Westward Expansion

Why?

  • Government promoted Westward Expansion before Civil War

  • Western migration takes over during and after war

  • Different industries help to settle different regions

Post-War Expansion

  • Regions of settlement:

    • Great Plains

    • Rocky Mts.

    • Western Plateau

    • “Great American Desert”

  • Impact on Indians:

    • loss of land

    • changes in way of life

    • buffalo (animal)

The Mining Frontier

  • Pikes Peak, CO (1859) ——— gold

  • Comstock Lode (1859)

    • $350 million in gold and silver

  • Homestead Mine

    • Black Hills, Dakotas

    • Billion Dollar Mine

  • Boom Towns

    • Homestead, SD

    • Virginia City, NV

    • led to ghost towns

  • Dynamite introduced in 1870s

  • Impact:

    • nativism

    • Chinese Exclusion Act

The Cattle Frontier

  • Texas as the model

    • Mexican tools & clothing

    • Longhorn Cattle

      • thrived on dry and grassy plains

  • Rise of Beef Trusts

    • disapperance of buffalo, soaring population increase, invention of refrigerated car → rise in demand

  • Chicago and St. Louis as centers

  • 2/5 of Texas used for cattle grazing

  • Decline:

    • invention of barbed wire

    • Winter of ‘85-’86 (85% losses)

The Farming Frontier

  • Homestead Act (1862)

    • 160 free acres to families

    • Req’s: must me activley farmed for 5 years, must have residency established for at least 6 months

  • Over 500,000 families settled on homesteads

  • Problems and Solutions:

    • severe weather, lack of water, high rate of pestilence and disease

    • failing crop prices and rising costs led to many failures

American Indians in the West

  • Roughly 2/3 of remaining western tribes lived in Great Plains

    • buffalo population dropped like crazy

  • Reservation Policy

  • Assimilationists:

    • tried to assimilate Native Americans into white American life

    • Dawes Severalty Act (1887) - designed to break up tribal organizations; 160 acres per family - US citizenship granted to those who stayed on the land for 25 years and adopted habits of “civilized life”

The Closing of the Frontier

  • Opening of the Oklahoma Territory

    • legally pused for land were “boomers” and “sooners” who those who settled illegally

  • Turner’s Frontier Thesis (1893):

    • "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" proclaimed that the once open western frontier was closed

      • argued that the frontier shaped American democracy, promoted individualism and self reliance