The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution APUSH CHAPTER 26 1

The Clash of Cultures on the Plains After the Civil War, the Great West was still relatively untamed, wild, and full of – Indians, Bison, wildlife, and a few Mormons and Mexicans As the White settlers began to populate the Great West, the Indians, caught in the middle – They turned against each other – They were infected with white man’s diseases 2

The Clash of Cultures on the Plains The federal government tried to pacify the Indians by signing treaties – Fort Laramie in 1851 and – Fort Atkinson in 1853 The U.S. signed these treaties with the chiefs, who did not always represent the tribes – Many Indians did not accept the authority of chiefs 3

The Clash of Cultures on the Plains In the 1860s, the U.S. government intensified its efforts by herding Indians into still smaller and smaller reservations (like the Dakota Territory) – Indians were often promised that they wouldn’t be bothered further after moving out of their ancestral lands Often Indian agents were corrupt and pawned off shoddy food and products to their own fellow Indians White men often disregarded treaties, though, and frequently swindled the Indians 4

The Clash of Cultures on the Plains In frustration, many Native American tribes fought back Indian vs. White skirmishes emerged between roughly 1864 to 1890 in the so- called “Indian Wars.” – After the Civil War, the U.S. Army’s new mission became—go clear Indians out of the West for White settlers to move in – The Indians were better equipped than the federal troops sent to quell their revolts because arrows could be fired more rapidly than a muzzle-loaded rifle Invention of the Colt.45 revolver (six-shooter) and Winchester repeating rifle changed this 5

Receding Native Population Violence reigned supreme in Indian- White relations – Sand Creek Massacre In 1864, Colorado, Colonel J.M. Chivington’s militia massacred some four hundred Indians in cold blood – In 1866, a Sioux war party ambushed Captain William J. Fetterman’s command of 81 soldiers and civilians who were constructing the Bozeman Trail There were no survivors 6

Receding Native Population Colonel Custer found gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota (sacred Sioux land), and hordes of gold- seekers invaded the Sioux reservation in search of gold – Sitting Bull lead the Sioux on an attack on Custer and his men at the Battle of Little Big Horn – The reinforcements that arrived later brutally hunted down the Indians 7

Receding Native Population The Nez Percé Indians also revolted when gold seekers made the government shrink their reservation by 90% – Chief Joseph finally surrendered his band after a long trek across the Continental Divide toward Canada He buried his hatchet and gave his famous speech saying, “From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.” 8

Receding Native Population The most difficult to subdue were the Apache tribes of Arizona and New Mexico – They were lead by Geronimo – Were excellent horse soldiers – They eventually surrendered after being pushed to Mexico 9

The Bison In the early days, tens of millions of bison dotted the American prairie, and by the end of the Civil War, there were still 15 million buffalo grazing – The eruption of the railroad that really started the buffalo massacre Many people killed buffalo for their meat, their skins, or their tongues Others either killed the bison for sport or killed them, took only one small part of their bodies, leaving the carcass to rot – By 1885, fewer than a 1,000 buffalo were left 10

The End of the Trail Sympathy for the Indians finally materialized in the 1880s, helped in part by Helen Hunt Jackson’s book A Century of Dishonor and her novel Ramona – Humanitarians wanted to kindly help Indians “walk the White man’s road” while the – Hard-liners stuck to their “kill ‘em all” beliefs, and no one cared much for the traditional Indian heritage and culture 11

The End of the Trail Zealous White missionaries would force Indians to convert – in 1884, they helped urge the government to outlaw the sacred Sun Dance, called the Ghost Dance by Whites It was a festival that Whites thought was the war- drum beating – At the Battle of Wounded Knee, the “Ghost Dance” was brutally stamped out by U.S. troops This battle marks the end of the Indian Wars as by then the Indians were all either on reservations or dead 12

The End of the Trail The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 dissolved the legal entities of all tribes – The Indians behaved the way Whites wanted them to behave (become farmers on reservations), they could receive full U.S. citizenship in 25 years – An immigrant from a foreign nation could become a citizen much, much faster than a native-born Native American 13

The End of the Trail Reservation land not allotted to Indians under the act was sold to railroads In 1879, the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania was founded to teach Native American children how to behave like Whites, completely erasing their culture The Dawes Act struck forcefully at the Indians, and by 1900 they had lost half the land than they had held 20 years before This plan would outline U.S. policy toward Indians until the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act which helped the Indian population rebound and grow 14

Mining Gold was discovered in California in the late 1840s, and in 1858 The Comstock Lode in Nevada was discovered in 1859, and a fantastic amount of gold and silver worth more than $340 million was mined Smaller “lucky strikes” also drew money-lovers to Montana, Idaho, and other western states. Anarchy in these outposts seemed to rule, but in the end, what was left were usually ghost towns After the surface gold was found, ore-breaking machinery was brought in to break the gold- bearing quartz 15

The Cattle Drives As cities back east boomed in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the demand for food and meat increased sharply The problem of marketing meat profitably to the public market and cities was solved by the new transcontinental railroads. Cattle could now be shipped to the stockyards under “beef barons” like the Swifts and Armours 16

The Cattle Drives The “Long Drive” emerged to become a spectacular feeder of the slaughterhouses, as Texas cowboys herded cattle across desolate land to railroad terminals in Kansas – Dodge City, Abilene, Ogallala, and Cheyenne became favorite stopovers At Dodge City Wyatt Earp and in Abilene, Marshal James B. Hickok maintained order 17

The Cattle Drives The railroads made the cattle herding business prosper, but it also destroyed it – The railroads also brought sheepherders and homesteaders who built barbed-wire, invented by Samuel Glidden, – Fences that erased the open-range days of the long cattle drives 18

The Farmers’ Frontier The Homestead Act of 1862 – Allowed people to get as much as 160 acres of land In return they promised to live on it for five years, improving it, and paying a nominal fee of about $30.00 – It also allowed people to get land after only six month’s residence for $1.25 an acre 19

The Farmers’ Frontier Before the Homestead Act the U.S. government had sold land for revenue, now it was giving it away This act led half a million families to buy land and settle out West – It often turned out to be a cruel hoax because in the dry Great Plains, 160 acres was rarely enough for a family to earn a living and survive – Often, families were forced to give up their homesteads before the five years were up, since droughts, bad land, and lack of necessities forced them out 20

The Farmers’ Frontier Fraud was spawned by the Homestead Act, since almost ten times as much land ended up in the hands of land- grabbing promoters than in the hands of real farmers – Sometimes these cheats would not even live on the land, but say that they’d erected a “twelve by fourteen” dwelling—which later turned out to be twelve by fourteen inches! 21