Warm-Up: describe this painting

Westward Expansion

Fulfilling Manifest Destiny

Moving West

Push Factors• Civil War displaced persons:

– farmers, former slaves and others

• Available farm land• Religious repression• Open spaces sheltered

outlaws

Pull Factors• Private Property• Morrill Land Grant

– Land to railroads

• Homestead Act 1862– 160 acres land free if you were 21

years old or heads of families; built a house, lived on it 6 months; and farm for 5 years in a row

• Settlers believed that they had a right to the western land because they produced more food and wealth than the Native Americans

• Immigrants went west for cheap land and new jobs

• Exodusters were ex-slaves who moved west to escape racial violence in the South and to make a new beginning and farming was the skill most already knew

The Native Americans

First removal was the Trail of Tears 1832

Came from many diverse cultures but shared common view toward nature

Native Americans saw themselves as part of nature

and viewed nature as

sacred

Many white Americans viewed the

land as a resource to

produce wealth

Native Americans and the settlers had very differing concepts of land ownership

During the 1800s, the government carried out a policy of moving Indians out of the way of white settlers, encouraging attempts to take Native American lands

Indians were forced into reservations, no longer free to roam the Plains.

At first, Indians in the East were moved west, into the Indian Territory of the Plains.

Frontier settlers continued pushing west, pressuring the government to open Indian Territory.

Two other crises also threatened Native American civilizations.

Disease

Loss of the buffalo

Settlers introduced diseases to which Indians had no immunity.

Settlers slaughtered buffalo herds.

As more and more settlers moved west, theNative American tribes were weakened or destroyed.

Some Native Americans fought to defend their lands.

The Sand CreekMassacre saw an unarmed camp of Indians under the U.S. Army protection killed by Colorado militia.

But attacks and retaliation led to distrust—and to tragedy.

Promises were made and peace treaties were signed, but they often were broken.

Frustration turned to violence as the government moved to crush Indian resistance.

• The Red River War led to the defeat of the Southern Plains Indians.

• The Sioux were victorious at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

• Chief Joseph and the Nez Percés surrendered after attempting to retreat to Canada.

Fearful of insurrection, government officials

tried to ban the practice.

The ritual preached that white settlers would be banished and the buffalo would return.

As their way of life slipped away, some Indians turned to a religious revival based on the Ghost Dance.

However, he was killed in a confrontation with U.S. troops.

More than 100 Indians who fled were killed at Wounded Knee.

The Indian Wars were over.

In an effort to end the Ghost Dance, the government attempted to arrest Sitting Bull.

Some critics attacked government policies and defended the Indians’ way of life.

Most leaders, however, hoped that Native Americans would assimilate into American life, becoming “civilized” and adopting white culture.

• Replaced the reservation system with an allotment system

• Granted each Indian family its own plot of land

• Specified the land could not be sold for 25 years

In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes General Allotment Act to encourage assimilation.

The Indian Right’s Movement would grow out of outragebecause of the way the government treated

the Native Americans

Activity:

• In The White Man’s Image video & questions