Conquering the West (Chapter 17)

I. Introduction

Native Americans long dominated the vastness of the American West, linked culturally and geographically by trade, travel, and warfare.
Indigenous groups controlled most of the continent west of the Mississippi River deep into the nineteenth century.
European and American traders integrated into regional economies; emigrants pushed west; but no imperial power had achieved political/military control over the bulk of the continent until later.
After the Civil War, U.S. expansion accelerated with industrialization, railroads, and a growing population moving westward.
Indigenous Americans had lived in North America for over ten millennia and, into the late nineteenth century, perhaps as many as 250{,}000 Natives inhabited the American West.
Waves of American settlers, capital, and the military conquered the West; Native groups were removed to shrinking reservations as the land between oceans came under U.S. control.
The late-nineteenth-century West is a complex, multi-faceted history—tragedy for some, triumph for others, marking a pivotal transformation in U.S. history.

II. Post–Civil War Westward Migration

After the Civil War, Americans crossed the Mississippi in record numbers, settling in the heart of the continent, not just the imagined Edens of California or Oregon.
Many migrants were drawn by quick profits from midcentury gold/silver rushes:
- Colorado (1858), Nevada (1859), Idaho (1860), Montana (1863), and the Black Hills (1874).
Mining communities: women did housework to support mining families; many single men depended on town services; women staffed shops, saloons, boardinghouses, and brothels.
The mining rushes created wealth beyond mineral extraction; in Colorado, 25.5{,}000{,}000 dollars of gold left the state in the first seven years after the Pikes Peak strike, but this was less than half of outside investment in the fever.
The 100,000+ migrants to the Rocky Mountains contributed more to regional development than the gold they sought.
Plains region: the bison hides supported industrial belting and clothing; specialized teams took down and skinned herds.
Bison slaughter peaked in the early 1870s; numbers declined from over 10{,}000{,}000 to a few hundred by the early 1880s.
Railroads enabled ranching to replace bison on the plains (cattle frontier).
The nearly 70{,}000 Latter-day Saints (Mormons) who migrated west (1846–1868) faced religious persecution and moved first to Illinois, then Missouri, Nebraska, and finally Utah Territory.
Mormonism is viewed by some historians as a uniquely American faith—founded by Joseph Smith in the 1830s in New York—emphasizing exceptionalism and utopian visions, a New Jerusalem in North America; outsiders were suspicious of polygamy and other practices.
Mormon settlements supplied overland emigrants to California and Oregon; Brigham Young became Utah Territory governor in 1850; he encouraged agriculture and cautioned against outsiders as mining and railroads developed in the region.
Land, more than anything else, drew migrants westward. Family farms became the agricultural backbone of the postwar West.
The Homestead Act (1862) allowed male citizens (or those declaring intent to become citizens) to claim 160-acre sections of federally owned land; settlers could begin improving land and, after 5 years of residence, apply for the title deed.
The Homestead Act excluded married women from filing claims, treating them as dependents; some unmarried women claimed land, but single farmers were a small minority.
Migrants and boosters painted the Plains as fertile and flowing with resources, promoting emigration to Minnesota, Dakota, and other territories in the 1860s.
Western populations exploded: in 1860, Kansas had about 10{,}000 farms; by 1880, that number rose to 239{,}000; Texas grew from 200{,}000 people in 1850 to 1{,}600{,}000 in 1880 and 3{,}000{,}000 in 1900.

III. The Indian Wars and Federal Peace Policies

The so-called Indian wars were mixed in nature: mythologized clashes, plus sustained economic and cultural conflict as settlers, railroads, and markets expanded.
Jefferson’s dream of isolated Indian nations in the West was no longer viable; U.S. expansion led to intensified efforts to isolate Indians on reservations.
After the Civil War, the federal government redoubled removal efforts; coercive treaties and coercive measures aimed to confine Indigenous peoples.
Dakota Sioux Uprising (Dakota War) began in 1862 in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory:
- August 17, 1862: four Santee Sioux men killed five white settlers near Redwood Agency.
- Sioux attacked settlements and ambushed a U.S. detachment, killing many; thousands of Americans waged war against the insurgents.
- Across battles at New Ulm, Fort Ridgely, and Birch Coulee, the conflict culminated in the Battle of Wood Lake (Sept 23, 1862).
- More than two thousand Sioux captured; 303 Sioux were convicted by military tribunals for murder/atrocity; Lincoln commuted nearly all, sparing only 38.
- Fear and anger among Minnesota settlers and officials spurred calls to remove Sioux from lands; the Army pursued fleeing Sioux and burned winter stores in an effort to starve them.
Buffalo Soldiers: African American cavalry regiments—peacetime, all-black units—played essential roles in the Indian Wars, despite facing racial prejudice.
In Colorado, tensions escalated after the 1858 gold rush; the Sand Creek Massacre (Nov 29, 1864) saw 700 militia attack a Northern Cheyenne camp; around 200– civilians and combatants were killed; the massacre sparked national outrage and led to a new peace policy.
The Sand Creek Massacre triggered a broader shift toward a different federal approach to Indian affairs; Congress created a Board of Indian Commissioners to oversee Indian affairs and promote a more “peaceful” policy.
The Peace Policy, championed by religious groups, shifted reservation oversight to Protestant churches and missionaries; Francis Paul Prucha described this as a religious policy rather than a purely civil policy.
Role of women in reservations: female Christian missionaries led cultural reeducation programs, attempting to impose Protestant religion and traditional gender roles; women’s labor within tribes often conflicted with missionary ideals because Native women performed fieldwork and controlled agricultural outputs.
Ethnocentric views of agents like J. L. Broaddus depicted Native peoples as idle and improvident, reinforcing justifications for forced assimilation.
The Comanche and Kiowa on the Southern Plains and the Red River War: after attempts at peace negotiations at Medicine Lodge Creek (Fall 1867), misaligned expectations about land and buffalo hunting led to renewed raiding; by 1874, all non-resettled bands were targeted, and many were moved to Fort Sill (modern southwestern Oklahoma).
Red Cloud War and reserved lands: on the northern Plains, Sioux resistance persisted; Treaty of 1868 created the Great Sioux Reservation.
Discovery of gold in the Black Hills (1874) provoked renewed pressure and military actions; White prospectors flooded the region, violating treaties and prompting a military response.
Sioux faced pressure from Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse; in late June 1876, the 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer attacked a village at Greasy Grass/Little Bighorn and were defeated; Custer and 268 men were killed. The defeat shocked the nation and led to renewed military campaigns to crush Sioux resistance.
Crazy Horse and the Oglala Sioux eventually surrendered in May 1877; Sitting Bull and followers surrendered by 1881; Indigenous powers in the Plains appeared defeated.

IV. Beyond the Plains

Plains peoples faced additional pressures as U.S. expansion pushed Utes and Paiutes from the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin by the 1850s–60s, while the Mormon population in Utah Territory displaced others.
In the Southwest, the Navajo (population at least 10{,}000) engaged in farming and sheep herding on highly valued lands acquired after the Mexican War.
1862–1866: General James Carleton targeted the Navajo; the Long Walk (series of forced marches) began in 1863 and ended in 1866, moving Navajo to Bosque Redondo.
Bosque Redondo (reservation in the Bosque Redondo Valley) was characterized by inadequate provisions, disease, and high death rates; General Sherman visited and recommended repatriation to the homeland as a cost-effective policy.
Treaty of Bosque Redondo (June 1, 1868) allowed the Navajo to return to their homeland, marking a significant but complex episode in U.S.–Navajo relations.
California and the Pacific Northwest saw less dramatic but still devastating violence and displacement: the Modoc War (1872–1873) featured Captain Jack and Modoc warriors resisting forced relocation; the conflict lasted eleven months; at least two hundred U.S. troops were killed.
Nez Perce, led by Chief Joseph, resisted relocation to a reservation in the Pacific Northwest; the group traveled roughly a thousand miles before being forced to surrender; Joseph’s famous surrender speech: “Hear me, my chiefs; I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”
In California, treaties with numerous Native nations in the 1850s were not ratified by the Senate; the 1880 population of California Natives declined from about 150,000 to under 20,000; state laws in the 1850s allowed white Californians to recruit Native labor through “apprentice” labor arrangements, effectively colonizing Indigenous populations.

V. Western Economic Expansion: Railroads and Cattle

Railroads and cattle industry became central to the postwar West, intricately connected and fueling national economic growth.
Railroads were viewed as the West’s defining enterprise; they required enormous capital and benefited from extensive government subsidies.
The Pacific Railroad Act (1862) provided bonds (between 16{,}000 and 48{,}000) per mile and large land grants to railroad companies; by 1871, railroads received more than 175{,}000{,}000 acres of public land (an area larger than the state of Texas).
Critics argued that profits favored corporations while the government bore the risk of losses.
The railroad workforce was large and diverse: by 1880, about 400{,}000 workers, roughly 2.5 ext{%} of the nation’s labor force; immigrant labor was essential (Irish early, Chinese later; by 1880, over 200{,}000 Chinese migrants lived in the United States).
Brakemen faced dangerous work on moving trains; brakemen climbed atop moving cars to manually operate brakes before the advent of automatic braking.
The rail network boomed: 9,000 miles of railroad in 1850; 190,000 miles by 1900, including transcontinental lines.
Hub cities consolidated rail networks; Chicago emerged as the premier western hub: population growth from a few hundred in 1833 to over a million by 1890; the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition celebrated progress and technologies, including a grand White City.
Railroads linked western resources to eastern markets, establishing a national economy that accelerated cattle drives.
Cattle drives: postwar demand created a beef market; drives moved cattle from Texas to railroad hubs in Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska; early drives used trails like the Chisholm Trail; later drives included the Western, Goodnight-Loving, and Shawnee Trails.
Cowboys: estimates suggest 12{,}000 to 40{,}000 cowboys on drives; about a quarter were African American; many were Mexican or Mexican American; Mexican vaquero practices influenced cowboy culture (rodeos, gear, terms like rodeo, bronco, lasso).
Women also participated in some drives (at least sixteen verified accounts); some accompanied husbands or led their own herds.
Ranching remained profitable even as drives declined; railroads connected beef to national markets and supported a growing meatpacking industry in Chicago and other cities.
The cattle economy was central to the development of the Plains and the broader western economy.

VI. The Allotment Era and Resistance in the Native West

As railroads expanded, white settlers argued that Indians held excessive land, were using land inefficiently, and preferred nomadic lifestyles to farming.
Allotment aimed to break up tribal land holdings into individual family parcels to assimilate Native peoples into a Euro-American agrarian model.
The Dawes General Allotment Act (February 8, 1887) divided reservations into family homesteads:
- Heads of families: 160-acre allotments; singles over 18: 80 acres; orphans: 40 acres.
- A four-year period to select allotments; if not chosen, Interior Department could assign lands.
- Allotments were held in trust for 25$$ years, preventing sale by allottees; lands unclaimed would revert to federal control and be sold to settlers.
Proponents framed the act as humanitarian reform; opponents argued it destroyed tribal sovereignty and culture.
The act sought to extend federal laws to Native property rights, often superseding tribal governance.
Religious and prophetic movements emerged in resistance to allotment, including Ghost Dance, which promised a return to ancestral lands and the disappearance of whites if communities danced and lived justly.
In Nevada (1889), Northern Paiute prophet Wovoka inspired a Ghost Dance that spread to the Arapaho, Bannock, Cheyenne, Shoshone, and Lakota Sioux.
The Lakota Ghost Dance movement gained particular momentum; Lakota leaders and followers joined in, spreading hope across the Plains.
The Ghost Dance movement contributed to rising tensions and was linked to the tragic events at Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890), which ended sustained Native resistance in the West.

VII. Rodeos, Wild West Shows, and the Mythic American West

The West became a cultural myth in novels, rodeos, and Wild West shows; early dime novels celebrated Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, and frontier adventures.
The Virginian (Owen Wister) helped solidify the cowboy as a rugged, courageous figure in American culture.
Rodeos emerged from informal contests and grew into organized circuits; the first recognized real rodeo occurred in Pecos, Texas, in 1883 (Hash Knife and W Ranch cowboys).
Rodeos featured calf and steer roping, bronc riding, and other roughstock events; most competitors were men (about 90%), but women contributed; Bertha Kaepernick and other female riders competed in the events; many wore feminine attire to maintain social norms.
Wild West shows (1880s–1910s) toured nationwide and internationally, celebrating and exaggerating frontier life; Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show (begun 1883) featured real cowboys, Native performers, and exotic acts; Cody avoided calling it a “show” to emphasize authenticity.
Gordon William “Pawnee Bill” Lillie became a notable rival, later joining Cody for a joint production; the Two Bills Show toured until 1908.
Annie Oakley (as “Little Sure Shot”) became a prominent sharpshooter in the Wild West circuit; May Manning Lillie (Lillie’s wife) also performed as a sharpshooter.
The West’s mythic image—rooted in nostalgia, dime novels, rodeos, and traveling shows—reflected anxieties about modernization and the desire for a “strenuous life” amid factory and office work.
Frances Densmore’s ethnographic work (1916) recorded Native music, contributing to the broader cultural memory of Indigenous peoples.

VIII. The West as History: The Turner Thesis

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner presented the frontier thesis at the American Historical Association meeting during Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition.
Turner argued that waves of civilization moved westward: a frontier line separated savagery from civilization, moving from New England through the Appalachians to the Mississippi and then across the Plains to California and Oregon.
The frontier created a democratic spirit and a rough-hewn civilization, shaping American identity and national character.
Turner advocated a democratic style of history that emphasized the work of ordinary people (pioneers) alongside great statesmen.
He warned that the U.S. might lose its safety valve if the frontier closed, as the 1890 Census had declared; Theodore Roosevelt corresponded with Turner, acknowledging the ideas’ impact.
Critics highlight Turner’s biases (Anglo-Saxon centrism, invisibility of nonwhite groups and immigrants) and his underappreciation of technology, government subsidies, and large-scale economic forces in shaping the West.
Nevertheless, Turner’s thesis remained influential for much of the twentieth century and helped sustain popular romanticism of the West while simplifying a complex history.

IX. Reference Material

Chapter was edited by Lauren Brand, with multiple contributors; recommended citations and further readings provided in the chapter notes.
The chapter is part of The American Yawp, Stanford University Press, 2019, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.