Transcript History of the West

Unit 4 Notes
Majors Changes in the Great Plains
1850-1880
HISTORY OF THE WEST
NEW AGRICULTURAL EMPIRE

Last heyday for the family farmer


1860—2 million farms
The 1862 Homestead Act encouraged people to
leave the east for 160 acres of free land.

Moved to Great American Desert
By 1872 farms were producing surplus—growing
cash crops
 Expenses

$500 for land
 $785 for machinery

LAWS TO PROMOTE SETTLEMENT OF THE WEST

1862 Homestead Act offers 160 acres free to
any head of household


1862–1900, up to 600,000 families settle
Exodusters — Southern African-American
settlers in Kansas
 Railroad,
state agents, speculators profit; 10% of
land to families
 Government strengthens act, passes new
legislation for settlers
LAWS TO PROMOTE SETTLEMENT OF THE WEST
(CON’T)

Examples:
 1873—Timber
Culture Act
 1877—Desert Land Act
 1878—Timber and Stone Act

Agricultural Education
 Morrill
Act of 1862, 1890 finances agricultural
colleges
 1887 Hatch Act creates agricultural experiment
stations
NEW TECHNOLOGY AND METHODS

Mass market for farm machines develops with
migration to plains
 1866—hay
baler
 1869—harrow
 1874—barbed wire and grain drill
 1876—hay loader
 1877—chilled iron plow
 1878—harvester and corn binder
 1880—lister to plant corn
NEW TECHNOLOGY AND METHODS (CON’T)

The Farmers’ Alliances

1867, Oliver Hudson Kelley starts Patrons of
Husbandry or Grange
 Purpose
railroads

is educational, social; by 1870s, Grange fighting
Farmers’ Alliances — groups of farmers and
sympathizers

lectures on interest rates, government control of railroads,
banks





Better techniques
Cooperative methods
Social institution
Political organization
gain over 4 million members
SOD BUSTERS OF THE PLAINS

Dugouts and Soddies
 Few
trees, so many settlers dig homes into sides of
ravines or hills
 In plains, make soddy or sod home by stacking
blocks of turf
 Houses
 18
x 24
 Dripped mud or leaked when it rained
SOD HOMES, ETC. OF THE PLAINS
SOD HOTEL IN SOUTH DAKOTA
SODDIE
WOMEN’S WORK
Homesteaders virtually alone, must be selfsufficient
 Women do men’s work—plowing, harvesting,
shearing sheep
 Do traditional work—carding wool, making soap,
canning vegetables

Weave cloth from animal hair
 Candles
 Soak ashes for lye to combine with grease for soap
 Gather buffalo chips or corn husks for fuel

 Work
for communities—sponsor schools, churches
WOMEN’S WORK (CON’T)

Still legal barriers
 Wife
could not sell property without husband’s
permission
 Could not sue for divorce
 Could not serve on juries, as lawyers, or as
witnesses
 Breaking
of barriers
Wyoming Territory allowed women suffrage in 1868.
 Utah Territory followed suit in 1870 and also allowed women to
vote.

WOMEN’S WORK (CON’T)

Hazards
 Blizzards
 Drought
 Prairie
fires
 insects
Religion provided escape
 Code of the West

 Face
any danger head on
POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT
•
Officials merged public and private interests
 Railroad, lumber, and mining companies and
owners influenced government
 Donated to both parties
 Politicians received retainers from western
companies
 Lyman
Trumbull was paid by the Illinois Central Railroad
 Iowa Congressman Grenville Dodge was on the Union
Pacific Railroad payroll
POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT (CON’T)
•
Officials merged public and private interests (Con’t)
 The shell company of Credit Mobilier was
established so that its stockholders could oversee
government assistance and create contracts with
themselves to build their own railroad lines at
tremendous profits.
 Shares
were given to Congressmen to assure
government assistance
Speaker of the House, James G. Blaine
 Grant’s Vice Presidents Schuyler Colfax and Henry Wilson

POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT (CON’T)

Farmers and the Railroad Business
 Railroads
formed pools and set high rates for
farmers to ship goods to market

Munn v. Illinois 1877
 States
could regulate common carriers to prevent
extremely high prices and pools
RAILROADS
Stimulated markets for industry
 Stimulated mining and agriculture

 Boon
for cities
Immigration (railroads advertised land for sale
in Europe)
 Established time zones

RAILROADS (CON’T)

1869 First Transcontinental Railroad

Central Pacific
Sacramento east
 Chinese
 Completed 689 miles


Union Pacific
Omaha west
 Irish
 Completed 1086 miles


Federal loans to railroads
$16,000 flat land
 $48,000 mountains


Land bonuses
200-400 square miles per mile of track
 Became the biggest land owners in the West

RAILROADS (CON’T)

Marred by corruption
 Fraudulent
stock
 Corrupt accounting
 Wholesale bribery (75 western railroads
benefitted)
 Railroads Built Cities
RAILROADS OPEN THE WEST
1850–1871, huge land grants to railroads for
laying track in West
 1860s, Central Pacific goes east, Union Pacific
west, meet in Utah

 By

1880s, 5 transcontinental railroads completed
Railroads sell land to farmers, attract many
European immigrants
PROBLEMS WITH THE RAILROADS
Lack of competition lets railroads overcharge to
transport grain
 Farms mortgaged to buy supplies; suppliers
charge high interest

WHY DID AMERICA NEED RAILROADS?
Communication from East to West was not very
good
 Travelling time from East to West took 6
months +

 It

would help fulfil ‘Manifest Destiny’
The U.S. needed to keep up with other
countries
 Trade

links with China and Japan
Help to bring law and order to the West
EFFECT OF THE RAILROADS:

Quick and easy travel to the West
 Previous
 Wagon
methods
Train
 Foot
 By
boat
 Pony Express
 The
railroad turned a 6 month journey into a
maximum of 8 days
EFFECT OF THE RAILROADS: (CON’T)

Cheap land for people wanting to go West

Once the Railroads were built the Railroad
companies had no use for the excess land
 Sold


land off cheap
Benefitted Homesteaders and Ranchers who came
west.
Destruction of the Indians

Hunters used the Railroad to go west to hunt the
buffalo
 Hunters



were only interested in buffalo skin
1875 southern buffalo herds wiped out
1885 northern buffalo herds wiped out
Indians and Whites equally responsible for the
devastation to the Buffalo population
WHO ACTUALLY BUILT THE RAILROADS?

Coolies (Central Pacific) & European immigrants
(Union Pacfic)


Chinese labourers
Brought into the United States by the Central
Pacific

After slavery was abolished, there was a severe lack
of labour in many European colonies
 Labourers
were supposed to be recruited by voluntary
negotiation, and this was probably usually the case,
though kidnapping and trickery were frequent

The treatment of coolies was often very harsh, and
the government involved did little to remedy their
plight
WHO ACTUALLY BUILT THE RAILROADS? (CON’T)

Use of Coolies during the railway boom
 Chinese
coolies contributed to the building of
the Transcontinental Railroad in the United
States (as well as the Canadian Pacific Railway
in Western Canada)
 But
the Chinese labourers were not welcome to stay
after its completion
1862: California's Anti-Coolie Act of 1862
 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act

 Both
of these Acts contributed to the oppression of
Chinese labourers in the United States
ANALYZE THE POLITICAL CARTOON
DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE:

Union of Central Pacific & Union Pacific
 May
10, 1869: two rail lines meet at Promontory
Point (mountains of Utah)

Result of this union:
 By
the early 1900s: 4 transcontinental lines & the
US had a vast railroad system
EFFECT OF THE RAILROADS: REVISITED

Helps develop the Cattle Industry
 Cattle
were transported by the railroads making it
easier to move them from Texas to the East
 Cow Towns grew up around these railroad stops
 Sedalia,
Missouri
 Cheyenne, Wyoming
 Abilene, Kansas
 Dodge City, Kansas
 Greeley, Colorado
CATTLE KINGDOM
Texas and high plains of New Mexico, Colorado,
Wyoming, and Montana
 1860 – 5 million head west of Mississippi
 Boom or Bust

 25-40%
 Competition
 Natural
controls—not enough grass, blizzards, drought
CATTLE KINGDOM (CON’T)
Used Mexican methods (horses, branding irons,
riata[ ropes], chaps, spurs, broad-brimmed hat,
cowhands, cattle drives)
 Trails

 Chisholm—to
Ellsworth or Abilene
 Western—to Dodge City or Ogallala
 Sedalia-Baxter—to Sedalia or Baxter Springs
 Goodnight-Loving—to Denver or Cheyenne
CHICAGO
1860—1870 population tripled
 Transportation center for resources

Iron
 Coal
 Timber


Processing center for raw materials
Meat packing
 Flour mills
 Steel mills
 Agricultural equipment


Distribution center for manufactured goods
from the North
RANGE WARS
Open range v. fences
 Feed cattle v. range cattle
 Sheep v. cattle
 Control of water

CATTLE BECOME BIG BUSINESS

Vaqueros and Cowboys

American settlers learn to manage large herds from
Mexican vaqueros
 adopt
way of life, clothing, vocabulary
Texas longhorns — sturdy, short-tempered breeds
brought by Spanish
 Cowboys not in demand until railroads reach Great
Plains


Growing Demand for Beef

After Civil War demand for meat increases in rapidly
growing cities
CATTLE BECOME BIG BUSINESS (CON’T)

The Cow Town
Cattlemen establish shipping yards where trails and rail
lines meet
 Chisholm Trail becomes major cattle route from San
Antonio to Kansas


A Day in the Life of a Cowboy

A Day’s Work
 1866–1885,

up to 55,000 cowboys on plains
25% African American, 12% Mexican
 Cowboy
works 10–14 hours on ranch; 14 or more on trail
 Expert rider, roper; alert for dangers that may harm, upset
cattle
CATTLE BECOME BIG BUSINESS (CON’T)

Roundup



The Long Drive



During spring roundup, longhorns found, herded into
corral
Separate cattle marked with own ranch’s brand; brand
calves
Herding of animals or long drive lasts about 3 months
Cowboy in saddle dawn to dusk; sleeps on ground;
bathes in rivers
Legends of the West

Celebrities like “Wild Bill” Hickok, Calamity Jane never
handled cows
THE END OF THE OPEN RANGE

Changes in Ranching
 Overgrazing,
bad weather from 1883 to 1887
destroy whole herds
 Ranchers keep smaller herds that yield more meat
per animal
 Fence land with barbed wire; turn open range into
separate ranches
MINING

Spreads west to east


Most made money supplying the miners
Boom or Bust
Quick profits (individuals)
 Followed by consolidation and order (corporations,
machinery, paid labor)


Mining areas grew large cities first

Attracted immigrants
 California
passed Foreign Miners’ Tax
 Riots against Chinese
 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
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 miners to bring a year’s worth of
supplies with them, and that was a difficult task.
 Reports of “gold for the taking” were false.
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. Townspeople
established churches, newspapers, and schools.
1849 CALIFORNIA
CALIFORNIA, CONT.
1858 PIKE’S PEAK, COLORADO
DENVER, COLORADO 1870
1859 VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA
COMSTOCK LODE
1870 PARK CITY, UTAH
1876 BLACK HILLS, SOUTH DAKOTA
1880S ALTA, UTAH
THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH

The California gold rush began when gold was
discovered at Sutter’s Mill
 January

24, 1848
As the news of discovery spread, some
300,000 people came to California from the
rest of the United States and abroad
 These
early gold seekers called “49ers” traveled to
California by sailing ships and covered wagons
across the continent.
THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH (CON’T)

Techniques for retrieving gold
At first a technique called panning was used to
retrieve gold from streams and riverbeds.
 Hydraulic mining was later invented in California.
This technique was created for larger scale gold
mining


Samuel Brannan

Samuel Brannan was the first millionaire because of
the California gold rush
 Brannan
established the first newspaper in San Francisco
called the California Star and also established the first
school in San Francisco
 Brannan was elected to the California State Senate in
1853. He was also credited with developing banks,
railroads, and telegraph companies.
THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF THE GOLD RUSH

Native Americans became the victims of
disease, starvation, and genocidal attacks.
The Native American population in 1845 was
150,000
 The Native American population in 1870 was less
than 30,000


Many people that journeyed to California from
around the world never made it

The Donner party - A total of 87 people from various
families set out for California and became
snowbound in the Sierra Nevada
 Only
48 of the original 87 pioneers survived
THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF THE GOLD RUSH

Towns and cities were charted
 Roads,
schools, and churches were formed
 Improved transportation between California and the
east coast

All of these developments led to the statehood
of California on September 9th, 1850 as the
31st state.
TOMBSTONE


Settled by Ed Schieffelin when he sought to discover silver
Named it Tombstone and rumors of rich strikes made a
boomtown of the settlement in Apache land

Days of lawlessness and violence throughout the town’s history
climaxed with the infamous Earp-Clanton battle


Previously President Chester A. Arthur almost declared martial law
By 1879 the town possessed nearly 100 permanent residents
and thousands of campers


At the time it was equal in population to San Francisco
By mid-1880’s population around 7,500


For 7 years the mines produced millions of dollars in silver and
gold


When counting women, children, Chinese, Mexicans, and “ladies of the evening”
the number reaches 15,000-20,000
Forced to shut down due to underground waters
Multiple fires destroyed the city throughout its early years

Yet known as “The Town too Tough to Die”
TOMBSTONE (CON’T)

Famous gunfight between the Earp’s and the
Cowboys on October 26, 1881 outside the OK
Corral
 Fight
took 24 seconds and 30 shots fired
 Billy
Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury were all mortally
wounded
 Questions

over the legality of the event
Population dwindled throughout the rest of the
19th and 20th Century
Morgan Earp
EARP GANG
Wyatt Earp
Virgil Earp
Doc Holliday
CLANTON GANG
Tom McLaury
Billy Clanton
Frank McLaury
DEATHS OF THE OK CORRAL FIGHT
Ike Clanton