The West

The People, the Place,

the Process

Major Questions (people, place, process)

What is “the west”? – Myths vs. Realities Who were major actors? What were their interests? What were main conflicts? How and why did “the west” change over

time? How did late-19th c. history of west affect later

history of region and nation?

Defining “The West”

“The West” can be defined as part of a longer historical process

Also an identifiable region and period Both were defined by particular people with

particular interests, vying with others for control of the region and future history

The long historical process of the West

John Gast, Manifest Destiny, 1872

Gast image

What does image represent?

The Real Place: region and environment

Donald Worster: “the story of men and women trying to wrest a living from a condition of severe natural scarcity and, paradoxically, of trying to survive in the midst of entrenched wealth.”

J.W. Powell (1878): arid, need irrigation to make region habitable and useful

Immense mineral and timber wealth Enviro. conditions necessitated new economic

techniques, new patterns of ownership, new social relations

Role of Railroads

Railroad-building made west accessible Transcontinental railroad finished 1869 Routes spurred development Profit motive – spurred new ways of thinking about

and exploiting land and region Led to diff. industries – cattle, towns, mining,

agriculture Necessitated diff. strategies of removal – Native

Americans and bison would interfere with white settlers’ goals

The American West “empty” for white settlement: the power of images/maps to shape imagination and ideas of the region

Government Role Question: when you think of “the west,” how visible is the power of fed. govt.? Govt. often perceived as absent from west – made

invisible Reality:

National imperial ambitions, goal/process of accession of new territories, then incorporation into nation

Loans and land grants to railroads Homestead Act, 1862, 160 acres to head of

household National war on Native Americans Govt. set up and administered reservations Provided Water – irrigation, dams, water rights Economic and immigration policies that benefited west

Making the West Safe for White Settlement Appropriation of Native American land;

crowding them out Part of longer process/history of taking land,

moving or killing Native Americans Change from borderlands relations (no clear

dominance = compromise/trade/better relationships) to dominance (killing/removal relationships)

Population pressure combined with highly-trained small military (27,000 soldiers)

Environmental pressures: killing of bison

Major Conflicts and Eventsbetween whites and N.A. Shift from removal before Civil War to reservation system Beginning of reservation system (1867) – N.A. were wards

of govt. until they changed their ways Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, Sioux/Cheyenne defeat

Custer at Little Big Horn (1876) - Link Plains Indian resistance – Nez Perce and Chief Joseph

fight, flee, then surrender (1877) Shrinking reservations in SD and Oklahoma (Sooners) Dawes Act, 1887 – carved up reservations, individual plots

of land, make N.A. become white 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, Ghost Dance, Sioux,

predicted whites would disappear in spring 1891 - Link

Assimilation into White Society

Whites pushed goal of making N.A. become white: private property, farming, Indian schools = civilization, new language, beliefs, way of life

Lakota Sioux boys at Carlisle (PA) Indian School

The West’s Major Economic Areas

Centrality of rail lines and new technologies Cattle – western long drives only lasted short

time (myth much longer); fencing and ranches

Agriculture – grain on Plains; fruits/vegs. in CA

Mining – from prospecting to industry – important to labor history

Women’s roles – western scarcity and life allowed women to break out of Victorian gender roles – worked outside home in non-trad. jobs (farming, merchants, prostitution)

The Real Frontier: Different Frontiers, Changing Class Relations

Three Frontiers: Mining, Cattle, Farming Short period of individual social mobility Each frontier quickly changed and

consolidated – high capital $$$ needs – companies took over all 3 areas

Need for cheap labor: former cowboys, prospectors, African Americans, Chinese, and other immigrants

As a result, the west became site of class and racial conflict – fought over the spoils

Economic and Environmental Problems Endangering native species – bison and others Unsustainable agriculture – wet years raised

expectations, then drought, stripping of native grasses

Ag. susceptible to world market, fluctuating prices for grain

Overexpansion; boom and bust in railroads, ag., and mining

Cattle and farming = monoculture, pestilence, introduction of invasive species

Conflicts over land and resources, labor conflicts Solutions: agricultural cooperation (Grange and

Populists); labor unions and parties

Ethnic and Racial Conflict West was place for whites to prove superiority Whites vs. Native Americans Similarities to Reconstruction South – white

supremacy, control of land, labor, resources Appropriation of Hispanic lands Use of migrant or immigrant labor – Irish, African

American, Chinese, Japanese, then Mexican Labor castes and control Labor conflict – CA, SanFran’s Workingman’s

Party in 1870s and 1880s – who has the right to earn a living? – republicanism/exclusion

Depicting the racial “other” – dehumanizing immigrant Chinese

Making Chinese immigrants expendable

Rationalizing exclusion (from nation, from work, etc.) –“they” don’t belong here

White Workers Feared the Chinese Worker “Horde”

Chinese Railroad Workers Erased from History of WestThomas Hill, "The Last Spike," c. 1881, completion of the transcontinental railroad

Early Conservation and Environmental Movements Beginnings of Conservation/ Environmental

Movement conflicted with prior visions/uses/methods

John Muir and Yosemite Park, 1864 Romantic wilderness ideals Conflicts over water and land – should

resources be used or preserved? – where does best “value” lie?

Conservation vs. Preservation Issues of public land use – who had right to use

lands?

Link to more info. on Buffalo Bill, myths and realities

Buffalo Bill and Early Films

Bucking Bronco, Edison Film, 1894 Buffalo Dance, Edison Film, 1894 Sioux Ghost Dance, Edison Film, 1894 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Parade, 1902

The West: Myth and Reality Case study: Columbian Exposition, 1893: a site

where American racial and frontier ideas were worked out, exhibited

Chicago: western city, railroad city, cattle, grain, immigration

1893 Exposition: 400th Anniv. of Columbus/New World – festival commemorating Euro. settlement

The White City – white progress, civilization – architecture, tech., arts

The Midway offered comparisons to other “races”, “primitives”

Expo. offered vision of what whites wanted the rest of the west to become

The White City

1893 Chicago World’s Fair

Staging the West: Turner and Buffalo Bill

2 versions, 2 men – enactment of western myth in 1893 F.J. Turner – historian, “frontier thesis”

Moving frontier, progress, farm families, Indians irrelevant, democracy, individualism, new Americans, econ./phys. mobility

Used images from history: free land, log cabins, stage coaches 1890 U.S. Census declared frontier closed – Turner wondered

about what that would mean for American character

Buffalo Bill – frontier conflict, whites and N.A., whites under attack, justified fight against N.A. Real and imaginary; used images of conflict, heroic martyr

(Custer) White frontier men “know” Indians, then beat them

Staging the West: Turner and Buffalo Bill (continued)

Similarities: Whites justified in taking over “empty” continent Conquest = a good thing A “clean” story of “progress” Use of prominent symbols and images, even if not

historically correct Turned attention away from Reconstruction and

‘nigger problem’

Chicago --The Frontier West Reenacted:Buffalo Bill, The White City, The Midway, and F.J. Turner

Frontier Myth in American History

If American west closed in 1890, and it meant so much to American psyche, then what?

Connections to Larger Themes

Connections to Reconstruction? Similar themes or issues?

Connections to later U.S. history?