Expansion and Migration After the Civil War

During his presidency, Lincoln signed four bills, sometimes called the “Western New Deal” Department of Agriculture Act, 1862:

Creates Department of Agriculture for development in West.

Homestead Act

Pacific Railway Act, 1862: Creates the Transcontinental Railroad.

Morrill Act, 1862: Gives states title to lands to sell – those sales are then used for technological colleges in those states.

The California Gold Rush of 1848 draws huge numbers of settlers and prospectors westward. Big reason for Californian statehood.

Cause conflict between Native Americans and prospectors.

Act for the Government and Protection of Indians in 1850 allows for enslavement of Native Americans.

Native American population in California drops from 150kin 1845 to less than 30k by 1870.

The Homestead Act of 1862: Any American can claim a parcel of land (160 acres) in the west by settling it for a minimum of five years. File an application with the government

Improve the land (build a shelter)

File for a deed of title

Notable because: Freed slaves can settle the land

Anyone over the age of 21 can homestead

Spurs development of the Western territories

Settles 10% of the Continental US

One hundred and fifty years ago the vacant lands of the West were opened to private use. One hundred years ago the Congress passed the Homestead Act, probably the single greatest stimulus to national development ever enacted. Under the impetus of that Act and other laws, more than 1.1 billion acres of the original public main have been transferred to private and non-federal public ownership. The 768 million acres remaining in federal ownership are a valuable national asset. - JFK What are some issues with his quote? What doesn’t he seem to include?

I've long believed that one of the mainsprings of our own liberty has been the widespread ownership of property among our people and the expectation that anyone's child, even from the humblest of families, could grow up to own a business or a corporation. Thomas Jefferson dreamed of a land of small farmers, of shopowners, and merchants. Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act that ensured that the great western prairies of America would be the realm of independent, propertyowning citizens—a mightier guarantee of freedom is difficult to imagine. - Reagan

Letter from a Freeman

Friend Agnes

I came in from the planes last Friday and founde two leters from you One dated the 4th of July the other the 17th. I was glad to hear that you had such a good time on the 4th as for me I went to a selebration at Beatrice we had speaking and diner and dance at night as for the caus of my writing to you on the 4th I was thinking of James no one can tell my feelings unless they hav lost an only Brother Before his death I never was lonsom or homsick no difernce where I was But now I am lonsom wheather in company or alone in a city or on the Planes he alwasewrote to me when ever I came to a stoping place I alwase got leters from him and that was the caus of my writing to you thinking you might write a friendly leter in return—

there is no chance to git a photograph taken near here But I will git mine taken for you as soon as I go to whare it can be taken the indians hav bin peasable untill lately they hav bin killing som out west near whare I was hunting and hav drove off a large lot of horses and catel I shall start next Thursday with a company of volenteersand a war party of Pawnee and Otoe Indian wariors to drive the hostile Indians from the setelments from the scarcity of soldiers to protect us we hav to take the friendly Indians as alies for self defence at Beatrice thare is no danger but we must help our friends that are in danger a few weeks of that kind of soldiering is all that I want I would not like to be ordered around by sholderstraps I like the west well we hav a rough but free and easy way that sutes me well and this is a good place to rase stock and make money the hard times are scarcely felt here if we git scarce of cloths we make a suply from the skin of the dear antelope and elk—we hav a large yeald of wheat and oats this harvest and corn _____

well I hav my farm rented and I furnish team and get one half the grane—I do not think I shall go to Iillinois this sumer But I want to go this winter if I can manage to git my stock fed and taken care of while I am away—there is no paper published in Beatrice but I will send you some western papers

The Transcontinental Railroad, completed in 1869, connects Omaha to Sacramento and creates a link between eastern and western United States. Construction begins 1863

Finished in 1869 at Promontory Point – meeting of two rails.

Effect on US almost immediate – goods, people begin shipping out west.

“Railways, multiplied and spanning the continent, are essential domestic institutions --more powerful and more permanent than law, or popular consent, or political constitutions... They thoroughly complete the grand system... which fraternizes us into one people.”William Gilpin

Who would be left out of this “one people?”

"That moment, at Promontory Point is a moment of tremendous significance, because on either side of that moment, were vastly different worlds, radically different worlds. It foretold the whole story of technology. The coming of the machine. And what could be more symbolic of that new age than the completion of the railroad and the driving of the golden spike. Nothing would ever be the same in the West."

"The Invasion of America“

Free write: Define genocide. What are some examples of genocide in the modern era?

“And so, at last, our fathers were steadily driven out, or killed, and we, their sons, but sorry remnants of tribes once mighty, are cornered in little spots of the earth all ours of right—cornered like guilty prisoners, and watched by men

with guns, who are more than anxious to kill us off.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/aaron_huey?language=en

Agrarian Utopia!

Yeoman farmers

Homestead Act

Westward expansion

Self-sufficiency

But this all comes at what price?

And how?

“I bet for an Indian, shooting an old fat pioneer woman in the back with an

arrow, and she fires her shotgun into the ground as she falls over, is like the

top thing you can do.”

Jack Handey

Treaty will help to “ensure the civilization” of the Sioux and Lakota people in exchange for peace. English education program

Farming implements

160 acres for each individual to cultivate

Construction of buildings

Part of Grant’s “Peace Policy” to prevent violence through Christianity, farming, and reallocation of lands.

Policy will come to a close with the Dawes Act (1887).

What does it look like? Reservation system

Educational opportunities

“Civilizing” measures – farm implements, Quakers as Indian agents

Ultimately fails.

Indian Appropriations Measure of 1876 ends tribal sovereignty. Indians will be dealt with as individuals.

Forced assimilation Any Indian tribes located outside

the boundaries of prescribed reservation rounded up.

Those “on the rez” could be punished for outsider rebellion through withholding of food and supplies.

Forms basis for Indian Wars in the Southwest.

Last pockets of resistance eliminated between1890-1900.

Gives the President the power to survey and allot tribal land to American Indians.

Those who accept receive American citizenship.

Resulted in the breaking up of American Indian land, native sovereignty, and tribal identity.

Later repealed by FDR in 1934 under Indian Reorganization Act.

December 29,1890: US Cavalry moves in to disarm the Lakota and break up the Ghost Dance, a spiritual ceremony to reconvene with the dead and bring about the destruction of the white man.

Struggle broke out between an older man and a cavalry officer – soon, more than 200 men women and children were dead.

"The difficult Indian problem cannot be solved permanently at this end of the line. It requires the fulfillment of Congress of the treaty obligations that the Indians were entreated and coerced into signing. They signed away a valuable portion of their reservation, and it is now occupied by white people, for which they have received nothing."

"They understood that ample provision would be made for their support; instead, their supplies have been reduced, and much of the time they have been living on half and two-thirds rations. Their crops, as well as the crops of the white people, for two years have been almost total failures."

"The dissatisfaction is wide spread, especially among the Sioux, while the Cheyennes have been on the verge of starvation, and were forced to commit depredations to sustain life. These facts are beyond question, and the evidence is positive and sustained by thousands of witnesses."

How do we envision the West? Savage vs. Civilized? Or something more

complicated?

Development of American Indian Policy:Take five minutes to answer the following question as if it were on a test.

Analyze the development of American Indian policy from the time of Jefferson through the Dawes Act. Be specific in mentioning legislation and policies.