Unit 5:

The Open Range

WHAT LED PEOPLE WEST?(1) Mining Towns

Mining encouraged western expansion.

Gold discoveries brought thousands of fortune seekers in 1849

In 1859 prospector Henry Comstock staked a claim for a silver mine in Six-Mile Canyon, Nevada.

Most fortunes went to corporations that bought out the smaller claims.

Although some mining towns eventually became permanent settlements, most were short-lived boomtowns (“Boom or Bust”)

-becoming ghost towns

(2) The Long Drives The cattle industry was very profitable and drew many young men west.

Cowboys rounded up herds for $30 a month (at best) and lived under harsh circumstances,

Workday lasted from sunup to sundown with night shifts to watch the cattle.

There was no protection from the elements.

Poor diet often led to disease.

The drive could be as far as 1,500 miles.

Cowboys drove herds along trails like the Chisholm trail Problems for cattle men:

-RR helped but also hurt (brought homesteaders and sheepherders)

-they built barbed wire fences (Joseph Glidden 1874) to keep the cattles drives off their land

-Winter 1886-1887 = freezing temps (-68o)

Solution:

(1) Fence in stocks

(2) raise fewer healthier beef (Texas longhorns)

(3) Winter feeding

(4) Increased railroads gave easy way to ship to slaughter houses

(ex. Kansas City & Chicago = Armour & Swift Meat Company)

**These 2 groups went west with little trouble from the Native Americans

-the real problem will start when the 3rd group comes west to “settle” the land

-this will start the Indian Wars

EXIT SLIP1. What two groups went west 1st?

2. What were 2 problems that each of those groups faced?

Unit 5

Conquest and Survival:

1860–1900

WILD WEST Great West

-1,000 sq miles -Native Americans (NA)

-prairie dogs -buffalo

-within 25 years, it would be made into states NA “stood in the way” of civilization

-Plains Indians terribly skilled at warfare

-1860’s US attempted to confine them (Sioux in Black Hills, Dakota, & the Indian Territory of Oklahoma)

-reservations were created to contain the NA threats

These NA agreed to move to these areas only on the promise that US would leave them alone (did not trust the white man)

Indian Fed Agents (liaisons w/ NA were sometimes corrupt) White man broke promises of treaties, took NA lands, killed

their livestock Between 1868 – 1890 = Indians & Whites War

-1867 – Medicine Creek Lodge Treaty – buffalo hunters were not kept out, food was not delivered, lawlessness was not taken care of = in 1874 NA retaliated but eventually put down in 1875.

-Gen. Sherman Sheridan said “The only good Indian is a dead one”.

The Indian Wars were esp brutal, killing innocents (women & children) & some were killed just for sport or to send message

Sioux Indians – led by Sitting Bull

-being chased by Gen. George Armstrong Custer

-at the Battle of Little Big Horn 1876, 2500 braves killed 264 of Custer’s men

-led by Crazy Horse, they were chased into Canada

Nez Perce (Idaho) launched a war when prospectors jumped a gold claim

-Led by Chief Joseph, they too went into CA Apache (Arizona & NM)

-led by Geronimo

-eventually surrendered With the NA finally broken US herded them into reservations

-Americanization (process of transforming NA children into Americans)

**1881 – Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor spawned the “Indian Rights” movement

Why NA defeated? (1) RR opened up West (2) White man’s diseases

(3) alcohol

(4) massacre of the buffalo (main food source)

-1865 = 15 million roamed Plains

-1885 = less than 1,000 existed Americans still not understand the NA

-govt forbid Ghost Dance & Battle of Wounded Knee followed where 200 NA were killed (1890)

Dawes Severalty Act of 1887

-removed legal group status of some of the tribes

-removed tribal ownership of the land

-created NA family heads w/ 160 free acres

-if they were good they could get ownership of land & citizenship in 25 yrs. (1924)

-act helped to dissolve the NA culture 1934 – govt repealed Dawes & replaced it w/ the Indian

Reorganization Act, which tried to reestablish NA ways

EXIT SLIP1. Poor tracts of land set aside for Native Americans are called

_________.

a. Reservations b. Bad Lands c. Plantations

2. The last major victory for the Plains Indians against U.S. military forces was won at __________, Montana in June 1876.a. Butte b. Little Round Top c. Little Big Horn

3. The goal of the Dawes Act of 1887 regarding Native Americans was __________.a. Assessment b. Accommodation c. Assimilation

4. The last major conflict between Native Americans and U.S. forces occurred at _________, South Dakota in 1890.a. Lake Oahe b. Wounded Knee c. Sand Creek

(3) FarmersThe Homestead Act 1862 –gave land to farmers in one of 2

ways:

-160 acres were given to any settler who lived on the land for at least 5 years, improved it, & pay $30

-Or live on it 6 months for $1.25 an acreThis act sparked the largest migration in U.S. historyAs farmers moved west, they found the hard land could be very fertile-called “Sodbusters”-created the “Wheat Belt”

50,000-plus African Americans went West

Known as the “Exodusters”

Led by Benjamin “Pap” Singleton

Life was hard, but many adapted and escaped the racial hatred and violence of the South

Problems with Populating the Plains

Problems

-lack of water

-lack of timber

-hard soil

Solutions (from the list)

-dev new plowing tech

-hearty grain crops

Role of the Farmer

-orig. farmers did everything for themselves (wove clothing, grew own food, made soap)

-now it changed = profitable to specify in one crop (usu wheat)

-take money to a general store to buy foodstuffs & mail orders catalog companies

-Montgomery Ward , JC Penney

Financial Problems for the Farmers

-farmers had to buy expensive machines to keep up (huge debts)

-everything depended on ONE crop and that had its’ own problems

-as long as prices were up, farmers were happy

-1880’s- prices went down & farmers went bankrupt

-corporations also hurt the farmers (prices) -

“Bonanza Farms

-high prices for freight rates & supplies

Environmental Problems

-Mother Nature also could hurt the farmers

>grasshoppers, cotton boil weevils, floods, droughts, & overused lands

OUT-OF-CLASS ASSIGNMENTIn a moment you are going to see 2 different paintings portraying 2

different aspect of life on the Great Plains.

-You are to choose ONE:

a. Write the story of the painting up to the moment you see in the painting

OR

b. Write the story of the painting that is about to happen.

IT IS YOUR CHOICE!!!!

**Your writing needs to be at least 1 front and back page in length.

**In your story, you need to include two specific problems the characters faced and explain what solutions they used to overcome those problems.

Harvey Dunn “The Prairie is My Garden”

Frederick Remmington “A Dash for the Timber”

EXIT SLIP#1: What were the 3 groups of people that went

west in the 1880’s?

#2: For each group, name one problem that faced them and then name a solution to that problem.

#3: Of the three groups, which group do you think you would have enjoyed belonging to the most?

Farmers lacked organization-formed the Nat’l Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry

(Grange) in 1867 by Oliver Kelly-also added an organization for women of the plains-wanted to get the farmers to act as a group to get

improvements-hoped to regulate RR rates, warehouse & grain elevator

pricesGreenback Labor Party-1878 most popular; led to Populist Movement