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America’s Gilded Age
1870 - 1890
The Transformation of the West
Part II
The Taming of the “WildWest”
• Factors that make possible the settlement of the west– Manifest Destiny
– Genocide of the Indians
– Government Assistance• Homestead Act, Timber Culture Act, Desert Land Act,
• Timber and Stone Act
• Land grants to railroads
– Transcontinental Railroads
– Technological Advances
Essential Questions
1. What national issues emerged in the process of closing the western frontier?
2. Why does the West hold such an important place in the American imagination?
3. In what ways is the West romanticized in American culture?
Frederick Jackson Turner
The Significance of the Frontier
in American Society (1893)
• Argued that on the western frontier the distinctive qualities of American culture were forged – Individual Freedom – Political Democracy – Economic Mobility
• West a “safety value• Criticism most settlers
moved in family groups or as members of immigrant communities not as individuals pioneers
Key Tensions
Native Americans
Buffalo HuntersRailroadsU. S. Government
Cattlemen Sheep Herders
Ranchers Farmers
Key Tensions
Ethnic
Minorities
Nativists
Environmentalists Big Business Interests[Mining, Timber]
Local Govt. OfficialsFarmers, Buffalo Hunters
Lawlessness of the Frontier
“Civilizing” Forces
[The “Romance” of the West]
Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1851)
ColoradoGold Rush (1859)
Colonel John Chivington
Kill and scalp all, big and little!
Sandy Creek, CO Massacre
November 29, 1864
Capt. William J. Fetterman
80 soldiers massacredDecember 21, 1866
Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek (1867)
2nd Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1868)
Reservation
Policy
Gold Found in
the Black Hills
of the Dakota
Territory!
1874
The Battle of Little Big Horn
1876
Chief Sitting Bull
Gen. GeorgeArmstrong
Custer
Chief Joseph I will fight
no more forever!
Nez Percé tribal retreat (1877)
Helen Hunt Jackson
A Century of Dishonor (1881)
Bureau Of Indian Affairs
Boarding Schools
Carlisle Indian School, PA
Dawes Severalty Act (1887):
Assimilation Policy
Elk v. Wilkins (1884)
• John Elk, moved to U.S. territory, Omaha, Nebraska, where he renounced his former tribal allegiance and claimed citizenship
• Elk attempted to register to vote and was denied by Charles Wilkins, the registrar of voters of the Fifth Ward of the City of Omaha
• Legal Question - Whether an Indian, born a member of a tribe within the United States, is by his birth within the United States, a citizen of the United States, based on the Fourteenth Amendment, if he separates himself from his tribe?
• Ruling - Being born in the territory of the United States is not sufficient for citizenship; those who wish to claim citizenship by birth must be born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. The court's majority held that the children of Native Americans were "no more 'born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' within the meaning of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations."
Arapahoe “Ghost Dance”, 1890
Chief Big Foot’s Lifeless Body
Wounded Knee, SD, 1890
Indian Reservations Today
The Bronc BusterFrederick Remington
Black Cowboys
Colt .45 Revolver
God didn’t make men equal.Colonel Colt did!
Legendary Gunslingers & Train
Robbers
Jesse James
Billy the Kid
Dodge City Peace Commission, 1890
The Bonanza West
• Quest to “get rich quick” produces
– uneven growth
– boom-and-bust economic cycles
– wasted resources
– "instant cities" like San Francisco
Anaconda Copper Mining Co. (MT)
Mining Camp Life
• Camps sprout with each first strike
• Camps governed by simple democracy
• Men outnumber women two-to-one
• Most men, some women work claims
• Most women earn wages as cooks housekeepers, and seamstresses
Ethnic Hostility
• 25-50% of camp citizens were foreign-born
• French, Latin Americans, Chinese hated
• 1850--California Foreign Miner's Tax drives foreigners out
• 1882--federal Chinese Exclusion Act suspends Chinese immigration for 10 years
Effects of the Mining Boom
• Contributes millions to economy
• Helps finance Civil War, industrialization
• Relative value of silver and gold change
• Early statehood for Nevada, Idaho, Montana
• Invaded Indian reservations
• Scarred, polluted environment
• Ghost towns
Mining Centers 1900
Mining (“Boom”) Towns--
Now Ghost Towns
Calico, CA
The Cattle Bonanza
• The Far West ideal for cattle grazing• Cattle drives take herds to rail heads• Trains take herds to Chicago for processing• Profits enormous for large ranchers• Cowboys work long hours for little pay• Cowboys self-governing• By 1880 wheat farmers begin fencing range• Mechanization modernizes ranching• 1886--harsh winter kills thousands of cattle• Ranchers reduce herds, switch to sheep
The
Cattle
Trails
Land Use: 1880s
The Range Wars
SheepHerders
CattleRanchers
Why were there conflictssometimes between
Homesteaders and Cattle Drivers?
• Competition
– As more homesteaders settled the Plains there was less…
• Grazing land
• Access to water
– “Range wars” would sometimes take place
Frontier Settlements: 1870-1890
1887
Land
Promotion
Poster
for the
Dakota
Territories
Homesteads From Public Lands
What is the Message of this Picture?
The Realty--A Pioneer’s Sod House, SD
What challenges faced Homesteaders on the Plains?
• Isolation
• Natural disasters…
– Blizzards
– Droughts
– Insects/Pests
• “breaking” the soil
• Access to markets
• Lack of ground water
– Drove the need for effective windmills
The Farming Bonanza
• 1870-1890 farm population triples on plains
• African-American “Exoduster” farmers migrate from the South to escape racism
• Water, building materials scarce
• Sod houses common first dwelling
New Farming Methods
• Barbed wire allows fencing without wood
• Dry farming--deeper tilling, use of mulch
• New strains of wheat resistant to frost
• 1885-1890--drought ruins bonanza farms
• Small-scale, diversified farming adopted
Barbed Wire
Joseph Glidden
New Agricultural
Technology
“Prairie Fan”Water Pump
Steel Plow [“Sod Buster”]
Regional Population Distribution
by Race: 1900
Regional Population Distribution
by Race: 1900
Blacks Moving West
The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great
Plains
A Romantic View
The Buffalo Soldiers & the Indian Wars
African American & Chinese
Populations:
1880-1900
The Traditional View of the West
William “Buffalo Bill”
Cody’s Wild West Show
“Buffalo Bill” Cody & Sitting Bull
Legendary Female Western Characters
Calamity Jane Annie Oakley
The Fall of the Cowboy
Frederick Remington
Destruction of the Buffalo Herds
The near extinction of the buffalo.