the west 1865-1900

Industry, Reconstruction, and Westward Expansion happening at the same time

What made westward expansion possible?

  • Trains, Transcontinental Railroad

  • More land, agriculture
    - Homestead Act

  • Immigrants

  • Gold Rush (California)

  • Further opportunities
    - Mining, farming, livestock (Cattle)

Transcontinental Railroad - Crosses the entire United States, completed in 1869

  • Constructed by primarily the Irish and Chinese, dangerous work (Dynamite) for less money

  • Land grants giving to RR companies by government

Consequences

  • Near extinction of buffalo herds, farmers and newcomers hunted them

  • devastated the culture of Plains Indians, buffalo that were replaced by cattle were vital to Indians culture

  • Troops, farmers, miners, and cattlemen come to Great Plains
    - Buffalo was replaced by range-fed cattle as more farmers came

The Meat Industry

Ranching - problem getting meat to East, Transcontinental Railroad could ship to meatpackers as railroad expanded

Long Drives - Cattle travel across Plains from Texas to railroad depots in Kansas to be slaughtered in Eastern Cities as a way to move meat

Cowboys - Threatened by harsh weather (no grass to graze) and homesteaders who fenced in plots

  • Fencing with barbed wire led to the end of the Cowboy
    - Barbed wire made large scale ranching and farming profitable, but small farmers and ranchers could not compete.
    - Open range cattle ranching declines = no more cowboys

  • Homesteaders - New people who live in the Great Plains, fenced in their lands and made it harder for cowboys to move cows

The Mining Industry

1849 - gold found in California

1858 - gold found in Colorado (Pike’s Peak or Bust”

1859 - Comstock Lode in NV

Boomtowns - Towns that emerge suddenly and out of nowhere because people travel to the mines for opportunities and wealth, often turns into a ghost town when gold runs out

Effects

  • Traveled the immigration of people to the west hoping to get wealthy

  • Several areas became territories and states faster than they would have without the mining rush

Conflicts B/W Natives and The US

A Century of Dishonor (1881) by Helen Hunt Jackson - Recounts broken promises by the US government to the Native Americans, led to a lot of violence

  • Wrote to say that we need to be more courteous to the Natives

Dawes Severalty Act (1887) - Designed to promote assimilation (make the Natives like us)

  • Giving land to individual Native American men and teaching them how to farm, take the Native out of the Native and turn them into farmers

  • Kill the Indian, Save the Man

Assimilation

Indian Schools - Students were separated from parents and lost connection to their tribe/culture

  • Carlisle Indian School

  • Students were stripped of their language, forced to cut their hair, and convert to Christianity

Battle on the Plains - Series of Native American battles

Battle = White victory, massacre = native victory

Sioux - Native American group that caused problems with U.S. government

  • Custer’s Last Stand - Battle of Little Bighorn sent 400 soldiers to Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull's, everyone gets killed by 2500 warriors
    - Highlights U.S. hatred for Native Americans

  • Battle of Wounded Knee - U.S. fought back after Custer’s Last Stand, many women and children
    - end of Indian wars because they stopped fighting back

  • Ghost Dance - thought to bring Buffalo back to the plains and get rid of American Influence
    - U.S. saw this as a threat to their authority

  • Buffalo Soldiers - Groups of African Americans that are fighting out West, segregated unit

  • Sitting Bull - Sioux Medicine Man


Homestead Act (1862) - Up to 160 acres of land for $30 for living on it for 5 years and improving it

  • Before: Land was primarily used for revenue

  • Now: Given away rapidly filling empty spaces to provide stimulus to family farms

  • Use of new farm machinery led to production skyrocketing

  • Mechanization led to bonanza farms (large farms of over 15,000 acres) that drove smaller farmers out of business

Oklahoma opened for settlement - leads to sooners and boomers

  • Sooners: Entered unassigned lands before official lands

  • Boomers: Pushed government for opening unassigned lands to white settlement

Exodusters - Newly freed blacks who traveled west to find opportunity and escape discrimination

Agriculture

Problems

  • Lack of resources, building soddies (dirt houses) because lumber was not available for home building

  • Increased production often decreased prices
    - Supply and demand, too much supply meant less demand and decreased prices

  • Farmers had to pay back mortgages

  • Nature (grasshoppers, weather, etc.) could destroy farmer’s income
    - Grasshoppers eat crops

  • Competition with bonanza farms

  • Railroads
    - Using discriminatory rates (prices based on who you’re selling to) to exploit farmers (Higher rates to small farmers, lower rates to bonanza farms)
    - Led to Interstate Commerce Act (Regulates railroad)
    - Deflated money


Unrest in the West

Grange Movement - Social organization where farmers get together and talk about problems and solutions, enhance farmers’ isolated lives by organizing social activities, improve farmers’ collective hardships

Farmers’ Alliance - Goal: Break grip of railroads and manufacturers through cooperative buying and selling

  • Opposed monopolies and supported relief for debtors (people in debt) (Populists prelude)

  • Weakened itself by ignoring certain types of farmers— landless tenant farmers, sharecroppers, farmworkers, and excluding blacks

The Populists/Populist Party - Attempted to unite discontented farmers by improving their economic conditions

Why they failed - Western/Southern farmers didn’t agree on political strategies (Different candidates)

  • Racism prevented poor whites and blacks from cooperating

  • Increase in city populations = Higher agricultural prices

  • New gold discoveries = easier credit

  • Democrats absorbed most of their programs

  • William Jennings Bryan lost the elections

Supported the following:

  • Increased money supply with free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold, Bimetalism
    - For every paper dollar, there is a piece of gold in the bank. By using both gold and silver, it leads to more paper money being printed, leads to inflation
    - Farmers want inflation because it creates more demand, more profit, and they can pay back their debts

  • Prevent discrimination against small customers with Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 (Regulate railroad rates)

  • Organize cooperative marketing societies

  • Supported William Jennings Bryan in 1896 election

    OTD in History… July 9, 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech at the Democratic National Convention | History Musings

Populists took up Democratic Party beliefs/causes

  • Cross of Gold speech - Advocated for Bimetalism, opposed only using gold and said it was like being nailed on a cross of gold