1. Westward Expansion
Ch. 6

2. Why Go West: Push Factors
Civil War
Eastern Farmland Costs
Failed Entrepreneurs
Race and Religious Persecution
Competition for Jobs

3. Why Go West: Pull Factors
Homestead Act
Settlers received 160 acres of land.
Had to be 21 year old male or head of household.
American citizen or immigrant filing for citizenship.
Built a house and lived there at least 6 months a year.
Farm land for 5 years in a row before receiving ownership.
Opportunity to strike it rich
Gold Rush!! expansion/videos#gold-rush

4. Transcontinental Railroad
Congress provided loans and land grants for private building of the Transcontinental RR.
Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 & 1864
Union and Central Pacific RR
10 square miles to either side of track given to RR company
RR company sold land closest to tracks
Provided a way to ship goods across continent faster.
ICC: Interstate Commerce Act
Railroads had to charge all customers the same fee for shipping goods.
expansion/videos#transcontinental-railroad

5. What Will We Do? - Miners
Gold discovered at Sutters Mill California, leads to Gold Rush
Towns spring up and merchants follow
Some towns were “boomtowns” meaning they were there as long as the Gold and Silver was there.
Originally used Placer mining
Once surface ores had been mined big businesses came in and mined deep seams with dynamite and Hydraulic Drill.
Many immigrants were used to do these dangerous jobs for low wages.

6. What Will We Do? - Miners

7. What Will We Do? - Ranchers
Learned from Mexicans
Open-Range System
Branded cattle, roamed freely, cowboys rounded them up and drove them to cow towns.
Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire ending open- range system
Gustavus Swift invents refrigerated railcar to ship meat more efficiently.

8. What Will We Do? - Farmers
Homestead Act
Former Slaves looking for new life, “exodusters”
Settled the plains and built sod houses
Morrill Land Grant Act
States sold land to create “land grant” colleges specializing in agriculture and mechanical arts
Innovations
Dry farming
Windmill
Barbed Wire

9. FUN MAPS!!!
xpansion/

10. Native Americans
Just when we thought Jackson had tortured them enough…
Indians were restricted to smaller reservations
Pioneers brought diseases which they had no immunities to

11. Native Americans: Indian Wars
Sand Creek Massacre
Colorado militia v. Cheyenne and Arapaho (who were under U.S. protection)
Battle of Little Big Horn
Black Hills Gold rush brought people to Dakotas on Sioux hunting land.
Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull lead Indians to drive out the settlers
George Custer arrived early (trying to be the big shot) with 250 men (verses 2,000 Indians).
Crazy Horse led the charge and killed Custer and his men

12. Native American: Indian Wars
Wounded Knee
Came about in response to the Ghost Dance
Government was trying to arrest Sitting Bull
Confrontation ensued and Sitting Bull was killed
Troops then went after Indians who fled
Hostilities at Wounded Knee
100 innocent lives lost
Ended the Indian Wars

13. Native Americans: Assimilation and Dawes Act
Now that you lost be like us…
Policy makers hoped to assimilate Native Americans into White American ways. (page 167)
Encouraged to go to boarding schools
Accept alternate ways of life
Dawes Act
Granted each Native American family 160 acres of farmland
Land would no longer be shared
Granted American citizenship