1. The American West

2. Westward Migration The Homestead Act (1862)
Gave 160 acres of federal land if farmed for five consecutive years
created 372,000 new farms
claims totaled 600,000, covering over 80 million acres

3. Flyer promoting Western land

4. Exodusters
50,000 African Americans who migrated west after the Civil War
Exodusters as in the Jewish Exodus

5. Indian Conflicts after the Civil War
The Battle of Little Big Horn
aka Custer’s Last Stand
US military fights Crazy House and Sitting Bull (Sioux Indians)
The Ghost Dance movement (founded by Wovoka) leads to the Battle at Wounded Knee

6. The Cowboy Included Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants
1/5 of cowboys are African American or Mexican
The cowboy becomes a unifying national hero
What is “the long drive”?

7. Frontier Myths
Dime store novels make national heroes of Western figures: Wild Bill Hicock, Calamity Jane, and Annie Oakley
Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show brings the West to cities in the East

8. End of the Frontier
The 1890 Census announces that the West is fully populated
Historian Frederick Jackson Turner writes his well-known frontier thesis in 1893
Says that the frontier formed the American character
Americans are socially mobile, adventurous, self-motivated, and committed to democracy because of the West