The West
1860-1900
Native Americans
Plains Indians Culture
• Semi-nomadic hunting culture, centered around buffalo
• Adaptations: horse & gun
• By the 1840s, only 30,000 Native Americans remain east
of the Mississippi
• Major groups:
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Sioux
Cheyenne
Blackfoot
Pawnee
Nez Perce
Apache
Indian Policy, 1831-1887
• 1850s, white movement into the Great Plains
leads to conflicts with western tribes
– Discovery of gold and silver in CA, CO, NV, MT
– Homestead Act 1863 – 160 acres free land per settler
– RRs – Pacific Railway Act 1862
• Transcontinental RR built 1863-1869
• Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1851): tribes accept
“boundaries”, promised to leave emigrants
alone on westward trails
• Problem: no central tribal authority; many
subgroups don’t accept terms
Indian Policy, 1831-1887 (2)
• By 1860s, whites encroaching on Indian
lands
– 1850-1860: 150,000 Minnesotans illegally move
onto Sioux lands
Peace commisisoners gather at Ft Laramie
The Indian Wars
• Sporadic warfare and raiding from 1860s
to 1870s, tribes forced to relocate on
reservations
Major Indian Conflicts
• Sioux
Uprising,
1862
– Sioux
Indians
attempt to
move back
onto land in
Minnesota.
Major Indian Conflicts (2)
• Sand Creek Massacre, 1864
– Col. John Chivington attacks a Cheyenne settlement
(under a flag of truce) at Sand Creek.
• Fetterman Massacre, 1866
– US building a road through Sioux hunting grounds.
– Sioux warrior Crazy Horse attacks the construction
party and mutilates the bodies.
– Sioux call off attacks and sign the Treaty of 1868,
promising their land in the Black Hills will be
protected.
Major Indian Conflicts (2)
• Red River War, 1874-75
– US wages war on Comanche and Kiowa Indians who refuse to
settle on a reservation.
– Gen. Philip Sheridan: “destroy their villages, kill their warriors,
bring back all women and children.”
• Second Sioux War, 1876
– Gen. George A. Custer investigates claims of gold in the Black
Hills.
– Settlers encroaching on Sioux land; US won’t protect Sioux, but
offers to buy land.
– War with Sioux results…ends tragically for George Custer athte
Battle of Little Big Horn and for the Sioux who lose the war.
• Wounded Knee, 1890
– Wovoka: Sioux medicine
man who promotes the
“Ghost Dance” religion.
– Apocalyptic: dance will
bring about the return of
buffalo and death of whites.
– 25,000 Sioux
– At Pine Ridge Reservation,
US troops attempt to disarm
350 Sioux indians at
Wounded Knee Creek…a
massacre results.
A Sioux “Ghost Shirt” worn by
Indians performing the Ghost
Dance. Some Sioux believed
that those wearing these special
garments would be impervious
to bullets…a fact proven false
at Wounded Knee.
Destruction of Indian Life
• Extermination of the Buffalo
– In 1865, over 15 million buffalo on the prairies:
source of food, fuel, shelter, clothing, etc.
– Railroads speed the extermination of the herds
• buffalo seen as a nuisance: herds block tracks
• labor gangs consume buffalo meat
– William “Buffalo Bill” Cody shoots 4,000 in 18 months working
for the Kansas Pacific RR
• sportsmen pay to shoot buffalo out of train windows
– By 1885 less than 3,000 buffalo remaining
Destruction of Indian Life (2)
• Dawes Act 1887
– a misguided attempt at reform
– dissolves tribes, established private land
ownership (160 acres per household)
– funds from remaining reservation land used
for education and “assimilation”
– by 1900, Indians had lost 50% of the 156
million acres allotted under the act
Destruction of Indian Life (3)
• A Century of Dishonor by Helen Hunt
Jackson
• Carlisle Schools (PA)
Three “Frontiers”
• Cattle
• Farming
• Mining
The Cattle Frontier
Cattle Industry
• Longhorn Cattle
– First brought to America
by the Spaniards, along
with horses
– Those that escaped
thrived on the
southern plains
• Prior to the Civil War, cattle ranching was
limited
– Ranchers sold hide and meat to local markets
– 1849 – some ranchers drive cattle to market in
California to collect $25-$125/head
– 1854 – cattle driven to Muncie, Indiana and
then shipped by rail to NYC. Stampede on
3rd Avenue!
• Post Civil War – demand for beef grows,
esp in cities
– How to get cattle to market?
• Joseph McCoy
– Creates first
stockyards in
Abilene, KS
• 1866-1888: 4
million steer
driven north
by hired
hands (1/4
black; 1/10
Mexican)
• Beef Barons:
Swift, Armour
industrialize
meat packing.
• Demise of the Cattle Drive’
– Population of west grows; farmers and
ranchers don’t want herds trampling over
their land.
– Barbed wire – Joseph Glidden.
• Invented in 1874 – 10,000 lbs sold.
• By 1878 – 27 million lbs sold
– Great Freeze Up of 1887
• Temps below -68 F
– Overgrazing and drought
– Cattle breeding/ranching
The Farming Frontier
Farming Expands West
• Homestead Act 1862
– 160 acres per settler free IF
• A settler can live on and improve land for 5 years
• Pays $30
– Also authorizes the immediate sale of land a low cost
($1.25/acre)
– Purpose: rapid settlement; not $ is the goal.
– 500,000 families move west under the HA
• Railroads –
– Railroad boom 1850-1871
– Railroads given land grants to pay cost. Land then sold to
settlers, many are immigrants.
– Transcontinental RR completed in 1869 – Union Pacific and
Central Pacific.
• Oklahoma Land Rush 1889
– 2 million acres given away in 24 hrs.
– “boomers” and “sooners”
• Factors encouraging settlement
– Cheap, accessible land
– Railroads
• New railroads help bring settlers out and send crops to eastern
markets
• RRs given land by gov’t as payment; sell land to immigrants
– Technologies
• Steel plow
• Dry farming techniques
– west of 100th meridian, rainfall drops from 20-30in/yr to 10-20in/yr
– Drought resistant crops (Russian wheat, etc) used
– Windmills pump water up from wells
• Barbed wire
• McCormick’s Harvester-Thresher
– Can cut and thresh wheat in one pass
– 1830: takes 180 minutes to produce a bushel of grain; by 1900: 10 min
• Seed drill
– High prices.
• Wheat and corn prices up due to crop failures in Europe in the
1860s and Civil War in America
• Life in the West
– Hardships
• Lonely existence
• Difficult conditions: heat,
wind, dust, insects,
rattlesnakes, drought, and
harsh winters.
• Locusts
• Lack of water and trees
– Adaptations
• Dugouts and Soddies
• Locusts used as a food
source
• Buffalo chips (dung) used
as fuel
A dugout (above) and a soddy (below)
• The Cycle of Debt
– High prices for crops encourage investment.
– Farmers get loans to purchase machinery to produce more.
– Drops in the prices in the 1870s make it difficult for farmers to
repay loans.
• Bonanza Farms
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High prices encourage massive investment
Huge farms run by corporations and investors
Some had 10,000+ acres in cultivation
Many fold because of droughts in the 1880s/90s.
• Railroads
– Farmers grow upset at railroad rates that charge western farmers
more then eastern farmers, and sometimes charge more for
hauling items short distances than they do long distances.
The Farmer’s Movement
• In response to
hardships, debt,
and discontent,
and anger at
railroad
monopolies, farm
organizations
emerge.
• The Grange (1860s-70s)
– Originally a communal organization
– Cooperative efforts: grain elevators,
negotiated rates with RRs
– Political efforts: Granger Laws
• Farmers Alliance (1880s)
– Political organization (a modern day
P.A.C.)
– Endorses candidates: Alliance Yardstick
– Southern Alliance; Colored Farmer’s
Alliance.
• Populist Party (1892)
– Significant 3rd party that challenges the
Dems and Republicans in 1892 & 1896
A grain elevator.
Schematic of a Grain Elevator
Farmer’s Alliance & the Populist Party
Alliance
Yardstick
Populist Party
Platform
Gov’t regulation or ownership of
RRs, pipelines, telegraphs
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Graduated income tax
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Free coinage of silver @ 16:1
Lower tariffs
Direct election of senators
Gov’t sub-treasuries (to hold
grain off the market) & loans
8-hr workday
Australian ballot
Restriction of immigration
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Populist Party & the Election of 1896
• Populist successes in 1892 and discontent over
the Panic of 1893 pave way for a major campaign
in 1896
• Central issue: bi-metallism
– Gold bugs vs. silverites
• “Popocrats” – a fusion ticket
– Populist Party nominates William Jennings Bryan
(NE) and VP Tom Watson (GA)
– Democrats nominate WJB and VP Arthur Sewall (a
Maine banker)
Election of 1896
• GOP nominates William McKinley (OH)
– Protectionist
– Marcus Hanna (Cleveland) runs the campaign
– Backed by wealthy industrialists
• Bryan campaigns vigorously, speaking in
27 states and traveling over 18K miles
• McKinley’s campaign targets industrial
workers, immigrants, and business
interests.
The Mining Frontier
Mining
• Gold Rush
– Gold discovered in California in 1848
– Most surface gold is gone by the 1850s.
• Mining in the West
– 1858 – Gold and silver discovered in Pike’s Peak, Colorado.
– 1859 – The Comstock Lode is discovered;
• $340 million dollars of gold and silver mined 1860-1890
– Settlers pour into the western states of Colorado, Nevada, Utah,
Montana, and Idaho.
– Industry becomes highly mechanized, with large businesses
dominating.
– Mining towns “boom” then “bust”
• “Helldorados” – 1 in 3 buildings is a saloon.
Map illustrating the location of mining and supply towns in the western US
in the late 19th century