Essential Question: What economic, political, & migratory factors led to the end of the western frontier by 1890? Warm-Up Question: For each era, define what the West was & what role the West played in American life: (a) 1750, (b) 1800, (c)1850
America After the Civil War: 1870-1900 Ranching, Mining, & Farming Industrialization & Urbanization Reconstruction & Rise of Jim Crow Segregation
America in the Gilded Age: 1870-1900 The South: By 1877, the South was recovering from the Civil War but was no longer forced to reconstruct
The New South? Sharecropping We won t discuss much about the South in this unit because, when Reconstruction ended in 1877, few significant economic or political changes took place until the 1940s Jim Crow reigned supreme as whites legally segregated the South into 2 distinct societies
America in the Gilded Age: 1870-1900 The North: Experienced a 2 nd Industrial Revolution, mass immigration, & urbanization
American Railroads, industry steel, & urbanization oil companies grew formed America s first monopolies
America in the Gilded Age: 1870-1900 The West: Manifest Destiny continued after 1865 as miners homesteaders, & ranchers headed West
The United States by 1890 Washington Idaho Montana North Dakota Established new states & closed the frontier by 1890 Colorado Wyoming South Dakota
..but this came at the expense of Native Americans Western raw materials fueled eastern factories
Settlement of the West
The Mining Bonanza Mining was the 1 st magnet to John Mackay earned $25 a minute from his gold/silver lode in Sierra Mountains attract settlers to the West CA (1849) started the gold rush, but strikes in Pikes Peak, CO & Carson River Valley, NV (1859) set off wild migrations to the West: Comstock Lode = $306 million John Mackay s Big Bonanza made him richest man in world
Created Individual Corporations need placer for had local miners the gov t, expensive took law little enforcement, machinery skill money ( hydraulic sanitation, to start, mining but businesses, could techniques ) not reach prostitutes to deep extract lodes most of the gold in the West Mining Regions of the West Discoveries of gold & silver led to overnight mining towns
Mining Bonanza ¼ to ½ of the mining population was foreign born: Latin American miners brought experience & new techniques Chinese brought a tireless ethic Led to hostility & riots: Foreign Miners Act in 1852 charged a monthly mining fee "Courts of Justice Closed to Chinese Extra Taxes to 'Yellowjack'" Chinese Pacific Exclusion Chivalry: Act in 1882 suspended Chinese immigration Encouragement to Chinese Immigration
A cattle bought for $4 in Texas In the 1860s, sold cattle for ranching $40 in Kansas boomed Ranchers used the open range The to graze longhorns Cattle Bonanza By 1867, ranchers started using trains to ship cattle to Chicago
The Cattle Bonanza ½ of all cowboys were black & ¼ were Mexican By 1880, the open range was ending: Wheat growers, But range wars erupted over grazing homesteaders, & barbed wire rights between cowboys & sheep-boys blocked the range Many switched to raising sheep
The Farming Bonanza 2/3 of all homesteaders failed to farm their land The U.S. gov t offered incentives for farmers to settle the West: Homestead Act (1862) gave 160 acres of land if families 500 million acres doled to businesses but only 80 million to homesteaders pledged to live there for 5 years Other gov t acts helped develop western lands by planting trees & building irrigation systems Due to land grants, RRs were the largest western landowners
The Farming Bonanza In 1870, homesteaders pushed West & adapted to the harsh farming conditions: A pioneer sod house Farmers used dry farming techniques & planted tougher varieties of wheat New machinery sped harvesting & planting; led to bonanza farms By 1890, the U.S. became a major crop exporter
Homestead Sales, 1870-1940 In 1900, the West made up 30% of the U.S. population (was 1% in 1850)
Exodusters were black farmers who moved West to escape Southern crop liens & Jim Crow Laws Exodusters
Rails Across the Continent In 1862, Congress authorized the transcontinental railroad: Union Pacific worked westward from Nebraska (Irish laborers) Central Pacific worked eastward from CA (Chinese immigrants) May 10, 1869 the 2 tracks met at Promontory Point in Utah By 1900, 4 more lines were built to the Pacific
1 st transcontinental railroad connected the west coast to eastern cities in 1869 Irish workers made up a large percentage of laborers on the eastern section Chinese workers made up a large percentage of laborers on the western leg
Federal Land Grants to Railroads by 1871 The national gov t doled $65 million & millions of acres in land grants (received reduced rates for shipping)
The Transcontinental Railroad Pullman cars & refrigeration cars In 1870, RR companies developed the 1 st time zones to better schedule the RR system; the US would not adopt time zones until 1918
Railroad Construction, 1830-1920
Essential Question: What economic, political, & migratory factors led to the end of the western frontier by 1890? Reading Quiz Ch 18A (p.606-625)
Crushing the Native Americans
The Plains Indians In 1865, 2/3 of all Indians lived on the Great Plains Their culture was dependent upon the buffalo & the horse Tribes of several 1,000 people were subdivided into bands of 100s which made it difficult for the U.S. to negotiate treaties
Searching for an Indian Policy Before the Civil War, the West was one big reservation The Indian Intercourse Act (1834) forbade whites from entering Indian country without a license
Searching for an Indian Policy But rapid Western expansion in the 1850s brought a new Indian concentration policy with distinct boundaries for each tribe as long as the waters run and grass grows
Searching for an Indian Policy Kill and scalp all, big and little Concentration Congress investigated did not last & as whites condemned ignored Chivington s these boundaries: attack Sand Creek Massacre (1864) Col John Chivington attacked 700 sleeping Indians in CO after a peace agreement was signed Sioux War (1865-1867) gold miners wanted a Bozeman Trail (across Sioux hunting grounds) to connect mining towns; Sioux murdered 88 U.S. soldiers
Searching for an Indian Policy In 1867, the U.S. formed the Indian Peace Commission : The discovery of gold in South Dakota led a Sioux army of 2,500 to ambush Ended Bozeman Trail plans Made & kill Lt small Col Custer reservations & his 197 soldiers in the Black Dakota soldiers & Oklahoma in the U.S. territories army called Custer s Last Stand set off demands buffalo for revenge soldiers among were Americans used to fend Few Native Americans settled into off Indian attacks in the West these The U.S. reservations army was ordered peacefully: to stop Red Sioux River ghost War dances (1874) & machine gunned 200 men, women, & children Little Big Horn (1876) Wounded Knee Massacre (1890)
The End of Tribal Life Kill the Indian and save the man Richard Pratt, founder of Carlisle In 1871, the U.S. adopted its 4 th Indian policy: Assimilation U.S. citizenship was offered to all Indians who farmed, lived away from their tribe & adopted the habits of civilized life Dawes Severalty Act in 1887 offered farms (160 acres to families & 80 to men) & the protection of U.S. laws
The End of Tribal Life The final blow to Indian culture came with annihilation of buffalo: Began with the construction of the transcontinental RR in 1860s From 1872 to 1874, 3 million buffalo were killed each year
1 hunter = 100 buffalo per day
The Final Fling In 1889, Congress responded to Oklahoma Sooners Boomers couldn t waiting until for noon noon demands to open the Oklahoma Territory to white settlement On April 22, 1889, about 100,000 Boomers & Sooners flooded into the last Indian land White migrants claimed 2 million acres in Oklahoma homesteads Moved out Creeks & Seminoles
Lands Lost by Native Americans (1894) Indian Reservations Today
Conclusions: The End of the Frontier By 1890, the western frontier ended Miners, ranchers, & cowboys flooded West at the expense of Indians who were restricted to A continuation of antebellum Manifest Destiny With no more West to conquer, where would American expansion go next? smaller & smaller reservations Westerners were commercially connected to Eastern markets but would grow increasingly frustrated by the economic & political concentration of power in the East