Transcript Document
Please sit in your assigned seats and quietly follow the directions below: Answer the following question in your bell ringer notebook. Write the KEY WORDS (most important) in the question. Alexander Hamilton's plan for a “national bank” was politically significant because A) it helped provide the county’s first balanced budget. B) it triggered the duel with Aaron Burr that eventually killed Hamilton. C) the county's war debt which remained from the Revolutionary War was quickly erased as a result of newly created taxes. D) it caused the first direct conflict between supporters of strict interpretation versus loose interpretation of the Constitution. USHC Standard 4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the industrial development and the consequences of that development on society and politics during the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. USHC 4.1: Summarize the impact that government policy and the construction of the transcontinental railroads had on the development of the national market and on the culture of Native American peoples. MAIN IDEAS: • During and after the Civil War, the U.S. entered a period of rapid economic growth and westward expansion fostered by government policies. • This growth created a national market but also threatened the cultural survival of the Native Americans of the west. The Civil War marked an important turning point in the development of a national system of transportation. Why? • Railroad construction prior to the Civil War had impacted the growing tension between the regions as Northerners and Southerners vied for routes to the Pacific Ocean. • The absence of Southern Democrats from Congress during the Civil War allowed Republicans to pass laws that reflected their understanding of the broader role of the national government. • The authorization of subsidies in the form of land grants promoted the building of transcontinental railroads because it provided both a route and land to sell to raise capital for building of the tracks. • Subsidies: money given by the government to a private industrial company (in this case the railroad company) • Land Grants: a tract of land given by the government, for colleges or railroads • The Pacific Railway Act: An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes. • The Homestead Act, a law granting western farm land to settlers for free as long as they created a home there, also promoted growth of the west and the national economy Why was the transcontinental railroad so important? • The railroad fostered the development of a national market by linking all parts of the country • The railroad provided access for farmers and ranchers to markets in the east as well as access for emerging industries to the natural resources of the west What did the transcontinental railroad mean for Native Americans? • The building of railroads profoundly impacted Native Americans in the west • Plains Indians depended on the roaming buffalo to sustain themselves; however, it posed a threat to the integrity of the railroad tracks, so the railroad encouraged the killing of bison • White settlers were attracted to the west by the availability of free land with access to markets via the railroad • Similar to the Trail of Tears in the East, a policy of moving native peoples off of their traditional lands to reservations to make way for white settlers was followed for western tribes • Native peoples were forced to agree to treaties that moved them to smaller reservations where they were taken advantage of by corrupt agents of the U.S. government • Some Native Americans resisted, but were relentlessly pursued in a series of Indian Wars by the U.S. cavalry • Others accommodated, only to be driven from the reservations because of the discovery of some precious mineral in the lands they had been granted Criticisms of the U.S. policy of breaking treaties with the Native Americans resulted in a change in policy. • Dawes Severalty Act: government policy that attempted to foster Native American assimilation into American society • The new policy divided tribal lands into farming parcels and gave them to individual Native American families Did this policy work? NO! • The arrangement did not match the cultural habits of native peoples who believed in tribal ownership of lands and who did not know how to be farmers • As a result, many Native Americans lost their land to whites MAP How else did the government promote assimilation? • Native American children were taken from their families and sent to boarding schools in the east where they were taught English and how to dress and act like white Americans • This led to the loss of Native Americans’ cultural heritage • Native Americans’ attempts to revive their traditions, such as the Ghost Dance, were viewed as threat by the United States army and resulted in a massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota MAIN IDEA: Native Americans were left in poverty and cultural decline, without a voice in America’s democracy. http://www.ted.com/talks/aaron_huey.html Writing response to Ted video 1. Do you think what we have gained from westward expansion, physically, economically, socially, is worth everything Native Americans have given up? Why or why not? 2. Do you think negative events in history, such as slavery or the removal of Native Americans from their land, can now be considered necessary evils because of what we have? Why or why not? 3. Would you be willing to give up some of what you have so Native Americans could have what was once theirs? Why or why not?