Chapter 13 – The American West
Section Notes
The Fight for the West Mining and Ranching Farming the Plains
Video
Images
Hunting on the Plains Lakota Boys
Family with Sod House Land Poster
Quick Facts
Challenges for Farmers
Visual Summary: The American West
Maps
Major Battles and Native American Territory in the West, 1890
Cattle Trails
The American West
The Fight for the West
The Main Idea
Native Americans fought the movement of settlers westward, but the U.S. military and the persistence of American
settlers proved too strong to resist.
Reading Focus
• How was the stage set for conflict between white settlers and Native Americans in the West?
• What were the Indian Wars and their consequences?
Stage Set for Conflict
• Culture of the Plains Indians
– Buffalo provided food, clothing, and shelter for the nomadic lifestyle of the Indians. They did not believe
land should be bought and sold, and white farmers felt it should be divided.
• Government policy
– Instead of continuing to move the Indians westward, the government changed its policy. Indian land was seized, and they were forced onto reservations.
• Destruction of the buffalo
The Indian Wars
After the massacre, Cheyenne and Sioux stepped up their raids. In return for closing a sacred trail, the Sioux agreed to live on a reservation. Other nations signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty and were moved to reservation lands in western Oklahoma.
Sand Creek Massacre
Army troops attacked and massacred surrendering Cheyenne. Congressional investigators condemned the Army actions, but no one was punished in the
Sand Creek Massacre.
Treaties
George Armstrong Custer led his troops in
headlong battle against Sitting Bull and lost. The
Battle of the Little Bighorn was a temporary victory for the Sioux. The U.S. government was determined to put down the threat to settlers.
The Battle of the Little
The Indian Wars
The Ghost Dance was a religious movement that inspired hope among suffering Native Americans. Newspapers began suggesting that this signaled a planned uprising. The military killed Sitting Bull while attempting to arrest him in a skirmish.
Palo Duro Canyon
The Battle of Palo Duro Canyon ended the Indian Wars on the southern Plains. With their ponies killed and food stores destroyed, surviving Comanches moved onto the reservation.
The Ghost Dance
The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred the day after the surrender. Shooting began after a gun went off, and the fleeing Sioux were massacred. This action marked the end of the bloody conflict between the army and the Plains Indians.
Resistance Ends in the West
Resistance in theNorthwest
• The government took back nine-tenths of the Nez Percé land when gold miners and settlers came into the area. • Fourteen years later they
were ordered to abandon the last bit of that land to move into Idaho.
• Chief Joseph tried to take his people into Canada, but the army forced their
surrender less than forty miles from the Canadian border.
• Chief Joseph and many others were eventually sent to
northern Washington.
Resistance in the Southwest • The Apache people were
moved onto a reservation near the Gila River in Arizona.
• Soldiers forcefully stopped a religious gathering there, and
Geronimo and others fled the reservation.
• They raided settlements along the Arizona-Mexico border for years before finally being
captured in 1886.
• Geronimo and his followers were sent to Florida as
prisoners of war. His surrender marked the end of armed
Life on the Reservation
The government wanted control over all the western
territories and wanted Indians to live like white Americans.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs began to erase the Indian culture through a program of Americanization. Indian students could speak only English and could not wear their traditional clothing. They learned to live like Americans.
Mining and Ranching
The Main Idea
Many people sought fortunes during the mining and cattle booms of the American West.
Reading Focus
• How did mining lead to new settlements in the West? • Why did mining become big business?
Striking Gold and Silver
•
Discovering gold and silver
– After the California gold rush, Colorado was next. Most who went there were disappointed, but the silver in the
Comstock Lode in Nevada lasted for more than 20 years.
•
The Klondike gold rush
– The Yukon Territory was the site of a huge gold rush, but getting there was treacherous. Canadians required
Development of Communities
•
Mining camps and towns
– Thousands of men poured into mining areas. Camps
were hastily built and had no law enforcement. Vigilante justice was used to combat theft and violence.
•
Camps become towns
– Some camps developed into towns, with hastily constructed buildings of stores and saloons.
– As towns developed, women and children came to join the men, making the towns more respectable.
Mining as Big Business
Placer mining allowed individuals to pan for gold, but soon equipment was needed to dig deeper within the earth.
Large companies were formed to invest in hydraulic mining and hard-rock mining. Prospectors became
employees, working dangerous jobs for these companies.
The Cattle Boom
Growing populations in the East needed food. The age of the cattle drive had arrived. Cowboys drove the cattle to towns with railroads to be shipped to meatpacking centers such as Chicago. One of the most famous cattle trails was the Chisholm Trail.
Origins of ranching
The Spanish were the first ranchers in the West,
raising cattle under dry and difficult conditions. They bred the hardy Texas longhorn and started sheep ranching. Grazing lands were needed for both.
Demand for beef
Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire, allowing ranchers to enclose grazing lands. Privately owned ranches spread quickly, and investors transformed the cattle business into big business. Two years of severe winters brought huge losses to the industry.
Farming the Plains
The Main Idea
The government promoted the settlement of the West, offering free or cheap land to those willing to put in the
hard work of turning the land into productive farms.
Reading Focus
• What incentives encouraged farmers to settle in the West?
• Which groups of people moved into the West, and why did they do so?
Incentives for Settlement
•
New legislation
– In 1862, Congress passed three acts to turn public lands into private property.
• The Homestead Act gave 160 acres of land to heads of household.
• The Pacific Railway Act gave land to the railroad companies to build lines.
Incentives for Settlement
•
Railroads encourage settlement
– Railroads reaped profits by selling some of their land to settlers. They placed ads to lure homesteaders to the West. The Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 opened
unassigned Indian land to settlers. Over 50,000 people took part in the rush to stake a claim on these 2 million acres of land.
•
Closing of the frontier
– In 1890 the Census Bureau issued a report, “there can hardly be said to be a frontier line.” Historian Frederick Jackson Turner stated in a famous essay that the
Migrating West
White settlers• Middle-class businesspeople or farmers from the
Mississippi Valley moved west.
• They could afford money for supplies and transportation.
African American settlers
• Benjamin Singleton urged his own people to build
communities.
• Some fled the violent South. • Rumors of land in Kansas
brought 15,000 Exodusters
who also settled in Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois.
European settlers
• Lured by economic
opportunity, they came from Scandinavia, Ireland, Russia, and Germany.
• They brought their farming experience with them.
Chinese settlers
• Initially came for the gold rush or to build railroads • They turned to farming,
especially in California,
establishing the fruit industry there.
New Ways of Farming
New farmers faced harsh climate, scarce water, and lack of lumber. Farmers installed windmill-driven pumps and used irrigation techniques. They used the earth for shelter, first building dugouts into hillsides, then making sod houses.
New farming equipment helped. James Oliver developed a sharper plow edge. Combine harvesters used one operation to cut wheat, separate grains, and remove the husks.