OUTLINE 5-2: THE LAST WEST,

Transcription

1 OUTLINE 5-2: THE LAST WEST, The migrations that accompanied industrialization transformed both urban and rural areas of the United States and caused dramatic social and cultural change. Larger numbers of migrants moved to the West in search of land and economic opportunity, frequently provoking competition and violent conflict. New systems of production and transportation enabled consolidation within agriculture, which, along with periods of instability, spurred a variety of responses from farmers. I. Westward Migration A. Opportunity in the West i. Many Americans had to rebuild their lives after the Civil War. They responded to the incentive of free public land and moved west to take advantage of the Homestead Act. ii. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave free public land in the Western territories to settlers who would live on and farm the land. iii. The building of transcontinental railroads, the discovery of mineral resources, and government policies promoted economic growth and created new communities and centers of commercial activity. iv. In hopes of achieving ideals of self-sufficiency and independence, migrants moved to both rural and boomtown areas of the West for opportunities, such as building the railroads, mining, ranching, and farming. v. As the population moved westward, many new states in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains regions were added to the United States. B. Building the Transcontinental Railroads i. Construction a. The first transcontinental railroad was completed in b. Five transcontinental railroads were constructed during the nineteenth century. c. Irish and Chinese workers played key roles in the construction of the transcontinental railroads. ii. Consequences a. The railroads played a key role in the near-extinction of the buffalo herds. This dealt a devastating blow to the culture of the Plains Indians. b. The railroads brought a tidal wave of troops, farmers, miners, and cattlemen to the Great Plains. C. The Cattle Kingdom i. As the new settlers built farms, range-fed cattle rapidly replaced the now declining buffalo herds. ii. The years immediately before and after the Civil War were the era of the American cowboy, marked by long cattle drives for hundreds of miles over unfenced land in the West, the only way to get cattle to market.

2 D. Farm Problems i. Changes in Agriculture a. Low Prices 1. New technologies such as the mechanical reaper opened new lands in the West for settlement and made farming profitable by increasing the efficiency of production and linking resources and markets. 2. However, these improvements in mechanization helped agricultural production increase substantially and contributed to declines in food prices as farmers overproduced foodstuffs. 3. During the Civil War, many farmers had over-expanded their operations, purchasing more land and machinery, and had gone heavily into debt. When the relatively high wartime agricultural prices collapsed in the decades after the war, farmers worked collectively to promote currency inflation, higher farm prices, silver and gold bimetallism, debt relief, cooperative farm marketing ventures, and regulations of monopolies and railroads by the federal and state governments. 4. To a certain extent, many of the problems experienced by farmers were determined by participation of American agriculture in global markets. Farmers did not completely understand all the risks in an international free market economy. b. High Costs 1. Railroads were using discriminatory rates to exploit farmers. 2. Big business used high tariffs to exploit farmers. 3. Deflationary monetary policy based on gold hurt farmers. 4. Corporations charged exorbitant prices for fertilizers and farm machinery. ii. Fighting Back a. Farmers Alliances 1. Many farmers responded to the increasing consolidation in agricultural markets and their dependence on the evolving railroad system by creating local and regional cooperative organizations. 2. Agrarian discontent was expressed through the activities of the National Grange and the Farmers Alliances. Though not very successful in the 1870s, farmer militancy continued on to become a powerful political and economic force in the decades of the 1880s and 1890s. b. Railroad Regulation 1. Unfair railway practices led to Western farmers becoming disgruntled. 2. Popular resentment of railroad abuses such as price fixing, kickbacks, and discriminatory freight rates created demands for state regulation of the railway industry. 3. In the Wabash Railroad v. Illinoia case, the Court ruled individual state laws regulating railroads were unconstitutional, because only Congress had the right to control interstate commerce. 4. The Wabash ruling enabled Congress to pass the Interstate Commerce Act, which created a commission to oversee fair and just railway rates,

3 II. prohibit rebates, end discriminatory practices, and require annual reports and financial statements. Rise of the Populists A. Purpose i. Economic instability inspired agrarian activists to create the People s (Populist) Party, which called for a stronger governmental role in regulating the American economic system. ii. It attempted to unite discontented farmers to improve their economic conditions. B. Omaha Platform i. Increase the money supply with the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the legal ratio 16 to 1. Going to the silver standard would put more money in circulation. Populists thought this would lead to lower interest rates for borrowers. These loans would be easier to pay with inflated dollars. ii. Use the Interstate Populists wanted to create a coalition of farmers, urban workers, and the middle class. iii. Commerce Act to regulate railroads and prevent discrimination against small customers. Some Populists believed that since railroads were so essential, they should be treated as a public utility, and therefore be government-owned. iv. Organization of cooperative marketing societies. v. Adopt a graduated income tax (there had been an income tax provision in the 1894 Wilson-Gorman tariff, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. vi. Support the candidacy of Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential election. C. Panic of 1893 i. Causes included the dramatic growth of the federal deficit, withdrawal of British investments from the American market, the outward transfer of gold, and the loss of business confidence. ii. Thousands of U.S. corporations and banks closed and 20% of the workforce became unemployed. iii. Coxey s Army a. Populist businessman Jacob Coxey led a march on Washington on hundreds of unemployed workers asking for a government work relief program. b. The government met the marchers with force and arrested their leaders. D. Election of 1896 i. McKinley s Platform (R) a. Protective tariff b. Gold standard c. Industry d. Blamed Democrats for the depression of 1893 ii. Bryan s Platform (D) a. Unlimited 16:1 coinage of silver b. You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

4 III. IV. iii. In the last weeks of the campaign, employers told workers they would shut down factories if Bryan was elected. This, plus a rise in wheat prices ameliorated farmers and kept them from turning out for Bryan. iv. McKinley won a decisive victory in the popular vote and the Electoral College. E. Failure of the Populist Party i. Western and Southern farmers did not agree on political strategies. ii. Racism prevented poor White and Black farmers from working together. iii. The dramatic increase in urban population caused by the wave of New Immigrants led to higher prices for agricultural products. Since prices were higher, one of the immediate complaints no longer existed. iv. The discovery of gold in the Yukon increased the supply of gold, thus easing farmers access to credit. v. The Democratic Party absorbed many Populist programs. vi. William Jennings Bryan lost the 1896 presidential election to William McKinley and the Republicans. The Significance of the Frontier A. The Closing of the Frontier i. In 1890, the superintendent of the census reported that for the first time in American history a frontier line no longer existed. ii. The closing of the frontier inspired historian Frederick Jackson turner to write one of the most influential essays in American history. B. Turner s Frontier Thesis i. Turner argued that the existence of cheap, unsettled land had played a key role in making American society more democratic. ii. The frontier helped shape a distinctive American spirit of democracy and egalitarianism. iii. The frontier acted as a safety valve that enabled Eastern factory workers and immigrants to escape bad economic situations and find new opportunities. iv. The frontier played a key role in stimulating American nationalism and individualism. v. Because of the frontier, American did not have a hereditary landed aristocracy. American Indians in the West A. American Settlement i. As migrant populations increased in number and the American bison population was decimated, competition for land and resources in the West among white settlers, American Indians, and Mexican Americans led to an increase in violent conflict. ii. The virtual extermination of the buffalo doomed the Plains Indians nomadic way of life. iii. The Plains Indians were ravaged by diseases from encroaching settlers. B. Reservation Policy i. The U.S. government violated treaties with American Indians and responded to resistance with military force, eventually confining American Indians to reservations and denying tribal sovereignty. C. Indian Wars i. The U.S. defeat in the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876) at the hands of the Sioux prompted a massive retaliation from the U.S. Army.

5 ii. The Wounded Knee massacre (1890) ended in the slaughter of over 200 Indians in an attempt to put a stop to the Ghost Dance, a sacred ritual expression a vision that the buffalo would return and that white civilization would vanish. iii. By the end of the 19 th century, most American Indian resistance had been crushed and remaining tribes were relocated to reservations. D. Assimilation i. Written by Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor aroused public awareness of the federal government s long record of betraying and cheating Native Americans. ii. Inspired in part by Century of Dishonor, the Dawes Severalty Act was a misguided attempt to reform the government s Native American policy. The legislation s goal was to assimilate Indians into the mainstream of American life by dissolving tribes as legal entities and eliminating tribal ownership of land. iii. The Dawes Act ignored the inherent reliance of traditional Indian culture on tribally owned land. It granted 160 acres to individual family heads. By 1900, Indians had lost 50% of the 156 million acres they had held just two decades earlier. iv. The forced-assimilation doctrine of the Dawes Act remained the cornerstone of the government s official Indian policy for nearly half a century. v. Many American Indians preserved their cultures and tribal identities despite government policies promoting assimilation, and they attempted to develop selfsustaining economic practices. E. Changes in the 20 th Century i. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 partially reversed the individualistic approach of the Dawes Act by restoring the tribal basis of Indian life.