1. Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap.2. How many days til the moon is full? (Slack of 2 days allowed.)3. What soil series are you standing on ?4. What was the total rainfall in your area last year (July-June)? (Slack: 1” for every

20”.)5. When was the last time a fire burned in your area?6. What were the primary subsistence techniques of the people that lived in your area

before you?7. Name 5 edible plants in your region and their season(s) of availability.8. From what direction do winter storms generally come in your region?9. Where does your garbage go?10. How long is the growing season where you live?11. On what day of the year are the shadows the shortest where you live?12. When do the deer rut in your region, and when are the young born?13. Name five grasses in your area. Are any of them native?14. Name five resident and five migratory birds in your area.15. What is the land use history of where you live?16. What primary ecological event/process influenced the land forms where you live?

(Bonus special: what's the evidence?)17. What species have become extinct in your area?18. What are the major plant associations in your region?19. From where you're reading this, point north.20. What spring wildflower is among the first to bloom where you live?

from last time:Factors Underlying Capitalist

Industrialization?

-Resources

-Labor

-Desire

Weighing the Impacts of Industrialization:

-Economic -increase in aggregate wealth

-Environmental-more rapid, more thorough exploitation of environment (less time

and opportunity for regeneration) -Social

-changing nature of work (wage labor)-rising inequality-people are more dependent on the market to supply needs-more people reap benefit of distant ecosystems-communities often lose control over local ecosystems (landscape

is privatized)-Cultural

-commodification of landscape (a “forest” board feet of timber)-distancing

Scoring of Quiz * 0-3: You have your head up your ***. * 4-7: It's hard to be in two places at once

when you're not anywhere at all. * 8-12: A firm grasp of the obvious. * 13-16: You're paying attention. * 17-19: You know where you're at. * 20: You not only know where you're at,

you know where it's at.

“Where You At? A Bioregional Quiz,” developed by Leonard Charles, Jim Dodge, Lynn Milliman, and Victoria Stockley. Published in Coevolution Quarterly 32 (Winter 1981).

U.S. Population 1800

Distribution of U.S. Population in 1850

Population in 1900

Distribution of U.S. Population in 1850 and 1900

The Agrarian Vision

President Thomas Jefferson, 1802-1808

Floor Plan of Monticello, designed by Thomas Jefferson

The Creation of the “Public Domain” (=federally owned lands):

Created by land that was ceded to the federal government by the original colonies in the 1780s

Excerpt from the Charter for the Carolina Colony, 1663:

…do give, grant and confirm unto the said Edward Earl of Clarendon, George Duke of Albemarle, William Lord Craven, Atolls Lord Berkley, Anthony Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkley, and Sir John Colleton, their heirs and assigns, all that territory or tract of ground, scituate, lying and being within our dominions of America, extending from the north end of the island called Lucke island, which lieth in the southern Virginia seas, and within six and thirty degrees of the northern latitude, and to the west as far as the south seas, and so southerly as far as the river St. Matthias, which bordereth upon the coast of Florida, and within one and thirty degrees of northern latitude, and so west in a direct line as far as the south seas aforesaid; …and also all the soil, lands, fields, woods, mountlills, fields, lakes, rivers, bays and islets, scituate or being within the bounds or limits aforesaid, with the fishing of all sorts of fish, whales, sturgeons and all other royal fishes in the sea, bays, islets and rivers within the premises, and the fish therein taken; and moreover all veins, mines, quarries, as well discovered as not discovered, of gold, silver, gems, precious stones, and all other whatsoever, be it of stones, metals, or any other thing whatsoever, found or to be found within the countries, isles and limits aforesaid.

The Land Ordinance of 1785

Draftsmen in the General Land Office, c. 1890

Typical land description under the U.S. Public Survey System:

“The Southeast Quarter of Section 31 Township-125-North Range-87-West of the Fifth Principal Meridian.”

“SE¼ of Sec. 31 T125N R87W of the 5th P.M.”

“SE¼ 31 T125N R87W”

Land Deed issued under the Homestead Act, 1868

Description of land being transferred, from Dedham Grant Deed, 1667:

Certaine persels of Land at Pacomtuck on ye further side or upper side or North side of Pacomtuck river, that is to say beginning a little above where Pukcommeagon river runs into Pacomtuck river and so a little way up Puckommeag river & then leaving Puckcomeagon river runs off to ye hill Sunsick westward: All ye land from ye hill Sunsick on westward, downe ye River Pacomtuck eastward below Nayyaocossick to Pochewee, neare ye Mouth of Puckcomeagon river, wch persells of Land are called Nayyyocossick, Tomholissick, Masquomcossick, vssowwack Wusquiawwag & so to Sunsick hill, or by what ever other Names ye sd Land is or may be called: All ye aforedescribed Tract of Land, being called by several names as aforesd viz. Nayyocossick Tomholissick Masquomcossick vssowwack Wusquiawawag & Sunsick, or by what ever names it may be called,

Shifting Demographics in Late 19th Century California

1845 1870

Native American ~150,000 <30,000

San Francisco < 500 150,000

Malakoff Diggins, 1890(Photo by Carleton Watkins, California Geological Survey)

Environmental Effects of Gold Mining

-Massive erosion and silting of rivers

-devastation of fish populations

-toxic pollution of rivers (mercury, arsenic)

-flooding of riparian lands

-malaria epidemic (due to new mosquito habitat)

Comment on gold mining’s impacts by Special Indian Agent, E.A. Stevenson in 1853:

“The rivers or tributaries of the Sacramento formerly were clear as crystal and abounded with finest salmon and other fish. I saw them at Salmon Falls on the American river in the year 1851, and also the Indians taking barrels of these beautiful fish and drying them for winter. But the miners have turned the streams from their beds and conveyed the water to the dry diggings and after being used until it is so thick with mud that it will scarcely run it returns to its natural channel and with it the soil from a thousand hills, which has driven almost every kind of fish to seek new places of resort where they can enjoy a purer and more natural element.”

White and Chinese Miners in Auburn Ravine, California(http://miningartifacts.homestead.com/California-mines.html)

Major Gold and Silver Rushes in the US West, 1850-1902

• Pikes Peak, CO, 1859 (gold)

• Comstock Lode, NV, 1859 (silver)

• Leadville, CO, 1873 (silver)

• Black Hills, SD, 1874 (gold)

• Cripple Creek, CO, 1890 (gold)

• Klondike, AL, 1897 (gold)

• Goldfield, NV, 1902 (gold)

(From Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains [1931])

How can we explain the development of cattle ranching on the Great Plains in the second half of the 19th century?

(Photo by F.M. Steele)

Transportation improvements: Railroads facilitate getting cattle to eastern markets

19th Century Land Laws to Encourage Agrarian Settlement in the West:

• 1841 Preemption Act— “squatters” get first right to buy federal land on which they are living (up to 160 acres)

• 1862 Homestead Act—160 acres, free for 5-yr residency or $1.25/acre

• 1873 Timber Culture Act—160 acres, free if trees cultivated on 40 acres (amended to 10 acres in 1878)

• 1877 Desert Lands Act—640 acres @ $1.25/acre with irrigation required w/in 3 years

John Wesley Powell,Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, 1878

(From Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains [1931])

Powell’s Conclusions:

1. Federal government should survey and classify all western lands (zoning)

2. Homesteads should be sized according to their use and location (larger farms in more arid areas)

3. Federal government should finance and build irrigation projects for small landholders in the West

ConclusionI. Settlement of the West differed from settlement in the East b/c:

(1) US in control (not British crown)more expansionist; (2) industrial technology (e.g., RR); (3) organized system for land distribution and transfer

II. Two visions for the West:(1) Capitalist (Gold rushes, cattle ranching)(2) Agrarian (small farmers on the Plains)

III. Outcomes of settlement in the West are the result of:-people’s visions & desires-settlers’ knowledge and experience (and their ability to adapt)-environment (aridity, climatic extremes, grass)power relations among competing groups (Euro-Americans vs. Natives; capitalist

ranchers vs. farmers)

IV. Capitalist vision becomes dominant in the region -The west enters the nation primarily as an “extractive economy” rather than as

a region of small farms