Settling the West
 In the decades following the Civil War
millions of people poured into the trans
Mississippi West.
 They were lured by the promise of better
life, cheap land, riches or just simply for
better life. They settled the Great Plains,
and the Southwest.
The Great Plains and the
Far West
Who settled the West?
 White Americans from the
East
 African Americans trying to
escape prosecution
(exodusters )
 Immigrants from foreign
countries.
Exodusters moving to
Kansas
 Exodusters
Reasons for the
settlement
 Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad –
1869.
 Governmental incentives such as the
Homestead Act ( 1862 ), which provided 160
acres of land for free to anyone who would stay
on it for 5 years. Morril Act and Pacific Act also
helped.
 Possibility making money raising cattle (
longdrives ).
Completion of the
Transcontinental Railroad –
Promontory Point Utah
The emergence
of three frontiers
 The three frontiers that
developed were:
The farming frontier
The mining frontier
The cattle frontier
The farming frontier
 Homesteaders who took advantage of
the Homestead Act quickly settled the
Great Plains but life on the Great Plains
was harsh.
 1. There was little wood available for
use. Farmers had to find new ways to
build houses and to keep warm.
Typical sod house
Other problems
1. Raging fires – farmers plowed firebreaks
2. Everyone in the family had to work
3. Insects like grasshoppers would devour the
crops
4. Little rain – farmers had to learn new
methods of farming such as dry farming.
Wheat was the favored crop. Also, the US
Department of Agriculture was created in
1862 to help farmers adapt to the new
environment.
5. Farms were isolated and so many farmers
suffered from isolation and depression.
Bonanza Farms
 Efficient new farm machinery and cheap,
abundant land enabled some companies
to create a new kind of large scale
operation, the bonanza farm. Most were
owned by large companies and operated
like factories, with machinery,
professional managers and specialized
laborers for different tasks.
Bonanza Farm
Ranching in the West
 The growth of eastern cities ensured demand for
beef.
 As the buffalo was exterminated during the
construction of the Transcontinental Railroad
there was more land available for raising cattle.
 The Spanish also introduced sheep ranching.
Cowboys despised sheep, which they believed
ate the roots of the grass and ruined it for cattle.
 Clashes between cowboys and shepherd
sometimes became violent.
Cattle trails
Long Drives
 To reach the railroads, cowboys herded
as many as 3,000 cattle on long drives.
These overland treks covered hundreds
of miles and lasted several months. The
trail usually ended in Kansas because
the cattle in Missouri were not immune to
Texas fever. Stampedes were a real
problem.
Who were the Cowboys?
 Many of them were ex Confederate
soldiers, African Americans, and Mexican
Americans.
Cattle towns
 Every long drive ended at a railhead, a
town located along a railroad, where
brokers bought cattle to ship east on
railroad cars.
 The Kansas towns of Abilene, Dodge City
and Wichita were among the best known
railhead stops. The Cowboys were paid
at the end of the drive.
Cattle towns
Open range
 The government allowed
cattle ranchers to use pubic
land as open range, or free
grazing land. This access to
free pastureland helped make
cattle ranching profitable.
The end of the Cattle
Boom
 The cattle boom lasted about 20 years. It
ended because of several factors:
 1. Prices of beef dropped due to
oversupply
 2. Invention of barbed wire in 1874
meant that farmers started enclosing
their properties and open range ended.
Invention of Barbed Wire
 Joseph Glidden
 Cattle ranching
became more
expensive
The mining Boom
 Gold rush in California and Colorado
meant that prospectors started pouring
into the area.
 Mining town sprang up overnight
wherever news of possible wealth
brought prospectors together.
 Life in the mining camps was crude, and
comforts were few.
Instability
 Western mining camps were some of the most
violent places in the US during the late 1800s.
 The absence of law enforcement sometimes
led people in mining camps to form vigilante
committees to combat theft and violence.
 Stability came to mining camps as they grew
into towns and families arrived.
Mining towns in the
American West
How were Native American
affected by the settling of
the West?
 By 1850 most American Indians lived west of
the Mississippi river. Some were nomadic
hunters and others established more
permanent villages.
 The 1851 Treaty of fort Laramie had
guaranteed American Indian land rights on the
Great Plains.
 However, as non Indians moved west, the
government tried to acquire additional Indian
lands.
Indian Policy
 In 1850 the Bureau of Indian Affairs was
created to manage American Indian
issues.
 The government negotiated treaties
whereby the Indians who agreed to move
to reservations were promised money
and supplies for 30 years. Those treaties
were often broken.
The Plains Indians
 Many Plains Indians including
Arapaho, Cheyenne,
Comanche and Sioux refused
to live on the reservations.
They were nomads and
refused to settle and become
farmers.
Years of Struggle
 Sand Creek Massacre – 1867
- 200 mostly women and children of the
Cheyenne tribe were massacred by colonel
Chivington’s forces.
- This led to increased pressure to put
Indians in reservations.
- Some Southern Plain Indians agreed to
give up much of their land and move to a
reservation in the Black Hills of South Dakota (
Second Treaty of Laramie 1867 )
Reservation in the Black
Hills
Years of Struggle
 Little Bighorn – 1874
 - in 1874 the government violated the
terms of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie
by sending an army expedition into the
Black Hills to search for gold. Gold was
discovered and the government treid to
negotiate a new treaty with the Sioux.
The Sioux refused.
The Little BigHorn
 Indians won the
battle.
 This battle is also
known as Custer’s
last stand because
General George
Armstrong Custer
was killed in the
battle.
Last victory for the
Indians
 Little Bighorn proved to be the last victory
for the Sioux. The shock of Custer’s
defeat prompted the army to increase its
efforts to move the American Indians to
reservations. Over the next several
months most of the Indians surrendered
and were placed in reservations.
The Battle of the Wounded
Knee
 The final chapter of the Plains Indian –
US Army wars took place on the Pine
Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
 Many Indians joined a religious
movement known as the Ghost Dance.
Some government officials feared that
the “dance” would inspire rebellion.
The Ghost Dance
 The Ghost Dance
dress
The Battle of the Wounded
Knee - 1890
 They ordered the arrest of Sitting Bull. When
reservation police surrounded Sitting Bull’s
cabin a skirmish broke out and 14 Indians
including Sitting Bull were killed.
 Many Sioux joined the Ghost Dancers farther
west. They were tracked down by the US army
and a search for weapons began. The Sioux
and soldiers began shooting. By the end of the
day, 150 Sioux and 30 US soldiers lay dead.
The significance of the
Wounded Knee
 The Wounded Knee
massacre marked the end of
the bloody conflict between
soldiers and American Indians
on the Great Plains.
Assimilating American
Indians
 Many government officials and most reformers
viewed assimilation or the cultural absorption
of American Indians into “white America” as the
only long term way to ensure Indian survival.
 In 1887 the government passed DAWES
GENERAL ALLOTMENT ACT, which broke up
reservation lands into individually owned
pieces of land. The remainder of the land was
sold to the settlers.
Assimilation of American
Indians
 The Dawes Act proved to be
a failure because many
Indians refused to become
farmers. Sometimes, Indians
were given seeds unsuitable
for farming. Many Indians
died of malnutrition.
Assimilation of American
Indians
Key Concepts
1. The completion of the Transcontinental
Railroad speeded up the settlement of
the West.
 The settlement of the west led to the
extermination of the buffalo, which was a
major food source of the Plains Indians.
This allowed the US government to place
Indians in reservations.
Key concepts
 Differences in the concept of private
property. American Indians believed the
land belonged to everyone and therefore
couldn’t be bought and sold. The settlers
believed they could buy land. This is the
reason why more often than not, Indians
were cheated out of their land.
Key Concepts
 The philosophy most Americans
accepted was that God intended them to
own the continent from the east coast to
the west coast. ( Manifest Destiny ). This
in the minds of many justified the
injustices that were done to the American
Indians.
 Indians did not get citizenship rights until
1924.
The Closing of the
Western Frontier
 The Significance of
the Frontier in
American Society –
1893
 By 1890, the
Western Frontier had
been closed.