Transcript Settling the West Chapter 8

Settling the
West
There’s Gold In Them There Hills
• Placer Mining was used to extract gold & minerals from the
ground, but only the shallow level of ground was penetrated with
this method.
Equipment like picks, shovels &
pans were used in Placer Mining.
Diggin’ Deeper
• After Placer Mining, corporations would move in to begin
Quartz Mining.
• Quartz Mining dug deep beneath the surface.
• When there were no more deposits to dig, the corporations that mined
disappeared.
THE BIG STRIKE
IN NEVADA
1859 BOOMTOWN
Henry Comstock
claimed some
Land in Six-Mile
Canyon, Nevada!
• The blue-gray mud
there turned
out to be pure
silver!
News of this strike caused a
boom of 30,000 people to
crowd into Virginia City,
Nevada almost overnight!
been only a frontier
outpost.
Suddenly, the town had
1.Opera house
2.Shops with European clothes & furniture.
3.Several Newspapers
4.A 6 story hotel with the west first “rising room”..
What Was A Boomtown Like?
•Crime was a serious problem
All those people & no sheriff
They did have Vigilance Committees
(volunteers who enforced laws)
•They often punished innocent people
by accident or on purpose.
•Women worked at “hurdy-gurdy” houses
where they danced for a drink.
Ranching & Cattle Drives
While some were mining silver and
digging for gold, other people headed
out west to build
ranches on the Great Plains.
In the early 1800s, no one thought
building a cattle ranch on the Great
Plains would be successful because the
cattle from the east
couldn’t live on the tough
prairie grass.
A breed of cattle that descended from Mexico had emerged in Texas!
This breed of cow was adapted to the tough grass and climate of
the Great Plains. The government offered free
Range to all cattle. The grazing land was owned by the
American government. It was free & unrestricted by the
ownership of private farms.
Mexican cowhands taught the American
herders the art of rounding up & driving
cattle. They helped to create America’s
first Cowboys.
Before the Civil War, there was
No reason to round up the
Texas Longhorns because beef prices
were so low!
A trade route such as the Chisholm Trail
The desire for beef during the Civil War allowing the cattle ranchers to
Earn enough money from the sale of their cattle.
1.The Civil War
2.Construction of the Railroads
During the Civil War,
the Cattle were
needed in the east to
feed the soldiers.
Between 1867 & 1871 nearly
1.5 million head of cattle traveled
On the Chisholm trail.
When Abilene was full
of cowboys, it rivaled
any mining town in
rowdiness!
The
Cattle
Trails
With the prosperity of the cattlemen
came an era of lawlessness. The famed
served as Abilene 's marshal in 1871
and is reputed to have killed more than
50 alleged lawbreakers during his brief
tenure. The appearance of
homesteaders and fenced ranges
discouraged the Texas cattle trade,
much of which was diverted to Wichita.
Winter-wheat cultivation was introduced
in Abilene in the mid-1870s and remains
economically important. Abilene is still
a shipping point for livestock, as well as
for grain and other agricultural
products, and it has some light
industry.
Abilene." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
1 Jan. 2008 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9003356>.
In 1876 Hickok married a widow, Mrs.
Agnes Lake Thatcher, but he soon left her
(in Cincinnati) to visit the goldfields of the
Black Hills in the Dakota Territory. It was
there, at a poker table in Nuttall & Mann's
No. 10 saloon in Deadwood, that Hickok
was shot dead by a drunken stranger, Jack
McCall. The cards Hickok was holding—a
pair of black aces and a pair of black eights
plus an unknown fifth card—became
known as the dead man's hand. McCall's
motive was never learned; he was tried,
convicted of murder, and hanged on March
1, 1877.
Hickok, Wild Bill." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
>.
1 Jan. 2008 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9040358
*Thousands of Cattle were rounded up & gathered from the open ranges.
*The brands on the cattle was the only thing that distinguished one from the
other.
*The ranchers branded their cattle before moving them.
*Stray calves with no brand were divided up between the different owners
and branded.
Most of the cowboys on the cattle
drives were former Confederate
soldiers who after the war were
trying to rebuild their lives.
Many were Mexican & some were African
Americans who had been freed after the Civil
War.
The open range would end when ranch owners began to build fences to
prevent sheep herders from grazing the land meant for cattle.
The price of beef fell due to oversupply & many went bankrupt.
Then, in the winter of 1886, blizzards covered the ground so deep that
Cattle could not graze any grass.
Temperatures fell to 40 degrees below zero.
The fences were usually made of barbed wire
not wood fences.
Barbed Wire
Joseph Glidden
The Range Wars
Sheep
Herders
Cattle
Ranchers
Where was the man who invented this technique from
and did he get rich off of his invention?
In the early 1800s, why was building ranches on the
Great Plains considered a bad idea?
What are 2 developments that made
cattle drives worth while?
Who taught the skills of being a cowboy to the Americans?
Which breed of cow could survive well on the tough grass of the Great
Plains?
What stopped the open range grazing of cattle?
What happened in 1886 & affected cattle on the Great Plains?
How did the Cattle Industry change
forever?
Settling the
West
Chapter 5
Created by Ronna Williams
•Extends all the way to the Rocky Mountains to about
the center of Abilene ,Texas.
•Rainfall is about 20 inches each year on the
Great Plains & trees grow only along the banks of
Rivers & Streams.
•Many people considered the Great Plains to be a
Desert unfit for farming or grazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MczAq
e_s8AQ
•People could claim up to 160 acres of public land & get the title to the land
if they lived there for 5 years.
The people who decided to
take the offer faced many
challenges!
No trees to build a home
No water to drink
People were forced to build homes from
sod cut from the ground.
They had to dig wells 300 feet deep to tap
drinking water.
Summer temperatures soared to over 100 degrees!
Prairie fires were a constant threat.
Grasshopper swarms swept over farms & destroyed
entire crops.
Winter brought blizzards and bitter cold!
The Realty--A Pioneer’s Sod House, SD
Why were women so important to the settlement of the
West? What was life like for them?
New Agricultural
Technology
Steel Plow [“Sod Buster”]
“Prairie Fan”
Water Pump
McCormick Reaper
Farmers weren’t familiar with the
prairie soil & when they used dry
farming to plant seeds during the
dry season, all the soil just blew
away with the wind.
These farmers were called sodbusters!
Most lost their homesteads through because
of drought, wind erosion, and overuse of the
land.
They had the same problem with the wind, but they were able to
make quick profits by using mechanical reapers to speed harvests.
Wheat became to the Great
Plains like cotton was to
the south!
Many farmers moved to
The Great Plains Region to
Farm wheat producing the
Wheat Belt.
New machines allowed a single family to bring in a huge
harvest!
Some of these wheat farms were 50,000 acres.
They were called Bonanza Farms because they
made so much profit!
The United States became the
world’s largest exporter of wheat
in the 1880s.
Other Nations trying to compete
Caused an oversupply of wheat &
Prices crashed!
A terrible drought in the late 1880s
also strained the farms.
Most farmers had to borrow money
On their lands. When they couldn’t
pay, the bank took their ranches.
Some were given the chance to stay
And work on the farms they once
owned, as tenant workers.
By 1900, 1/3 of the farms were tenant
farms in the Wheat Belt.
Much of the land in the west was still unoccupied by 1890,
but the Government reported that it was nearly full when it
took a census of people living in the west.
It was upsetting to some people who always had the hope
of being able to go West and make a new start.
Even though news spread that the frontier
was closing, many more people traveled
west in the 1900s making their new starts,
but unlike the stories of “getting rich
quick”, the work was hard in their new
environment.
Water from the deep wells watered their gardens.
The Railroad brought lumber to build houses & coal to
use for fuel.
The real story of the people who went west wasn’t about
heroes who rode off into the sunset.
It was about “regular ole’ people” who built places to live,
formed Communities and worked hard to do what had to
be done.
They didn’t get rich, but most were
proud of the lives they had made
on the frontier.
Write the question & answer completely for a grade.
Explain the Homestead Act.
Name 5 problems people who took advantage of
the Homestead Act faced.
What is dry farming?
List 2 new advances in agricultural technology
that helped the farmers.
What were the huge farms called?
What were 2 things that led to difficult
times for the farmers causing the
price of wheat to fall & crops to fail?
Settling the
West
Chapter 5
Native Americans resisted by attacking wagons, trains,
stage coaches and ranches.
The first major clash happened in 1862 when the Sioux
People in Minnesota launched an uprising.
The Dakota Sioux had been moved to a reservation in
Minnesota with the promise of the United States
government paying them each year for the land they left
bhind.
The money was called annuities because it came once each year.
American traders in the area made up fake debts owed to them by the
Sioux & took the annuities meant for the Sioux.
Colonel John Chivington
“Kill and scalp all, big and
little!”
Sandy Creek, CO
Sand Creek Massacre
November 29, 1864
The Cheyenne were flying a
white flag & an America flag, but
Chivington ignored the symbols
of peace.
The Cheyenne were waiting at a fort
to negotiate a peace treaty with the
Americans. Because they had been
attacking women & children, Chivington
killed them.
Capt. William J. Fetterman
Fetterman’s Massacre
Lakota Sioux leader,
Crazy Horse led
Fetterman into a trap.
Crazy Horse tricked
Fetterman into following
a small band of Lakota,
& lured him into an
ambush where
hundreds of Lakota
Indians waited to
massacre him & his
men.
80 soldiers massacred
December 21, 1866
Mt. Rushmore: Black Hills, SD
GOLD had been discovered in Black Hills, South Dakota. So many
Americans had rushed to the area killing buffalo so rapidly they were
disappearing.
Professional hunters hunted the buffalo to sell the hides. Many
hunters killed buffalo by the hundreds just for sport leaving their
bodies to rot. The Railroad companies hired sharp shooters to kill
large numbers of buffalo who were blocking the railways’ traffic.
The Lakota Sioux & Cheyenne Indians were not supposed to
leave the reservation, but left to hunt for food near the Bighorn
Mountains in Montana.
Lt. Colonel George A. Custer underestimated the 2,500
Native Americans & attacked them in daylight as they camped by the
Little Bighorn River.
The Lakota Sioux & Cheyenne Indians killed all of Custer’s men. Newspapers
Reported Custer as the victim. Lakota Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull tried to
flee with his people to Canada, but the Americans forced him & his people
back onto the reservation in the Black Hills.
The Battle of Little Big Horn
1876
Click here for
Battle Scene
Gen. George
Armstrong
Custer
Chief Sitting Bull
Crazy Horse Monument:
Black Hills, SD
Lakota Chief
Nez Percé
Chief Joseph!
When Americans tried to
force Chief Joseph’s tribe
onto a smaller reservation
in Idaho, he fled running
for than 1300 miles
before being captured.
“Our Chiefs are killed…The little
Children are freezing to death. My
People…have no blankets, no food
Hear me, my chiefs; I am tired; my
Heart is sick and sad. From where
The sun now stands I will fight no
More forever.”
“Ghost Dance”, 1890
A terrible battle took place at
Wounded Knee Creek as the
Participants of the Ghost dance
Were attacked.
click
Chief Sitting
Bull Was Blamed
The Native Americans were not
supposed to practice this type of ritual
which would cause the settlers to disappear
& bring back the buffalo.
Tragedy at Wounded Knee
• The government sent police to arrest Chief
Sitting Bull for leading the Ghost Dance.
Sitting Bull’s people tried to stop the arrest, and an exchange of
gunfire killed many
including Chief Sitting Bull.
• After Chief Sitting Bull was killed, the
People who were part of the Ghost Dance
Ran from the reservation.
• On Dec. 29, 1890, American troops caught
Up with the Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee Creek & tried to force a
surrender.
• A terrible battle took place by Wounded
Knee Creek.
Chief Big Foot’s Lifeless Body
Wounded Knee, SD, 1890
25 U.S. Soldiers killed
200 Lakota men,
Women and Children
Killed.
Helen Hunt Jackson
She described all
The broken promises
The American
government
Had given to the
Native
Americans including
Facts from the
Massacre
At Sand Creek.
A Century of Dishonor (1881)
Assimilation was
The process of
Forcing Native
Americans
To abandon
Their culture &
become Americanized.
Dawes Act (1887):
Assimilation Policy
Carlisle Indian School, PA
William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild
West Show
“Buffalo Bill” Cody & Sitting Bull
Geronimo, Apache Chief:
Hopeless Cause
Indian Reservations Today