Settling the West

1865 – 1900

Miners

• Comstock Lode of gold & silver discovered in Nevada: pure silver ore discovered by Henry Comstock

• Thousands of miners come to Virginia City to seek their fortune.

Virginia City becomes a

• Boomtown with opera house, hotels, newspapers. Crime & Vigilantees too.

http://www.goodoldsongs.com/

Pikes Peak

• Gold discovery in 1858

Leadville, Co.

• Lead worth $1 billion worth of silver & gold.

• Railroads are built to haul it out.

Gold, Silver, Copper

• Black Hills : Dakotas = gold

1889 Montana, N.S. Dakota

Admitted into the Union.

Railroads

• Haul heavy loads out.

• Bring new settlers in.

• Bring in supplies.

• Economic Growth

• More Settlers.

Farming The Plains

• The Great American Desert

• Rapid settlement of the West

• Relief found through technical advances

Homestead Act

With a $ 10 registration fee, a settler could claim up to 160 acres of public land

Later Acts gave more land.

• Government gave railroads huge tracts of land that they later sold to farmers

Life is very difficult.

• No trees, little water, sod homes

Hot in the Summer

• Dry, hot summers

Freezing in the Winter

• Hailstorms

Dry Farming

• Grasshopper plagues

• Prairie fires

Sod Busters

• Hard Work

Wheat is the Crop!!

• Bountiful harvests made the U.S. the exporter of wheat by 1880.

Trouble

• Falling prices

• Drought

• Mortgage the farm

Many Left.

• Return to Kansas……

• But not in a car..

Small farmers succeed.

• Grow smaller crops….

• Family Farms

Mechanical Reapers

• Speed the Growing Process

Innovations increased Supply

• Lowered cost of production, especially Wheat..

• Steel Wind Mills

• Reapers

• Barbed Wire

1890’s

• The farmer’s frontier is gone. No more free land was available.

Hard Times for Farmers

• Too much supply , lowers the price, and fewer farmers can survive.

Ranchers

• Chisholm trail Cattle Drive Begins

• 1.5 million cattle between 1867 & 1871 to Abilene, Kansas.

Longhorn Cattle

• Tough – survive in harsh environments

• Great Plains

Cowboys

• Hard work, low pay, short careers

• The Cattle Drive

• Myth of the Cowboy

• Changes in the cattle industry

Barbed Wire

• Fight between Farmers & Ranchers

• Fence off areas of the open range for farming

Dangers

• Oversupply of Animals = low prices

• Blizzards

Culture of the Plains Indians

• Nomads

• Fighting emphasizing skill and courage

• Efficient Hunters

Before 1850=

Little conflict, settlers did not want the desert.

Post Civil War

• Railroads want protection, Army builds forts.

• Reports of good farmland.

• Gold Discoveries.

Treaty of 1868 promised

• The Sioux that they could live in their sacred land, The Black Hills, forever…

Forever, ended

• With the gold discoveries.

Discovery of Gold in Black Hills

• Doom for the Indians..

• 7th Calvary was called out to remove the Indians.

• George Armstrong Custer led them.

General Custer

• 7th Calvary

Dakota Sioux Uprising

• Sioux felt cheated by the US government

• Did not want to give up their culture

Chief Little Crow

On the Dakota Reservation , the Indians are given annuities, or payments yearly. Chief asks for food on credit for his people. They are told to eat grass

Uprise and kill settlers

• Hundreds die before the Calvary arrive to restore order.

Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull

• Native American Leaders fight to keep control of their hunting grounds.

Native Americans

• Sand Creek Massacre

1862:Colorado

• Indians fight back- starving –

• Peaceful Indians report to Fort Lyon for safety.

• Col. Chivington attacked the Indians in the fort, killing 450= Chivington Massacre.

Reservations

• Give up the Nomad life.

Battle of Little Bighorn

• Custer’s Last Stand on June 25, 1876

Indians led by Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse

Custer & 215 of his men are killed.

This marks the greatest and last of the Plain’s Indians victories.

Crazy Horse surrenders1877

Killed.

Ghost Dance Shirt.

Sitting Bull

“The Best of all the others.”

Crazy Horse

• A strong warrior with great military tactics.

Sitting Bull escaped to Canada

• Eventually joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

Tragedy of Wounded Knee

• Dec.29, 1890, The Sioux began a Ghost Dance, which they believed would take them to their ancestors.

Agents feared violence & sent

For the 7th Calvary.

350 Sioux- women, children, old men

200 Indians are killed.

25 Army Die.

Machine guns used.

Assimilation

• Blend in, Give up Identity.

Dawes Act

• Allowed US president to divide Native American land

Another Failed Plan

• Not so good.

President Hayes

• 1877 - 1881

President Garfield Assassinated

• 1881

Chester Arthur

• 1881 - 1885

Grover Cleveland

• 1885 - 1889

Dawes Act 1887

• Eliminates communal ownership of Native American Reservations.

President Benjamin Harrison

• 1889-1993

President Grover Cleveland

• 1893-1897

William McKinley

• 1897-1901