Lecture 7--The wild west

1862 Homestead Act

• act signed by Lincoln

• 160 free acres to any citizen over 21 who lived on “claim” 5 yrs

why be pioneer

• eastern farmland occupied or expensive

• escape north

• step up socioeconomic ladder

• future for children

• ignorant of hardships

transportation

1869 transcontinental railroad finished

• stage coach

• covered wagon

daily life

• Built small homes by hand

  • Sod house/dugout

  • Log cabin

  • Clapboard home

• Necessities

  • Water from river or well

  • Stock of flour, corn meal, salt pork from distant general store, hunting

  • Gathered fuel

  • Farm animals, fencing, seed, tools

• Weather Issues

  • Blizzards, drought, insects

• Violence

  • Vigilante law & order

  • No 911 – only a gun

Little House on the Prairie

Laura Ingalls Wilder

• 9 book series

• 1860s-80s

• laura, parents and 3 sisters moved 4 times

• traveled/lived in covered wagon

• cabin, dugout, board homes

• malaria, grasshoppers, 8month blizzard, near starvation

• lonely

• little $

• father played fiddle

cowboys

• raised cattle on western frontier

  • TX, NM, CO, UT, WY

  • followed & protected herds of cattle as they grazed on plains

  • herded cattle to railroad

• meeting of cultures

  • white, hispanic, black americans

  • largely hispanic

  • interacted w native americans

• life

  • lonely

  • roam by day, camp by night

  • danger of wild animals, native americans, rival herdsmen

mining—far west

• panning/pickaxe in CA

• mine shafts dangerous

• breaking rock grueling

• mining camps/towns

  • mainly men at first

  • gambling, drinking, prostitution

diversity in west

chinese

• 63000 by 1870

• laborers, cooks, servants

• 77% of chinese lived in CA

• denied US citizenship by CA request

african americans

• exodusters—black ppl who left the south as pioneers

• founded african american town of Nicodemus, KS

buffalo soldiers

• african american regiment of US army serving in native American wars on frontier

Native Americans

• “indian removal” until 1900

  • relocated tribes to reservations to open new land for white settlement

  • process repeated when more land needed

  • oklahoma was indian territory until 1880s

culture wars

• NA’s urged to assimilate

• tribal system frowned upon

• traditional clothing, nomadic life discouraged

• children had to attend white schools

• buffalo—food & clothing exterminated

Battle of Little Big Horn—1876

• sioux tribe awarded black hills in MT

• gold discovered—US offered to buy but sioux refused

• gen custer led attack to regain land

• Sioux, Cheyenne & Arapaho annihilated US soldiers

Dawes Allotment Act—1887

• bureau divided up certain reservations as priv prop for NA fams

• total of 138 mill acres deemed too much, gov took 90 mill acres, sold to White Am’s

• destroyed tribal areas, native americans lost own land

early theories

• manifest destiny—Americans must settle & conquer area of contiguous 48 states

• west viewed as population safety valve to avoid city overcrowding

Frederick Jackson Turner

• 1893 essay nostalgia over settled western frontier, praised urban agrarianism, romanticized agrarian ideal

  • agrarianism—values rural life

• concept of the west heavily contested since

  • brave improvement of land, better life, others disagree

wild west in culture

• bill cody’s wild west show

• later glamorized Western films became US tradition

  • good wins, bad loses

  • cattle herding, bank robberies, land wars, gold discoveries, shooting, revenge, romance

• john wayne

  • acted in westerns 1926-76