Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California (1868) by Albert Bierstadt

1. Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California (1868) by Albert Bierstadt

2. Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California (1868) by Albert Bierstadt WHAT CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WEST DOES BIERSTADT’S PORTRAIT ILLUSTRATE?

4. Albert Bierstadt

5. Images of the West

6. The Western Frontier

8. The New Western Frontier

9. Opening of the Western Frontier • Gold strikes in the West • Availability of Land • Homestead Act of 1862 • Transcontinental Railroad & railroad building

10. Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 • Granted huge government loans and LAND to railroad companies • Given specifically to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads • Purpose to complete the transcontinental railroad.

11. Transcontinental Railroad

12. RAILROADS OPEN UP AND CONNECT THE WEST • In what ways did the RAILROADS impact the American West? • Provided jobs for railroad work in the west

13. Railroads of the West

14. Morrill-Land Grant Act 1862 • United States Government gave federal lands to state governments to sell to settlers. • Profits from these sales were used to establish colleges. • Colleges focused on agricultural or mechanical curriculum. • Land-Grant Colleges.

15. Homestead Act of 1862 • 160 acres of free land to anyone • U.S. citizen or immigrant filing for citizenship • 21 years old or the head of a household • Women • African Americans • Who live upon the land for 5 years • Who improved the land • Build a home • Farmed the land

16. HOMESTEAD ACT • Between 400,000 and 600,000 people took advantage of this bargain.

17. Homesteaders

18. Difficulties of Plains farming

19. Soddy

20. EXODUSTERS Benjamin Singleton, leader of the EXODUSTERS - movement from the South

22. Native Americans & White Settlement

23. The repeated pattern of Native Americans losing their ancestral lands and culture.

24. “The Great American Desert”The Great Plains

25. 1834, Great Plains ‘Giant Indian Reservation

26. Organized Indian Territory

27. President Grant’s ‘PEACE POLICY’ • Open lands for white settlement. • Allocated lands to the tribes known as RESERVATIONS • On reservations, Indians could be instructed on cultural values and habits of white “CIVILIZED” society. • Taught to grow crops and paid subsistence income until able to support themselves. • Tribes that refused to go to reservation were driven there by the U.S. Army

28. Reservation System

29. S A N D C R E E K

30. The Massacre at Sand Creek • Cheyenne from the Sand Creek Reserve began raiding in Colorado. • Governor Evans ordered militia to attack raiders • By winter of 1864, most Cheyenne had returned to Sand Creek, where they flew the American flag and white flag of peace.

31. Massacre at Sand Creek • General S.R. Curtis, U.S. Army commander of the West ordered Colonel John Chivington “I want no peace till the Indians have suffer more.” • Chivington attacked Cheyenne without warning at dawn, killling more than 200, mostly women and children. • Chivington regarded as a hero

32. The Navajo’s Long Walk

33. Navajo’s Long Walk • Navajo moved from ancestral lands to provide land for white settlers. • Moved east to military camps. • Famous U.S. Army Scout KIT CARSON was responsible for fulfilling the mission of the U.S. Army.

34. The Long Walk • "Cage the badger and he will try to break from his prison and regain his native hole. Chain the eagle to the ground - he will strive to gain his freedom, and though he fails, he will lift his head and look up at the sky which is home - and we want to return to our mountains and plains, where we used to plant corn, wheat and beans." • -- Written by a Navajo in 1865

35. Movement onto the Native American Lands

36. The Plains Indians

37. George Catlin, Plains Indians

38. Buffalo Hunt

39. Life on the Great Plains • Horse and Buffalo helped to shape life • Horse gave mobility • Buffalo source of food and other needs • Men were hunters and warriors. • Lived in small extended family groups and in bands. • Communal life style. • Believed that powerful spirits controlled the events of the natural world. • Holy men were medicine men or shamans.

40. Buffalo • Roamed the plains in the millions at beginning of 19th century. • Central to Native American way of life • Meat for food. • Meat & berries make jerky called pemmican. • Hides for teepee covers, arrow shields, clothes and shoes. • Sinews for thread and bowstrings. • Bones and horns for tools and toys. Skulls used for ceremonies.

42. Destruction of the Buffalo Buffalo Bill White buffalo hunters strip the hide from dead buffalo. White hunters hunted the buffalo for their hides and tongues. The rest of the buffalo carcass to rot.

43. Destruction of the Buffalo In the early 19th century, there were an estimated 15 million buffalo roaming the plains, by the end of the century the buffalo were nearly extinct.

44. The Bozeman Trail • Opened during Civil War. • Ran through the Black Hills of South Dakota, sacred Sioux lands called Paha Sapa. • White settled upon and established military forts along the trail. • Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho began guerilla warfare against the whites.

45. The First Sioux Wars & the Fetterman Massacre Battle of the Hundred Slain Crazy Horse and other warriors lure Captain Fetterman & his cavalry into an ambush and surround & kill all the soldiers. Fighting lasts for another year.

46. The Treaty of Fort Laramie (the Treaty of 1868) • Signed by Chief Red Cloud of the Sioux. • Bozeman Trail closed. • Sioux move onto great Sioux reservation. • U.S. Government would provide protection and supplies. • Not signed by Sioux chiefs such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.

47. Chief Red Cloud meets President Grant

48. Chief Red Cloud, Oglala Sioux Benevolent assimilation

49. A Good Day to Die Lakota Sioux

50. The Sioux Wars of 1870s • American promises of the Treaty of 1868 were violated. • Bands of Sioux left the reservation and resumed previous way of life. • Many Sioux leaders, like Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse of the Lakota had not signed the treaty.