The West

Aim: Did visions of the West match the realities of Westward settlement?

Imagining the West

Realities of Westward Settlement

I. Land Fever

• Gov’t gave land grants to RRs
• Morrill Land-Grant College Act – set aside public land for universities
• Homestead Act (1862)
• 160 acres free to any citizen or prospective citizen who agreed to settle and farm the land for 5 years
• Pacific Railway Act - Transcontinental RRs opened up new areas for settlement
• Homesteaders faced many hardships
• Poor farmers, called “Sodbusters,” lived in sod dugouts
• Women and men completed hard manual labor to survive

II. Exodusters

• To escape the slave-like conditions in the South, 50,000 blacks organized a mass migration, or exodus, to Kansas

III. Gold Fever and the Mining West

• Mining (“boom towns”)
• California Gold – 1849
• Comstock Lode, NV – 1859
• Complex communities develop

IV. Ranchers, Cowboys, and Commercial Farming

• “Long Drive” to RRs, then to Chicago
• Barbed Wire revolutionized cattle business
• In TX, fights broke out b/w ranchers and “fence cutters”
• Socioeconomic ladder – cattle kings at top with cowboys and wage laborers (many African American)
• Agribusiness – farming as a big business, largely mechanized

V. Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”

• The frontier had shaped American character
• Frontier was a safety valve for the east and promoted equality, individualism, inventiveness, etc.
• By 1890, he argued, frontier no longer existed (census)

VI. Impacts on American Indians in the West�

• Battle of Little Bighorn: Sometimes called Custer’s Last Stand, it is the most famous victory of American Indian forces over the U.S. military (although not the largest in death toll). The Sioux killed over 260 troops and their leader, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. The Sioux were hunted down and killed by other U.S. forces. See: Northwest Indian War, Blue Turtle.
• George Custer: A Lt. Colonel who marched his column of men deep into Sioux territory only to discover some 2,500 Sioux warriors waiting for them at the Little Big Horn River. He and his men were then destroyed at the Battle of Little Bighorn—also known as Custer’s Last Stand.
• Ghost Dance movement: A Dakota Sioux movement that began in 1870. It intended to bring about a rebirth of native tradition and a repulsion of white incursion. As part of the U.S. government’s efforts to suppress it, the respected Sioux leader Sitting Bull, was killed.
• Battle of Wounded Knee: A massacre of over 200 American Indian men, women, and children that took place in December 1890 in South Dakota. Over 20 soldiers involved were awarded the Medal of Honor.

VII. Native American Policy

Dawes Act (1887)

• Attempt to Americanize the Native Americans (forced assimilation)
• Broke up tribes and granted land directly to Indians as individuals or families
• Granted land deeds and citizenship to Native Americans who abandoned tribal ways
• Reduced size of Indian population and left them impoverished

Boarding Schools

Forced Native Americans to assimilate into American society

i.e., Carlisle

Century of Dishonor

Exposed to the public the American government’s mistreatment of Native Americans

VII. Native American Policy

Indian Wars

Nearly 400 treaties with Indians had been broken by whites

• 1864 – Sand Creek Massacre
• 1866-Red Cloud War
• 1876-Battle of Little Big Horn
• 1890-Battle of Wounded Knee

Competing Visions

• Was American settlement of the West inevitable progress or unjust invasion, or something in between?

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INEVITABLE PROGRESS OR UNJUST INVASION?