American
Westward
Expansion
US History
U.S. government policies played a huge
role in getting people to move West.
Over time, the government made it
easier to buy land by either reducing the
cost per acre, or by allowing people to
purchase fewer acres. It also led to
earlier movement westward than if the
land had been sold at higher prices and
led to higher wages in the East since
potential laborers were moving West.
Land prices affected peopLe’s
ability to move West
• 1787- pay 1/3 cash; balance in 3 mos
• 1796- reservation price raised to $2 per acre;
pay ½ in 30 days & balance in 1 yr
• 1800- acreage req. dropped to 320 acres;
pay ¼ in 30 days & balance in 3 yrs
• 1804- acreage req. dropped to 160 acres
• 1820- reservation price dropped to $1.25; acreage req. dropped to 80;
credit repealed
• 1832- acreage req. dropped to 40 acres
• 1841- General Pre-emption Act put ceiling on max acreage to 160
acres & sales in cash
• 1854- Graduation Act- lowered prices of land that had been auctioned
but not sold (e.g. 12.5 cents/acre for land unsold for 30 years)
Us Gov’t sUspends saLe of federaL
lands, 1891
• Today the US gov’t owns over 775
million acres of land. This is over
1/3 of the total US land
• ALaska- 339 million acres
• National parks- 71 million acres
• Forrest service- 191 million acres
• Native American lands- 53 million acres
• Pentagon- 30 million acres
• Most land is west of the 100th meridian—panhandle of OK up
through KS, NE, SD, NE
• Most Minerals, timber, and oil come from these lands which are
leased for ranching, drilling & mining….this of course, is controversial
As a result, Americans went West in
record numbers in the mid- to late1800s, and by 1900 historians such as
Frederick Jackson Turner said that the
West was “closed.” As a result, there
were three main groups who competed
for the land….
Railroads
move
people
west
• 1st Transcontinental RR, 1862-69
–
–
–
–
Pacific RR Act, 1862
Omaha, NE to Sacramento, CA
Land & $$$ incentives
Shortens trip westward
• RRs Recruited Workers
– 2.2m foreign born workers come, 1870-1900
– Immigrant = cheap labor
• Came to escape war, make $ & return
• Irish, Mexican-Americans & Chinese
• Attracted settlers
– Encouraged farmers (families) to specialize
in cash crops
– Encouraged cattle ranching b/c of lower
transportation costs
• Result: More people move West
Farming the West
• Late 1880s US needed new sources
of good soil, water, climate…
• Solution?
–
–
–
–
Great Plains
Homestead Act (1862)
Timber Culture Act (1873)
Desert land Act (1877)
Timber & Stone Act (1878)
• Inventions help
–
–
–
–
–
Windmill
Steel tipped Plow
Barbed wire
Mechanical Reaper
Threshing Machine
• Result: Land becomes more useful
–
–
–
–
Easterner push for more wheat
More farmers = overproduction
Farm communities depend on each other
Led to conflict with ranchers…
• Cattle Industry: 3 Needs
– Open range for grazing & cattle drive
• Land too expensive to buy
individually so ranchers worked
together (to gain control)
• “Tragedy” & rules for the
“Commons”
– RRs to transport meat to market
• Cut costs = lots of profit
– New science of cattle breeding
• Cattlemen vs. Cowboys
– Cattlemen = big business owners
from the East
– Cowboys = Poor, young, 20%
Mexican or black
• Result: Peak Years 1880-1885
– Post-1885 draught, overgrazing,
fences, freezes…
– Replaced by smaller, fenced-in cattle
ranches
Cattlemen &
Cowboys
American Indians fight Back
•Indian Resistance, 1861-1867
– Atrocities on both sides
• Sand Creek, 1864
• Powder River & Fetterman Massacre, 1865
– Congressional investigations?
• Indian Retreat, 1867-1890
– Reservations
– The End of Resistance
•
•
•
•
Custer, 1876
Chief Joseph, 1877
Geronimo, 1886
Ghost Dance & Wounded Knee, 1890
•Result: “New” Reservation System
– Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor
– Dawes Act, 1887: 160 acres to Americanize NAs
– Carlisle School (Carlisle, PA)
Chief Joseph
The Final Frontier?
• Did the frontier close?
– Gadsden Purchase finished the contiguous U.S.
– TransconRR = easy transport of goods/people
– Increased settlement
• Gov’t encouragement via land laws & give-aways
• Eastern industrial push for resources
•frederick Jackson Turner, in The
Significance of the Frontier in American
History (1893) argued that the West was the
chief influence in shaping a distinctive
American way of life
Group qs, revisited
1. Which group’s story was most familiar to you? The
least?
2. Which group had the easiest time in the West?
The toughest?
3. Which group had the greatest impact on the West?
The least?
4. As a group, if we had to be members of any of the
groups who impacted the West, we would most
want to be _____, and least want to be _____.
Explain why.
5. Cite two things that you learned that were
interesting &/or that you will remember easily a
month from now.