THE GREAT WEST AND THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION,

1865-1896 Chapter 26

Indians Embattled In The West

• The Great West• At the time of the Civil War the West was a vast

unsettled area • By 1890 territories were being carved out and

Indians being squeezed out and pushed into reservations.

• 1865-1890 final showdown for the independent Indian tribes.

• Area inhabited by “plains” Indians • hunted and relied on the vast herds of Buffalo that

roamed freely over the prairie.

Pressure on Western Indians

• Pre-Civil War• Guns• Diseases• Cattle

• Post Civil War• Migration West by settlers forced tribes to move

further west.• More pressure on Western tribes when competition

between tribes for resources began to increase.

Treaties• Politicians tried to pacify the tribes by signing treaties

with the tribal heads.• Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, under the terms of

agreement, the United States would supply the several tribes with $50,000 for 50 years, design territorial boundaries of each tribe, provide punishment for depredations, and gave authority for the government to lay roads and build military forts on Indian lands.

• Fort Atkinson Treaty, this treaty was an attempt to establish peace among southern Plains Indians in order to ease settlers passage westward and facilitate the building of the transcontinental railroad through Indian lands.

• Beginning of the reservation system in the west. • Treaties were doomed to failure.

Fort Laramie Treaty Land Survey

Reservations• In the 1860s Indians began to be confined

to even smaller reservations in exchange for promises to be left alone, food and other supplies.• Northern plains Indians --the large Dakota

territory (“Great Sioux Reservation”)• South, Indian territory in present-day Oklahoma.

• Promises were broken. • Sioux uprising in Min. during the civil war

is bloodily crushed

Indian Wars• 1868-90 -- Constant

warfare between Indians and federal government.

• Buffalo soldiers of the 10th Cavalry.

• Western Indians were a much bigger challenge than Eastern Indians.

Receding Native Population• Atrocities on both sides • Sand Creek Massacre (1864), a surprise attack by US

troops on a Cheyenne camp during peace negotiations with the federal government. Led by Col. Chivington, the Indians attempted to surrender but US forces continued to attack killing over 200 Cheyenne tribe members. • Sand Creek Massacre led to the Plains Indian Wars.

• Fetterman massacre, worst military defeat to Indian forces at that time, occurred in Powder River Wyoming and Indian forces defeated Captain Fetterman and his 81 troops. • Red Cloud’s War• Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, granted hunting rights to

original tribes in areas of South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. Also granted larger area of land to the Indians, closed off areas to white settlers, and helped end Red Clouds War.

2nd Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1868)

ReservationPolicy

Chief Sitting Bull

Gen. GeorgeArmstrong

Custer

Battle of Little Big Horn Custer leads a “scientific expedition” into

the Black Hills of South Dakota Reports discovery of gold on Sioux

territory. Hordes of gold seekers stream into the

Sioux territory. The Sioux attack these “invaders” of

their land led by Sitting Bull. Custer’s’ 7th Cavalry sent in to bring

“peace.” Custer’s troops wiped out at Little Big

Horn in present-day Montana when Custer blunders into an ambush sprung by a superior force. All 264 killed.

Apache• Apache’s in Arizona

and New Mexico were the most difficult to subdue.

• Led by Geronimo. • Ultimately

Resettled in Oklahoma

Nez Perce• Nez Perce go to war in

Idaho in 1877.• Government shrunk

reservation by 90%. • Chief Joseph leads

his band on 1700 mile trek over the Continental divide.

• Surrenders and sent to reservation in Kansas where 40% die of disease.

Bellowing Herds Of Bison• 1865--15 Million

buffalo. • Integral to the way of life

for Nomadic Western Indians.

• They were the staff of life for Indians,

• By 1885 fewer than a 1000.

• Shot to feed RR gangs, for skins, for sport and as a way to subdue the Indians.

The End Of The Trail• 1880s national

conscience awakening. • Helen Hunt Jackson -- A

Century of Dishonor; Ramona

• Humanitarians:• Christianize the Indians• Turn them into productive

farmers • Integrate them as citizens.

• Hardliners insisted on forced containment.

Assimilating Indians• Missionary policies

ignored the culture of the Indians.

• Christian missionaries on the reservations tried to force Indian culture out of the Indians. Didn’t work

• Ghost Dance cult: began once Federal Government outlawed the “Sun Dance.”

• Wounded Knee massacre.

Dawes Severalty Act of 1887

• Attempt to transform Indians into good American farmers.• Major shift in Indian policy. Ends reservation system.• Provisions:

• Dissolved many tribes as legal entities• wiped out tribal joint ownership of land. • Individual family heads given 160 acres of land. • Full title and citizenship in 25 years if behaved themselves.• Leftover reservation land sold; money to be used to educate and civilize the Indians.

• Missionaries and teachers sent to reservations to Christianize and teach women to sew and keep house.

Dawes Severalty Act (1887):Assimilation Policy

Carlisle Indian School, PA

Dawes Act Failure

• Dawes Act failed.• Why?

• By 1900 Indians had lost half of the land they had held 20 years earlier.

• Dawes Act remains as basic framework for dealing with Indians until 1934, later changed to what was called the Indian Reorganization Act which tried to restore Indian culture.

Mining

• Mining brought many people west and helped settle the west.

• Gold in California in 1849, • Gold Rush in Colorado in 1858 Pike’s Peak or

Bust.• Comstock load in Nevada in 1859. • Additional smaller strikes in Montana, Idaho and

other Western states. • Many boomtowns spring up

Mining• Small-time mining

replaced by corporations • Increased role for women

in West• Effect on economy of

mining.• Helped finance the Civil War • Facilitated building of the RR • Reduced the value of silver

Mining Centers: 1900

Cattle Drives• 1866-1888 was the era of

the Cattle drives • Wild Longhorns in Texas

and Mexico.• Transcontinental Railroad

allowed for easy shipping of cattle back east to stockyards and meatpacking industries.

• 1000-10,000 head herds• Abilene, Dodge City,

Ogallala and Cheyenne.

Cattle Drives• Pros and cons for

terminus towns • Wyatt Earp; Batt

Masterson• 4 million steers

were driven north. Profits as high as 40%.

• Why Cattle drives ended?

Free Land For Free Families

• Homestead Act of 1862.• Any adult could claim 160 acres of public land on

certain conditions:• Live on it for 5 years• Improve the land• Pay a fee of $30.00

• Dramatic change in land policy. • Trickle-down

• Intent was to provide a stimulus to the family farm, seen as the back-bone of democracy.

Reality of Western Farming

• Problem: 160 acres often inadequate to sustain a farmer in the Trans-Mississippi west because of the scant rainfall.• Perhaps 2/3 failed to stay for the full five years.

• In 40 years, nearly half a million families took advantage of the Homestead Act (160 acre tracts granted to men looking to settle in western US).

• Many more than that purchased their lands from the RR, land companies or the states.

• Rampant Fraud: corporations, land-grabbers, lack of improvements, “dummy homesteaders.”

Homestead Act

A Pioneer’s Sod House, SD

Great American Desert• Western Prairie had

thick sod, no trees. Thought to be un-farmable.

• Rich soil underneath

• Sod-busting• Oxen and heavy

plow

• 1870s farmers stream onto Western Prairie

Busting in Kansas• Farmers pushed too far west. • 100th Meridian.• 1870s Farmers do well. Why?• 1880s and early 1890s many of these farmers busted. Why? • Western Kansas lost half its population between 1888 and 1892.• What new innovations help western farmers.

• dry-land farming; • heartier wheat; • new crops; • irrigation

Average Annual Precipitation

The Far West Comes Of Age

• 1870 and 1890 a boom time for the far west. • Colorado, Dakotas, Montana, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming all become states during this period..• Oklahoma Land Rush

• Last gasp of the large-scale opening of new lands for settlement • April, 1889 Oklahoma thrown open to settlement. • Sooners• Boomers• By end of year, 60,000 inhabitants. Oklahoma a state in 1909.

The Folding Frontier• The frontier is considered to have closed in 1890.

• No longer a discernable frontier line. • No longer “good” free land readily available.

• Lots of unsettled land, but largely undesirable. • No longer line beyond which wilderness and no

civilization.• Role of Frontier in shaping America

Frontier Settlements: 1870-1890

Frederick Jackson Turner

The Significance of the Frontier in American Society (1893)

The Farm Becomes A Factory

• Farming more of a business post-Civil War.• More farmers raise cash crops. Problems

with this?• Farmers have to buy more stuff.• Increased mechanization boosted

production, but also boosted the cash farmers need.• Needed heavy machinery in order to plant and

harvest their bigger crops on larger farms.• Many bought the new harvester-reaper

Unhappy Farmers

• Much more dependence on banks, RR and manufacturing

• Farmers had to be much better businessmen• Farmers were and felt much more vulnerable

and powerless. • Farmers grew resentful of eastern banking and

RR, which they blamed for their problems.• Farming became a much larger-scale operation.

• Small farmers were pushed out by increased mechanization

Deflation Dooms the Debtor

• 1880s and 1890s: deflation and depressed commodity prices

• Farmers, in debt to buy land and harvesters, behind the 8-ball. Debts harder to pay off.

• Causes of deflation• Not enough dollars in circulation • Money supply did not keep pace with increased

economic activity. • After the Civil War, Grant contracts the money

supply to get rid of greenbacks and to shore up US credit.

Falling Grain Prices• Effect of

mechanization on grain supply.

• Farmers went bankrupt in great numbers

• Especially in the south, farmers became tenants rather than owners.

• By 1880 ¼ of all American farms operated by tenants.

Unhappy Farmers• Farmers faced additional

problems:• Grasshoppers• Boll weevil• Droughts• Land was over-taxed by state

and federal government• Protective tariff• Trusts exacted inflated

prices.• RR freight rates were

sometimes ruinous.• Farmers still half the

population in 1890 but hopelessly disorganized

The Farmers Take Their Stand

• The Grange (1867). • Oliver Kelley the founder

• Spread quickly; by 1875 had 800,000 members • Advocated regulation of RR rates, grain storage fees. • Coops.• Got into politics.• Got states to pass laws regulating RR and grain elevators, but Supreme Court struck down these laws.

• Wabash Cases

Prelude to Populism• Farmers’ Alliance founded in Texas in late 1870s. • By 1890 more than a million members.• Problems

• targeted to land-owners, thus ignoring all the tenant farmers• excluded blacks, half all southern farmers

• Goals: • nationalize RR, • abolish national banks, • institute a graduated income tax • government-owned warehouses where they could store their crops until market prices rose while taking out loans against the assumed future value of their crops.

McKinley

• William McKinley of Ohio.

• Mark Hanna• McKinley political

philosophy. • Hanna’s money and

political influence get McKinley the nomination on the first ballot

Bryan’s Cross of Gold• In 1896 Democrats were in

turmoil. Cleveland very unpopular

• Silverite faction in firm control.

• William Jennings Bryan • Cross-of-Gold Speech

• Floor the convention and gets him the nomination

“Cross of Gold” Speech

You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!

Democratic Platform• Platform calls for unlimited minting of silver at the

ratio of 16 ounces for each ounce of gold. • Many conservative democrats bolt the party and

support McKinley. • Populists endorse Bryan and sacrifice their

identity.

Silver v. Gold

• Republicans assumed tariff would be the primary issue, but Bryan made it silver.

• He traveled tirelessly giving 600 speeches.

• His campaign like a religious crusade. • Silver became the rallying cry.• Debtors and Farmers v. eastern big-money

interests. • Gold standard a scapegoat. • Return of Jacksonian Democrats?

Hanna Leads Gold Bugs• Conservatives and business interests saw the

free-coinage of silver as the road to economic ruin.

• Allowed Hanna to raise tons of money from big businesses

• Republicans had a 16-1 money advantage. • Hanna wages campaign of fear against Bryan.• Slogan “McKinley and a full dinner pail.” • McKinley campaigns from his porch• Employers scare employees

• McKinley wins decisively by 500,000 votes and 271-176 in Electoral College. Turnout is very high

Election of 1896

• Election was a major victory for middle-class values, big business and conservative monetary policies.

• Most significant election since Lincoln and until FDR in 1932.

• Renewed Republican dominance of Presidency

Inflation Without Silver• McKinley was a cautions, temperate,

conservative• Worked well with congress and with his own

party• Did not advocate major reforms.• Tariff rates back to 46.5%• Soon after the election, prosperity returned;

natural business cycle. Republicans took credit.• Inflation happened naturally.

• New gold discoveries and new processes for extracting gold from ore increase money supply

Was Bryan right?• Was a shortage of

currency• Did hurt debtors and

farmers• Banking system did

favor big business.• But, Silver would

have taken US off Gold standard

• Silver the wrong cure

Graphic Analysis• In examining the chart below, develop 1-2

paragraphs explaining why the employment of farming took such a drastic downward trend from 1910-2000. Include 2-3 reasons gained during lecture or prior knowledge to support your argument.