Chapter 16 The Western Tribes The Conquest of the Far West The largest and most important group in the Far West before the beginning of the Anglo-American migration was the Indian tribes A few were from the East (Cherokee, Creek) but most had always lived in the West. More than 300,000 had lived on the Pacific coast before the arrival of the Spanish. Death, disease, and dislocation by the Spanish had greatly reduced the numbers of Indians living on the Pacific coast and by the mid- 19 th century (1850 s+) about 150,000 remained The Pueblos, a farming tribe, eventually formed a relationship with the Spanish and formed an alliance against the nomadic and warlike Apache, Navajo, and Comanche in the region. However, the Spanish treated the Pueblo as lesser than the Spanish. Later the Mexicans replaced the Spanish but the treatment of the Pueblo remained the same. The most widespread Indian presence in the West was the Plains Indians, a diverse group of tribes and languages groups. Sometimes they formed alliances with one another; some were in a constant state of conflict; some were farmers, some were highly nomadic. Despite their differences, they shared some traits: Cultures based on close and extended family networks Intimate relationship with nature Tribes were subdivided into bands each with its own governing council and a community-based decision making process Tasks were divided by gender: women domestic & artistic; raising children, cooking, gathering roots & berries, preparing hides, tending small fields or gardens Men- worked as hunters and traders, supervised military and religious life Many Plains Indians, including the powerful Sioux Nation, subsisted largely through hunting buffalo 1
The buffalo was the economic basis of the Plains Indians way of life. By the early 19 th century, the Sioux had become the most powerful tribe west of the Mississippi River. These Plains warriors proved to be the most formidable foes white settlers encountered. The tribes also suffered from several weaknesses that in the end, made it impossible from them to prevail over the oncoming tide of white settlers from the East: a. their inability to unite and b. internal conflicts among themselves For a brief time, the tribes did manage to unite effectively. The Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne forged a powerful alliance that dominated the northern Plains. But there remained other economic and ecological weaknesses: a. competition from an industrially advanced people b. vulnerability to eastern infectious diseases, especially smallpox Hispanic New Mexico For centuries, the Far west had been part of the Spanish Empire, and later the Mexican Republic Although the lands the United States acquired from Mexico at the end of the Mexican War did not include large populated areas, considerable numbers of Mexican did live in them. When these Mexicans found themselves suddenly living in the United States most remained. Spanish-speaking communities were scattered throughout the Southwest, from Texas to California. The status of Mexicans and Indians would be diminished with the increasing numbers of white settlers, although there was no denying the influence of both groups. Hispanic California and Texas Spanish settlement of California had begun in the 18 th century, with a string of missions/forts along the coast. 2
Indians were a labor force for the Spanish with a status similar to slavery. Indian labor helped the missions established herd of cattle, horses, sheep, and goats. They worked as bricklayers, blacksmiths, weavers and farmers. Few mission profits ever went to Indian welfare. By the 1830 s, the new Mexican government reduced the power of the church, and mission society largely collapsed. The influx of Anglo-American settlers in the northern parts of California led to the defeat of the californios, the native Hispanic population of California. Many lost their lands through corrupt business deals or outright seizures. In southern California, Mexicans managed to hang on for a time; the population boom in the northern part of the state provided a market for the rancheros and the cattle they raised. A combination of indebtedness and severe drought in the 1860 s devastated the Mexican ranching culture. By the 1880 s Hispanic aristocracy had largely ceased to exist. Increasingly, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans became part of the state s working class, clustered in barrios in Los Angeles or becoming migrant farmworkers. A similar pattern occurred in Texas. Many Mexican landowners lost their land after their territory joined the United States. This was a result of fraud, coercion, and the inability of even the most prosperous Mexican ranchers to compete with the enormous emerging Anglo-American ranching kingdoms. There was some resistance (1859 Juan Cortina raided a Brownsville jail, freeing all the Mexican prisoners) but such resistance had little long-term effect. 3
As in California, Mexicans in Southern Texas (nearly 3/4ths of the population) became an increasingly impoverished working class as unskilled industrial or farm labor. Overall, Anglo-American migration was less catastrophic for the Hispanic population of the West than it was for the Indian tribes. For a very few Hispanics, it created new opportunities for wealth, for the most part, the late 19 th century saw a destruction of Mexican-American authority in a region they long considered their own. The Chinese Migration Many Chinese crossed the Pacific in hopes of better lives than they could expect in their own poverty-stricken land. Not all came to the United States, some moved to Hawaii, Australia, South and Central America, south Africa, and even the Caribbean. Those who became indentured servants were known as coolies. Some came before the 1849 California gold rush, but most arrived afterward. By 1880, over 200,000 Chinese had settled in the United States, mostly in California where they made up almost 10% of the population. Almost all came as free laborers, and for a time, white Americans welcomed the Chinese as a conscientious, hard-working people. In 1852, the governor of California called them one of the most worthy classes of our newly adopted citizens. Very quickly white opinion turned hostile. The Chinese were so industrious and successful that some whites began considering them rivals. The experience of Chinese immigrants in the West became a struggle to advance economically in the face of racism and discrimination. 4
Many Chinese worked in the gold mines, and for a time some enjoyed success, but opportunities were fleeting. A series of laws in the 1850 s were designed to discourage Chinese immigration into the territory. As mining declined, railroad construction jobs opened up for the Chinese. Beginning in 1865, more than 12,000 Chinese found work building the transcontinental railroad. Chinese workers formed 90% of the labor force used to construct the Central Pacific line. Whited preferred Chinese labor as they had no experience with labor organizations, they worked hard, made few demands and accepted relatively low wages. Railroad work was dangerous and in the spring of 1866, 5,000 Chinese workers went on strike demanding higher wages and a shorter workday. The railroad company isolated them, surrounded them with strikebreakers and starved them. The strike failed and most returned to their jobs. 1869 The Transcontinental railroad was completed Thousands of Chinese were now out of work. Some moved back to California to work on irrigation projects or agricultural laborers picking fruit for low wages. Some became tenant farmers on lands whites saw no profit in working themselves. Some managed to acquire land of their own and establish themselves as modestly successful truck farmers. Increasingly, Chinese immigrants flocked to cities. By 1900, nearly half the Chinese population of California lived in urban areas. By far, the largest single Chinese community was San Francisco. 5
The Chinatowns throughout the West revolved around powerful organizations- usually formed by people from a single clan or community in China These organizations functioned something like benevolent societies, similar to the Irish organizations on the east coast. Other Chinese organizations were secret societies, known as tongs. Some tongs were violent criminal organizations, involved in the opium trade and prostitution. Few people outside the Chinese communities were aware of their existence, except when rival tongs were engaged in violent conflict. The Chinese usually occupied the lower rungs of the employment ladder, but some established their own businesses, especially laundries. Why laundries? Not because of experience, but because they were excluded from so many other areas of employment. Laundries could be started with very little money and required only limited knowledge of English. 1890 s Chinese made up over two-thirds of all laundry workers in California, many of them in their own shops. There were a small number of Chinese women immigrants; however, from the earliest migrations to the 1880 s, most had been sold into prostitution before they came to the United States. Both Anglo and Chinese reformers tried to stamp out prostitution in Chinatowns in the1890 s. By the 1890 s more Chinese women arrived in the United States as wives. Once the ratio of men to women became more balanced, Chinese families were established and the problem of prostitution greatly decreased. Anti-Chinese Sentiments With the growth of Chinese communities in western cities came anti-chinese sentiment. 6
Anti-coolie clubs emerged in the 1860 s -1870 s. They wanted a ban on employing Chinese and organized boycotts of products made by Chinese labor. Some members of these clubs attacked Chinese workers in the streets and were suspected of setting fires in factories in which Chinese worked. They were afraid Chinese workers would undercut their wages and therefore undercut labor unions. The Democratic Party saw political value in attacking the Chinese. The Workingman s Party of California (1878 Denis Kearney, Irish immigrant) gained political power largely on his anti-chinese position. By the mid-1880 s anti-chinese sentiments and violence spread up and down the Pacific coast and into other areas in the West. The anti-chinese sentiment was not only based on economics, it was also cultural and racially motivated. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act This act banned Chinese immigration for ten years and barred Chinese already in the country from becoming citizens. Support for the act came from all regions of the country. 1892, Congress renews the Exclusion Act for another ten years and made it permanent in 1902! The Exclusion Act had a dramatic effect on the Chinese population, which declined by more than forty percent in the forty years after its passage. The Chinese Americans did not accept the new laws quietly and were shocked that they were lumped together with African Americans and Indians. They were descendants of a great and enlightened civilization. They said white Americans did not protest the great waves of Italian* immigrants or the Irish or the Jews. They are all let in, while Chinese, who are sober, are duly law abiding, clean, educated 7
and industrious, are shut out. The Six Companies in San Francisco organized vigorous letter writing campaigns, petitioned the president, and even filed suit in federal court but their efforts had little success Migration from the East Although there had been earlier settlers migrating from east to west, after the Civil War the number of those making the trek West dwarfed all other migrations. While settlers had crossed the Plains by the thousands, now they numbered in the millions! Most of these settlers were from the east, but substantial numbers were foreign-born immigrants from Europe: Scandinavians, Germans, Irish, Russians, Czechs, and others. Some were attracted by gold and silver, others by pasturelands. Settlement was also encouraged by the transcontinental railroad line in 1869 and from the newly constructed subsidiary lines. The Homestead Act 1862 This act allowed settlers to buy 160 acres of land for a small fee if they occupied & improved the land for five years. It was intended as a progressive measure: It would give a free farm to any American who needed one. It was also a form of government relief to people who otherwise had no prospects. It would also create new markets and new outposts for the nation s growing economy. BUT.. the Homestead Act rested on a number of misperceptions: The government thought that mere possession of the land would be enough to sustain a family They underestimated the effects of increasing mechanization of agriculture and the rising costs of running a farm They had based their calculations on farming in the east, not the west where 160 acres may not be enough for grazing and farming 8
Although over 400,000 homesteaders stayed on Homestead Act claims long enough to gain title to the land, a much larger number abandoned the region before the end of the five years, unable to cope with the difficulties of life on the windswept Plains. Westerners looked to the federal government for solutions to their problems. In response, Congress increased land allotments. The Timber Culture Act 1873 Permitted homesteaders to receive grants of 160 additional acres if they planted 40 acres of trees The Desert Land Act of 1877 Homesteaders could buy 640 acres at $1.25 per acre provided that they irrigated part of the land within three years The Timber and Stone Act of 1878 Applied to non-arable land, authorized sales at $2.50 per acres. These laws made it possible for individuals to acquire as much as 1,280 acres of land at little cost. Some settlers got more. Fraud was rampant administering these acts. Lumber, mining, and cattle companies used dummy registrants and other illegal devices to seize millions of acres of the public domain. Political organization came quickly after that. After Kansas was admitted as a state in 1861, the remaining territories of Washington, New Mexico, Utah, and Nebraska were divided into smaller units that would be hopefully easier to organize. By the end of the 1860 s, territorial governments were in operation in the new provinces of Nevada, Colorado, Dakota, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Statehood followed for all before 1900. Arizona and New Mexico remained territories until 1912 because so few white people lived there, their politics were predominantly Democratic and they were unwilling to accept admission as a single state. Labor in the West Farmers, ranchers and miners all needed additional labor as commercial activity increased, but finding workers was difficult. 9
Far away from major population centers and unable or unwilling to hire Indian workers created a labor shortage and led to higher wages to attract workers. Working conditions were difficult and job security almost nonexistent. Competition from Chinese immigrants forced some Anglo- Americans out of work. Those who owned no land were highly mobile, mostly male and seldom married. The west had the highest percentage of single adults (10%) and one reason why single women found working in dance halls and as prostitutes as the most readily available forms of employment Despite the enormous geographic mobility of the West, actual social mobility was limited The social mobility and distribution of wealth was actually very similar to the patterns already established in the East. The West was also highly multiracial, English speaking whites worked alongside African Americans, immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, Chinese, Filipinos, Mexicans and Indians. However, the workforce was divided along racial lines with whites occupying the upper levels of employment, including skilled labor and management positions For example, an Irish common laborer might hope in the course of his lifetime to rise several rungs up the occupational ladder Racial myths served the interests of employers and more often than not, prevented nonwhites from also moving up The Arrival of Miners The life-span of the mining boom was relatively brief (1860 w- 1890 s) but it was provided a significant economic boost to mountainous regions in the West after the California Gold Rush ended. After the 1890 s there was an abrupt decline in mining. 10
Mining towns followed the California model of boom and bust Camps would spring up almost overnight when mineral strikes were reported. These camps blossomed quickly into towns and when the boom ended, the towns often closed down quickly. The Comstock Lode In 1858, miner Henry Comstock located a rich vein of silver in a deserted area of Nevada. Others soon followed and as the territory produced no supplies of its own, everything had to be shipped in from California. The state dominated the development of Nevada. Food, machinery, whiskey, and other supplies came from California via other camp towns along the way, including Virginia City and Carson City, Nevada. 1874 Gold was discovered in the Black Hills of southwestern Dakota. Prospectors swarmed until surface deposits ran out, then corporations took over. One particular company, the Homestake, came to dominate the fields. 1881 - The great Anaconda copper mine in Montana was launched by William Clark In the long run, less glamorous natural resources proved more important to the development of the West than either gold or silver. In other areas, successful mining operations yielded lead, tin, quartz, and zinc. However working in the mines was dangerous. Working conditions were very unsafe, and miners often developed incurable lung conditions. Life in mining towns was often unregulated, dangerous, corrupt, with men greatly outnumbering women. The Cattle Kingdom Cattle ranching was another important element in the changing economy of the West The vast grasslands of the Great Plains provided a huge area where cattle ranchers could graze their herds for free, unrestricted by the boundaries of private farms. Anglo-Americans borrowed cattle raising techniques Mexican 11
ranchers developed years earlier. By 1866, it was proven that a large herd of cattle could be driven to a railroad hub where they would be shipped East for slaughter. The successful drive laid the groundwork for the explosion of the cattle kingdom. Between 1867-1871 almost 2 million cattle went up the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Abilene, Kansas By the mid-1870 s, agricultural development in western Kansas reduced the land considered open range. The number of cattle continued to increase therefore additional cattle trails were developed farther West. As farmers and sheep breeders began to compete for the open plains, cattlemen had to learn how to raise their livestock on their own, fenced land. Range wars erupted out of the tensions between sheepmen and cattlemen, resulting in significant loss of life and property damage. There were huge profits to be made in the cattle business and increasingly the structure of the cattle economy became increasingly corporate. Unwise business practices combined with severe summer heat, drought, and severe winters accounted for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of cattle. The open-range industry never recovered and the long cattle drive disappeared for good. Expanding rail lines took the cattle from ranch to slaughter. Although the cattle industry was overwhelmingly male in its early years, there were always a few women involved in ranching. 1890 More than half a million women owned ranches or farms in the western states. The West provided women opportunities that were closed to them in the east- including the opportunity to participate in politics. Wyoming was the first state in the Union to guarantee women 12
suffrage Throughout the West women established themselves as an important political presence. Utah also granted women s suffrage by the 1890 s Most men and many women believed that women were more generous and virtuous than men and would bring these qualities to the rough societies of the West Frederick Jackson Turner Frederick Jackson Turner A Wisconsin historian argued that the end of the Western frontier marked the end of one of the most important democratizing forces in American life. His paper The Significance of the Frontier in American History delivered to a meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago brought him both fame and academic scrutiny. (Refer to inset pages458-459) The Loss of Utopia By accepting Turner s idea of the passing of the frontier, many Americans acknowledged the end of one of their most cherished myths. As long as the West was an empty, open land, they believed new opportunities awaited. Now there was a sense of opportunities foreclosed, individuals losing the ability to control their destinies. Henry Nash Smith, historian, wrote, the myth of the garden the West had the potential to be a virtual Garden of Eden, where a person could begin anew and where the ideals of democracy could be restored. White Tribal Policies Federal government policy was to regard Indian tribes as simultaneously independent nations and as wards of the president. The federal government would negotiate treaties with the tribes that the Senate would ratify. However, treaties seldom survived the pressure of white settlers 13
eager for access to Indian lands. A new policy, the reservation began in the early 1850 s. Each tribe was assigned its own reservation with many benefits for whites and few, if any, for the Indians. 1867 After a series of bloody conflicts, Congress established the Indian Peace Commission The commission recommended replacing the concentration policy with a plan to move all Plains Indians into either Oklahoma or the Dakotas. Cajoling, bribes and trickery were used to get the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Sioux and other tribes into the new reservations The Bureau of Indian Affairs was entrusted with the management of Indian matters, but it was run by men of extraordinary incompetence and dishonesty. Making matters worse for the Indians was the white Anglos relentless slaughter of the buffalo herds that supported the tribes way of life. The official sanctioning by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of destroying buffalo herds reduced a population of 15 million to a few thousand. Buffalo Bill Cody and other professional hunters were hired by the railroads hoping to thin the herds as they obstructed railroad traffic. This led to a decimation of the buffalo herds and Indian warriors feeling the need to fight to preserve their rapidly vanishing way of life. Ironically, the Blackfoot tribe saw the booming market for buffalo products are also began killing them in large numbers to sell. The buffalo were also impacted by the virtual disappearance of the open plains \. The southern herd was virtually exterminated by 1875 and with a 14
few years the smaller northern herd met the same fate In 1865 there had been at least 15 million buffalo, by 1875, fewer than a thousand survived. The Indian Wars Between the 1850 s and the 1880 s there was almost incessant fighting between whites and Indians as they struggled against the growing threats to their civilizations. The Indians early on attacked wagon trains, stagecoaches and isolated ranches often in retaliation for earlier attacks. As the U.S. Army became more involved in the fighting, the tribes began to focus more of their attacks on white soldiers. At times, the fighting escalated into something close to a war. Eastern Sioux in Minnesota rebelled and killed more than 700 whites before being subdued. 38 Sioux were hanged and the tribe was exiled to the Dakotas Sand Creek Massacre Eastern Colorado conflict with Arapaho and Cheyenne and white miners led to the territorial militia being called up. The governor urged all friendly Indians to congregate at army posts for protection before the army began its campaign. A band under the leadership of Chief Black Kettle, in response to this invitation, camped near Ft. Lyon on Sand Creek in November 1864. Some of the group were warriors but showed no hostile intent. Nevertheless, Col. J. M. Chivington apparently encouraged by the army commander of the district, led a volunteer militia force of unemployed miners, many of them drunk, to the unsuspecting camp and massacred 133, 105 of them women and children. Black Kettle himself escaped the massacre and four years later, in 1868, he and his Cheyenne were caught by the Washita River on 15
the Texas border by Col. George A. Custer. Custer s troops killed the chief and slaughter his people. After the Civil War, white troops stepped up their wars against the western Indians. The most serious and sustained conflict was in Montana, where the army was attempting to build a road between Ft. Laramie, Wyoming and the new mining centers. The western Sioux resented this intrusion into the heart of the buffalo range. Sioux leader Red Cloud led raiding parties harrying the soldiers and burning the outposts and forts supposed to guard the route. Unoffical violence against the Indians came from white vigilantes who engaged in Indian hunting. In California, this behavior became prevalent with bounties offered for scalps and skulls. Almost 5,000 Indians were killed in the state between 1850-1880. The Indian population went from 150,000 before the Civil War to 30,000 by 1870. Treaties negotiated in 1867 brought temporary relief but as new waves of white settlers, mostly miners, moved into the Dakota Territory, Indian resistance renewed with greater strength. The Sioux rose up in 1875 and left their reservation. When white officials ordered them to return, bands of warriors gathered in Montana and united under Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. Little Bighorn Col. George A. Custer, Seventh Cavalry, set out to round up the Sioux and force them back on their reservation. The Battle of the Little Bighorn in southern Montana was the most famous of all conflicts between whites and Indians. The warriors surprised Custer and surrounded and killed all 264 members, including Custer. There was estimated to have been as many as 2500 warriors 16
gathered, one of the largest Indian armies ever assembled at one time in the United States. However, the Indians did not have the political organization or supplies to remain united. Warriors left to elude capture or pursue food, and the army eventually forced them back to the Dakotas reservations. The power of the Sioux was soon broken. Sitting Bull and Crazy House accepted defeat and life on the reservation. Both were later killed by reservation police after being tricked into a final show of resistance. Nez Perce Chief Joseph The Nez Perce were a small, relatively peaceful tribe located in Oregon, never signed a treaty with the United States until 1870 s. Under pressure from white settlers, the government forced them to move into a reservation that another tribe had accepted twenty years earlier. On the way to the reservation, several younger Indians, angry at the loss of their land and under the influence of alcohol, killed four white settlers. Chief Joseph urged his followers to flee from U.S. troops. Joseph moved with 200 men, 350 women, children and elders in an effort to reach Canada and take refuge with the Sioux already there. They covered over 1300 miles in 75 days, repelling and evading the army. They were finally caught just short of the Canadian border; some escaped and slipped across the border but Joseph and most of his followers had to give up. Chief Joseph s famous quote, From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. He surrendered to Gen. Nelson Miles in exchange for a promise 17
that they could return to the Nez Perce reservation in Idaho, but the government refused to honor Mile s promise and the Nez Perce were shipped from one reservation to another. In the process, many died from disease and malnutrition. Joseph lived until 1908. (1904) The last Indians to maintain organized resistance against the whites were the Apaches. The two most able chiefs were Mangas Colorados and Cochise Mangas was murdered during the Civil War by white soldiers who tricked him into surrendering and in 1872 Cochise agreed to peace in exchange for a reservation that included some of the tribe s traditional land, but Cochise died in 1874. Cochise s successor, Geronimo, unwilling to bow to the pressure to assimilate, fought on for more than a decade, establishing bases in the mountains of Arizona and Mexico. By 1886, after the numbers of warriors dwindled, his plight was hopeless. Recognizing the odds were against him, he surrendered. At his surrender, his band numbered only about thirty, including women and children, while over a thousand U.S. troops had been deployed to capture him. This marked the end of formal warfare between Indians and whites. The atrocities did not end with the conclusion of the Apache wars. A tragic occurrence happened in 1890 as a result of a religious revival among the Sioux. Aware that their culture was irrevocably fading while corrupt government agents had reduced their food rations to starvation levels, the Sioux turned to a native prophet. Wovoka, a Paiute, inspired a spiritual awakening that began in Nevada and spread quickly throughout the plains. The revival emphasized the coming of a messiah and the outward symbol of this was participation in a Ghost Dance ritual. 18
White agents on the Sioux reservation watched the dances in bewilderment and fear, with some believing this might be preliminary action to hostilities. December 29, 1890 -The U.S. 7 th Cavalry (Custer s old regiment) Tried to round up about 350 cold and starving Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota Fighting broke out in which 40 white soldiers and more than 300 of the Indians, including women and children, died. What incited the conflict is a matter of dispute, but the battle turned into a one-sided massacre as the soldiers turned cannon on the Indians and mowed then down in the snow. The Dawes Act The Dawes Severalty Act 0f 1887 provided for the gradual elimination of tribal ownership of land and allotment of individual lots; 160 acres to head of family; 80 acres to single adult or orphan; 40 acres to each dependent child Given U.S. citizenship but could not gain full title to their property for 25 years The Pueblo were excluded The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) relentlessly pursued the policy of assimilation The Rise and Decline of the Western Farmer Key role of the railroad companies set rates so low almost anyone could afford the trip West Barbed wire - Joseph H. Glidden & I.L. Ellwood solved problem of range interference between castle ranches and sheep herders Drought Little rainfall, rivers diverted; battles between states over water rights Farming on the Plains Hard Times for Farmers in the West overproduction led to a decline in crop prices. After 1887, a series of dry seasons began and land that had been fertile returned to semi-desert. Only large scale irrigation could save endangered farms and neither state nor federal government were prepared to fund the projects 19
Tens of thousands of farmers were forced to abandon their farms as they could not pay their debts There was, in effect, a reverse migration: white settlers moved back east, sometimes turning once flourishing communities into desolate ghost towns Those who remained continued to suffer from falling crop prices and continual indebtedness Commercial Agriculture The myth of the sturdy, independent farmer was being replaced by the commercial farmer, attempting to do in the agricultural community what industrialists were doing in the manufacturing community Commercial farmers were NOT self-sufficient. They specialized in cash crops which they sold to national or international markets. This made them dependent on bankers and interest rates, railroads and freight rates and the supply and demand of national and international markets. Unlike the capitalists of the industrial order, they could not regulate their production or influence the prices of what they sold. 1865-1900 agriculture became an international business and farm output increased dramatically. Modern forms of transportation and communication were creating new markets and American commercial farmers produced more than domestic markets could absorb. Beginning in the 1880 s. overproduction worldwide led to a drop in prices for most agricultural goods and caused great economic distress to more than 6 million American farm families Commercial farming made some people extremely wealthy but the farm economy as a whole suffered a significant decline The Farmers Grievances Few farmers understood the implications of national and international overproduction. Instead they concentrated on their immediate problems: railroads with unfair freight rates, high interest on loans and an inadequate currency 20
Many farmers came to believe that manufacturers in the East were conspiring against them to keep the price of farm goods low and the price of industrial goods high. The Agrarian Malaise These economic difficulties produced a series of social and cultural resentments. Farm families were virtually cut off from the outside world and human companionship Farmer lacked access to adequate education for their children, medical facilities, and cultural activities Older farmers watched their children leave the farm for the city. They felt the ridicule of being called hayseeds by the new urban culture that was coming to dominate American life. Hamlin Garland wrote a series of novels and short stories that reflected this growing disillusionment. The bright promise had faded the trials of rural life were crushing the human spirit. Once, sturdy yeoman farmers were the backbone of American life. Now they were becoming painfully aware that their position was declining in relation to the rising urban-industrial society to the east. 21