Transcript World War II and its Aftermath

The Western Frontier 1870-1900
The Plains Indians
 Early Plains Indians farmed and settled in villages
 In 1598, the Spanish introduced the horse.
 Culture changed to nomadic bands that hunted buffalo
 Buffalo provided food, clothing and shelter
 Land held in common, used by all
Settlers Push West
 White settlers had very different culture & view of land
 If you don’t settle on land & “improve” it you lose rights
 Farmland, Gold & Silver in California & Colorado
Mining Towns
 Filthy, ramshackle, living quarters, shacks & tents
 Dirt/mud streets, wooden sidewalks
 Very crowded, often lawless & violent
 Some business opportunities besides mining
Government Regulation
of Native Americans
 During 1830’s Indians forcibly moved out of Southeast
 Treaties granted the lands of the plains to the Indians
 By the 1850’s settlers hungry for more land
 Government changed policies and began creating
individual reservations by tribe
 Many Indians ignored treaties & continued hunting
The Sand Creek Massacre, 1864
 Discovery of gold in Colorado brought many settlers
 Settlers urged government to break treaties, force Indians out
 New Treaty signed, some Indians agreed to move east
 Cheyenne and Arapahoe under Black Kettle camped
at Sand Creek under an American flag.
 Colonel John Chivington and 1st Colorado attacked
& massacred women & children while men out hunting
Death on the Bozeman Trail
 Trail to Northwest from Nebraska, through Sioux homelands
 Red Cloud appealed to Washington to end settlement
 When rejected, Crazy Horse ambushes US Troops under
Captain William Fetterman at Lodge Trail Ridge
 Skirmishes continue til US closes the trail
Fort Laramie Treaty, 1868
 Agreement between the United States and the Lakota
people, Yanktonai Dakota, and Arapaho Nation
 Ended Red Cloud's War and guaranteed Lakota ownership
of the Black Hills and hunting rights in several states
 Sitting Bull refuses
to sign treaty
 Gold in Black Hills
 White miners violate
treaty and continue
moving in to
Black Hills
 Skirmishes continue
Chief Gall – Hunkpapa Sioux
“We have been taught to hunt and
live on the game. You tell us that
we must learn to farm, live in one
house, and take on your ways.
Suppose the people living beyond
the great sea should come and tell
you that you must stop farming,
and kill your cattle, and take your
lands, what would you do? Would
you not fight them?”
from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
The End of a Way of Life
 In 1870, new technique to tan buffalo hides developed
 Whites begin systematically hunting buffalo
 Once 10’s of millions, by 1878 all but extinct
 This hunting creates crisis for Plains Indians
Red River War 1874-75
 Comanche under Quanah Parker begin raiding
white settlements to stop the slaughter of buffalo
 US Army responds and Comanches & others surrender
 Comanche, Kiowa, & others resettled in Indian Territory
 Indian resistance crushed in Southern Plains
Black Hills War, 1876
 White miners continued to violate Laramie Treaty
seeking gold in Black Hills of Dakota Territory
 Sitting Bull organizes loose alliance between Lakota
Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes
 George Armstrong Custer & 7th Cavalry sent to region
to protect settlers
Little Big Horn: Custer’s Last Stand
June, 1876
 Crazy Horse, Gall & Sitting Bull overwhelm Custer
 Within an hour, Custer & his men are dead
 Tactical Victory; Strategic Defeat
 Eventually, the Sioux forced to surrender
 Sitting Bull and others flee to Canada
Chief Joseph & The Nez Percé
 In 1873 signed treaty keeping ancestral tribal lands
 In 1877, government revokes the treaty and sends troops
under General Howard who offers reservation lands
 Chief Joseph refuses and leads tribe through 5 states,
fighting rearguard action trying to get to Canada
 Trapped and defeated less than 40 miles from border
 “I will fight no more forever”
Assimilation: The Dawes Act, 1887
 Attempt to assimilate Indians into American society
 Each head of household received 160 acres
 The rest of the land was sold by the government
 By 1934 Indian owned land down by 66%
The Ghost Dance
 Spiritual ritual begun by Wovoka, Jack Wilson, Paiute
 Cleanse spirit and end white expansion
 Begin an era of cooperation between races
 Quickly spread through tribes of the west.
Wounded Knee
December, 1890
 The Ghost Dance spread to Lakota Sioux & increased
their resistance to assimilation
 Police sent to arrest Sitting Bull who is killed
 Rest of Sioux flee and camp at Wounded Knee
 7th Cavalry pursues, massacres and rounds them up.
Black Elk Speaks
I did not know then how much was ended.
When I look back now from this high hill of
my old age, I can still see the butchered
women and children lying heaped and
scattered all along the crooked gulch as
plain as when I saw them with eyes still
young. And I can see that something else
died there in the bloody mud, and was
buried in the blizzard. A people's dream
died there. It was a beautiful dream. And
I, to whom so great a vision was given in
my youth, — you see me now a pitiful old
man who has done nothing, for the
nation's hoop is broken and scattered.
There is no center any longer, and the
sacred tree is dead.
Cowboys & Cattle
 As buffalo disappear from plains, cattle ranchers begin
to spread their herds
 Learned methods from Mexicans, longhorns were
descended from southern Spanish cattle
 Vacquero = buckaroo
 Churqui = jerky
 Mesteňo = mustang
 Chaparreras = chaps
 Corral
 Rodeo
 Bronco
 Caballo
Growing Demand for Beef
 After Civil War, cities grow, as does demand for food
 Chicago grows as a stockyard center for slaughtering
 Herds roam free, driven to railheads, then to Chicago
The End of the Open Range
 Overgrazing & Extended bad weather
 Glidden invents barbed wire
 One big open range becomes
many small fenced ranches
Railroads Open Up the West
 Several companies raced to open first transcontinental RR
 Union Pacific & Central Pacific met in Utah 1868
 Government made generous right of way grants, and other
property grants that RR's could sell
The Homestead Act of 1862
 160 Acres free to any head of household who would settle
 Between 1862-1900, 600,000 families take advantage
 1889, similar give-away in Indian Territory (Oklahoma)
 Railroads & Speculators bought up & resold many claims
The Homestead Act of 1862
 One of the most important pieces of legislation in US History
 Settled the Great Plains & provided new lives & opportunities
for thousands of families, soldiers, immigrants, etc
The Closing of the Frontier: 1890
 In 1890, the Census Bureau declared that the USA no longer
had a continuous frontier line
The Frontier Thesis:
Frederick Jackson Turner
 Born in 1861, Portage, WI
 1893, “The Significance of the
Frontier in American History”
 Success of USA directly related
to Westward Expansion
 Rugged Individualism forged on
the Frontier
 Continual rebirth on Frontier
 Tremendous influence on media
historians, religion, etc
 Some modern historians now
reject Turner's Thesis
Settling the Great Plains
Sod Houses & Dugouts
 With no wood, or stone, settlers turned to sod bricks
 Some settlers dug into hillsides, or under ground
 By 1900-1913, over one million sod dwellings in use
 1850: 1% of US Population lived west of Mississippi
 1900: 30% lived west of Mississippi
Women on the Plains
 Women who were single, widowed or divorced could
qualify as homesteaders, and thousands did
 Wives/Mothers
canning, doctoring
field work, clothing
 Teachers
 Helped w/ churches
Technical Innovations in Farming
 Cyrus McCormick:
Mechanical Reaper, 1857
 John Deere:
Steel Plows, 1837
 Spring Tooth Harrow
 Corn Binder, etc
 1830: Bushel of Corn – 3 Hours
 1900: Bushel of Corn – 10 Minutes
Morrill Act: Agricultural Education
 In 1862 & 1890 Congress gave Federal Land to States
to help finance agricultural colleges: Land Grant Colleges
 State Colleges, A&M, Tech, and Engineering Schools
 Justin Smith Morrill – Buchanan vetoes, Lincoln signs
A Second American Revolution?
Princeton Professor James McPherson
 1991, McPherson writes “Abraham Lincoln and the
Second American Revolution”
 Contends that Lincoln's Emancipation, prosecution of
Civil War, Homestead Act and Morrill Act fundamentally
changed the United States
Problems for Farmers
 Debt Cycle
 Railroad Fees
 Retiring Greenbacks
 Falling Wheat prices:
1867: $2.00/Bushel
1887: $0.67/Bushel
Farmers form
Alliances:
The Grange
 Oliver Hudson Kelley
 Began as social club
and education society
 Grew to fight railroads &
set up cooperatives,
technical advice
& lobbying legislatures
 Others followed:
Southern Alliance
Colored Farmer’s Alliance
and others
The Rise of the Populist Party
 Relief for farmers in debt
 Increase in the Money Supply:
Raise prices received for goods & services
 Graduated Income Tax
 Direct Election of Senators
 Single Term for President
 Secret Ballot
 8 Hour Work Week
 Limits on Immigration
 Initiative, Referendum, Recall
 Won 10% of Vote in 1892
 Elected 5 Senators
 3 Governors
 1500 State Legislators
Election of 1892
The Panic of 1893
 Brief but severe Depression
 Gold supply low due to government silver purchases
 Government unable to redeem paper money for gold
 Phila. & Reading RR fails, 15,000 businesses, 600 Banks
Silver or Gold?
 All Paper Money was “Backed” by Bullion
 Bimetallism: Gold and Silver: William Jennings Bryan
More money in circulation, stimulate economy
 Gold Standard: Grover Cleveland
Less money in circulation, economy more stable
Bryan & The Cross of Gold
 Bryan delivers impassioned speech at Democratic
Convention in Chicago
 Receives Democratic Nomination
 Populists in turmoil: Support Bryan or not? In the end they
endorse Bryan, but also run candidate for VP
The Election of 1896:
The End of Populism
William McKinley - R William Jennings Bryan - D
The Election of 1896:
The End of Populism