntarily left their tribes were at the bottom.
Those men and women were known as “genizaros” = Indians w/o tribes had become part of the
Spanish society.
Plains Indians:
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^ Most widespread Indian group in the west and a diverse/language group.
Some formed alliances, others were in constant conflict, some lived as sedentary lives as
farmers, and others were nomadic hunters.
Their cultures were based on close & extended family networks and on an intimate relationship
with nature.
Tribes (sometimes numbered several thousand) subdivided into “bands” of up to 500 men and
women.
Each band had their own governing council, but community had a decision-making process in
which most members participated.
Within each band the tasks were divided by gender = Women’s role was artistic and domestic
(caring for the children, cooking, gathering roots and berries, preparing hides, and creating
impressive artworks of tribal culture).
Men worked as hunters and traders and supervised the religious military life of the band.
Most of the Plains Indians practiced a religion that centered on a belief in the spiritual power of
the natural world of plants and animals and the rhythms of the days and seasons.
Economic Importance of the Buffalo:
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The buffalo/bison provided economic basis for the Plains Indians.
Its flesh is a source of food and its skin became materials for clothing, shoes, tepees, blankets,
robes, and utensils.
“Buffalo chips” = dried manure was used as fuel and buffalo bones became knives/arrow tips
and buffalo tendons formed the stings of bows.
Indian Weakness:
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Indians were vulnerable to eastern infectious diseases; Smallpox epidemics decimated Pawnees
in Nebraska in 1840s & many C.A. tribes in 1850s.
Tribes were at a disadvantage in any long-term battle with an economically and industrially
advanced people = outnumbered & outmanned.
Taos Indian Rebellion:
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After the Mexican War, Americans tried to establish the exclusion of the Mexican ruling class
and drew officials from the 1,000 Anglo-Americans and ignored the 50,000 Hispanics.
Hispanics and Indians feared their new American rulers might take away their land.
1847 Taos Indians rebelled and killed their new governor and other Anglo-America officials
before being stopped by American Army forces.
^ New Mexico remained under military rule & organized a territorial gov’t there in 1850.
Hispanic Resistance:
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Most of the Hispanic societies survived because they were really far from the centers of Englishspeaking society.
But Mexicans-Americans fought in the region to preserve control of their societies.
Decline of Mission Society:
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In 1830s after the new Mexican gov’t began reducing the power of the church the mission
society collapsed.
^ = a secular Mexican aristocracy which controlled a chain of large estates (some of them former
missions).
Declining Status of Hispanics:
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Many Mexican landowners lost their land after the territory joined the U.S. and Mexican
Ranchers weren’t able to compete with the Anglo-Americans.
1859, resentments from Mexicans emerged and an armed challenge to American power = raid
on a jail in Brownsville, led by the rancher Juan Cortina.
Juan freed all the Mexican prisoners inside, and continued to harass Anglo communities in T.X.
until 1875when the Mexican gov’t captured and imprisoned him.
Racism:
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At first white Americans welcomed the Chinese as conscientious, hard-working people and
called for more Chinese immigration to come to the territory’s labor force.
^ Soon after the white opinion turned hostile b/c Chinese were so industrious & successful that
some white Americans began considering them as rivals/threats.
Chinese Immigrants in the West experienced a struggle to advance economically in the face of
racism & discrimination.
Building the Transcontinental Railroad:
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As the mining employment rate declined for mining the railroad building rate grew for the
Chinese.
1865, over 12,000 Chinese workers found work in the Transcontinental Railroad.
Establishments of “Chinatowns”:
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The largest single Chinese community was in San Francisco.
Much of community life there in other “Chinatowns” throughout the West revolved around
powerful organizations usually formed by people from the same clan/community in China.
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These organizations became employment brokers, unions, arbitrators of disputes, defenders of
the community against outside persecution, and dispensers of social services.
Anti-Coolie Clubs:
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Anti-Coolie Clubs emerged in 1860s-1870s and looked for a ban on employing Chinese and
organized boycotts of products made with Chinese labor.
Some of these clubs attacked Chinese workers in the streets and were suspected of setting fire
to factories which Chinese worked in.
Chinese Exclusion Act:
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1882, Congress passed the Act banning Chinese immigration into the U.S. for 10 yrs. And barred
Chinese already in the country from becoming naturalized citizens.
^ b/c of political pressure and growing violence.
Congress renewed it in 1892 and made it permanent in 1902.
Chinese pop. declined 40% after 40 yrs.
Chinese Resistance:
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Chinese in America didn’t accept the new laws quietly.
Shocked by the Anti-Chinese rhetoric that combined them w/ A.A. and Indians.
Argued how the Irish, Germans, Italians, and Jews were let in but not the Chinese.
Homestead Act:
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Homestead Act of 1862 = permitted settlers to buy plots of 160 acres for a small fee if they
occupied the land they purchased for 5 yrs. & improved it.
It would give a free farm to any American who needed one and form of gov’t relief to people.
Government Assistance:
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The Timber Culture Act (1873) permitted homesteaders to receive grants of 160 additional acres
if they planted 40 acres of trees on them.
The Desert Land Act (1877) provided that claimants could buy 640 acres at $1.25 an acre if they
irrigate part of their holdings within 3 yrs.
The Timber & Stone Act (1878) authorized sales at $2.50 an acre.