The American Frontier West

APUSH

U.S. government policies played a huge role in getting people to move West. Over time, the government made it easier to buy land by either reducing the cost per acre, or by allowing people to purchase fewer acres. It also led to earlier movement westward than if the land had been sold at higher prices and led to higher wages in the East since potential laborers were moving West.

Land prices affected people’s ability to move West

• 1787- pay 1/3 cash; balance in 3 mos

• 1796- reservation price raised to $2 per acre;

pay ½ in 30 days & balance in 1 yr

• 1800- acreage req. dropped to 320 acres;

pay ¼ in 30 days & balance in 3 yrs

• 1804- acreage req. dropped to 160 acres

• 1820- reservation price dropped to $1.25; acreage req. dropped to 80; credit repealed

• 1832- acreage req. dropped to 40 acres

• 1841- General Pre-emption Act put ceiling on max acreage to 160 acres & sales in cash

• 1854- Graduation Act- lowered prices of land that had been auctioned but not sold (e.g. 12.5 cents/acre for land unsold for 30 years)

US Gov’t suspends sale of federal lands, 1891

• Today the US gov’t owns over 775

million acres of land. This is over

1/3 of the total US land• ALaska- 339 million acres

• National parks- 71 million acres

• Forrest service- 191 million acres

• Native American lands- 53 million acres

• Pentagon- 30 million acres

• Most land is west of the 100th meridian—panhandle of OK up through KS, NE, SD, NE

• Most Minerals, timber, and oil come from these lands which are leased for ranching, drilling & mining….this of course, is controversial

As a result, Americans went West in record numbers in the mid- to late-1800s, and by 1900 historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner said that the West was “closed.” As a result, there were four main groups who competed for the land….

Railroads move

people west

• 1st Transcontinental RR, 1862-69– Pacific RR Act, 1862– Omaha, NE to Sacramento, CA– Land & $$$ incentives– Shortens trip westward

• RRs Recruited Workers– 2.2m foreign born workers come, 1870-1900– Immigrant = cheap labor

• Came to escape war, make $ & return• Irish, Mexican-Americans & Chinese

• Attracted settlers– Encouraged farmers (families) to specialize

in cash crops – Encouraged cattle ranching b/c of lower

transportation costs

• Result: More people move West

Farming the West• Late 1880s US needed new sources

of good soil, water, climate…• Solution? Great Plains

– Homestead Act (1862)– Timber Culture Act (1873)– Desert land Act (1877)– Timber & Stone Act (1878)

• Inventions help– Windmill– Steel tipped Plow– Barbed wire– Mechanical Reaper– Threshing Machine

• Result: Land becomes more useful– Easterner push for more wheat– More farmers = overproduction– Farm communities depend on each other– Led to conflict with ranchers…

Cattlemen & Cowboys

• Cattle Industry: 3 Needs– Open range for grazing & cattle drive

• Land too expensive to buy individually so ranchers worked together (to gain control)

• “Tragedy” & rules for the “Commons”

– RRs to transport meat to market• Cut costs = lots of profit

– New science of cattle breeding

• Cattlemen vs. Cowboys– Cattlemen = big business owners

from the East– Cowboys = Poor, young, 20%

Mexican or black

• Result: Peak Years 1880-1885– Post-1885 draught, overgrazing,

fences, freezes…– Replaced by smaller, fenced-in cattle

ranches

Striking it Rich?• Boom Towns

– CA Gold, 1849-50• Sutter’s Mill, CA• Sutter got the land grants from

MX, but 9 days after his discovery the land belonged to the US

• By 1866 over 500 mining camps (300 x 150 miles)

– NV Silver: “Comstock Lode”• 1859 = $260,000• 1861 = $2.5 million from an area

1 x 5 miles

– Other discoveries in ID, MT, WY, CO, NM & AK

• Mining camp codes…

Striking it Rich?

• Mining camp codes– Described boundaries– Defined exclusive claims– Claims had to be marked

“All and everybody, this is my claim, fifty feet on the gulch, cordin to Clear Creek District Law, backed up by my shotgun amendments. Any person found trespassing on this claim will be persecuted to the full extent of the law. This is no monkey tale but I will assert by rites at the pint of the sicks shirter if legally necessary so taik heed and good warnin”

Striking it Rich?• Vs. Bust Cycle…

– Towns became ghost towns once the ore was gone

• Real profits only made by big mining companys– Used expensive equipment & paid

wage laborers

• Result: The Wild West?– Law & Order?– Territorial growth → statehood

American Indians fight Back• Indian Resistance, 1861-1867

– Atrocities on both sides• Sand Creek, 1864• Powder River & Fetterman Massacre, 1865

– Congressional investigations?

• Indian Retreat, 1867-1890– Reservations– The End of Resistance

• Custer, 1876• Chief Joseph, 1877• Geronimo, 1886• Ghost Dance & Wounded Knee, 1890

• Result: “New” Reservation System– Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor– Dawes Act, 1887: 160 acres to Americanize NAs– Carlisle School (Carlisle, PA)

Chief Joseph

The Final Frontier?• Did the frontier close?

– Gadsden Purchase finished the contiguous U.S.– TransconRR = easy transport of goods/people– Increased settlement

• Gov’t encouragement via land laws & give-aways • Eastern industrial push for resources

• frederick Jackson Turner, in The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893) argued that the West was the chief influence in shaping a distinctive American way of life

The TURNER THESIS• The influence of the frontier included …

– Social Equality– Growth of Political Democracy– Nationalism– Faith in the future– Economic independence– Safety valve for factory workers– Invention– Wasteful Agriculture

• Effects of the Close of the Frontier included…– Lack of safety valve for labor led to labor strife– Immigrants crowd into large cities– Awakened the need for environmental conservation– Rise of imperialism to gain new markets, resources & investment opportunities

• Modern studies of The West

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Reflection Qs1. Name three groups and describe why they

went West.

2. Summarize the Turner Thesis in a few sentences

3. List two things that you learned that were interesting &/or that you will remember easily a month from now.