The Great West & the Agricultural Revolution 1865-1896 Part I (1-48) A.P. US History Mr. Houze

The Great West & the Agricultural Revolution

1865-1896

Part I (1-48)A.P. US History

Mr. Houze

Pt. I: Reviewing the Chapter – After mastering this chapter you should be able to

• Describe the nature of cultural conflicts and battles that accompanied the white American migration into the Great Plains and the Far West

• Explain the development of federal policy towards Native Americans in the late 19th century

• Describe the brief flowering and decline of the cattle and mining frontiers

2

I. The Final Removal of the IndiansA. Clash of Cultures on the Plains

• In the American West, violence frequently erupted between groups competing for land and resources – but most deadly encounters occurred between whites and Native-Americans

• The U.S. government, though obligated to protect Indians who lived in the western territories, found itself severely tested to do so as a succession of land, gold, and silver rushes brought in whites seeking opportunity and riches

• Settlers continually encroached on their sacred ancestral grounds – touching off a series of wars on the plains and in the far West that lasted from 1861 until 1890

3

I. The Final Removal of the IndiansA. The Clash of Cultures on the Plains (cont.)

• White settlers moving west demanded protection from the U.S. Army to ensure safe passage overland – resulting in over thirty years of warfare that culminated in a final removal of Indians onto reservations.

• On the Great Plains, the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Nez Perce, Comanche, Kiowa, Ute, and Navajo nations put up a fierce and determined resistance against white settlers and the U.S. Army.

• The period of the Indian wars from 1869 to 1890 were marked by a number of atrocities committed by both sides – among the earliest was the ‘Sand Creek Massacre’ in Colorado.

4


• In 1864, Colonel John M. Chivington led his Colorado militia in an attack against an entire village of Cheyenne encamped along Sand Creek – the attack killed over four hundred Indian men, women, and children who put up no defense because they believed they had been promised immunity and protection!

• In 1866, the Cheyenne and Sioux united in Wyoming to block construction of the ‘Bozeman Trail’ – a road intended to connect Fort Laramie with the gold fields in Montana.

• Captain William J. Fetterman and eighty-one soldiers and civilians entered the Sioux Nation to stop attacks by war parties.

5


• Captain Fetterman and all of his troops were ambushed and killed in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains.

• In 1868, the U.S. government [impressed by Sioux military victories] signed the ‘Treaty of Fort Laramie’ – an agreement that guaranteed:(1)an end to construction of the ‘Bozeman Trail’

through the Sioux reservation, and (2)the right of the Sioux to control their sacred

Black Hills free from white encroachment.• Other Sioux and Plains Indian tribes were induced to

accept reservation lands with similar promises – including the great Sioux chief ‘Red Cloud’ .

6

7


• In the 1870s, the U.S. army began new campaigns to round up tribes who refused to accept confinement on reservations – including bands led by Sioux chiefs ‘Crazy Horse’ and ‘Sitting Bull’ that chose to roam the plains hunting buffalo.

• In 1874, a new round of warfare began when Col. George Armstrong Custer led a ‘scientific’ expedition into the Sioux Nation’s sacred Black Hills

• Custer’s announcement of the discovery of gold sent swarms of gold miners into the Black Hills in violation of promises made in the ‘Treaty of Fort Laramie’

8

9

Chief Gall (1839-1895) of the Hunkpapa Sioux –Part of the Indian Alliance Which Defeated Custer

at the ‘Battle of the Little Big Horn’

10


• After the Sioux refused to sell the Black Hills to the government, all Lakota and Northern Cheyenne were ordered onto the ‘Pine Ridge Indian Reservation’.

• Under the leadership of ‘Crazy Horse’ and ‘Sitting Bull’, the Sioux tribes massed to resist efforts by the army to force them onto the new reservation.

• In June 1876, Colonel Custer led 265 men of the U.S. 7th Cavalry in pursuit of Sioux warriors in Montana – at the Little Bighorn River he and his men were ambushed and wiped out by as many as 2,000 Sioux warriors.

11


• Despite this significant victory, within the next six years the Indians suffered a series of defeats against the army – ‘Sitting Bull’ was captured, ‘Crazy Horse’ was killed, the government took control of the ‘Black Hills’, and the Sioux were eventually confined to the Great Sioux Reservation!

• In 1923, the Sioux filed suit against the U.S. government seeking the return of the ‘Black Hills’ which they argued were taken from them illegally – in 1980, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor and awarded them $122.5 million in compensation.

12

Indian Reservations & Lands Cededto the U.S. Government

13


• Ultimately, the demise of the Plains Indians traditional way of life occurred as a result of the wholesale slaughter of over sixty million American bison on the Plains.

• This decimation peaked in the 1880s, brought about by:(1)building of the transcontinental railroads

and (2)eastern demand for buffalo hides – both of

which destroyed the Plains Indians source of food, fuel, shelter, clothing, etc…

14

15

16


• In 1877, the Nez Percé Indians in northeastern Oregon, led by Chief Joseph, attempted a daring escape from federal authorities trying to herd them onto a reservation.

• Chief Joseph led his band of approximately seven hundred Indians on a seventeen-hundred-mile, three-month flight to the Canadian border – the U.S. Army finally caught them just short of the border.

17

18

I. The Final Removal of the IndiansB. The ‘Dawes Severalty Act’

• By the 1880s, the policy of herding Indians onto reservations changed to that of ‘allotment’ – a policy designed to encourage assimilation through farming and the ownership of private property.

• In 1887, Congress passed the ‘Dawes Severalty Act’ – abolishing reservations and allotting 160 acres of land to individual Indians in the belief that assimilation of Indians into American society was impeded by the preservation of tribal identity and culture!

• The land held was held in trust by the government for 25 years to keep land speculators from cheating Indians out of their land – after which it became their private property.

19

20

I. The Final Removal of the IndiansB. The ‘Dawes Severalty Act’ (cont.)

• After the allotments were issued, excess reservation land was classified as ‘surplus’ by the federal government which reserved the right to sell it to other buyers – effectively reducing Indian lands from 138 million acres to 48 million acres.

• In this manner, the ‘Indian Territory’ of Oklahoma was opened up for white settlement in 1889.

• In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the ‘Indian Reorganization Act’ which restored the right of Native Americans to own land communally as reservations – too late to reverse the tremendous damage done to traditional tribal cultures.

21

I. The Final Removal of the IndiansC. The End of Indian Resistance

• In the late 19th century, a number of Indian tribes resisted government efforts to confine them to reservations.

• For the nomadic Apaches, reservation life proved especially difficult – they chose violent resistance through guerrilla warfare that terrorized white settlers in the 1870s & 1880s.

• Apaches operated in small raiding parties that were especially difficult for the U.S. Army to pursue in the difficult terrain of southern Arizona and northern Mexico.

• General George Crook, a skilled Indian fighter, used a policy of pursuit against hostiles with diplomacy – using Apache, Paiute, and Navajo Indian scouts to hunt down renegade Indians.

22

I. The Final Removal of the IndiansC. The End of Indian Resistance (cont.)

• By 1882, most Apaches had settled on the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona Territory – a desolate area where game was scarce and life was difficult.

• In the 1880s, ‘Geronimo’, a Chiracahua Apache ‘shaman’, led numerous raiding parties against ranchers on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border – killing them for their horses, ammunition, and other supplies.

• Among Geronimo’s band of renegades was ‘Lozen’ – a fierce female warrior and his sister.

• In the spring of 1885, Geronimo, operating from the Apache sanctuary in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Mountains, went on a ten month rampage along the U.S.-Mexico border.

23

24


• In the fall of 1885, General Crook caught Geronimo and attempted to return him to the San Carlos Reservation – on the way back he escaped.

• Afterwards, General Nelson Miles replaced General Crook and adopted a policy of hunt and destroy against renegade Apaches.

• By that time, only thirty-three Apaches remained at large – for the next five months they eluded capture and fought two thousand soldiers to a stalemate!

• In 1886, Geronimo’s band was caught between Mexican and the U.S. Army troops – by 1892, the Apaches were moved to Fort Sill in Oklahoma, and later to New Mexico.

25


• In 1889, Plains Indians turned to a new religion, the ‘Ghost Dance’ – combining elements of Christianity with Indian religion, the ‘Ghost Dance’ prophesied an apocalyptic end to whites and a return to the old ways of life on the Plains.

• ‘Ghost Dances’ were generally nonviolent – however, among the Hunkpapa, Oglala, and Blackfeet Sioux, the ritualistic dance assumed a militant behavior that alarmed the U.S. Army and President Benjamin Harrison.

• Among these Indians, they believed that wearing white ghost shirts would make them immune to the bullets of soldiers.

26


• The ‘Ghost Dance’ spread over the Plains to other tribes in-cluding Arapaho, Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Shoshone in Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Oklahoma Territory

• In 1889, President Harrison was pressured to dispatch several thousand soldiers to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota

• In December 1890, Sitting Bull joined the Ghost dancers - he was shot by Indian police attempting to arrest him on suspicion he might lead a new round of violent resistance against the U.S. government

27

Ghost Dancer & Ghost Dance Shirt

28


• After his death, Sitting Bull’s band left the reservation – they were caught by the U.S. 7th Cavalry near Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

• At Wounded Knee, 7th Cavalry troopers opened fire with rifles and the new Hotchkiss machine guns as the Indians tried to lay down their arms!

• The massacre at Wounded Knee killed over 200 Sioux men, women, and children – it also signaled the end of the Native American way of life.

29

30

II. Gold Fever & the Mining WestA. From Dishpan to Ore Breaker

• From the outset, the ‘West’ did not stand apart from the rest of the nation during the ‘Gilded Age’ – mining in the ‘West’ began in 1849 with the gold rush in California

• Then came the ‘Fifty-Niners’ (1859) who rushed to gold and silver discoveries in two places,(1) ‘Pikes Peak’ in the Colorado Rockies, and (2) the Washoe Basin in Nevada – where they found the

richest silver ore deposits in North America – the legendary ‘Comstock Lode’

• For over forty years after gold was first discovered in California, the West witnessed a series of gold and silver rushes in New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Utah, the Dakotas, and Montana.

31

II. Gold Fever & the Mining WestA. From Dishpan to Ore Breaker (cont.)

• Mining technology quickly evolved from simple ‘placer’ mining to that of ore-breaking machinery and hydrological mining – operations so expensive that only corporations backed by eastern financiers and the capital of stockholders could undertake the difficult work.

• In the case of the Nevada ‘Comstock Lode’ and other far-western silver mining operations, the financing came from active San Francisco stock market speculators.

• Between 1859 and 1878, it yielded about $400 million in silver and gold ore – primarily enriching the speculators.

32

Discoveries of Gold and Silver in the West

33


• The 1873, the ‘Big Bonanza’ of gold and silver ore was discovered within the ‘Comstock Lode’ - accelerating the transition from small-scale mining operations to large-scale corporate mining dominated by a few large companies.

• The western mining frontier of the late-19th century produced booms and busts, followed by ‘consolidation’ – a trend similar to that seen eastern industries.

• Corporate mining ushered in a radically new social and economic environment in western mining communities – a place where professional mining engineers and industrial technology gave rise to large-scale subsurface mining operations.

34

35


• These operations were characterized by:(1) ‘stamping mills’ which pulverized rock with steam-

driven hammers, (2) enormous ‘Cornish’ water pumps used to suck water

from mine shafts, and (3) large fresh air circulation ventilators.

• Virginia City, Nevada was one of many mining communities in the west that showcased this new mining technology.

• Within Virginia City’s mines there were more than 1,200 stamping mills processing a ton of ore on average per day!

• Virginia City mines employed approximately 400 men in milling, about 3,000 men in deep mine operations, and nearly 300 in related manufacturing and fabrication work!

36


• Corporate deep-mine operations held many potential dangers including mine shaft cave-ins, poisonous air, mis-fired explosives, fires, floods, and falling timbers used to shore up tunnel networks – working at extreme depths, these dangers often resulted in death.

• The ‘Gilded Age’s’ preoccupation with wealth was mirrored in the western mining industry – an industry noted for speculation, deception, and outright thievery!

• The mining West drew thousands of men, including foreign immigrants, to boomtowns with the promise of gold and silver riches.

37

38


• Mining towns were characterized by saloons, gambling halls, merchants stores, post offices, bordellos, cabins and boardinghouses for miners, and frontier vigilante justice.

• Western discoveries of gold and silver led to clashes between greedy white Americans and Indian tribes determined to protect their lands and game from encroachment.

• Miners demanded the Federal government establish forts and provide army troops to protect their movement to and from the diggings – and to ‘hunt Indians’ who attacked miners for trespassing on their reservation lands.

39

40


• White incursions onto reservations proved disastrous as miners and others ruined game habitat and cut down vast acres of trees for wood used to shore up mine tunnels, build houses, and burn for firewood.

• • Some western tribes, such as the ‘Northern

Paiute’ and ‘Bannock Shoshone’ suffered starvation as a result of such practices – especially when Piñon trees (which these tribes utilized as a source for winter food stores) were cut down.

41

III. Land FeverA. Beef Bonanzas & the ‘Long Drive’

• In the immediate post-Civil War period, ‘cowboys’ moved onto the grassy plains of Texas where several million long-horned cattle roamed freely – unclaimed by any owners.

• Between 1865 and 1885, cattle ranchers and cowboys established a ‘cattle kingdom’ stretching from Texas to Wyoming – all made possible by the extension of railroads across the Plains which enabled cattle ranchers to transport and market beef to Midwestern and Eastern consumers.

• Prior to the coming of railroads, cowboys drove herds of cattle numbering between one thousand and three thousand head along ‘cattle trails’ to the nearest railroad terminal.

42

43

44

45

III. Land FeverA. Beef Bonanzas & the ‘Long Drive’ (cont.)

• Among the great cattle trails were:(1) the ‘Chisholm Trail’ running from central Texas to Abilene,

Kansas, (2) the ‘Western Trail’ running from central Texas to Ogallala,

Nebraska, and (3) the ‘Goodnight-Loving Trail’ running from central Texas

through New Mexico and Colorado to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and

(4) the ‘Sedalia Trail’ running from central Texas to Sedalia, Missouri.

• Along these trails, cattle grazed on free range – a range that began to close in the 1880s after the invention of ‘barbed wire’!

• In good years, cattle delivered to rail heads sold for as much as $45 dollars a head – delivering substantial profits.

46


• Joseph Glidden’s invention of ‘barbed wire’ in 1874 slowly revolutionized the cattle business – it also led to range wars between farmers and cattlemen.

• Cattlemen despised ‘barbed wire’ because it represented the end of the open free range – especially small cattle ranchers who could not afford to fence their land and sink water wells to meet the needs of their thirsty herds.

• By 1886, cattle ranchers grazed too many cattle on an already overcrowded range.

• Then, during the terrible winters of 1886-1887 and 1887-1888, millions of cattle froze to death in temperatures reaching 68 degrees below zero – a situation made worse by farmers and cattlemen who had fenced in their lands!

47


• Cattle, driven by freezing winds, moved to keep warm and piled up as they encountered ‘barbed wire’ fences – resulting in the ‘Great Die Up’ that not only decimated herds but destroyed a generation of cattlemen.

• What followed this disaster in the western cattle industry was a new and more labor-intensive form of cattle ranching that eliminated the ‘open range’.

• Thereafter, all cattlemen fenced their lands and learned to store hay and alfalfa for winter feed – this change was made easier as railroads extended numerous spur lines into isolated areas, making long cattle drives unnecessary.

48

Documents

The Great West & the Agricultural Revolution 1865-1896 Part I (1-48) A.P. US History Mr. Houze