The Closing of the
Western Frontier
Out of Many
Chapter 18
A lot of slides within this powerpoint were created by Pamela Montague.
Key Tensions
Native
Americans
Cattlemen
Ranchers
Buffalo Hunters
Railroads
U. S. Government
Sheep Herders
Farmers
Key Tensions
Ethnic
Minorities
Environmentalists
Lawlessness of
the Frontier
Nativists
Big Business Interests
Local Govt. Officials
Farmers
Buffalo Hunters
“Civilizing” Forces
Plains Indians
• Nomads – followed
their food source
– buffalo, 12 to 15
million
• Horses made them
better hunters and
warriors
• Plains Wars, 18601890
– Fight to protect land
and stop waste
(buffalo)
THE BUFFALO
A buffalo can weigh up to 2,000
pounds and live as long as 30 years.
• The buffalo or bison
was an extremely
important part of the
plains people’s lives.
• They used virtually
every part of the
buffalo from the hide
for clothing, to the
stomach for holding
water.
• At one time, an
estimated 60 million
buffalo roamed the
plains of the present
day United States and
Canada.
U.S. Government Indian Policy
• Dept. of Interior in charge – gross corruption
• Initial policy of CONCENTRATION
• Deal with each tribe individually; to define
territories
• Allegedly to stop intertribal warfare but actually
to divide & conquer
• By the 1860s, policy is one of confining all to
reservations in Black Hills of SD, or OK – Indians to
become farmers on the reservations
• Indians received food, supplies in return for removal
to reservations & promise to be left alone
• INDIANS WAGED WAR!!
• Plains Wars last from 1860-1890
• Plains Indians are excellent warriors
– Sherman: “…a mere 50 Indians could often checkmate 3000
U.S. soldiers.”
The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great
Plains
1/5 of soldiers
on frontier
The nickname was given to the
"Negro Cavalry" by the Native
American tribes they fought; the
term eventually became synonymous
with all of the African-American
regiments formed in 1866:
SAND CREEK
MASSACRE
• Colorado, Nov. 1864
• Cheyenne, under
Chief Black Kettle,
came to U.S. fort to
negotiate
• Col. Chivington
arrives at fort &
ignores attempts to
negotiate
• Executes them all –
men, women &
children
• Much mutilation
Colonel
John
Chivington
Kill & scalp all, big & little!
Battle of Little Bighorn
• Treaty of Fort Laramie –
granted Sioux the right
to occupy Black Hills
• Gold found in Black
Hills, DK, 1874
• Col. George A. Custer,
7th Calvary – leads
expedition of 264
soldiers
– Suppose to say that there
wasn’t much gold to be
found
– Instead, said the opposite
• Sioux & Cheyenne force
of 2,500
• “Custer’s Last Stand”
• 1st major victory for
Indians after a long
series of defeats
• But, short-lived victory
Chief Joseph: I will fight no
more forever!
• Reservation reduced
by 90% after gold
discovered
– 6 million acres at less
than 10 cents/acre
Nez Percé tribal
retreat (1877)
• Flee towards Canadian
border
• Surrender after 3
months & 1700
miles…..only 30 miles
from the Canadian
border
• Told they’ll be
returned to ID, instead
are sent to OK and
40% die of disease
Dawes Severalty Act (1887):
Assimilation Policy
• Tribal lands split into allotments - each family 160 acres
• Land can’t be disposed of for 25 years
• After 25 yrs., would get citizenship & ownership of land
ASSIMILATION
Apache children on arrival at the Carlisle
Indian School (Pennsylvania)
• Attempt to have
Indians “become
white” and become
part of white man’s
culture
• Boarding schools, like
Carlisle School, PA
– “Kill the Indian & Save
the Man!”
• U.S. government tries
to give them land and
turn them into farmers
• Failed – Indian culture
was nomadic – don’t
make good farmers
Apache children at the Carlisle School 4 months later.
Arapahoe “Ghost Dance”,
1890
• Prophet had vision
– If the Indian peoples learned
to love each other, they’d have
a special place in the afterlife
• The Sioux came to believe that
when the day of judgment came,
all Indian peoples who had ever
lived would return to their lost
world
• White people would vanish from
the Earth
• White settlers saw this as a threat
Battle of Wounded Knee
Chief Big Foot’s Lifeless Body
• Sioux fleeing
reservation after
Sitting Bull shot
• Rounded up by Army;
surrendered & herded
into Wounded Knee
Army Camp
• Ghost Dance
• Army ordered to
disarm Indians
• 190 unarmed Indians
massacred in the
process
• End of Plains Wars
Factors which brought
an end to Plains
Indians’ way of life:
• RAILROADS!!
– Destroy Buffalo
– Bring out settlers,
miners, etc.
• Discovery of gold/silver on
Indian lands
• Disease & Firewater
• Indian Wars
– Either killed them OR
– Survivors forced to move
to reservations (Dakota
and Oklahoma)
"Crazy Horse is being carved not so much as a lineal likeness but
more as a memorial to the spirit of Crazy Horse -- to his people."
MINING IN THE OLD WEST:
• MAJOR
GOLD
STRIKES:
– California,
1848
– Colorado,
1858 (Pike’s
Peak or
Bust!”)
– Black Hills
of the
Dakotas,
1877
• MAJOR SILVER
STRIKE:
– The
“Comstock
Lode” in
Virginia City,
Nevada
– Over $300 million
of silver extracted
over 18 yrs
• COPPER – MT
• Only those who
could afford to
invest in the large
machinery were
making huge profits
THESE STRIKES CAUSED MINING
TOWNS TO SPRING UP:
• “Helldorados”
• 1 in 3 buildings
is a saloon
• Gambling,
prostitutes, etc.
• “Vigilante” and
“lynch law”
justice
• Deadwood, OK
– Home of many
famous “Wild
West” legends
Colt .45 Revolver
God didn’t make men equal.
Colonel Colt did!
Legendary Gunslingers & Train
Robbers
Jesse James
Billy the Kid
Mining (“Boom”) Towns-Now Ghost Towns
Calico, CA
Role of Mining in Subduing the
Frontier
• Eventually becomes “big
business”
– Small miners can’t get
to deep ores; need big $
• Attracts people & wealth
to West
• Helped fund the Civil War
& building of railroads
• Brought more conflict with
the Plains Indians
• Another effect:
– Discovery of gold/silver
leads to increased
interest in the West….
enter the Wild West
Shows!
William “Buffalo Bill”
Cody’s Wild West Show
Wild West vaudeville shows
traveled worldwide
“Buffalo Bill” Cody
& Sitting Bull
Calamity Jane
Annie Oakley
“There’s gold from the grass
roots down, but there’s more
gold from the grass roots up.”
• Open range ranching began in Spanish Texas
– Spanish gave us techniques of roping, herding,
etc. as well as style of dress & equipment
• Between 1836 & 1860 mavericks multiplied on
the open range to 3-4 million (along with the
12-15 million buffalo)
• Distinguished only by branding – owners didn’t
have to own much land
• RR & refrigerated cars solve problem of getting
meat to markets in NE
• So, to get cattle to the railroad centers….
…THE LONG DRIVE WAS ESTABLISHED BY
’66 where herds were driven to rail centers
in Kansas and Missouri.
The
Cattle
Trails
Routes were
known as “trails.”
The most famous
was the Chisholm
Trail (San Antonio
to Abilene).
Nat Love
• 8 to 10 cowboys could work 2,500 steer
• Several thousand were black, also many Mexican
• Dime novels (“tall tales”) were created about such
legends as Billy the Kid, Jesse James, etc.
MANY DIFFICULTIES ON
THE LONG DRIVE:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Overgrazing
Disease
Floods
Droughts
Stampedes
Rustlers
Homesteaders
Cold Winters/Blizzards
The Fall of the Cowboy
Frederick Remington
• Closed range
ranching
takes over
• Cow hands
became ranch
hands
• Required
actual
ownership of
land so
ranching also
becomes “big
business.”
The Homestead Act
• 160 acres for $10 to head
of household
• must improve it &
cultivate it for 5 years
• Did NOT work out as
planned:
– 160 acres not enough
on Great Plains
– Factory workers can’t
farm
– Fraud by speculators
– RAILROADS!!
• Selling “better” land
cheap
Black
“Exoduster”
Homesteaders
PROBLEMS OF
PLAINS FARMERS
• NATURAL DISASTERS:
– DROUGHT
– SEVERE CLIMATE
– PRAIRIE FIRES
– GRASSHOPPER PLAGUES
Changes in
American
farming:
How did 1800s Plains farming
techniques help lead to the
Dust Bowl in the 1930s?
• High crop prices for
wheat/corn
encouraged cash crop
farming
• Large scale farming
becomes a business
– Need mega $ to buy
new combines, etc.
• Emergence of
“bonanza” farms
– Pushes small
farmers off the land
– Hired hands
(Mexicans, Chinese)
to work the farms
• ¼ of American farms
operated by tenants
ECONOMIC PROBLEMS FOR
PLAINS FARMERS:
• CASH CROPS made farmers dependent on
high prices
– Foreign competition drove it down
• DEFLATION – farmers caught in debt cycle
– have to produce more to pay back fixed
debts
– Overproduction drives prices down
• MORTGAGES – high interest; foreclosures
• DEPENDENT ON RR for shipping – high rates
Government and Business
Policies also hurt Farmers
• Gov’t favored industrial classes & urban areas
• Local property taxes high & Westerners
can’t hide land like Easterners could hide
stocks & bonds
– Protective tariffs for industry; nothing for
farmers
• Farmers were at mercy of corporations, trusts,
agents:
– Machinery, fertilizer, barbed wire all controlled
by major trusts
– Middlemen take cut of sales & kept prices high
– Storage rates for grain in warehouse & elevators
high; RR freight rates also high
RAILROADS
Single greatest factor in settling
the West.
• Sold land from land grants cheaply
• Bureaus of Immigration in East & Europe
to encourage settlement in the West
• Advertised myths to encourage
settlement:
– Climate would cure all diseases
– Women would find husbands; men get
rich quick
– “Rain follows the plow”
The Reality:
PLAINS WOMEN:
• “Born and scrubbed; suffered and died.”
• Morrill Act – Federal $ to help states establish
universities (land grant colleges) which were open
to women
• Western women will ultimately get the vote first
The “Chinese Question”
§ Exclusion Act (1882)
- Oriental Exclusion Act
- Chinese Exclusion Act
LONG TERM EFFECTS OF THE
WESTWARD EXPERIENCE?
Destruction of the Buffalo Herds
The near extinction of the buffalo.
Yellowstone National Park
First national park
established in 1872.