The American West1862-1900

California Gold RushThe discovery of gold in California in 1848 caused the first flood of newcomers to the WestThe California gold rush set off a feverish quest for gold and silver throughout the West that would extend well into the 1890sA series of gold strikes and silver strikes in what became the states of Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, and South Dakota kept a steady flow of hopeful young prospectors pushing into the western mountains

The Mining FrontierCalifornia’s great gold rush of 1849 set the pattern for what happened in other areas of the WestAt first, individual prospectors hoping to strike it rich would look for traces of gold in mountain streams by a method called placer mining, using simple tools such as shovels and washing pansEventually, however, such methods gave way to deep-shaft mining that required expensive equipment and the resources of wealthy investors and corporationsIn the Rocky Mountains, miners dug millions of dollars in gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc ore

Homestead Act (1862)In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1862 in order to encourage westward expansion and settlement of the Great Plains by offering 160 acres of public land free to any individual or familyThe promise of free land combined with the promotions of railroads and land speculators induced hundreds of thousands of native-born Americans and immigrants to settle the Great Plains between 1870 and 1900

The Farming FrontierThe first “sodbusters” on the dry, treeless plains often built their homes of sod bricksSettlers overcame heat, blizzards, drought, insects, and the occasional conflict with cattle ranchers in order to farm the Great Plains. The lonesomeness of life on the prairie challenged even the most resourceful pioneer familiesWater was scarce, as was wood for fences

An Agricultural Revolution

New technologies helped people who moved onto the Plains to raise crops

The invention of barbed wire by Joseph Glidden in 1874 helped farmers fence in their lands and aided the growth of both farming and ranchingmail-order windmills were used to drill deep wells to pull water to the surface of dry western landsThose farmers who succeeded adopted so called “dry farming” and deep plowing techniques, using steel plows cut tough prairie soilFarmers planted hearty strains of Russian wheat that were better able to withstand the extreme climate of the PlainsMechanical reapers and farm machinery allowed a smaller number of workers to plant and harvest more crops

The Farming FrontierMany homesteaders discovered too late that 160 acres was not adequate for farming the Great PlainsLong spells of severe weather, falling commodity prices, and the cost of new machinery left many western farmers deeply in debtTwo-thirds of the farms on the Great Plains failed by 1900Western Kansas alone lost half of its population between 1888-1892In the end, dams and irrigation would save many western farms, as Americans reshaped the rivers and physical environment of the West to provide water for agriculture

Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad

During the Civil War, Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act, authorizing land grants and loans for the building of the first transcontinental railroadThe monumental project was undertaken by two railroad companiesThe Union Pacific was to build westward across the Great Plains, starting from Omaha, Nebraska, while the Central Pacific took on the formidable challenge of laying track across mountain passes in the Sierra Mountains, pushing eastward from SacramentoGeneral Grenville Dodge directed construction of the Union Pacific using thousands of war veterans and Irish immigrantsCharles Croker recruited thousands of Chinese immigrants to do the dangerous work of blasting tunnels through the Sierras for the Central Pacific

Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad

Completing one of the great engineering feats of the 1800s, the two railroads came together on May 10th, 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, where a golden spike was ceremoniously driven into the ground to mark the linking of the Atlantic and the Pacific statesBy 1900, four other transcontinental railroads were constructed across different sections of the West

Westward Expansion

Settlement of the West

CaliforniaGold Rush

Homestead ActTranscontinent

al Railroad

Spotlight on HistoryChinese Immigration

In the mid-19th century, Chinese immigrants came to "Gold Mountain," as they called America, to join the “Gold Rush”As the lure of gold diminished, they came simply to workInitially welcomed, they became a significant part of the labor force that laid the economic foundation of the American WestChinese could be found throughout the region, laboring in agriculture, mining, industry, and wherever workers were neededThey are best known for their contribution to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, the completion of which united the country economically and culturally

Chinese Immigration

“No variety of anti-European sentiment has ever approached the violent extremes to which anti-Chinese agitation went in the 1870s and 1880s. Lynching, boycotts, and mass expulsions…harassed the Chinese.”

Spotlight on HistoryChinese Immigration

Although the Chinese played an important role in the development of the American West, the Chinese suffered severe exploitation. They were discriminated against in terms of pay and forced to work under abysmal conditions.

Native-born white workers viewed Chinese immigrants as economic competitors and racial inferiors

Nativist hostility led to the passage of discriminatory laws and the commission of widespread acts of violence against the Chinese

Under the racist slogan, "Chinese must go!" an anti-Chinese movement emerged that worked assiduously to deprive the Chinese of a means of making a living in the general economy. The movement’s goal was to drive them out of the countryThis hostility hindered efforts by the Chinese to become American. It forced them to flee to the Chinatowns on the coasts, where they found safety and support. In these ghettos, they managed to eke out a meager existence, but were isolated from the rest of the population, making it difficult if not impossible to assimilate into mainstream society. To add insult to injury, Chinese were criticized for their alleged unassimilability

Chinese Exclusion Act,

1882Finally, Chinese workers were prevented from immigrating to America by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Its passage was a watershed event in American history. Besides identifying for the first time a specific group of people by name as undesirable for immigration to the United States, the act also marked a fateful departure from the traditional American policy of unrestricted immigration

Native Americans and Westward Expansion

The westward expansion of the late 1800s continued to create problems for the Native Americans who stood in its pathBy the 1840s, only a few groups of scattered groups of Native Americans lived east of the MississippiMost tribes had been removed to lands in the WestWith the California Gold Rush, the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862, and the building of the transcontinental railroad, white settlers began to move onto Native American lands in the West

Slaughteredfor the Hide

“The vast plains west of the Missouri River are covered with the decaying bones of thousands of slain buffaloes. Most of them have been slaughtered for the hide by professional hunters, while many have fallen victims to the sportsmen’s rage for killing merely for the sake of killing. These people take neither hide nor flesh, but leave the whole carcass to decay…Our artists spoke with the hunters on the plains who boasted of having killed two thousand head of buffalo apiece in one season…”

Native Americans and Westward Expansion

Indian Removal

Reservation Policy

Native Americans and Westward Expansion

INDIAN REMOVALIn the 1830s, President Andrew Jackson’s policy of removing eastern Native Americans to the West was based on the belief that lands west of the Mississippi would permanently remain “Indian country”This expectation soon proved false, as wagon trains rolled westward and the transcontinental railroad was built

RESERVATION POLICYIn 1851, with the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty, the federal government began to assign to the plains tribes large tracts of land, or reservations, with definite boundariesMost Plains tribes, however, refused to restrict their movements to the reservations and continued to follow the migrating buffalo herds

Native Americans and Westward Expansion

Westward Expansion

Mass killing of

the buffalo

Reservation Policy

Indian Wars

Indian WarsAs thousands of miners, cattlemen, and homesteaders began to settle on Native American lands in the West, warfare became inevitableFrom the 1850’s to 1890, periodic outbursts of fighting erupted between United States troops and the tribes of the PlainsFighting was often characterized by atrocious acts of brutality including massacres

A Wound to the Heart

The constant pressure of the United States Army forced tribe after tribe to comply with the terms of the federal government. In addition, the slaughter of the buffalo by the early 1880s doomed the way of life of the Plains people.

Ghost Dance movement

The last effort of Native Americans to resist the taking of their ancestral lands came through a religious movement known as the Ghost Dance. In the government’s campaign to suppress the movement, United States troops killed the Sioux medicine man Sitting Bull

Massacre at Wounded Knee

In December 1890, over two hundred Native American men, women, and children were gunned down by the United States army at Wounded Knee Creek in the DakotasThis final tragedy marked the end of the Indian Wars

AssimiliationThe injustices done to Native Americans were chronicled in a best-selling book by Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor (1881)The book created sympathy for Native Americans, especially in the eastern part of the United States, spurring government authorities and private philanthropists to propose assimilation of Native Americans into white mainstream society

Assimilationists emphasized formal education, training, and conversion to ChristianityOne of the most ambitious and controversial ways to encourage assimilation was a series of boarding schools for Indian children, such as the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania. Separated from their people, Native American children were taught by white teachers the ways of white culture and American society

AssimiliationTHREE LAKOTA BOYS ON THEIR

ARRIVAL AT THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL

THE SAME THREE LAKOTA BOYS BEGIN THE PROCESS OF DECULTURIZATIONAT THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL

Dawes Severalty Act (1887)

Through disease, warfare, and relocation to reservations, the Native American population declined dramatically during the closing decades of the 19th centuryIn 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act. Reversing its policy of nearly fifty years of creating reservations in which the tribes would be isolated from white society, the federal government introduced a new policy intended to help assimilate, civilize, and Americanize Native Americans by forcing Indians to become landowners and farmersThe Dawes Act provided for the gradual break up of tribal lands and the granting of land to Native American families and individualsNative Americans who abandoned tribal ways would be granted deeds to their land and United States citizenship after twenty-five years

Dawes Severalty Act (1887)

Few Indians were prepared for this wrenching change from their traditional collective society to individualismRelatively few Native Americans accepted the terms of the Dawes ActMuch of the former reservation land was never distributed to individual owners and was sold to white settlers and speculatorsThe new policy proved a failure. By the turn of the century, disease and poverty had further reduced the Native American population, most of whom lived as wards of the federal government

Land held by Native American tribes before passage

of the Dawes Severalty Act and 100 years later

Looking ForwardUnited States Indian Policy in the 20th Century

In 1924, in recognition of the failure of its policy of forced assimilation, the federal government granted United States citizenship to all Native Americans, regardless of whether they had met the requirements of the Dawes ActIn 1934, as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Congress adopted the Indian Reorganization Act in order to promote the reestablishment of tribal organization and cultureToday, an estimated 1.8 million Native Americans, living on reservations and throughout the United States represent more than 110 tribes

The Turner ThesisIn 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner published his paper, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, or Turner ThesisTurner argued that the frontier, “and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development”According to Turner, frontier life and the West had helped to shape a unique American character, promoting both a spirit of independence and individualism

Farmers, Populists, and Politics

What factors gave rise toagrarian discontent during the

late nineteenth century?

Analyzing Documents/SongTHE FARMER IS THE MAN(WHO FEEDS THEM ALL)The Farmer is the man,The farmer is the man.Lives on credit till the fall;With the interest rate so high,It’s a wonder he don’t die.For the mortgage man’s the one who gets it all.

The Farmer is the Man, Traditional

HAYSEED LIKE MEI once was a tool of oppressionAs green as a sucker could beAnd monopolies banded togetherTo beat a poor hayseed like me

The railroads and the old party bossesTogether did sweetly agreeThey thought there would be little troubleIn workin’ a hayseed like me

Hayseed Like Me, Traditional

Rise of Agrarian Discontent

FarmProblems

Rise of Agrarian Discontent

FarmProblems

Farm Foreclosures

Exploitation by

Railroads

Exploitation by

MiddlemenHigh Interest Rates

Monopolies

Debt

Low Crop Prices

The Grange MovementMany farmers facing the hardship and isolation of rural life joined the GrangeFounded in 1867, the organization was originally meant to develop social ties among rural dwellersAmong farmers, however, there was a growing awareness that middlemen and railroads, upon whom farmers depended to store and transport crops, exerted greater and greater power over their livelihoodsTo win back some of this power, the Grange began to press for political changes to limit the power of the railroadsPressure from the Grange and other groups led many state legislatures pass so called Granger laws to regulate railroads

The Populist PartyThe passage of state laws, however, failed to reign in the abuses of the railroad companies. Although such laws were upheld in the Supreme Court case Munn v. Illinois, the Supreme Court struck down an Illinois state law in the Wabash Case. This decision prompted the passage of federal regulation. Farmers then realized that their best hope of winning more reforms was the formation of a new political partyIn 1891, they formed a third-party called the Populist Party, or People’s Party

Rise of PopulismAgrarian

discontent

The Grange Movem

ent

Rise of the Populist

Party

Populist Party Platform

Economic reformsGraduatedIncome Tax

Inflationary Monetary

Policy

Government ownership of

railroads, telegraphs and telephones

Political reformsDirect Election of Unites

States Senators

The Populist PartyThe new party had strong grassroots-support directly from the people rather than established political figuresPopulist candidates soon made strong showings in elections for state legislatures and for the United States CongressMany of the ideas and goals of the Populists eventually became law

The Election of 1896The Populist Party made their strongest showing in the presidential election of 1896, the first election to follow a severe economic downturn, or Panic, that had begun in 1893The major Populist issue in the campaign was free silverFree, or unlimited coinage of silver would bring about cheap money, or currency inflated in valueFarmers believed that cheap money would lead to higher crop prices and make it easier for farmers to pay off debtsWilliam Jennings Bryan, who ran on both the Populist and Democratic tickets, argued tirelessly for inflationary monetary policy

The Election of 1896Republican William McKinley had the support of big business, which made significant contributions to his presidential campaignMcKinley claimed the country should remain on the gold standard and opposed free silverMcKinley won the election by a fair marginThe nation’s economy soon recovered and the Populists soon disappeared as a political partyAs with other third-parties throughout American history, many of the Populists’ ideas were later adopted by other political parties

The Election of 1896The election of McKinley and the defeat of the Populists symbolized the great changes that had taken swept the nation since the Civil War

The economy had changed from agrarian to industrial.The United States was a nation of cities rather than farms and villagesThe West was closingNew immigrants were creating a new, complex pluralistic culture in AmericaBy 1900, the United States was entering both a new century and a modern age