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.