UNIT 1CHAPTER 5

CHANGES ON THE WESTERN

FRONTIER(1877-1900)

• Belief that the United States was destined to expand and control the North American continent.

• Often used to justifyterritorial expansion

• Justification for territorial expansion.

• Conflicts w/ Mexico & Native American Tribes.

Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny • Through settlement and war, the US

expanded its boundaries during the mid-1800s.

• This expansion created the current border of the contiguous US.

• “Manifest Destiny” expressed the belief that the US was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory. (manifest=inevitable, it was bound to happen)

• Greatest attraction for moving west was the abundance of land.

• Westward Migration was the second great wave of movement after the first settlers came from the Old World (Europe).

SECTION 1CULTURES CLASH ON

THE PRAIRIE • In the years following the Civil

War, the arrival of ranchers, farmers and miners brought changes to the Indian’s way of life.

• Factors that led to the downfall of the Indian domination of the Plains:• Building of Railroads• Settlers• Killing of Buffalo• U.S. policy towards

westward expansion “Manifest Destiny”

• 1868 the U.S. gov’t adopts the policy of reservations: small, sharply defined areas supervised by federal officials and closed off to non-Indian settlement.

• Some Indians agreed to move, others refused.

• By 1874, number of small reservations dotted the plains.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/02/Bia-map-indian-reservations-usa.png

“Indian Wars” • 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn aka:

“Custer’s Last Stand”.

–Crazy Horse and warriors killed 265 U.S. soldiers in Montana

–Last Indian victory on plains • Army had superior technology:

–telegraph, R/R, Colt revolver.

• 1890 federal gov’t bought part of

Indian territory in present day Oklahoma. “Sooners”

& the “land rush.”

–President Harrison officially proclaimed them open to settlement with the “Indian Appropriation Act of 1889.

• April 22, first come first serve for free land became known as “Sooners”.

• Settlers saw that destroying buffaloes would force out Indian dependence on the land.–by 1900 only a handful

of buffalo survived.

• Bureau of Indian Affairs: gov’t agency charged with caring for the Indians.–Indians unable to hunt food due

to poor land/location of reservations.

–Bureau became notorious for corruption.

• American Reformers began to believe that if Indians were to survive they would have to assimilate: be absorbed into the white culture.

Jim Thorpe

• U.S. built churches and schools to teach Indian children how to speak, dress, work and think like whites (wipe out their culture).

Carlisle School, PA

• Dawes Act (1887): Congress

passed to undercut Indian tribal ties by breaking up reservation lands into 80 & 160 acre lots to families and individuals.

• Split up Indian tribes.• Sold excess land to white

settlers.

Dawes Act:• Indians received 47 million

acres, settlers were sold 90 million acres.

• By 1900 number of Indians in U.S. reduced to 250,000.

SECTION 2Settling on the

Great Plains• Cowboy originated in Mexico with the “vaqueros” in Texas.

• “Lariat” = rope, “Chaps” = chaparreras (leather overpants).

• To turn cattle ranching into a successful business, ranchers needed way to get western herds in the East.

• Railheads were the answer.

–shipping stations along one of the new railroad lines.

–cities like Abilene & Dodge City, Kansas.

•

• Long Drives: movement of cattle

north from Texas to Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado.

SECTION 3Farmers & the

Populist Movement• See mass exodus of settlers heading out west in 1879.

• Exodusters: easterners who headed to the Midwest, claimed land & built shelters.

• Homestead Act of 1862: offered 160 acres of land free to any U.S. citizen who was a family head and over 21 years old.

• Law was signed into law by Pres. Lincoln on May 20, 1862.

• Homestead Act produced explosion of settlement in western territories.

• Shortage of lumber on the Plains led to sod houses: thickly matted soil.

• Cow & buffalo chips used for fuel due to lack of wood.

• Bonanza Farms: large farms financed by companies & foreigners.

• Placer Mining: mining the deposits of a stream bed, could be done with a shovel, washpan and good eyes.

• Quartz Mining: blasting rock from mountainside and crushing it to separate gold from the rocks.

• Mining towns: Virginia City & Carson City, NV; Pikes Peak, CO.

Virginia City, NV

Gold Rush Story:California rush for gold started in 1849. They panned for gold by using “placer mining.” Levi Strauss invented “dungarees” or durable jeans for the miners. Later, big companies arrived and used “quartz mining” or blasting the rock with dynamite. Finally, in Nevada miners found more Silver than Gold.

• Lumber industry

centered in Pacific states (Wash, Oregon, and Calf.).

• Log Drive: logs floated down rivers to the sawmills.

Alaska (Last Frontier): • 1867 U.S. bought from Russia

for $7.2 million.• WHY? full of gold, fur,

copper, fish, coal and oil.

Turner Thesis:• Claimed the U.S. was

distinguished from Europe b/c of our western frontier or “Gate of Escape.”

• National Park Service: est. to protect wilderness areas from commercial exploitation and destruction.

THE END