1. Settling the West

2. What do you think of when you hear The Old West?

3. Tombstone?

4. Miners and Ranchers

5. Growth of the Mining Industry
The discovery of Gold and Silver (Minerals) caused a flood of people to move West

6. Mining Methods Placer Mining – removing mineral ore by hand
Quartz mining – using tools to dig deep beneath the surface to remove minerals

7. Quartz (Strip) Mining

8. Henry Comstock
Henry Comstock -Prospector who found a huge Silver Strike near Virginia City, Nevada.
Virginia City became a Boomtown – thousands of people flooded to the town making it grow very rapidly

9. Vigilance Committees Crime was a Huge problem in Boomtowns
Citizens who took the law into their own hands formed Vigilance Committees – volunteers who tracked down and punished wrong-doers

10. Women in Boomtowns Property Owners Community Leaders Cooks
Dance Hall Girls

11. Colorado Boomtowns “Pikes Peak or Bust!”
Leadville – a silver strike caused thousands of people to pour into the Leadville
Denver – became the 2nd largest city in the West because of the building of railroads through the Rocky Mountains

12. Who Struck it Rich?
Although many individuals benefited, corporations made the greatest profits from mining.
It became big business in the West.

13. Ranching and Cattle Drives
The Great Plains are the grasslands in the West Central part of the United States
In the early 1800’s most people believed there was too little water and the grass was too tough for cattle ranching
In Texas, the Longhorn adapted well to living on the Great Plains

14. Rise of the Cattle Frontier
Open Range – vast area of grassland owned by the federal government which provided land for ranchers to graze their herds on free of charge
Demand for Beef – Prices rose after the Civil War making cattle ranching profitable
Railroads – by the end of the Civil War rail lines had reached the Great Plains

15. Cowboys
With the rise of the cattle frontier comes an American icon –the Cowboy.

16. The First Cowboys
Spanish explorers introduced horses and Longhorns in Mexico.
The Spaniards hired vaqueros or cowboys to tend to the herds.
Some horses and cattle escaped and formed wild herds.

17. Cowboy Life 55,000 cowboys worked between 1865 –1885.
25% were African-Americans.
A cowboy worked hours a day.
Average age was 24, most retired by age 40.
He had to be an expert rider.

18. Way of Life He rarely fired his gun (if he had one) or fought Indians.
Prairie fires, not Indians, were his worst fear.
Worked all summer and lived off his savings in winter.

19. Cowboys

20. The Roundup
Cattle herds were rounded up in the spring, corralled, separated and branded

21. The Long Drive
The long drive was a cattle run to move herds of cattle to rail lines over paths like the Chisholm Trail.
Chisholm Trail – cattle trail from Texas to Abilene, Kansas
Boss $100 a month
Cook $35-50
Wrangler $1 a day

22. End of the Frontier Overgrazing of land
Natural disasters and extended bad weather
The invention of barbed wire

23. Overgrazing
Herds of cattle on the plains and the introduction of sheep destroyed the grass.

24. Natural Disasters. Drought in 1883-1886.
Blizzard on January 28, 1887 – 68 degrees below zero and 60 m.p.h. winds. Between 40 –90% of herds destroyed.

25. Barbed Wire
The invention of barbed wire by Joseph Glidden transforms the open plains into fenced in ranches and farms.

26. Farming the Plains

27. Geography of the Plains
The Great Plains are the grasslands in the West Central part of the United States

28. Geography of the Plains
Stephen Long led an expedition through the Great Plains in 1819 and declared it to be a desert and not fit for settlement.
Why? It got less than 20 inches of rainfall a year and few trees grew there

29. The Beginnings of Settlement
In the late 1800’s several things changed the image of the Great Plains.
Railroad companies began to sell land along its rail lines at low prices.
Railroads advertised those lands as a ticket to prosperity
Rainfall on the Plains began to increase in the 1870’s.

30. The Homestead Act
The Homestead Act gave 160 acres of land to anyone who agreed to live on the land and farm it for five years.
There was only a $10 registration fee
The government used this act to encourage thousands of settlers to the Plains.

32. The Homestead Act
Thousands of immigrants lured by railroad companies flocked to the Great Plains,
Exodusters: African –Americans left the post-Reconstruction South to go to Kansas to take advantage of the free land.

33. The Homestead Act
Abuse: Families received only 10% of the land – the rest went to railroads, miners, cattlemen, speculators and state governments.
The Sooners: There was a massive land run in the Oklahoma.
Some people cheated and left sooner than they were supposed to.
Oklahoma became the Sooner State

34. Oklahoma Sooners

35. Dugouts and Soddies
Shelter: Was the first task settlers had to provide.
Dugout: Home dug out of a small hill or ravine.
Soddy: Home made from stacks of prairie turf.

36. Environment on the Plains
Harsh extremes
Summer temps were over 100 degrees
Winters brought blizzards
Prairie fires
Grasshoppers sometimes destroyed crops

37. New Methods and Inventions
New farming methods helped making farming profitable.
Dry Farming – seeds are planted deep in the ground where there is enough moisture to grow
John Deere invented the steel plow to break up the tough prairie dirt
Cyrus McCormick invented the reaper

38. The Wheat Belt
Even with these new methods and tools, many Sodbusters (people who plowed the soil on the Plains) eventually lost their homesteads because of drought or wind erosion

39. The Wheat Belt
Wheat had an advantage on the Great Plains because it could withstand drought better than other crops

40. The Wheat Belt
The wheat growing region of the United States that includes:
North and South Dakota
Nebraska
Kansas

41. Bonanza Farms Bonanza Farms were large, single crops farms
They brought in huge profits, but caused an oversupply of crops like wheat. Oversupply caused the price of wheat to drop
Some farmers tried to survive by mortgaging their land…but they lost their farms when they couldn’t pay back the loan

42. Native Americans

43. Importance of the Buffalo
Most Native Americans who lived on the Great Plains were Nomads – they roamed great distances
Plains Natives hunted Buffalo (Tatanka),
Buffalo provide hide for teepees, shoes, blankets and clothing. Meat. Sinews for bow strings. Bones for tools and hoofs for glue.

44. The Buffalo Hunt

45. Native America Family Life
Lived in small extended family groups.
Men hunted and the women prepared the meat and hides.
Plaines Indians were individualists.

46. Native America Family Life
Young men trained as warriors and hunters.
The Plains Indians believed in powerful spirits and those with the power became medicine men and shamans.
Tribe ruled by counsel. Children learned by stories and myths.

47. Cultures Under Pressure
Native Americans resisted the advance of settlers on their lands
They resented the broken treaties of the government and the forced movement from their land.

48. Cultures Under Pressure
Native Americans resisted by attacking wagon trains and ranches.
Eventually the resistance turned into war with the United States.

49. Dakota Sioux in Minnesota
The Dakota Sioux agreed to live on a small reservation in Minnesota.
They were to receive annuities, or payment, from the government once a year for moving.

50. Dakota Sioux in Minnesota
Much of their annuities ended up in the hands of traders who often made up debts and took the annuities as payment.
When the annuity was late, Sioux leader Little Crow asked to buy food on credit.
The traders refused

51. Dakota Sioux in Minnesota
Angry Sioux slaughtered soldiers and civilians in the area.
U.S. troops put down the uprising
307 Sioux were sentenced to death

52. U.S. Sends Soldiers
After the uprising, the army sent patrols far into the Great Plains
The army patrolled the Lakota Sioux’s hunting grounds
This caused conflict

53. The Sioux Fight for Their Land
Sioux leaders come up with a plan to protect their hunting grounds in the Bighorn Mountains.
Red Cloud
Crazy Horse
Sitting Bull
Crazy Horse

54. Fetterman’s Massacre
Red Cloud’s forces defeated the U.S. army in Montana
It Increased tensions between Native Americans and the U.S. Government

55. Sand Creek Massacre Black Kettle – Cheyenne leader
U.S. Colonel Chivington attacked and killed hundreds of Cheyenne who had gathered to negotiate peace
They were mostly women and children

56. Indian Peace Commission
Formed by Congress in 1867
Created two reservations on the Great Plains
Many Native American refused to move
They faced miserable Conditions

57. Gold Rush- the Black Hills
Miners flood into the Black Hills.
Sioux and Arapaho protest.
Ltc. George A.Custer reports that there is a lot of gold.
The U.S. offers to purchase the land, Red Cloud refuses.

58. Custer’s Last Stand Sitting Bull’s vision tells of victory.
Custer makes a series of mistakes – underestimating Indian strength, his men and horses exhausted, and split up his regiment.
On June 25th, 1876, Crazy Horse leads his 3,000 over Custer’s 200.
All of the 7th Cavalry are lost.

59. Buffalo Soldiers
Congress created two Cavalry Regiments the 9th and 10th.
Nick named “Buffalo Soldiers” by Cheyenne and Comanche.
Given the worst assignments.
Fought against Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Billy the Kid and Pancho Villa.

60. Buffalo Soldiers

61. Assimilation
Americans believe that Indians can assimilate, or be absorbed into, white culture.
Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor exposed the governments broken promises.

62. Failure of the Dawes Act
Dawes Act 1887: Broke reservations up into 160 acre farms and made assimilation the official U.S. policy
Native Americans didn’t want to be farmers and whites ended up with most of the land

63. Failure of the Dawes Act
Richard H. Pratt founded the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania.
Students were taught their traditions were backwards and superstitious.
Conflict between parents and children resulted.

64. Destruction of the Buffalo
Railroad companies hired hunters to supply the meat for it’s workers.
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody killed bison in six months.
The U.S. government encouraged the killing of buffalo to forced Native Americans onto reservations.

65. The Battle of Wounded Knee
Sitting Bull had a vision that if the Sioux performed a Ghost Dance their ancestors would rise up and defeat the whites.
Indian Policemen were sent in to arrest Sitting Bull.
He was accidentally shot and killed

66. Crash Course – Westward Expansion