Ch. 16The Conquest of the West

After the Civil war, a dynamic period in American history opened-the settlement of the West. The lives of Western miners, farmers and ranchers were often filled with great hardships, but the wave of American settlers continued. Railroads

hastened this migration. During this period, many Native Americans lost their homelands and their

way of life

What is the West?• A mix of myth with reality• The “Great American Desert” Stephen Long• Diverse land and inhabitants

Who lived there?

One historian wrote: “compared to the West, the East looks like a family reunion”.

Inhabitants of the West

Native Americans

• The Great Plains were home to many Native Americans

• Some were farmers• But the majority were

nomads—roamed the vast distances following their source of food—the buffalo

• As ranchers, miners and farmers moved out to the Plains—Native Americans were deprived of their hunting grounds

• The Buffalo was killed for sport—by the millions

Plain Indian Tribes

• Pueblo-contact with the Spanish-caste system developed-Apache, Navajos, etc.

• Very diverse• Sioux-nomads and the buffalo• All were susceptible to diseases—outmanned

and outgunned

Hispanics

• New Mexico, Texas and California—as the Anglo American presence increased and new ranching and farming operations followed, Hispanics were no longer in control of the region and were relegated to unskilled farm work and industrial labor

Chinese—RR, Chinese Exclusion Act, Anti-Coolie clubs

Homestead Act

• “Rain follows the Plow”• Homestead Act- the

government would give up to 160 acres of land and receive the title to that land after 5 years.

• Life was hard

Migration from the East

• After the Civil War, over 2 million came from the East—Scandinavians, Germans, Irish, Russians, Czechs and others

Despite all –settlement occurred.Why?

Railroads—the US government gave them land to build the RR—the RR in turn sold land to prospective settlers

The Changing Western Economy

• In the 19th century the region produced 3 major industries: mining, ranching and commercial farming

• Gold, silver and copper• Boom to Bust

Cattle Kingdom

• Ranchers—at first ranching was not practical—no water, cattle could not survive—tough prairie grasses—but in Texas—The Longhorn—lean and rangy—the longhorn could survive.

Open Range-a vast area of grassland owned by the government.

• Hispanic cowhands developed the tolls and techniques for rounding up and driving cattle.

• Lariat, lasso, stampede

• After the Civil War meat prices soared

• Millions of longhorns roamed in Texas

• How to move the cattle to the RR

• Long cattle drives-The Chisholm Trail

• Barbed wire• http://player.discovery

education.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=5EB648BC-FBA8-42BD-A0C0-F9B5E28CE42D&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US

Cowboy Culture

• Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show• http://youtu.be/SARb8vJJmuA

Romance of the West

• Artist flocked to the West to capture the incredible magnificence of the scenery.

• Albert Bierstadt• Thomas Moran

Thomas Moran

Frederic Remington

Last of the Indian Wars With broken treaties, the Native

Americans were forced to relocate.

• Reservations-land set aside for Native Americans

• The Sioux• The Lakota• The Cheyenne

Lakota Chief Sitting Bull

Crazy Horse—Leader of the Oglala Lakota

Chief Joseph- “I will fight no more forever”

The Last Native American Wars• Battle of the Little Big Horn• The Battle of the Little Bighorn,

also called Custer's Last Stand, was an engagement between the combined forces of the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne tribes against the 7th Cavalry of the United States Army. The most famous of all of the Indian Wars, the remarkable victory for the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne occurred over two days on June 25-26, 1876 near the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana Territory. The U.S. cavalry detachment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, lost every soldier in his unit.

The Battle of the Little Big Horn

• http://www.history.com/videos/sitting-bull

Wounded Knee

• The Ghost Dance-a ritual of dance and prayer that hoped for the day of reckoning.

• U.S. forbade the Native Americans to perform.

• They continued despite the law

Wounded Knee• On the bone-chilling morning of December 29, devotees of

the newly created Ghost Dance religion made a lengthy trek to the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota to seek protection from military apprehension. Members of the(Lakota) tribe led by Chief Big Foot and the Sioux (Lakota) followers of the recently slain charismatic leader, Sitting Bull, attempted to escape arrest by fleeing south through the rugged terrain of the Badlands. There, on the snowy banks of Wounded Knee Creek (Cankpe Opi Wakpala), nearly 300 Lakota men, women, and children -- old and young -- were massacred in a highly charged, violent encounter with U.S. soldiers

The dead at Wounded Knee

• The U.S. government just wanted the Native Americans to just assimilate

• Assimilation-to be absorbed into a culture

• “A Century of Dishonor” a book by Helen Hunt Jackson that was critical of the US policies

• The Dawes Act-similar to the Homestead Act—the Dawes Act allowed the Indians land –it failed to help the Indians.