APUSH CHAPTER 16

Transcontinental Railroad

Transcontinental Railroad

The railway line completed on May 10, 1869, that connected the central Pacific and Union Pacific lines, enabling goods to move by railway from the eastern United States all the way to California. It brought jobs and money and was a political triumph. It opened vast regions for farming, trade, and tourism West of Mississippi.

Protective Tariff Post Civil War

Congress raised this tariff on a range of manufactured goods, from textiles to steel, and on some agricultural products, like wool and sugar. At federal custom houses in each port, foreign manufacturers who brought merchandise into the United States, had to pay import fees. These Tara forever news gave US manufacturers, who did not pay the fees, a competitive advantage in America’s vast domestic market.

Munn v. Illinois

In 1877, the Supreme Court affirm that states could regulate key businesses, such as railroads and grain elevators, that were “clothed in the public interest”. However, the justices feared that too many state and local regulations would impede business and fragment the national marketplace. Starting in the 1870s, they interpreted the “due process” clause of the new 14th amendment- which dictated that no state could deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law- as shielding corporations from excessive regulation.

Gold Standard

Paper notes from the Bank of England could be backed by gold held in the bank’s vaults. During the 1870s and 1880s, the United States, Germany, France and other countries also converted to gold. Beforehand, these nations had been on a bi metallic standard: they issued both golden silver coins, with respective weights fixed at a relative value. The United States switched the gold standard in part because treasury officials and financiers were watching developments out west. By adopting the gold standard, the Republican policy makers sharply laminated the nations money supply, to the level of available gold. The amount of money circulating in the United States had been $30.35 per person in 1865; by 1880, it fell to only $19.36 per person.

Crime of 1873

A law that became infamous to later critics. It directed the US treasury to seize minting silver dollars and, over a six year period, retired Civil War Era greenbacks (paper dollars) and replace them with notes from an expanded system of national banks. After this process was complete in 1879, the treasury exchanged these notes for gold on request.

Homestead Act

An act that was passed in 1862 that gave 160 acres of federal land to any applicant who occupied and improved the property. Republicans hoped the bill would help build up the interior West, which was inhabited by Indian peoples but remained “empty” on U.S. government survey policies. Implementing this plan retired innovative policies. The goal of this was to broaden educational opportunities and foster technical and scientific expertise.

Morrill Act

An act passed in 1862 that set aside 140 million federal acres that states could sell to raise money for public universities. The goal of this was to broaden educational opportunities and foster technical and scientific expertise.

Comstock Lode

Immense silver or deposit discovered in 1859 in Nevada that touched off a mining rush, bringing a diverse population into the region and leading to the establishment of the booming town of Virginia City which soon acquired fancy hotels, a Shakespearean theater, and even its own stock exchange. In the 1880’s, however, as it played out, Virginia City suffered the fate of many mining camps.

Long Drive

A trip where Rancher’s hired cowboy to hurt cattle hundreds of miles north to the new line, which soon extended into Kansas. At Adeline in Dodge city, Kansas, rancher sold their Longhorns and trail weary Cowboys crowded into saloons. These cows captured the nations imagination as symbols of the wild West, but the reality was much less exciting. Cowboys, many of them African-Americans and Latinos, were really farm hands on horseback who worked long, harsh hours for low pay. When railroads reached Texas and ranchers there abandoned the journey, the invention of barbed wire came up.

Barbed Wire

Enabled ranchers and farmers to fence large areas, cheaply and easily on the planes, where wood was scarce and expensive and made it easier for Northern cattlemen to fence small areas, and feed animals on hay.

Exodusters

Participants in a great exodus to Kansas. They were blacks that departed together, most carrying little but the clothes on their back and faith in God.

Yellowstone National Park

Railroad tourism, which developed side-by-side with other western industries, was an important motive for the creation of this. The Northern Pacific Railroad lobbied Congress vigorously to get it established. Since nobody knew how to operate it, the US Army was dispatched to take charge; only in the early 1900s, when Congress established many more parks in the west, did consistent management policies in March. In the meantime, soldiers spent much of their time arresting native people who sought to hunt on the yellow lands. The creation of Yellowstone was an important step to an ethic of respect for land and wildlife.

Sand Creek Massacre

On November 29th, 1864, Chivington’s Colorado militia attacked the Cheyenne camp while most of the men were out hunting, slaughtering more than a hundred women and children. Infuriated by the situation, Cheyennes carried war pipes to the Arapahos and Sioux, who attacked and burned white settlements along the South Platte River.

Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock

A supreme court case in 1903 that ruled that Congress could make whatever Indian policies it chose, ignoring all existing treats. These rulings remained enforced until the new deal of the 1930s.

Dawes Severalty Act

An act place in 1887, which was reformers most sweeping effort to assimilate Indians. It was the dream of Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, a leader in the Indian rights association. Dawes saw the reservation system as an ugly relic of the past. Through severalty- division of tribal lands, he hoped to force Indians onto individual landholdings, partitioning reservations into Homesteads, just like those of white farmers. Supporters of the plan believe that land ownership would encourage Indians to assimilate. It would lead, as Dawes wrote, to “a personal sense of independence”. It was a disaster. It played into the hands of white who coveted Indian lands and who persuaded the government to sell them land that was not needed for individual allotments.

Battle of Little Big Horn

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, in his traveling wild West performances, enacted a revenge killing of a Cheyenne man named yellow hand in a tableau Cody called “First scalp for Custer”. Not withstanding that the tableau featured a white man scalping a Cheyenne, Cody depicted as a triumph for civilization. Little Bighorn proved to be the last military victory of Plains Indians against the US Army.

Ghost Dance Movement

It exemplified cultural blending of the late 1880s and early 1890s, which foster native peoples hope that they could come through sacred dance, resurrect the bison and call a great storm to drive whites back across the Atlantic. Drew on Christian elements as well as native ones. As it spread from reservation to reservation, native people developed new forms of pan, Indian identity and cooperation. White responses to this showed continued misunderstanding and lethal exertion of authority. In 1891 a group of people doing it left their South Dakota reservation, they were pursuit by the US Army, who feared that for spread of the religion would provoke war.

Wounded Knee

On December 29, the seventh cavalry caught up with fleeing Lakota and killed at least 150 perhaps as many as 300. Like other massacres, this one could’ve been avoided. The deaths here stand as a final predicament of decades of relentless US expansion, white ignorance and greed, chaotic, and conflicting policies, and bloody mistakes.

William Seward

William Seward. US senator and secretary of state who helped prevent Great Britain and France from entering the war on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War, led the drive to annex Midway Island in the Pacific, gained rights to build a canal in Nicaragua, and purchased the vast territory of Alaska.

Emmeline Wells

Prominent American women's rights activist and suffragist, particularly known for her significant role in advocating for women's suffrage in Utah, where she served as the president of the Utah Woman's Suffrage Association and was a key figure in securing the right for women to vote in the territory; she was also a prolific writer and editor of the "Woman's Exponent" publication.

John Wesley Powell

A prominent American explorer, geologist, and ethnologist most famous for his exploration of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, advocating for responsible use of Western lands, and later becoming a leading figure in the study of Native American cultures through his work with the Bureau of Ethnology

Chief Joseph

A prominent Native American leader of the Nez Perce tribe, known for his resistance to white settlement on tribal lands in the Northwest, particularly during the Nez Perce War, where he famously declared "I will fight no more forever" after a long retreat towards Canada to escape forced relocation.

Sitting Bull

A prominent Native American leader, specifically a Lakota Sioux chief, who is most recognized for his role in the Battle of Little Bighorn where he united tribes against General George Custer's forces, ultimately leading to Custer's defeat; he is considered a symbol of Native American resistance against westward expansion by white settlers.

George Armstrong Custer

A prominent Union cavalry officer during the American Civil War who later became infamous for his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn against Native American tribes, often referred to as "Custer's Last Stand," marking a significant moment in the conflict between settlers and Native Americans during westward expansion.

Geronimo

A prominent Apache leader known for his fierce resistance against both Mexican and American forces attempting to take over his tribe's land in the late 19th century, making him a symbol of Native American defiance against westward expansion; he was particularly renowned for his guerrilla warfare tactics and ability to evade capture.

Dr. Charles Eastman

A Santee Sioux boy who assimilated into the white culture and became Dr. Charles Eastman. He practiced medicine with traditional healers and wrote popular books under his Sioux name.

Buffalo Bill Cody

He understood that the US took the West by conquest. He created shows as an authentic representation of the frontier experience and provided employment for Native Americans. A Sioux man called him generous and with a strong heart.

Fredrick Jackson Turner

Wrote about the benefits of the frontier and referred to the Native Americans as savages.

A Century of Dishonor

A book written by Helen Hunt Jackson in 1881, which documented the history of US government injustices and broken treaties towards Native American tribes, essentially exposing the "dishonor" brought upon them through various policies and forced removals, aiming to raise public awareness and advocate for better treatment of Native Americans.