Chapter 18Chapter 18

A Transformed Nation: The West and the New South,

1865–1890

Homestead ActHomestead Act Homestead Act

160 acres Live on for five years and improve land

Railroads Five transcontinental lines between 1869 and 1893 Government subsidized, but were also required to

obtain their own financing 12,000 Chinese laborers built the Central Pacific

Railroad Transcontinental Railroad completed at Promontory

Point, Utah in 1869

Mining and ranching frontiers Silver eclipsed gold in 1870s; copper also important

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Railroad Expansion, 1870–1890

RanchingRanching

Heyday of cattle driving in 1880s Railroads helped shorten routes

Realities of frontier very different from popular images Chisholm Trail

Decline in open range led to rise in industrial ranching Vaqueros

Mexican Americans Californios Trejanos

Itinerant workers Henry George Miller and Lux

Homesteading and FarmingHomesteading and Farming

Great American Desert Sod houses

Homestead act allowed women to make claims Most sold land rather than “prove up”

Mining towns 93% male Prostitution

Chinese sexual slavery

Conflict and ResistanceConflict and Resistance

Westward expansion had encroached on Indian territory Concentrated Indian population onto tiny reservations

1.5 million acres

Civilized tribes punished after war for siding with Confederacy Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles

Conflict with the SiouxConflict with the Sioux

Origins in wartime disagreements and violent clashes Pushed Minnesota to Dakota Territory

Exacerbated after discovery of gold in the Black Hills in the mid-1870s

Battle of Little Big Horn, June 1876 Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

George Custer

Wounded Knee, 1890 Ghost Dance 25 soldiers and 150 Sioux dead

Suppression of Other Plains PeoplesSuppression of Other Plains Peoples

Sand Creek massacre against Cheyenne, 1864 Black Kettle 200 Cheyenne massacred Set pattern for similar attacks on Indian villages in

subsequent years

Systematic destruction of buffalo herds Most extreme example of environmental degradation

caused by westward expansion

Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé

The “Peace Policy”The “Peace Policy”

Balanced iron fist of repression with velvet hand of reform

Restructured Indian society along white lines Board of Indian Commissioners, 1871 Dawes Severalty Act, 1887 Ghost Dance

Wovoka

Popular myths of the West Sitting Bull Buffalo Bill Cody

Industrialization and the New SouthIndustrialization and the New South

Southern states remained Democratic after 1877 Opened up to Northern investment after 1880

Textiles, tobacco, railroads, iron Lintheads

Created “colonial” relationship with North Region’s key weakness was state of its

agriculture Crop lien system One-crop system, low investment; overproduction,

falling prices Forced to import food at inflated prices

Industrialization and the New South Industrialization and the New South (cont)

Race relations in the New South were problematic Blacks became scapegoats for poor economic

conditions Jim Crow laws and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Doctrine of separate but equal

Booker T. Washington and improvement through self-help

Tuskegee institute in Alabama Atlanta Exposition speech, 1895

Politics of StalematePolitics of Stalemate

U.S. politics deadlocked between 1873 and 1893 Closely contested presidential elections

Grover Cleveland Major legislation enacted only through bipartisan

majorities Divided government and an even balance between the

two parties

Civil Service ReformCivil Service Reform

Most salient issue of national politics in early 1880s Mugwumps and Half-Breeds James Garfield

Assassinated in 1881 Chester A. Arthur

Pendleton Act, 1883 Covered half of government jobs by 1897

McKinley Tariff of 1890

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Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

What were the major impacts of the railroads on the West?

Examine the U.S. policy towards Indians in the late 1800s. Was it a policy of assimilation or annihilation?

What was Booker T. Washington’s role as a civil rights leader at the end of the 19th century?

Examine the politics of the 1890s. What were the pressing issues of the day?