Transcript Unit VI- U.S. Cultural History to World War II

Unit I – An Industrial
Nation
Chapter 5
Section 1 – The American West
Cowboys, Ranchers and Farmers
Ranching Culture
Ranching on the Plains
• After the Civil War, cattle ranching dominated the Plains.
• First the Spanish in the 1500s, then the Mexicans, became skilled at raising
cattle in harsh conditions. They interbred Spanish and English cattle to breed
Texas Longhorns, which were hearty and thrived on the Plains.
• The Spanish also brought sheep ranching to the Plains, which grew after the
Civil War when demand for wool expanded.
• Sheep farmers cattle owners clashed over grazing land and became violent.
Cattle Drives
• Demand for beef grew in the East, so ranchers hired cowboys, usually white
teens, for three–months–long cattle drives to railroad towns for shipping.
• The Chisholm Trail from San Antonio to Kansas was a major cattle trail.
Ranching as Big Business
• The invention of barbed wire helped cattle owners manage large herds.
• Between 1882 and 1886 more than 400 cattle corporations sprang up in the
West, but fencing led to conflict when land owners who enclosed their land
left landless cattle owners with nowhere to graze their cattle.
Farmers on the Great Plains
• With encouragement from the government, people started pouring
onto the Great Plains to build farms.
• In 1862 Congress passed three acts to encourage settlement:
The Homestead Act
let any head of
household over 21 to
claim 160 acres of
land, as long as they
built a home, farmed
for five years, and
made improvements.
The Pacific Railway
Act gave millions
of acres to railroad
companies to build
tracks and
telegraph lines.
The Morrill Act gave
the states land to
build colleges that
taught agriculture
and mechanics.
This was the first
federal government
assistance for
higher education.
• The Oklahoma Land Rush occurred when a lobbyist found 2 million
acres of land not assigned to any Native American nation. Despite
the government’s ban against settlers’ entry into the Indian
Territory, settlers were still able to claim the land.
• On April 22, 1889, would-be settlers lined the border until it opened,
when 50,000 people rushed in and claimed homesteads.
The New Settlers
White Settlers
African American Settlers
• Came mainly from states in the Mississippi
• Some left the South because of the Black
Valley
Codes and Ku Klux Klan violence.
• Were mostly middle-class farmers or business • Rumors spread that the federal government
people
would set Kansas aside for former slaves,
which wasn’t true but brought settlers
• Could afford supplies and transportation
anyway.
•
•
•
•
European Settlers
Chinese Settlers
Came for economic opportunity
• Came for the gold rush and railroads but
turned to farming
Many Northern Europeans came because they
were land-poor.
• Helped establish California’s fruit industry
Irish who came to work on the railroads
• Laws often barred Asians from owning land,
settled on the Plains.
so many became farm workers, not owners.
Mennonite Protestants from Russia brought
farming experience.
Challenges and Solutions
•
Farming on the Plains presented challenges because of the harsh climate—bitter cold,
wind and snow in the winter, intense heat and drought in the summer.
– Many families used wells powered by windmills.
– Some settlers learned irrigation from Hispanic and Native American farmers.
•
Wood for houses was in limited supply.
– Settlers used the earth itself to build by digging into the sides of hills or making
homes from sod.
•
Farming was challenging in the hard soil of the Plains.
– New machinery like new, sharper-edged plows and combine harvesters helped
Plains farmers.
– Large companies started giant bonanza farms that were like factories, which
profited in good years but were too expensive to survive bad growing years.
Western Migration Ends
• In 1890 the U.S. Census Bureau issued a report that declared the
frontier closed, because there was no new land left to settle.
• In 1893 the historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote an essay
stating that the existence of the frontier gave the U.S. a unique
history.
• Some causes and effects of Western Migration:
Causes
• Economic Potential
Effects
– Opportunity for land and gold
• Traditional Native American ways of
life are destroyed.
– Farming, ranching, and rail jobs
• Mining communities are established.
• Native Americans end resistance
– As Native Americans lose battles,
they are relocated off valuable land
– Government allowed settlers into
Indian Territory
• Ranches are established, and the cattle
industry booms.
• Farmers settle on the Plains despite
challenges.
Cowboys
Life on the Range
Cowboys- Myths or Truth
1) The Cowboy Life was
Glamorous.
Myth or Truth?
Myth- 18 hour days and the long trail drive were boring
Cowboys- Myths or Truth
2) Most cowboys had small or
medium frames
Myth or Truth?
Truth- large men were to heavy to ride the mustangs
Cowboys- Myths or Truth
3) The Cowboy would ride his
favorite horse all day.
Myth or Truth?
Myth- Cowboys would ride a string of horses depending
the task at hand. Mild horses at night, and quick horses
for daylight roping and driving.
Cowboys- Myths or Truth
4) Many Cowboys were
Mexican or African American.
Myth or Truth?
Truth- 1/6th of cowboys were Mexican and many were
African/American, Former Confederates and even Native
American.
Cowboys- Myths or Truth
5) Most Cowboys were older
experienced wranglers.
Myth or Truth?
Myth- Most were young men who learned on the job.
Cowboys- Myths or Truth
6) Women could not be
cowboys.
Myth or Truth?
Myth- Several women owned cattle ranches and ran their
own cattle drives.
Cowboys- Myths or Truth
7) Cowboys often had to fight
off native Americans.
Myth or Truth?
Myth- Cowboys rarely if ever fought with Native
Americans
Cowboys- Myths or Truth
8) The word “Cowboy” was
invented in Texas.
Myth or Truth?
Myth- The word Cowboy comes from the Spanish word
“Vaquero”
Cowboy Legacy – 2:33 min.
Cowboy Era- 25 years from 1860’s to
1880’s
• cowboy, cowpoke, or cowpuncher-
"one who
tends cattle or horses, especially a mounted cattle ranch
worker." They evolved into what we now picture as
enigmatic, mostly unknown, under-bathed, underpaid,
overworked ranch hands who endured severe rigors of the
job and climatic extremes of the seasons with the livestock
they tended, for the enjoyment of an adventurous, openended, individualistic lifestyle.
• The Cowboy, a skilled laborer who rode horses and herded
cattle, faced harsh elements in nature and slept under the
stars in open air, was always on the move. He needed to be
ever watchful of a sudden stampede of panicked cows, set off
by a coyote’s howl, the rattling of pots in a wagon, or a bolt
of lightening on the horizon.
Cowboys
• The word cowboy is actually a Spanish word,
"vaquero." The word vaquero evolved from the root
word "vaca" meaning cow. Ergo the word vaquero,
(cowman), translated into the English - cowboy. The
English term for someone who managed cattle prior to
the adoption of the Spanish Vaquero method and name
for cowboying was "Drover.”
• The name “Cowpoke” comes from the end of the cattle
drive when the cowboys had to push the cattle onto the
trains with a stick or prod.
Long Horns
• The hardy Corriente cattle
allowed to free range in the
1600's evolved through the
process of natural selection
(and with some help by
Spanish ranchers) in two
hundred years into a breed
which is now termed "Texas
Longhorn." In reality the
Texas Longhorn would more
accurately be called the
"Spanish American Vaquero
Long Horn."
Cattle Raising
•
Early cattle raisers put their herds on "the
open range" - public land open to anyone
who used it for cattle grazing - and the
cattle roamed and survived as best they
could with a minimum of care, even in the
winter months. The men held periodic
roundups to brand and gather cattle for
slaughter or market. From this cattle-rich
area much of the stock for the trail herds
later came.
•
A less known aspect of "cowboying" was
mustanging. Mesteneros or mustangers
were the first people to make a living by
catching wild horses (mestenos, or
mustangs), on the American Great Plains
reaching from New Mexico to the Dakotas.
Cattle Drives
• 1866- A Steer worth $4 in Texas sold for $40 in
the East.
• Need to drive a herd to a railroad town (Cattle
towns, or boomtowns) to be shipped east to the
meat packers.
• Major trails- Chisholm, Goodnight Loving,
Western and Sedalia.
• Drive lasted 3 months
• 10-12 miles per day.
• 2/3 of cowboys were teenagers between the ages
of 12-18.
• Conflict over the open range.
Cattle Drives
Cowboy lingo
Cowboys developed their own slang and names for commonplace items in western lifecattle, cattle equipment, and the like. Below are some examples of the cowboy
vocabulary.
•
BEEVES
Cattle
•
BRONCO
A wild horse. Bronco busters were cowboys who trained broncos.
•
CATTLE KINGDOM
1866-86.
•
CINCH
•
COWPUNCHER
Another name for cowboys. Taken from the poles used
to punch or prod cattle onto railroad boxcars at the railheads.
•
CHUCK
Food. A cook was often nicknamed "Cookie."
•
MAVERICK
An unbranded or stray calf.
•
OUTFIT
The cattle and hands (employees) on a ranch.
•
OUTLAW
A criminal denied the protection of the law; a person who is
outside the law.
The height of ranching and beef production, roughly
A wide strap that holds the saddle on the horse.
Cowboy lingo
•
RAILHEAD
The place where the railroad tracks stop. The end of the long
drive where cattle are loaded onto railroad cars to be shipped to the eastern
stockyards.
•
RANCH
•
RIDE FENCE Checking the barbed wire fence on the perimeter of the ranch for
holes and making repairs.
•
RODEO
A formal competition of cowboy skills.
•
RUSTLER
A cattle thief.
•
STAMPEDE
When a large herd of cattle become frightened, run, and scatte
•
STEERS
Male calves raised for beef.
A large farm for raising cattle.
Branding
•
The system of brands and brand
registration was three-fold.
– First, the fierro or irion brand was
burned into the animal's flank hide,
– Second was the senal or ear-mark.
– Lastly, the venta or sale brand was
stamped on the animal's shoulder as
a bill of sale.
– The new brand was burned below
the venta brand and the new
transaction was recorded.
•
To the left are twelve different brands
which show how one symbol-the letter
"R"-can be manipulated into
different designs.
Saddle and Ropes
• The cowhand's most important piece of
"equipment," however, was his horse. On the
back of a horse, the cowboy could cover vast
distances, and he could herd cattle all day.
• The saddle horn was an innovation invented
through necessity by creative Spanish and
Mexican vaqueros. Livestock was first tied to
the horses's tail. To the horses dismay.
• Consequently, when they were not able to
rope the steer, turn the rope around the
saddlehorn, then remove their thumb
between the rope and horn before the animal
pulled tight enough to cut off the digit, they
lost their thumbs. This was the beginning of
the Texan tradition of roping technique
where the rope was first tied to the
saddlehorn, then lassoing the animal. To this
day on occasion you will still come across a
thumbless cowboy who lost his digit the same
way.
Clothing - Cowboy Hat and Boots
• A cowboy’s most prized possessions
were his hat and boots. A cowboy
hat would cost up to three months
salary and there were three types of
hats- ten-gallon, the Mountie and
the Stetson.
• High leather boots protected the
cowboys' feet and ankles; the boots'
pointed toes made it easier for the
cowboys to slip their feet into their
stirrups, and the boots' high heels
helped to anchor the riders' feet and
prevent them from slipping out.
Clothing
• Every item of the cowhand's clothing was
functional and originated for a practical
purpose.
– The basics were long-sleeved cotton or
wool shirts and work pants. Because the
shirts rarely had pockets, vests were
usually worn to carry small items and
provide added protection.
– Hats and kerchiefs had multiple uses and
were always part of the cowhand's attire.
– Other items included jackets or slickers
to protect the men from the elements.
– Chaps worn over boots and pants to
provide a shield against the harsh brush
of the rough country.
Cowboy Gear
• The knife in the waistband is an
essential tool. The revolver on the hip,
although not often used because of the
common fear of stirring a stampede,
provided a last defense against snakes,
steers and other cowboys.
• The myth portrays cowboys with sharp
shooters, fighting boisterously. The fact
is cowboys used guns only as a last
resort for defense. The noise of a
gunshot would frighten the herds,
possibly causing a stampede. The myth
paints cowboys as adept and agile
gunfighters. The truth is they had little
opportunity to use them.
Black Cowboys
•
Eight or nine thousand Negroes - a quarter of the total number of trail drivers
•
Many of them were especially well-qualified top hands, riders, ropers, and
cooks.
•
They worked, ate, slept, played, and on occasion fought, side by side with their
white comrades, and their ability and courage won respect, even admiration.
•
They were often paid the same wages as white cowboys and, in the case of
certain horsebreakers, ropers, and cooks, occupied positions of considerable
prestige.
•
In a region and period characterized by violence, their lives were probably
safer than they would have been in the Southern cotton regions where between
1,500 and 1,600 Negroes were lynched in two decades after 1882.
•
The skilled and handy Negro probably had a more enjoyable, if rougher,
existence as a cowhand than he would have had as a sharecropper or laborer.
•
Negro cowhands, to be sure, were not treated as “equals” except in the rude
quasi-equality of the roundup, stampede, and river-crossing - where they were
sometimes tacitly recognized even as superiors -
Cowboy Life
1/3 of the cowboys were former slaves and most of the others were
former confederate soldiers.
Music was mostly to sooth the herds with human voices and to distract
cattle from shadows at night. Harmonicas, fiddles, and a jew's harp
were often stowed in a cowboy’s saddlebag. Only in the movies does
the cowboy usually sing around the campfire.
A cowboy worked 15 hours a day for $.80 a day.
Son of a Gun stew was the favorite meal (beans, cattle liver, kidney
meat, cattle brains and intestines.)
Cowboys didn’t actually kiss their horses, they were actually licking the
sweat off the cleanest part of the horse for it liquid and salt content
due to the extreme summer heat of the American Southwest.
When describing the cowboy's way of life, J.C. Funas wrote in his
book, The American's, " He seldom had the opportunity to bathe or wash his
clothing; there were usually vermin in the bunkhouses of the ranch. On the trail, his
diet consisted principally of beans, grease and tough meat. The trail boss got up first,
usually at 3 A.M. Then the cook would boil the coffee until a pistol would float on it
while he prepared breakfast. The average working day began before dawn and ended
after sunset. The average cowboy's wage was $25 a month, often spent in a few days in
a cow town at the end of a long trip. Then the cycle would begin all over again."
Cowboy Myth
Hack writers churned out hundreds of books focusing on the
cowboy who overcomes the "savage Indian" and wins
love in the end.
When cowboy productions took to the stage, Buffalo Bill
became an international celebrity. Buffalo Bill's
productions featured real cowboys who were skilled at
riding and herding cattle, but showed no regard for the
true nature of cowboy life
Instead, it presented a Western spectacle in twenty acts that
included trick shooting by Annie Oakley and a living
tableaux of the "Phases of Indian Life." The program
concluded with "The Attack on Settler's Cabin," in
which Buffalo Bill defeats a group of "marauding
Indians."
“Cowboys and Indians”- Books and movies made the
Cowboy look brave, independent (the lone rider) and the
Indian shifty and dangerous
Famous Cowboys
• Sally Skull"The Two Gun Terror". Horse trader, champion
cusser, trail boss, and wife to many. Sally Skull growled a
command and people moved. Her men couldn't decide which
was harsher, her black handled whip or her tongue. They
worked from sunup to when the shadows stretched long over the
prairie, yet she never cracked a smile. Tough and tireless, this
horse woman envied no man "Sally Skull belonged to the days
of the Texas Republic and afterward. She was notorious for her
husbands, her horse trading, freighting, and roughness." And
her death remains as much a mystery as most of her life.
• Nat Love
Nat Love
He was a cowboy in the wild west. He was born a
slave in Davidson County, Tennessee. After his fathers death , he
was about 15. A few days later he gathered his belongings and
headed to Dodge City, Kansas to work as a cowpuncher for $30
a month. After a few months there he headed north for a
cowboy competition in Deadwood City, South Dakota. Love was
excellent in everything! He succeeded in roping, tying, bridling,
and wrestling in 9 minutes flat, the closest competitor was 14
minutes. Next he had the marksman competition, he shot 15 out
of 15 shots with a rifle at 250 yards. The crowd was so
impressed they gave him the nickname that would have followed
him for a lifetime....' Deadwood Dick '!
Famous Cowboys
Calamity Jane
•
Calamity Jane- Martha Jane Canary (1848-1903) was
born in Princeton, Missouri. This hard drinking woman wore
men's clothing, used their bawdy language, chewed tobacco and
was handy with a gun. She traveled from Arizona through the
Dakota territories during her rough life. At her death, the
"White Devil of the Yellowstone" was remembered as a saint by
the citizens of Deadwood, where she helped nurse the sick
during a smallpox plague. She is buried near Wild Bill Hickock
at Deadwood, South Dakota.
• Bill Pickett- oldest of 13 children, was the son of
Bill Pickett
a former slave. The most famous Black rodeo performer.
credited with inventing the rodeo event called bulldogging, also
known as steer-wrestling, in 1903. In 1971, he became the first
African-American cowboy to be inducted into the Rodeo Hall of
Fame.
• Annie Oakley- She could handle a rifle or a
Annie Oakley
six-gun with an artistry unsurpassed by that of any human
being before her time or, probably, since. And when she
appeared with Sitting Bull and other notables in Colonel Cody's
Wild West Show, she thrilled your father and mother -- not as
Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses but as "Little Sure Shot," the
immortal Annie Oakley.
Famous Cowboys
• Wild Bill Hickock- James Butler
Hickok was born in Troy Grove, Illinois, on May 27,
1837, and was shot dead in a saloon in Deadwood,
Dakota Territory, on August 2, 1876. Famous for his
lethal gun skills, as well as his professional
gambling, he was a U.S. town marshal who
unsuccessfully tried show business for a while after
he got fired from his marshal job for shooting more
than just bad guys. The cards that Hickock was
holding, two black eights, two black aces and the
Jack of diamonds, is now known as the "dead man's
hand".
• Wyatt Erp- Wyatt Earp is best known
as the fearless frontier lawman of Wichita and
Dodge City, Kansas, and as principal survivor of the
Gunfight at the OK Corral. Among his enduring
legacies as frontiersman, lawman, gambler and
prospector, a post office near his Mojave Desert
mining claims along the Colorado River on Route
62 bears the name -- "Earp, California 92242."
Cowboys in the Movies
•
Just as it seemed America was growing tired
of Buffalo Bill's Western stage show, the
motion pictures were born. Tom Mix, who
had been a real cowboy, began his movie
career in 1909 with Ranch Life in the Great
Southwest. After demonstrating his trickriding skills, Mix won a part in the movie as
a bronco buster.
•
Gilbert M. Anderson created the character of
"Broncho Billy," whose popularity led to a
series of 375 western films made between
1908 and 1915, many of them made at
Chicago's Essanay movie studios. Both the
Tom Mix and Broncho Billy films typically
followed a melodramatic plot in which the
star battled outlaws and won the affections of
a lovely girl.
Pony Express
• The "Pony Express" was the next
important enterprise organized
and put into operation on the
"desert." It made its first trip in
April, 1860, and continued its
flying runs across the continent
twice a week between the Missouri
river and Sacramento. The pony
express lasted only nineteen
months, from April 3, 1860 to
October 24, 1861.
• The pony express ended when the
telegraph first crossed the
continent in November, 1861.
• Financially, the owners spent
$700,000 on the Pony Express and
had a $200,000 deficit. The
company failed to get the million
dollar government contract
because of political pressures and
the outbreak of the Civil War.
Pony Express
•
Riders: Between 80 and 100
•
Salary: $100 per month
•
Qualifications: Age ranged from 11 to mid 40s. Riders had to weigh less than 125 lbs. One of the most famous
was Buffalo Bill Cody
•
Youngest Rider: Legend has it that Bronco Charlie Miller was eleven years old when he rode for the Pony
Express.
•
Riders Changed: 75 to 100 miles.
•
Horses Changed: 10 to 15 miles.
•
Speed of Rider: Average 10 miles per hour.
•
Horses: About 400 Mustangs and Morgans
•
Stations: Estimated between 150 and 190 of them. Located every 5 - 20 miles.
•
Mochila: Saddlebag designed especially to carry mail on the eastern end were made by Israel Landis.
•
Route: 1966 miles from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. Crossed Missouri River by Ferry boat,
at the foot of Francis Street.
Time: 10 days.
•
Quickest Run: 7 days and 17 hours. The riders were carrying President Lincoln's Inaugural Address.
•
Total Miles Covered: Approximately 650,000 miles.
•
Longest Ride: Pony Bob Haslam. rode 370 miles -- Friday Station to Smith Creek Station and back again.
•
Cost of Mail: $5 per 1/2 ounce at first. Later, the price was $1 per 1/2 ounce.
Wild West – 2:55 min.
Prairie Farmers
Life on the Prairie
Great American Desert
It was a broad expanse of territory, and embraced most of the country
lying west of the Missouri river now known as Oklahoma and the
Indian Territory, Kansas and Nebraska, North and South Dakota,
and all of Colorado lying east of the foot-hills of the Rocky
Mountains.
Its area embraced about 500,000 square miles, aggregating
320,000,000 acres.
A great portion of this supposedly "unexplored region" was, in those
early days, by many people believed to be one of the most
worthless sections of country in the western world. I
t was known to be inhabited by various tribes of Indians, while the
shaggy bison and other wild animals roamed undisturbed over the
boundless area.
Great American Desert
Prairie lands were advertised in
handbills that drew people
West. Settlers on the prairie
had their picture taken and
wrote letters describing their
lives. Journalists and
magazine writers published
stories about their travels
through the frontier.
Oregon Trail – 1:05 min.
Homesteaders
• For forty years,
homesteaders had passed
over the western prairies
on their way to better land,
but now even this rough,
arid soil was desirable,
thanks in part to railroad
company advertisements
that described it as lush
farmland and to a growing
belief that settlers had
actually changed the
onetime "Great American
Desert" by plowing the
earth.
Buffalo
•
The number of buffalo in the great West in the
1800’s was roughly estimated at from ten to twenty
millions. For years a goodly portion of the meat
consumed by those early settlers was cut from the
carcass of the noble, shaggy animal which so long
existed as monarch. of the plains
•
The principal article of fuel found on the frontier
for cooking the meat of the buffalo was the dried
excrement of the animal, known in early Kansas
and Nebraska parlance as "buffalo chips."
•
The buffalo was one of the noblest of all animals. It
seemed indispensable. It furnished man with an
abundance of the most wholesome meat; the hide
was made into shoes and garments worn during the
day, and it made a comfortable bed and supplied
warm covering in or out of doors at night.
•
The greatest slaughter of the beasts was in 1872'74, when, it was estimated, the number slain ran
up into the millions.
William F. Cody
•
The most conspicuous person
engaged in the great buffalo
slaughter was the intrepid scout and
Indian fighter, Col. William F. Cody,
who has been more familiarly known
as "Buffalo Bill." In 1867, when the
Kansas Pacific railroad was being
built across the plains to Denver,
Cody, then a young man, made a
contract with the railway officials to
keep its army of workmen supplied
with buffalo meat. For doing this he
received $500 per month. He was
engaged in this work eighteen
months, during which time he killed
an average of about eight a day--in
all 4280 buffaloes; and this is how
Cody became the renowned "Buffalo
Bill."
Homestead Act of 1962
•
The Homestead Act of 1862 has been called
one the most important pieces of
Legislation in the history of the United
States. Signed into law in 1862 by Abraham
Lincoln. 270 millions acres, or 10% of the
area of the United States was claimed and
settled under this act.
•
A homesteader had only to be the head of a
household and at least 21 years of age to
claim a 160 acre parcel of land. Settlers from
all walks of life including newly arrived
immigrants, farmers without land of their
own from the East, single women and
former slaves came to meet the challenge of
"proving up" and keeping this "free land".
Each homesteader had to live on the land,
build a home, make improvements and farm
for 5 years before they were eligible to
"prove up". A total filing fee of $18 was the
only money required, but sacrifice and hard
work exacted a different price from the
hopeful settlers.
The Soddie
•
Soddies- small houses with walls built of
stacked layers of uniformly cut turf. The
individual “bricks” of sod are held together
by the thick network of roots that made
preparing fields for planting so very difficult.
Sod was cut with special plows, or by hand,
with an ax and/or shovel. Roofs were made
from timber, rough or planed, and covered
with more sod. If timber was not available,
roofs were built up with twigs, branches,
bushes and straw. Soddies are practical and
tough, but vulnerable.
•
Soddies were built with several thicknesses of
walls. Prairie turf was dirt cheap and the
extra thickness evened out the environment
of the little house. It was stronger too.
The walls also provided wonderful housing
for longtime prairie residents. Mice and
snakes often joined you.
Dugout
Sod House
Farms on the Prairie
To farm this land, settlers had to
chop and smash through the top
layer of prairie to create tillable
soil.
Sod was cut with a variety of
plows. During the mid-1800s, the
development of agricultural
implements represented the
leading edge of technology.
The prairie grasses were cut, or
hayed, before plowing. Horses
were used to cut sod; oxen were
just too slow. Some plows had
curved moldboards that caused
the sod to have a more finished,
“rolled” look on one edge.
Farming Inventions
•
John Deere Steel Plow
–
•
Barbed Wire- John Glidden
–
•
•
The plow was made of wrought iron and
had a steel share that could cut through
sticky soil without clogging.
When the legal battles were over, Joseph
Glidden was declared the winner and the
Father of Barbed Wire. The injuries
provided sufficient reason for the public to
protest its use. Religious groups called it
"the work of the devil," or "The Devil's
Rope" and demanded removal.
McCormick Reaper
Dry Farming–
annual rainfall of approximately 15 to 20 in
–
Dry-land crops must be either drought-resistant or
drought-evasive, i.e., maturing in late spring or
fall; special varieties of crops such as wheat,
barley, corn, sorghum, and rye are often used
– Windmills
Oklahoma Land Rush (also known as the Cherokee Strip
Land Run of 1893)
• Sept. 16 1893
–
226-mile tract known as the Cherokee Strip
–
1828, the U.S. government gave the land to the Cherokees
–
1883 the Cherokee Strip Livestock Association was formed and six
million acres were leased from the Cherokees. Seven years later,
President Benjamin Harrison ordered the ranchers to remove all
cattle from the Strip.
–
They came to the land that would be Oklahoma by train, horseback,
wagon and on foot, from every state and territory in the nation and
abroad.
–
Homesteaders were to pay a filing fee ranging from $1.00 to $2.50.
–
At noon September 16, 1893, a shot rang out and more than 100,000
determined settlers raced for 42,000 claims
– Boomers- whites who moved illegally into Indian territory of Oklahoma
– Sooners-Originally the word "Sooner" meant a person who had
illegally crossed the border of Oklahoma's Unassigned Lands before
they were officially opened for white settlement
Range Wars
THE FENCE CUTTER WARS
Free range grazers became alarmed that barbed
wire fences would mean the end of their livelihood.
Trail Drivers were concerned their herds would be
blocked from the Kansas markets by settler fences.
Barbed wire fence development stalled.
With landowners building fences to protect crops and
livestock, and those opposed fighting to keep their
independence, violence occurred requiring laws to
be passed making wire cutting a felony. After many
deaths, and uncountable financial losses, the Fence
Cutter Wars ended.
Range Wars
•
The Lincoln County War was a conflict between two entrenched factions
in 19th century America's western frontier. The "war" was between a
faction led by wealthy ranchers and another faction led by the wealthy
owners of the monopolistic general store in Lincoln County, New
Mexico. A notable combatant on the side of the ranchers was William
Bonney who is better known to history as Billy the Kid.
•
William Tunstall was a wealthy 24-year old English cattleman, banker
and merchant who had employed Bonney as a cattle guard. Alexander
McSween, a lawyer; John Chisum, a cattleman with huge herds in the
area; and Tunstall led a faction of roughnecks against another powerful
faction in the county that was led by two Irishmen.
•
The Lincoln County War ended but tensions were still high between the
remnants of the two factions. Regulators lead by Bonnie to avenge the
murder of Tunstall.
End of the open range and the Cowboy
• Too Many Cattle- more and more cattle put out to feed on the
range.
• Bad Weather- 1886-1887- hard winter, dry summer and then
another hard winter. Wiped out whole herds.
• Farmers and fences- ranchers first tried to fence the open range
and the farmers used the government to help get these lands
freed up for them to fence. Barbed wire.
• Government intervention- government allowed farmers to move
in so ranchers could no longer graze cattle on open range., they
had to buy grazing land. This led to better cattle breeds, more
food, water, pastures divided up.
• Railroads- were aggressively expanding. No need for long cattle
drive, cowtowns; rails linked cattle country to midwestern
slaughterhouses.