Settling the West: Growth of Mining and Ranching

1. Chapter

2. Chapter 3 Section 1Settling the West

3. Growth of the Mining Industry • Some cattle ranches in the West were enormous, covering more land than Massachusetts and Vermont put together.

4. Growth of the Mining Industry • Growing industries in the East needed the West’s rich deposits of gold, silver, and copper. • Brought settlers to the West’s mountain states

5. Boom and Bust • 1859: Henry Comstock staked a claim for a silver mine in Virginia City, NV • went from an outpost to a boomtown overnight. • mines run out of silver • boomtown ghost town. • Cycle of boom and bust repeated throughout the mountainous West.

6. Growth of the Mining Industry • During boom times, crime = a serious problem. • Vigilance committeesformed to track down and punish criminals.

7. Growth of the Mining Industry • Where was the mining industry? • Colorado, the Dakota Territory, and Montana. • Mining in Colorado spurred the building of railroads through the Rocky Mountains. • Denver = supply point for the mining areas • Denver = 2nd largest city in the West after San Francisco.

9. Ranching & Farming the Plains • Where are the Great Plains? • extends westward to the Rocky Mountains from around the 100th meridian—an imaginary line running north and south from the central Dakotas through western Texas

10. Map 16.1 The Natural Environment of the West, 1860s (p. 458) • As settlers pushed into the Great Plains & beyond the line of semiaridity, they sensed the overwhelming power of the natural environment. In a landscape without trees for fences and barns and without adequate rainfall, ranchers and farmers had to relearn their business. The Native Americans peopling the plains and mountains had in time learned to live in this environment, but this knowledge counted for little against the ruthless pressure of the settlers to domesticate the West.

11. Ranching & Farming the Plains • Post-Civil War • many Americans began building large cattle ranches on the Great Plains. • Texas longhorn = a breed of cattle that could survive the harsh climate of the plains.

12. Ranching & Farming the Plains • Cattle ranching industry grows, why? • because of the open range = vast areas of grasslands owned by the federal government • Cattle raisers could graze their herds free of charge & without boundaries.

13. Ranching & Farming the Plains • During the Civil War: • large #s of eastern cattle were slaughtered to feed the Union and Confederate armies • After the war • beef prices soared, so? • This made it worthwhile to round up the longhorns.

14. Ranching & Farming the Plains • Long Drive: (first one in 1866) • across the Great Plains to the railroad in Sedalia, Missouri, • proved that cattle could be driven north to the rail lines and sold for 10 times the price they could get in Texas.

15. Cowboys on the Open Range • In open-range ranching, cattle from different ranches grazed together. AT the roundup, cowboys separated the cattle by owner and branded the calves. Cowboys celebrated in dime novels were really farmhands on horseback, with the skills to work on the range. An ethnically diverse group, including blacks and Hispanics, they earned $25.00 a month, plus meals & a bed in the bunkhouse, in return for long hours of grueling, lonesome work.

16. Ranching & Farming the Plains • Railroads • provided easy access to the Great Plains. • Railroad companies sold land along the rail lines at low prices and provided credit.

17. Ranching & Farming the Plains • Homestead Act (1862) • For $10, a settler could file for a homestead • = a tract of public land available for settlement. • 160 acres of public land • could receive title of it after living there 5 years.

18. Ranching & Farming the Plains • Difficult Plains life: • environment = harsh, • summer temperatures over 100°F • winter = blizzards & extreme cold. • Prairie fires and swarms of grasshoppers were a danger & a threat.

19. Ranching & Farming the Plains • New Technology (1860s) • newly designed steel plows • seed drills • Reapers • threshing machines. • machines made dry farming possible. • could work large tracts of land with the machines.

20. Ranching & Farming the Plains • Wheat • withstood drought better than other crops • became = most important crop on the Great Plains. • Wheat farmers from Minnesota & other Midwestern states moved to the Great Plains • take advantage of the inexpensive land & the new farming technology. • Wheat Belt • began at the eastern edge of the Great Plains and included much of the Dakotas and the western parts of Nebraska and Kansas.

21. Ranching & Farming the Plains • Events causing Great Plains farmers to fall on hard times: • In the 1890s, a glut of wheat caused prices to drop. • Some farmers lost their land because they could not repay bank loans they had taken out. • prolonged drought that began in the 1880s forced many farmers to return to the East.

22. Native Americans • How did they live? • Some GP Nat. Ams. lived in communities and farmed and hunted. • Most GP Nat. Ams were nomads who moved from place to place in search of food. • followed the herds of buffalo.

23. Native Americans • GP Nat. Ams had several things in common: • lived in extended family networks • had a close relationship with nature • were divided into bands with a governing council • practiced a religion based on a belief in the spiritual power of the natural world.

24. Native Americans • White settlement pressure (encroaching on their lands): • 1862 the Sioux in Minnesota launched a major uprising.

25. Native Americans • 1867 Congress formed an Indian Peace Commission • proposed creating two large reservations on the Plains. • Bureau of Indian Affairs would run the reservations. • U.S. army would deal with any groups that did not report to or remain on the reservations. • This plan was doomed to failure • Signing treaties did not ensure that the govt or Native Americans would abide by their terms.

26. Native Americans • 1870s: buffalo were rapidly disappearing. • 1889 very few buffalo remained. • buffalo were killed by migrants crossing the Great Plains • professional buffalo hunters wanted their hides, • sharpshooters hired by railroads, and hunters who killed them for sport.

27. Native Americans • Many Nat. Ams. left their reservations to hunt buffalo on the open plains • Nat. Ams. Saw Americans violate treaties so they saw no reason to abide by them.

28. Native Americans • The Indians: • lost their ancestral lands • Faced an alien future of farming • Were confronted by a winter of starvation • At the same time, news of “salvation” came from a holy man called Wovoka • predicted the disappearance of the whites • Encouraged the Ghost Dance as a ritual to prepare for the regeneration.

29. Native Americans • Frenzy of Wovoka’s Ghost Dance swept through the Sioux encampments in 1890, • alarmed whites called for army intervention. • The bloody battle at Wounded Knee: • Erupted when soldiers attempted to disarm a group of Wovoka’s followers; • final episode in the long war of suppression of the Plains Indians. • Thereafter, the division of tribal lands proceeded without hindrance. • As whites flooded the newly acquired land, Indians became the minority.

30. The Dead at Wounded Knee (p. 472) • In December 1890 US soldiers massacred 146 Sioux men, women, and children in the Battle of Wounded Knee in south Dakota. It was the last big fight on the northern plains between the Indians and the whites. Black Elk, a Sioux holy man, related that “after the soldiers marched away from their dirty work, a heavy snow began to fall…and it grew very cold.” The body of Yellow Bird lay frozen where it had fallen.

31. Native Americans • The Dawes Act of 1887 declared that land for the Indians would be allotted in 160-acre lots to heads of households: • Then Indians would become U.S. citizens • Remaining reservations were sold off • Proceeds going toward Indian education. • 1890: • The federal government announced that it had tribal approval to open the Sioux “surplus” land to white settlement.

32. Map 16.5 The Sioux Reservations in South Dakota, 1868-1889 (p. 471) • In 1868, when they bent to the demand that they move onto the reservation, the Sioux thought they had gained secure rights to a substantial part of their ancestral hunting grounds. But as they learned to their sorrow, fixed boundary lines only increased their vulnerability to the land hungry whites and sped up the process of expropriation.

33. Native Americans • The Dawes Act was a failure. • Few Native Americans had the training or enthusiasm for farming or ranching. • allotments were too small to be profitable. • Few Native Americans were willing or able to adopt the American settlers’ lifestyles in place of their own culture.

34. Alexander Graham Bell taught deaf children. He once told his family that he preferred to be remembered as a teacher rather than as the inventor of the telephone. Bell’s father, Alexander Melville Bell, taught deaf-mutes to speak and wrote textbooks on correct speech. As boys, Alexander Graham Bell and his brothers helped their father in public demonstrations of Visible Speech, a code of symbols that indicated what position of the throat, tongue, and lips were used in making sounds.

35. The United States Industrializes • End of Civil War: • American industry expanded • millions of people left their farms to work in mines & factories. • By the early 1900s: • US becomes world’s leading industrial nation • By 1914: • gross national product (GNP)=total value of goods & services produced by a country • = 8X greater than at the end of the Civil War.

36. The United States Industrializes • US natural resources = Water, timber, coal, iron, and copper • that leads US industrial success. • Transcontinental railroads increased industrialization • brought settlers and miners to the West • moved resources to the factories in the East.

37. The United States Industrializes • Petroleum Demand • could be turned into kerosene for lanterns & stoves • created the American oil industry. • 1859 • Edwin Drake drilled 1st oil well near Titusville, Pennsylvania • oil production increased leads to economic expansion.

38. The United States Industrializes • Between 1860 and 1910 US population 3xs • = a large workforce • = a greater demand for consumer goods. • Laissez-faire = a French phrase that means “let people do as they choose,” • = a popular idea in the late 1800s • Many Americans believed the govt,should not interfere with the economy • wanted supply & demand to regulate prices & wages.

39. The United States Industrializes • Entrepreneurs • risked their capital to organize & run a business • late 1800s, they were attracted to manufacturing & transportation fields. • So? 100s of factories & 1000s of miles of railroad were built.

40. The United States Industrializes • late 1800s, state & fed. govt had a laissez-faireattitude • kept taxes and spending low • Did not impose regulations on industry. • The govt did not control wages or prices. • adopted policies to help industry.

41. The United States Industrializes • high tariffs imposed by Congress in the mid 19th c., • contradicted laissez-faire policies & harmed many Americans. • US raises tariffs on foreign products • other countries respond by raising tariffs against Am. products. • American companies who sold goods overseas, esp. farmers, were hurt by high tariffs.

42. The United States Industrializes • Early 1900: • American industries = large & highly competitive. • Many business leaders began to encourage free trade • believed they could compete internationally & succeed. • New inventions increased America’s productivity • & produced wealth and job opportunities.

43. Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flakes • Like crackers, sugar, and other nonperishable products, cereal had been traditionally sold to consumers in bulk from barrels. In the 1880s the Quaker Oats Company hit on the idea of selling oatmeal in boxes of standard size and weight. A further wrinkle was to process the cereal so that it could be consumed right from the box (with milk) for breakfast. And lo and behold: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes! This is one of Kellogg’s earliest advertisements.

44. The United States Industrializes • 1876 Scottish-American inventor Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. • 1877 Bell organized the Bell Telephone Company • later becomes the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T).

45. The United States Industrializes • late 1800s:Thomas Alva Edison invented or perfected: • the phonograph • the light bulb • the electric generator • the dictaphone • the mimeographthe motion picture. • In 1882 the Edison Electric Illuminating Co. became a new industry • began supplying electric power to customers in New York City.

46. Thomas Edison’s Laboratories in Menlo Park, New Jersey, c. 1880 Thomas Edison’s dream of illuminating the world is illustrated by this fanciful drawing of his laboratories in Menlo, New Jersey. For the time being, however, it was the American home that was the primary beneficiary of Edison’s wonderful light bulb, since electricity was slow to arrive in many parts of the world.

47. The Railroads: Linking the Nation • Post- Civil War: • railroad construction dramatically expands • 1862 Lincoln signs the Pacific Railway Act • provides for the construction of a transcontinental railroad by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad companies • May 10, 1869: • the first transcontinental railroad was complete.

48. The Expansion of the Railroad System, 1870-1890 • In 1870 the nation had 53,000 miles of rail track; in 1890 it had 167,000 miles. That burst of construction essentially completed the nation’s rail network, although there would be additional expansion for the next two decades. The main areas of growth were in the South and west of the Mississippi. The Great Plains and the Far West accounted for over 40 percent of all railroad construction in this period.

49. The Railroads: Linking the Nation • Railroads • encouraged the growth of American industry. • linked the nation & increased the size of markets. • stimulated the economy by spending large amounts of money on steel, coal, and timber. • 1883 • rail service became safer & more reliable • the American Railway Association divided the country into four time zones, or regions, where the same time was kept.

50. The Railroads: Linking the Nation • Large integrated railroad systems: • provided increased efficiency • decrease in time spent in long distance travel • it united Americans from different regions. • Land grants • given to railroad companies by the federal government to encourage railroad construction • Railroad companies (like the Union Pacific and Central Pacific) • were able to cover all their building costs by selling the land to settlers, real estate agencies, and other businesses.