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Moving West

Moving West. Push-Pull Factors. Led people to push (forced) or pull (attract) them to move west Southeastern farmland (expensive) Sheltered outlaws on the run Adventure, fresh start, imagination. Homestead Act. Signed by Lincoln Small fee = 160 acres of land (1/4 mile) Rules:

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Moving West

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  1. Moving West

  2. Push-Pull Factors • Led people to push (forced) or pull (attract) them to move west • Southeastern farmland (expensive) • Sheltered outlaws on the run • Adventure, fresh start, imagination

  3. Homestead Act • Signed by Lincoln • Small fee = 160 acres of land (1/4 mile) • Rules: • At least 21 years old or head of a family • American citizen or immigrant filing for citizenship • Build house a minimum size (12 feet by 14 feet) • Live in house 6 months out of year • Farm land 5 yrs in a row before ownership set 372,000 new farms - 600,000land claims – 80 million acres

  4. Morrill Land-Grant Act (1862) • Congress gave millions of acres to state governments • Goal was to sell land and raise money to create “land grant” colleges (agriculture and mechanical arts) • States sold land to banks and land speculators • Land speculator: people who buy up land in the hope of selling it for profit in the future.

  5. Native American Conflict • Great Plains: area of land between Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains. • Native Americans vs. New Settlers • Deemed settlers as invaders • Sacred land invaded • Indians were nomads • Move from place to place…why? • Food, survival, buffalo

  6. Reservations • Federal land set aside for Native Americans • Native Americans fought back • Sandy Creek Massacre (1864) - Colorado • Battle of Little Big Horn (1876) – Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana • Battle of Wounded Knee (1890) – South Dakota

  7. Assimilation: • attempt in which one society becomes a part of another, more dominant society by adopting its culture • Dawes Act (1887): • Divided reservations into individual plots.

  8. Boomers and Sooners • Two million unsigned acres of land of native americans • Bought by Congress • April 22, 1889 • Boomers: • legally staked claims on this land • Sooners: • snuck passed government officials early in the morning hours to mark their claims. • By sundown, 2 million acres claimed!!

  9. Far and Away We will now watch a scene from the movie, Far and Away with Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. Westward Expansion Oklahoma in the late 1800s.

  10. Hardships • Lived in soddies • Homes made of sod: grass, root and dirt. ($3.00) • Livable homestead cost ($1000) • Difficulty farming for five years to claim land • Bugs: • grasshoppers, locusts • ate wheat, rye barley fields • mosquitos • Carried disease • Drought • Reduced land productivity

  11. New Farming techniques • Barbed wire • Dry farming • Steel plow • Steel windmill • Hybridization • Grain Drill

  12. Mining, Ranching, Farming GOLD RUSH “gold everywhere you stick your shovel” • $400 million in gold and silver • Placer mining: running water over boxed dirt looking for gold and silver particles

  13. Cowboys • 25 million buffalo killed (1840-1889) • Long drive: • Herding of thousands of cattle from one cattle ranch to another • 1867: 35,000 cattle driven • 1881: 250,000 cattle driven

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