1. SETTLING THE WEST
Chapter 8

2. Section 1 Miners and Ranchers
Main Idea: Miners and ranchers
settled large areas of the West.
Growth of the mining
industry:
* Placer mining - prospectors
used picks, shovels, pans,
etc; scooped up shallow
deposits.

3. * Quartz mining - dug deep beneath surface. * Henry Comstock -
discovered the
“Comstock Lode” - huge
silver vein near Virginia City, Nev.
“Boomtown” “Ghost town”
Wild mining towns led to
vigilance committees
(volunteers who enforced
law in the West).
Slowly, placer mining gave way to quartz mining. As the miners made their way
up streams to discover the source of the gold they'd always found washed
downstream, they found that it was locked away with other minerals in deposits
of ore. Ore is rock with precious metal or other minerals trapped inside. A
source of ore was called a lode. You've probably heard the phrase
"mother lode." A mother lode is a vein containing large amounts of mineral-rich
ore; the "mother" of all the small placer deposits downstream. Quartz mining
was much more involved and expensive than placer mining.Someone equipped
with just a pick, a shovel, a pan, and maybe a bucket could begin placer mining
alone. Quartz mining required heavy machinery and, usually, many men. Deep
shafts were cut out of hillsides. Those shafts were extremely dangerous and
sometimes caved in on the men deep inside.

4. Boomtown to
Ghost town

6. Ranching & Cattle Drives
* Early 1800s - People thought that eastern
cattle could not survive the Great Plains
(water scarce, prairie grasses tough).
* Texas longhorns were
well-adapted
to Plains.
* Open range - vast area of gov’t-owned
grassland.

7. * After Civil War - beef was rare & expensive;
RRs could carry rounded-up longhorns to
markets in the East.
* Long drive - cattle was “driven” (herded) long
distances to
railheads
(RR stations)
& shipped
East.

8. Stray Cattle Unbranded animals were called mavericks after cattle rancher Samuel A. Maverick, who avoided the practice of branding his cattle. Today, the term maverick is often used to identify an independent individual.

9. * Barbed wire - enabled huge areas to be fenced in cheaply.
* Chisholm Trail - Famous long drive route from Texas to Abilene, Kansas.
* Range Wars broke
out when sheep herds
moved onto open
range & also when
farmers moved in.
* Barbed wire - enabled huge
areas to be fenced in cheaply.
(Can you think of another advantage
to using barbed wire on the Great
Plains?)
Answer: Barbed wire fences used far less wood than the old standard wooden
fence. Wood was scarce on the Plains.

10. Why did long drives end?
* Fencing-in of the open range.
* Brits & European investors poured $$$ into
cattle business oversupply prices fell ranchers went bankrupt!
* Blizzards in ; killed
huge numbers of herds.
Result……. Fenced-in ranches
made long drives difficult.

12. Section 2 - Farming the Plains
Main Idea: After 1865, settlers staked out homesteads and began farming the Great Plains from the central Dakotas through Abilene, Texas.
Stephen Long - explored the
region in 1819 and called it the
Great American Desert.

13. Why did settlement of the Great Plains begin?
* RRs - ensured easy access
-- Advertised sale of cheap
land along RR lines.
* Gov’t passed the Homestead
Act (1862) acres free to
settlers who would live on the
land for five years and make
improvements.

14. Homesteaders on the Great Plains

15. Challenges for Great Plains settlers:
* Lack of trees and water.
-- Had to build sod houses
(“soddies”).
-- Had to drill deep wells.
* Heat & drought in summer.
* Blizzards in winter.
* Prairie fires!!!
* Swarms of
grasshoppers
destroyed crops.

17. A Great Plains “Soddie”

18. Interior of a sod home

20. Wheat Belt - eastern edge of Great Plains.
* New farming techniques.
-- Dry farming - planted seeds deep for
moisture.
-- Steel plows (John Deere), seed drills,
reapers, & threshers.
-- Mechanical reapers - faster harvest.
* Bonanza farms - huge wheat farms up to
50,000 acres; often owned by big
corporations.

21. New farming techniques made farming possible in the Great Plains.

22. The New Steel Plow by John Deere

23. * Better farming techniques * Oversupply of crop
Problem:
* Better farming techniques
* Oversupply of crop
* A drop in crop prices
* Farmers had to mortgage the land
* Often led to farm foreclosures by
the banks because farmers could
not pay off their mortgages.

24. Section 3 - Native Americans
Main Idea: Settlement of the
West dramatically changed the
way of life of the Plains Indians.
Most were nomads -
wandered the Plains
following the
buffalo.

25. Hunting grounds were disrupted by white settlers.
Indians often attacked the settlers.
* Dakota Sioux Uprising
-- Gov’t delayed payment of
promised annuities (pmts
to Indians on reservations).
-- Chief Little Crow asked
traders for food on credit;
was turned down.
-- Sioux attacked, killing
hundreds of white settlers.
Little Crow

26. Sand Creek Massacre (Colorado)
Colorado Territory sought to open up the Cheyenne and Arapaho hunting
grounds to white development. The tribes, however, refused to sell their lands
and settle on reservations. Evens decided to call out volunteer militiamen under
Colonel John Chivington to quell the mounting violence. In the early morning
hours of November 29, 1864, Colonel John M. Chivington of the Third Colorado
Cavalry and his soldiers killed an estimated 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho
people, most of whom were still sleeping. The federal government condemned
the incident, called the Sand Creek Massacre, and attempted to make amends
to those who survived by giving them money.
Sand Creek Massacre (Colorado)

27. Indian Peace Commission (1867) proposed:
* Two large reservations on the Great Plains.
* Bureau of Indian Affairs would run them.
* Forced Indians to sign treaty.
* Bad living conditions
for the Indians on
reservations; they
received what was
seen as the least
desirable land.

29. Last Native American Wars:
* Buffalo were rapidly disappearing through
rampant killing by buffalo hunters.

30. * Battle of Little Bighorn (1876) Lakota & Cheyenne vs. General George
Armstrong Custer & 210 soldiers.
Custer & all his men were killed.
General George
Armstrong Custer
AKA Custer's Last Stand, American military engagement fought on June 25,
1876, in what is now Montana, between a regiment of the Seventh United
States Cavalry led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and a force
of Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors. The discovery of gold in the nearby
Black Hills in 1874 had led to an influx of prospectors into Native American
territory, and the U.S. government ordered all Sioux onto reservations to clear
the way for white settlement. Led by Chiefs Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Gall,
large numbers of Sioux and Cheyenne continued to practice their traditional
nomadic way of life and clashes with the white settlers increased. In 1876 the
army planned a campaign against the Native American tribes resisting removal,
then centered in southeastern Montana Territory. Custer's regiment of 655
men formed the advance guard of a force under General Alfred Howe Terry.
On June 25 Custer's scouts located the Sioux on the Little Bighorn River.
Unaware of the Native American strength, between 2,500 and 4,000 men,
Custer disregarded arrangements to join Terry at the junction of the Bighorn
and Little Bighorn rivers and prepared to attack at once. In the hope of
surrounding the Native Americans, he formed his troops into a frontal-assault
force of about 260 men under his personal command and two flanking columns.
The center column encountered the numerically superior Sioux and Cheyenne Cut off from the flanking columns and completely surrounded, Custer and his
men fought desperately but all were killed. Later Terry's troops relieved the
remainder of the regiment. The battlefield, now known as the Little Bighorn
Battlefield National Monument, was established as a national cemetery in 1879
and as a national monument in 1946, after becoming part of the
National Park Service. It was known, until 1991, as the Custer Battlefield
National Monument.

31. * The Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph - refused to move to a smaller
reservation. Fled
1300 miles; finally
surrendered and
were later moved
to Oklahoma.
Chief Joseph

32. I am tired of fighting.
Our chiefs are killed….
The old men are all dead.
It is the young men who say no and yes.
He who led the young men is dead.
It is cold and we have no blankets.
The little children are freezing to death.
Some of my people have run away to the hills
And have no blankets, no food.
No one knows where they are -
Perhaps they are freezing to death.
I want to have time to look for my children…
Maybe I shall find them among the dead.

33. I will fight no more…forever.
Hear me my chiefs, I am tired
My heart is sad and sick
From where the sun now stands
I will fight no more…forever.
Chief Joseph
Nez Perce Indians
1877

35. * Wounded Knee
-- Lakota ignored orders and continued to
perform the Ghost Dance (ritual
celebrating the day when whites would be
gone, buffalo would return, etc…)
-- Battle - 25 US
soldiers and 200
Lakota men,
women, and
children killed.
-- Last major Indian
battle.

36. Aftermath of the Battle of --- the last major battle
Wounded Knee
--- the last major battle
of the
Indian Wars
Site of the last official battle in the Indians wars, Wounded Knee Creek was
a convenient place for the Seventh Cavalry to disarm Big Foot's band during
the Lakota Ghost Dance "uprising" in But then a shot rang out, and some
300 Lakota were gunned down. Eighteen members of the Seventh Cavalry,
avenged for its loss at the Little Bighorn, received the Medal of Honor.

39. A Century of Dishonor - by Helen Hunt Jackson
* Wrote about broken U.S.
treaties and promises to
Indians.
* The “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” of
the Native American problem.
Assimilation - attempt to make Indians conform to
white society Dawes Act 1887:
* Land given to Indians for farming.
* Failed - Indians not adapted to that lifestyle.

40. Carlisle Indian School Carlisle, Pennsylvania
Assimilation?
Carlisle Indian School
Carlisle, Pennsylvania
1915

42. Reviewing Key Terms H B D I E
Define Match the terms on the right with their definitions on the left.
__ 1. money paid by contract on regular intervals
__ 2. method of extracting minerals involving digging beneath the surface
__ 3. a stray calf with no identifying symbol
__ 4. to absorb a group into the culture of a larger population
__ 5. a way of farming dry land in which seeds are planted deep in the ground where there is some moisture H
A. placer mining
B. quartz mining
C. open range
D. maverick
E. dry farming
F. sodbuster
G. bonanza farm
H. annuity
I. assimilate
J. allotment B D I E

43. Reviewing Key Terms (cont.)
Define Match the terms on the right with their definitions on the left.
__ 6. a name given to Great Plains farmers
__ 7. method of extracting mineral ore by hand using simple tools, like picks, shovels, and pans
__ 8. a large, highly-profitable wheat farm
__ 9. a plot of land assigned to an individual family for cultivation
__ 10. vast areas of grassland owned by the federal government F
A. placer mining
B. quartz mining
C. open range
D. maverick
E. dry farming
F. sodbuster
G. bonanza farm
H. annuity
I. assimilate
J. allotment A G J C