Chapter 26

1. Chapter 26 The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution 1865 – 1896

2. Indians Embattled in the West • After the Civil War, the West was open for settlement • Untamed land, buffalo, mostly Native inhabitants • As white pop. grew, they moved West onto Indian lands • Indians fought vs. each other—vs. whites—fewer buffalo to live on—white diseases • Natives justified their actions (vs. other tribes & whites) because of the way the whites had treated them • Fed. Govt. tried to pacify the Indians by signing treaties at Fort Laramie in 1851 and Fort Atkinsonin 1853 with the chiefs of the tribes • Native Americans didn’t recognize authorities outside of their tribes • 1860s - the U.S. government intensified its effort into herding Indians into still smaller and smaller reservations (like the Dakota Territory) • Empty promises were made to the Indians • Wouldn’t be bothered • Could stay on your land • Will be paid well for the land • Treaties will be made (good for both sides)

3. 1868-1890 - Native frustration led to confrontations called the “Indian Wars” • 1864 - Sand Creek • 400 Indians—who thought they had been promised safety—were massacred • 1866 - a Sioux war party ambushed 81 soldiers and civilians constructing the Bozeman Trail to the Montana goldfields, leaving no survivors • Gold in the Black Hills of SD gave whites an excuse to invade Indian Territory (again) • Battle of Little Bighorn—Col. Custer’s men were decimated • Sioux leader, Sitting Bull escaped • Gold seekers shrank the Indian Territory by 90% • Most resistant Indian leaders: Nez Perce-Chief Joseph; Apache-Geronimo • They were tamed due to the railroad, which shot through the heart of the West, the White man’s diseases, and the extermination of the buffalo • By 1885, fewer than 1000 buffalo were left (tens of millions prior to European settlement), mostly in Yellowstone National Park

4. End of the Trail • Whites were never going to stop heading West onto Indian land • Tried to assimilate them into the white culture • Some whites felt they had to convert these savages— “White Man’s Burden” (Rudyard Kippling) • 1884 - the government to outlawed the sacred Sun Dance • Battle of Wounded Knee, the “Ghost Dance,” as it was called by the Whites, as brutally stamped out by U.S. troops, who killed women and kids • Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 • dissolved the legal entities of all tribes • if the Indians behaved “properly”, could become U.S. citizens in 1912 • full citizenship to all Indians was granted in 1924 • Carlisle Indian Schoolfounded to integrate Native American white American culture • By 1900 they had lost half the land than they had held 20 years before • Native pop. would never get back what was taken from them

5. Gold • discovered in California in the late 1840s • 1858, the same happened at Pike’s Peak in Colorado • within a month or two, it was all out • Some areas were huge for a while—as gold & silver ran out—so did the people (ghost towns) Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive • Transcontinental railroad made marketing beef possible • cattle could now be shipped bodily to the stockyards • “Long Drive” now emerged as Texas cowboys herded cattle across desolate land to railroad terminals • Dodge City, Abilene, Ogallala, and Cheyenne became favorite stopovers • Railroads helped the industry & killed it • As they brought the cattle in, people moved onto land & put up barbed wire—Cowboys couldn’t get cattle through it all • blizzards in the winter of 1886-87 left dazed cattle starving & freezing

6. Homestead Act of 1862 • folks to get as much as 160 acres if: • living on it for five years • improving it • paying a nominal fee of about $30.00 • allowed folks to get land after only six month’s residence for $1.25 an acre • act led half a million families to buy land and settle out West (too good to be true?) • 160 acres was rarely enough for a family to earn a living and survive • families were forced to give up their homesteads before the five years were up • droughts, bad land, and lack of necessities forced them out • A lot of land ended up in the hands of cheats—said they had a 12 X 14 home—didn’t live there—was actually 12 X 14 inches Taming Western Deserts • people rashly pushed further west, past the 100th meridian, to grow wheat • successful farming could only be attained by massiveirrigation

7. farmers developed the technique of “dry farming,” or using shallow cultivation methods to plant and farm • method created a finely pulverized surface soil that contributed to the notorious “Dust Bowl” several decades later • dams that tamed the Missouri and Columbia Rivers helped water the land West Comes of Age • 1889-90 - Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming were admitted into the Union • Govt. made land available in Oklahoma (used to belong to Natives) • Many sooners came in before they were supposed to • Troops had to evict them • April 22, 1889 - Oklahoma was legally opened • 1907 - Oklahoma became the “Sooner State.” • 1890 - the U.S. census announced that a frontier was no longer discernible • People later realized that land was not infinite & they’d have to take care of what they had • Set up parks like: Yellowstone, founded in 1872, followed by Yosemite and Sequoia (1890)

8. Folding Frontier • frontier was a state of mind and a symbol of opportunity • “safety valve theory”--frontier was like a safety valve for folks who, when it became too crowded in their area, could simply pack up and leave, moving West • West became a place for people (who couldn’t farm) to find work • lure of the West may have led to city employers raising wages to keep workers in the cities • Farms started focusing on single cash crops • Aaron Montgomery Wardcatalogue (1872) made it possible to order the other things they needed • New inventions allowed farming to be done quicker & with less people (plow, seeder, and harrow, the new twine binder, and the combined reaper-thresher) • Stage was set for farmers to suffer & fail

9. Deflation • So many crops were produced - prices drop • Paying back debts was especially hard • not enough money to go around for everyone • thousands of homesteads fell to mortgages and foreclosure • 1880s and early 1890s - droughts, grasshopper plagues, & heat waves made the toiling farmers miserable and poor • Farmers were forced to pay taxes (city, state, fed.) • Other things affected farmers: fixed freight $$ by RR; middlemen cutting into profit National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry • founded by Oliver H. Kelley to improve the lives of isolated farmers through social, educational, and fraternal activities • most success in the upper Mississippi Valley • managed to get Congress to pass a set of regulations known as the Granger Laws