1. US II River Dell Regional HS Mrs. Rivas
Clash of Cultures
US II
River Dell Regional HS
Mrs. Rivas

2. Go West document Federal Government Land Policy 1850 16.docx

3. The American West:
A Conversation with Frederick Jackson Turner

4. Turner’s Frontier Thesis- Famous speech to the American Historical Association in Chicago, July 12,
American History as
the History of the Frontier
“Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the
Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain
American development.”
Share/Pair: Read the above quote and discuss its’ meaning-

5. The Frontier Defined American Character•

7. EXODUSTERS
• 6,000 African
Americans left the South following Reconstruction
• By 1880, 40,000 African Americans in
Kansas, largest
concentration in the West aside from Texas
“Leaving for Kansas”, 1879

8. The West at a Glance • In 1877, the U.S. consisted of 38 states

9. “Free Land”
The Homestead Act (1862) •

10. Cost of “Free” Land for Settlers•

11. Free land for Railroads
, Congress awarded 100 million acres of public lands
to railroad companies
in 1880s, 40,000 miles of track laid west of Mississippi

12. The costs of westward expansion for Native Americans
• 360,00 Indian people lived in the Trans- Mississippi West in 1865 • by 1900, fewer than 250,000

13. Overhunting of buffalo
• White hunters killed 4 million between • • provide food for labor crews and skins for manufacturing

14. A Kinder, Gentler Solution? Assimilation and Citizenship
• Dawes Severalty Act (1887)

15. Boarding Schools Students at Toledo Indian School, Iowa, 1899 “Kill the Indian…and save the Man”

16. Cowboys: symbols of independence or seasonal wage workers?
• 35, ,000 cowboys • $30/month pay • 1/5-1/3 Indian, Mexican, or African- American

17. Why mythologize the American West?

18. What the West Represents
• Self-reliance and upward mobility the basis of the American Dream
• Commercialism - package something uniquely American
• nostalgia for ruggedness as country becomes increasingly corporatized and urbanized