Westward Expansion: Challenging the Wild West Myth

Source: Crash Course US History #24, presented by John Green.
General Topic: Understanding the western expansion of the United States during the 19th century.
Challenging Stereotypes:
- Common Media Portrayal: When considering the 19th-century western expansion, a prevalent image is that of the isolated, self-reliant, and unattached cowpoke, often depicted as a solitary figure navigating a vast, untamed wilderness. The West is often seen as the home of cowboys, gunslingers, houses of ill repute, and freedom from government interference.
- Reality vs. Myth: The series aims to challenge this romanticized view, suggesting that the actual experience of westward expansion was far more complex, interdependent, and involved diverse groups of people. It highlights that the West was not an empty, wild frontier but a place already inhabited and shaped by various communities and economic forces. The expansion was less about individual ruggedness and more about interconnected systems of trade, government policies, and communal efforts. America, being in the "mythmaking business," has often oversimplified this period.

Frederick Jackson Turner's Thesis: In his 1893 lecture, "the Significance of the Frontier in American History," Turner argued that the West was responsible for key characteristics of American culture, including individualism, political democracy, and economic mobility. For 18th and 19th-century Americans, the frontier represented an opportunity to start over and potentially achieve wealth through individual effort.
- Myth of the Solitary Settler: Mythology portrayed the West as a magnet for restless young men seeking fortune in uncorrupted, unoccupied, and untamed territories.
- Reality of Settlement: Most western settlers migrated as families or immigrant groups. The territory was not unoccupied but home to American Indians, and settlers included Chinese people, Mexican migrant laborers, former slaves, and existing Mexican populations who became Americans after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Overcoming "Rugged Individualism": The notion of the West as a place of rugged individualism is an oversimplification. The federal government played a crucial role by passing homesteading laws, displacing American Indians, and sponsoring railroads.

Enabling Settlement: Railroads were vital to western settlement for two main reasons:
1. Market Access: They provided the only practical way to transport crops and other goods to markets.
2. Supply Chain: They brought essential goods to settlers, such as tools, shoes, and books, thus connecting them to the modernity of the industrialized world.
Government Funding and Impact: Both federal and state governments financed railroads. State governments often faced financial detriment, leading to constitutional requirements for balanced budgets. A significant way the federal government supported railroads and western settlement was through military expeditions against American Indians, forcing them onto reservations, and destroying their cultures.

Economic and Racial Imperatives: The removal of Native Americans was driven by both economic and racial motives, as white settlers coveted the land for railroad construction, farming, and mineral extraction (e.g., gold, iron).
Escalating Conflicts: While early western settlement (like the Oregon Trail) didn't lead to massive conflicts, the steady stream of settlers by the 1850s sparked increasingly bloody conflicts that continued until approximately 1890. The post-Civil War era saw a more violent phase of warfare.
Destruction of Native Life: General Philip H. Sheridan actively sought to destroy the Native American way of life by burning villages, killing horses, and decimating the buffalo herds, which were fundamental to the Plains tribes' existence. The buffalo population dramatically decreased from an estimated $30 ext{ million}$ in 1800 to only about $25$ specimens by 1886.

Spiritual Resistance: Around 1890, the Ghost Dance movement emerged in regions like South Dakota. Adherents believed that by engaging in dances and religious rituals, white settlers would disappear, the buffalo would return, and traditional Indian customs would be restored.
Armed Resistance: Native American forces, such as a combined group of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, achieved notable victories, including the destruction of George Custer's cavalry at Little Bighorn in 1876. Geronimo also led a prolonged resistance in the Southwest.
Ultimate Defeat: Despite various forms of resistance, western Native Americans were largely defeated by 1890 and compelled to relocate to reservations.

End of Treaty System: In 1871, the U.S. government ceased treating Native American land as belonging to sovereign nations through treaties.
Individual Allotment: The Dawes Act of 1887 dissolved communal tribal land ownership, allotting reservation lands to individual Native American families.
Assimilation and Land Loss: Indians who adopted