Chapter 17 – The West: Exploiting an Empire (1849–1902)

Focus Questions

  • Challenges of settling west of Mississippi?

  • How were western tribes removed?

  • Motives for moving West?

  • Why did the West foster boom-and-bust dreams?

  • Key traits of the late-19^{th}-century western economy?

Beyond the Frontier – Major Obstacles

  • Geography: Great Plains treeless & arid; Rockies barrier; Basin desolate; Pacific coast temperate past Cascades/Sierra Nevada.

  • Scarce water, lumber, and rivers limited traditional agriculture.

Removing the Indians

  • 1865: ≈250{,}000 Native Americans in West.

  • Federal policy shifts:
    • “One big reservation” ⇒ 1851 concentration ⇒ small reservations (post-1867).

  • Key conflicts: Sand Creek/Chivington (1864); Fetterman (1866); Great Sioux War & Little Bighorn (1876); Ghost Dance & Wounded Knee (1890).

  • Assimilation moves: Carlisle School (1879); Dawes Act (1887) – tribal land divided, surplus sold to whites.

  • Near-extermination of buffalo undermined Plains cultures.

Settlement of the West

  • Rapid influx 1870–1900 driven by land hope & rising demand for goods.

  • Overland Trail: ≈500{,}000 migrants; six-month trek; family labor division.

  • Land policy: Homestead Act (1862) – 160 free acres (600{,}000 claims) but low rainfall & speculators hurt success; Newlands Reclamation Act (1902) for irrigation.

  • Railroads: received 128 million acres, promoted immigration.

  • Spanish-Mexican Southwest: retained language, Roman Catholicism, community property rights for women.

The Bonanza West

  • Mining, cattle, land booms produced quick-profit mentality, "instant cities," resource waste.

Mining Bonanza

  • Gold Rush (1849); Comstock Lode (1859) yielded \$306 million; Black Hills (1874–76).

  • Camps male-dominated, diverse, spawned Chinese Exclusion Act (1882).

  • By 1890 major strikes exhausted; left ghost towns, but financed Civil War & industry.

Cattle Bonanza

  • Open-range ranching 1865–85: Texas longhorns, trail drives to railheads; barbed wire (1874) & bad winters ended era; ranching industrialized.

Farming Bonanza

  • Plains population grew from 1\% ( 1850) to 30\% ( 1900 ).

  • Exodusters: 6{,}000 African Americans to Kansas (1879).

  • Challenges: scarce water/lumber, extreme weather; sod houses; barbed wire solved fencing.

  • Grange formed 1867: social support, co-ops; grievances—low prices, high RR rates, mortgages.

Last Land Rush

  • Oklahoma opened Apr\;22,\;1889: \approx100{,}000 “Boomers” & “Sooners” claimed 12{,}000 homesteads in hours.

New Economy of the West

  • Urban anchors essential:
    • San Francisco—finance & anti-Chinese labor unrest.
    • Los Angeles—booster-driven growth (pop > SF by 1920).
    • Chicago—rail hub, stockyards; linked West to national market.

  • Agricultural zones:
    • Kansas sodbusters;
    • Montana cattle;
    • Riverside citrus—irrigation, research, immigrant labor.

  • Industrial mining:
    • Colorado coal—deadly, anti-union;
    • Arizona copper—corporate control, Mexican labor, later unionizing.

Conclusion – Meaning of the West

  • Frederick Jackson Turner: free land/frontier shaped democracy & character.

  • New Western historians: multiple waves, diverse peoples, constant interaction & conquest.

  • Frontier myth continues to influence U.S. identity.