The Closing of the Western Frontier: Impact and Legacy

1. Closing the Western Frontier, 1865-1900 APUSH – Lecture 5A Mrs. Kray Some slides taken from Susan Pojer

2. Turner’s Frontier Thesis

3. “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” 1893 • In 1890, the census reported that for the first time in American history a frontier line no longer existed • The “closing” of the frontier inspired Frederick Jackson Turner to write “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” • One of the most influential essays in American history Frederick Jackson Turner

4. Turner’s Thesis • Turner argued that the existence of cheap, unsettled land had played a key role in making American society more democratic. • The frontier helped shape a distinctive American spirit of democracy and egalitarianism. • Acted as a safety valve that enabled Eastern factory workers and immigrants to escape bad economic conditions and find new opportunities. • Played a key role in stimulating American nationalism and individualism. • Because of the frontier, America did not have a hereditary landed aristocracy.

5. Settlement of the Western Frontier

6. The First Transcontinental Railroad, 1869 • Gov’t believed RRs would lead the way to western settlement • Congress authorized land grants & loans to build 1st transcontinental railroad • Union Pacific built westward across Great Plains • used Irish labor • Central Pacific built eastward through the Sierras • used Chinese labor

7. Western Land Grants • To encourage railroad construction westward, government offered land subsidies and loans to the railroad companies • Assumed RRs would make every effort to sell the land to new settlers to finance construction • RRs controlled 50% of the land in western states • Promoted hasty & poor construction • Widespread corruption at all levels of government • 1880s protests against land grants mounted

8. "The BIG Four" Railroad Magnates Collis Huntington Charles Crocker Leland Stanford Mark Hopkins

9. The Other Transcontinentals • Southern Pacific • Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe • Northern Pacific • Great Northern - only one built w/o subsidies

10. Consequences for the Great Plains • The railroads played a key role in the near-extinction of the buffalo herds. • This dealt a devastating blow to the culture of the Plains Indians. • The railroads brought a tidal wave of troops, farmers, miners, and cattlemen to the Great Plains. • As the settlers built farms, range-fed cattle rapidly replaced the now decimated buffalo herds.

11. Frontier Farmers • The Great American Desert • Area between Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Coast • passed quickly over this vast, dry region to reach the more inviting lands of CA and OR on the West Coast • Homestead Act of 1862 • Offered 160 acres of public land free to any family that settled on it for 5 yrs. • 500,000 took advantage of act • Free land + promotions of RRs & land speculators = migration of thousands to the Great Plains from 1870-1900 • Oklahoma Land Rush, 1889

12. Oklahoma Land Rush, 1889

13. Sodbusters and Exodusters Sodbusters • Great Plains are dry and treeless • 160 acres not enough for farming • Farmers faced extreme weather, grasshoppers, loneliness • 2/3 of homesteaders’ farms failed • Ultimately, new “dry farming techniques,” new machinery, and hardier strains of wheat that could survive extreme weather made farming successful Exodusters

14. Frontier Miners • Discovery of gold in CA caused the 1st flood of miners (49ers) • Gold & silver strikes in CO, NV, ID, MT, AZ, & SD kept a steady flow of hopeful prospectors pushing into the western mountains. • 0 • 1859  Gold discovered at Pikes Peak in Colorado • brought nearly100,000 miners • 1859  Comstock Load discovered in Nevada • Produced $340 million worth of gold and silver by 1890

15. Impact of Mining:Chinese Immigration • Increase in Chinese Immigration • Mining companies needed experienced miners • In 1860s  about 1/3 of the western miners were Chinese • Native-born Americans resented the competition & Chinese faced discrimination

16. Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882 • First major act restricting immigration based on race

17. Impact of Mining:Growth of Boomtowns Comstock Lode  Virginia City, NV • Strikes would create towns overnight • Many became ghost towns after the gold & silver ran out • Other became important commercial centers: San Francisco, Sacramento, & Denver Deadwood, SD

18. Impact of Mining • Stimulated western settlement • Increased silver supply • created a crisis over the relative value of gold- & silver-backed currency • Leading political issue in 1880s & 1890s • Environmental scars • Led to conflicts with Native Americans

19. Frontier Cowboys:Long Range Cattle Drives • The Open Range • Open grasslands reached from Texas to Canada • Texas cattle business was easy to get into b/c cattle & grass were free • Vast economic potential – changed America’s eating habits to beef • Dodge City and other cow towns popped up along the RRs to handle the cattle driven up the cattle trails out of Texas

20. Dodge City Peace Commission, 1890 Bat Masterson Wyatt Earp

21. The Myth of the Cowboy • Image of the rugged, self-reliant cowboy important to American culture • Reality didn’t always match the myth • Many were black & Mexican • Received about a dollar a day for their work • Watching cattle is boring

22. The Range Wars and the End of the Long Drive • Long drive ended in the 1880s for three reasons: • Overgrazing • 1885-86 winter blizzard & drought killed off 90% of the cattle • Arrival of homesteaders who used barbed wire invented by Joseph Glidden for fencing • Range Wars • Sheep-herders vs. Cattle ranchers • Cattle rustling, like farming and mining became a business for the wealthy

23. Legendary Gunslingers and Train Robbers Billy the Kid Jesse James “God didn’t make men equal. Colonel Colt did!” Colt .45

24. Conflicts with Native Americans

25. The Plains Indians • Made up 2/3 of the western tribes • Many were eastern transplants • Lived a nomadic lifestyle following the buffalo • Skilled horsemen • Lived in small tribes of 300-500 • Conflicts with the U.S. government partly due to whites having little understanding of tribal organization and their nomadic lifestyle

26. Transformation of the Plains Indians’ Lifestyle • Transcontinental RRs transformed the economy of the entire region • Virtual extermination of the buffalo doomed their nomadic way of life • Ravaged by diseases. • Reservation Policy • Begun under Andrew Jackson in 1830s • 1851: Treaty of Fort Laramie • gov’t assigned the plains tribes to reservations with definite boundaries • Plains tribes refused to restrict their movements

27. The Indian Wars, 1860s-1880s • As whites began to settle the Plains, warfare became inevitable • Sand Creek Massacre (1864): Colorado soldiers slaughter 200 Cheyenne on a reservation • Sioux Wars, 1862-1890 • U.S government had signed treaties attempting to isolate Native Americans on smaller reservations w/promises of gov’t support • Sparked by the discovery of gold in the Black Hills and violations of the treaty • Sioux Wars Cont. • Fetterman Massacre (1866): 80 U.S. soldiers lured out of sight of their fort and kill • Battle of the Little Big Horn (1876): 5,000 Sioux ambush and destroy Col. Custer’s regiment • Red River War, 1874-1875 • 1877: Chief Joseph surrendered after trying to lead his Nez Perce into Canada • Made it 1100 miles before forced to surrender

29. Helen Hunt Jackson’sA Century of Dishonor • Chronicled the injustices done to Native Americans • It aroused public awareness of the federal government’s long record of betraying and cheating Native Americans. • Especially in eastern part of the U.S. • Led to new assimilation policy • Emphasized formal education, training & conversion to Christianity

30. Carlisle School, PA Boarding schools were set up to teach them white culture, farming, & industrial skills Native American children were separated from their families

31. The Dawes Severalty Act, 1887 • Inspired in part by A Century of Dishonor • Misguided attempt to reform the government’s Native American policy • Goal was to assimilate Native Americans into the mainstream of American life • Dissolved tribes as legal entities and eliminating tribal ownership of land. • Divided tribal lands into 160 acres plots • Granted U.S. citizenship to any Native American that stayed on the land for 25 yrs. & “adopted the habits of civilized life” Senator Henry Dawes

32. Impact of the Dawes Severalty Act • New policy was a failure • Act ignored the inherent reliance of traditional Indian culture on tribally owned land. • By 1900, Indians had lost 50 percent of the 156 million acres they had held just two decades earlier • The forced-assimilation doctrine of the Dawes Act remained the cornerstone of the government’s official Indian policy for nearly half a century. • The Indian Reservation Act of 1934 partially reversed the individualistic approach of the Dawes Act by restoring the tribal basis of Indian life.

33. The Ghost Dance Movement, 1890 • Last effort of Native American resistance • The dance was sacred ritual expressing a vision that the buffalo would return and White civilization would vanish. • The army attempted to destroy it fearing that the ceremony would cause an uprising.

34. Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890 • U.S. army surrounded Sioux encampment at Wounded Knee to disarm them • Over 200 Sioux men, women & children were gunned down by the U.S. army • Event marked the end of the Indian Wars Sioux Chief Big Foot, dead in the snow