The American West
Introduction
Native Americans dominated the American West for millennia, connected by trade, travel, and warfare.
Spanish, French, British, and American traders integrated into regional economies, but none controlled the continent.
The Civil War decoupled the West from slavery issues.
The United States industrialized, built railroads, and expanded westward.
The late-19th-century West's history is complex, marking a pivotal transformation in the United States.
Post-Civil War Westward Migration
After the Civil War, settlers migrated west in record numbers, seeking new opportunities.
The California Gold Rush of 1848-1849 and subsequent gold strikes in Colorado (1858), Nevada (1859), Idaho (1860), Montana (1863), and the Black Hills (1874) drew prospectors.
Mining towns offered opportunities for working-class women in service industries like shops, saloons, and boardinghouses.
The rush itself often generated more wealth than the mines.
in gold left Colorado in the first seven years after the Pikes Peak gold strike, less than half of outside investments.
Over 100,000 migrants who settled in the Rocky Mountains contributed to the region's development.
Others extracted hides from vast bison herds, supplying leather for industrial belting and the clothing industry.
The American bison slaughter peaked in the early 1870s, reducing their numbers to hundreds by the early 1880s.
Railroad expansion allowed ranching to replace bison with cattle on American grasslands.
Bison skulls were used as fertilizer.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints migrated west between 1846 and 1868, fleeing religious persecution.
Mormons believed Americans were chosen to spread truth and build utopia.
Suspicion of Mormon practices, especially polygamy, led to migrations to Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, and Utah Territory.
Mormon settlements served as supply points for emigrants heading to California and Oregon.
Brigham Young, leader of the Church, was appointed governor of Utah Territory and encouraged agriculture while cautioning against outsiders.
The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed male citizens to claim federally owned lands in the West.
Settlers could claim 160 acres, improve the land, and apply for the official title deed after five years.
The Homestead Act excluded married women, but some unmarried women filed claims.
Farm households adopted traditional gender roles, with men working in fields and women managing the home.
Migrants sometimes found self-sufficiency in homesteads.
Western populations exploded. Kansas farms increased from 10,000 in 1860 to 239,000 in 1880. Texas population grew rapidly.
The Indian Wars and Federal Peace Policies
The "Indian Wars" were localized engagements between U.S. military forces and Native American groups.
Economic and cultural conflicts arose from American settlement, railroad construction, and material extraction.
Thomas Jefferson’s dream of isolated Indigenous nations was no longer viable.
Political, economic, and humanitarian concerns led to efforts to isolate Native Americans on reservations.
After the Civil War, the U.S. government redoubled its efforts to remove Native Americans.
Coordinated military action by Civil War generals exploited local conflicts sparked by business ventures and settler incursions.
Native Americans battled against confinement and the extinction of their way of life.
In 1862, tensions erupted between the Dakota Nation and white settlers in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory.
The illegal influx of American farmers pushed the Dakota to the breaking point.
Hunting became unsustainable, and farming yielded only poverty.
The federal Indian agent refused to disburse promised food.
On August 17, 1862, four young Santee Dakota men killed five white settlers near the Redwood Agency.
Dakota warriors attacked settlements near the Agency, killing thirty-one men, women, and children.
Andrew Myrick, a trader, was found with his mouth filled with grass.
They ambushed a U.S. military detachment at Redwood Ferry, killing twenty-three.
The governor of Minnesota called up militia, and Americans waged war against the Indigenous insurgents.
Fighting broke out at New Ulm, Fort Ridgely, and Birch Coulee.
Americans broke Indigenous resistance at the Battle of Wood Lake on September 23, ending the Dakota War.
More than two thousand Dakota were taken prisoner.
Military tribunals convicted 303 Dakota and sentenced them to hang.
President Lincoln commuted all but thirty-eight of the sentences.
Minnesota settlers and government officials demanded that the Dakota lose reservation lands and be removed west.
On September 3, 1863, American military units surrounded a large encampment of Dakota, killing around three hundred men, women, and children.
Troops burned winter food and supply stores to starve out the Dakota resistance.
Buffalo Soldiers, African-American cavalrymen, were essential in American victories during the Indian Wars.
Settlers inflamed tensions in Colorado. The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie secured right-of-way access.
A gold rush in 1858 drew approximately 100,000 white gold seekers, demanding new treaties.
Cheyenne bands splintered over signing a new treaty.
Militia leader John M. Chivington warned settlers of danger, urging war.
Cheyenne chief Black Kettle sought peace talks.
On November 29, 1864, Chivington ordered his militiamen to attack the Cheyenne camp at Sand Creek, killing two hundred men, women, and children.
The Sand Creek Massacre was a national scandal.
Congress authorized the Indian Peace Commission in 1868.
The commission galvanized support for reformers and the Board of Indian Commissioners, aiming to oversee Indigenous affairs and prevent violence.
The board effectively Christianized American Indian policy, with Protestant churches managing reservation life.
Many female Christian missionaries attempted to instill Protestant religion and impose traditional American gender roles.
Women’s labor became contentious because few tribes divided labor according to American gender norms.
Missionaries aimed to get Native women to leave the fields and engage in housework.
Most Americans viewed Indigenous peoples on reservations as lazy and cultures as inferior.
If Indigenous peoples could not be forced through kindness to change their ways, most Americans agreed to use force.
In Texas and the Southern Plains, the Comanche, Kiowa, and their allies wielded influence.
The Comanche controlled territory and raided vast areas.
After the Civil War, the U.S. military refocused on the Southern Plains.
American officials sought Comanche peace negotiations at Medicine Lodge Creek in 1867.
American officials believed the Comanche had accepted reservation life, but Comanche leaders believed they were guaranteed vast lands for buffalo hunting.
Comanche bands used reservation lands to collect supplies while continuing to hunt and raid American settlements.
In 1874, the U.S. military proclaimed that all Indigenous peoples not settled on the reservation would be considered “hostile.