Notes

Mass Migration and the Homestead Act

• after the civil war, the area west of the Mississippi river was settled by miners, ranchers, and farmers

• Boom town/mining towns are made

• After the Civil war, demand for beef led to a cattle boom in the west

• Ranchers drove longhorn cattle across the open range to railroad towns

• The open range was closing as farmers used barbed wire fencing to close off their farms

• The majority of migrants into the west were farmers

• in 1862, congress passed the homestead act, giving 160 acres of frtee western land to anyone who promised to farm the land for 5 years

• homestead life was difficult on the great plains

• 60% of homesteaders failed to make the required 5 years

• but those who were successful transformed America into a food exporter (Bread Basket)

• Some African Americans know as “exodusters” took advantage of the Homestead Act to escape the Jim Crow South

Transcontinental Railroad

• Miners, Ranchers, and farmers were connected to eastern cities in 1869 with the completion of the transcontinental railroad

• the federal government encouraged railroad construction by given millions of acres of land to railroad companies

• on may 10th 1869 the two tracks met at promontory point in Utah

• time zones are created

• Chinese workers were recited to america to build the railroad

• congress passed the Chinese exclusion Act in 1882 which ended Chinese immigration to america

• the migration of Americans into the west left no organized territories by 1890, the western frontier had closed

Indian Wars

• Gilded Age brought devastation to the Indians

• plains Indians like the Sioux, Comanche, and Cheyenne tribes were dependent upon the buffalo and the horse

• “Indian Country” was located in the plains. the flood of people during the gilded age violated Indian territories

• This Led to a series of violent conflicts known as the “Indian Wars”

  • The Sioux led by sitting Bull, retaliated by ambushing Colonel Custer and all 197 solderer in the seven cavalry at little big horn

  • the most effective way to defeat the Indians was by killing off the buffalo

  • The last Indian battle in U.S history was Wounded Knee in 1890

  • the U.S army attacked the Sioux after tribal leaders refused to stop their “ghost dances”

  • natives never fought with the U.S again

• by 1890, natvies were restirccted to small reservations in isolated locations

Dates

• 1862: Homestead act

• May 10th 1869: Completion of the transcontinental railroad

• 1890: Wounded Knee

Vocab

• Exodusters: African Americans who got free land to escape jim crow laws