Essential Question Essential Question: What economic, political, & migratory factors led to the end of the western frontier by 1890? America After the Civil War: Industrialization & Urbanization Reconstruction & Rise of Jim Crow Segregation Ranching, Mining, & Farming America in the Gilded Age: The South The South: By 1877, the South was recovering from the Civil War but was no longer forced to reconstruct The South The South: By 1877, the South was recovering from the Civil War but was no longer forced to reconstruct The New South? Sharecropping Jim Crow reigned supreme as whites legally segregated the South into 2 distinct societies We wont discuss much about the South in this unit because, when Reconstruction ended in 1877, few significant economic or political changes took place until the 1940s America in the Gilded Age: The North The North: Experienced a 2 nd Industrial Revolution, mass immigration, & urbanization The North The North: Experienced a 2 nd Industrial Revolution, mass immigration, & urbanization Railroads, steel, & oil companies formed Americas first monopolies American industry & urbanization grew America in the Gilded Age: The West The West: Manifest Destiny continued after 1865 as miners homesteaders, & ranchers headed West The West The West: Manifest Destiny continued after 1865 as miners homesteaders, & ranchers headed West The United States by 1890 Established new states & closed the frontier by 1890 Colorado Washington Montana North Dakota South Dakota Idaho Wyoming Western raw materials fueled eastern factories..but this came at the expense of Native Americans Settlement of the West The Mining Bonanza Mining was the 1 st magnet to attract settlers to the West CA (1849) started the gold rush, but strikes in Pikes Peak, CO & Carson River Valley, NV (1859) set off wild migrations to the West: Comstock Lode Comstock Lode = $340 million (gold & silver) from Big Bonanza John Mackays Big Bonanza made him richest man in world John Mackay earned $25 a minute from his gold/silver lode in Sierra Mountains Mining Regions of the West Discoveries of gold & silver led to overnight mining towns (Boomstowns) Created need for local govt, law enforcement, sanitation, businesses, prostitutes placer miners Individual placer miners took little skill or money to start, but could not reach deep lodes Only corporations had the expensive machinery (hydraulic mining techniques) to extract most of the gold in the West. Big business Mining Bonanza to of the mining population was foreign born: Latin American miners brought experience & new techniques Chinese brought a tireless ethic Led to hostility & riots: Foreign Miners Act Foreign Miners Act in 1852 charged a monthly mining fee Chinese Exclusion Act Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 suspended Chinese immigration Mining Bonanza Mining attracted population and wealth to the Wild West Women found new rights as well. They gained suffrage in Wyoming (1869), Utah (1870), CO (1893), & Idaho (1896) Precious metals helped finance Civil War, facilitated building of railroads, & intensified conflict between Indians and whites Silver and gold let Treasury resume payments in 1878, which brought issue of silver into politics. Mining added to folklore and American lit (Bret Harte & Mark Twain) The Cattle Bonanza In the 1860s, cattle ranching boomed Ranchers used the open range to graze longhorns By 1867, ranchers started using trains to ship cattle to Chicago or Kansas City A cattle bought for $4 in Texas sold for $40 in Kansas Drive North to cowtowns The Cattle Bonanza of all cowboys were black & were Mexican By 1880, the open range was ending Wheat growers, homesteaders, & barbed wire blocked the range Many switched to raising sheep Over grazing & over expanding Blizzards in winter of left cattle starving and freezing But range wars erupted over grazing rights between cowboys & sheep-boys The Cattle Bonanza Solution: make cattle raising a big business & avoid over production Breeders began fencing their ranches and organizing (Wyoming Stock-Growers Association) Legends of cowboys made at this time The Farming Bonanza The U.S. govt offered incentives for farmers to settle the West: Homestead Act Homestead Act (1862)gave 160 acres of land if families pledged to live there for 5 years & improve it Led to a million buying land to settle out west. (5 x that many bought land from companies or the states) Sometimes, a cruel hoax160 acres of dry land was hardly enough for a family to survive. (Droughts, bad land, necessities) Fraudland ended up in hands of land promoters & not actual farmers 2/3 of all homesteaders failed to farm their land Corporations would hire dummy homesteaders to claim that had improved land by building a 12 x 14 dwelling --- in inches!! The Farming Bonanza Other govt acts helped develop western lands by planting trees & building irrigation systems Due to land grants, RRs were the largest western landowners Encourage American & European immigrants to buy cheap land from them. Once land had been plowed and watered, it was surprisingly fertile. 500 million acres doled to businesses but only 80 million to homesteaders The Farming Bonanza In 1870, homesteaders pushed West past 100 th meridian & adapted to the harsh farming conditions: Farmers used dry farming techniques & planted tougher varieties of wheat (Russian), built dams that irrigated 45 million acres in 17 states Farmers began growing cash crops & bought manufactured goods from general store or from catalogues (Aaron Montgomery Ward & Sears) New machinery sped harvesting & planting; led to large bonanza farms Minnesota-ND & Central Valley CA Pushed other farmers off land increased industrial workforce Outdoor grain factories By 1890, the U.S. became a major crop exporter A pioneer sod house Homestead Sales, In 1900, the West made up 30% of the U.S. population (was 1% in 1850) Exodusters Exodusters were black farmers who moved West to escape Southern crop liens & Jim Crow Laws Rails Across the Continent In 1862, Congress authorized the transcontinental railroad: Union Pacific worked westward from Nebraska (Irish laborers) Central Pacific worked eastward from CA (Chinese immigrants) May 10, 1869 the 2 tracks met at Promontory Point in Utah Plagued by corruption (Credit Mobilier) Backed by Big Four (Leland Stanford); no corruption transcontinental 1 st transcontinental railroad connected the west coast to eastern cities in 1869 Chinese workers made up a large percentage of laborers on the western leg Irish workers made up a large percentage of laborers on the eastern section Federal Land Grants to Railroads by 1871 Building railroads was dangerous and risky for companies, so the national govt doled $65 million & 155 million acres in land grants (received reduced rates for shipping and military traffic) The Transcontinental Railroad In 1870, RR companies developed the 1 st time zones to better schedule the RR system; the US would not adopt time zones until 1918 Railroad Construction, Binding the Country By 1900, 4 more lines were built to the Pacific. They received land grants but not monetary loans. The Northern Pacific Railroad from Lake Superior to the Puget Sound. (1883) The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe through SW deserts (1884). The Southern Pacific from NOLA to San Francisco. (1884) The Great Northern from Duluth to Seattle. Creation of James Hill, greatest railroad builder of all. Railroads Pioneers over invested on land, which could not be supported by population, and banks that supported them often failed. Many railroads (post Civil War) went through endless bankruptcies, mergers, and reorganizations. Essential Question Essential Question: What economic, political, & migratory factors led to the end of the western frontier by 1890? Crushing the Native Americans The Plains Indians In 1865, 2/3 of all Indians lived on the Great Plains Tribes of several 1,000 people were subdivided into bands of 100s which made it difficult for the U.S. to negotiate treaties Their culture was dependent upon the buffalo & the horse Searching for an Indian Policy Before the Civil War, the West was one big reservation Indian Intercourse Act The Indian Intercourse Act (1834) forbade whites from entering Indian country without a license Searching for an Indian Policy concentration policy Butrapid Western expansion in the 1850s brought a new Indian concentration policy with distinct boundaries for each tribe as long as the waters run and grass grows Treaties at Fort Laramie (1851) & Fort Atkinson (1853) Searching for an Indian Policy Concentration did not last as whites ignored these boundaries: Sand Creek Massacre Sand Creek Massacre (1864) Col John Chivington attacked 700 sleeping Indians in CO after a peace agreement was signed Sioux War Sioux War ( )gold miners wanted a Bozeman Trail (across Sioux hunting grounds) to connect mining towns; Sioux murdered 88 U.S. soldiers Kill and scalp all, big and little Congress investigated & condemned Chivingtons attack Searching for an Indian Policy In 1867, the U.S. formed the Indian Peace Commission : Ended Bozeman Trail plans Made small reservations in the Dakota & Oklahoma territories Few Native Americans settled into these reservations peacefully: Red River War (1874) Little Big Horn (1876) Nez Perce Indians & Chief Joseph (1877) Black soldiers in the U.S. army called buffalo soldiers were used to fend off Indian attacks in the West The discovery of gold in South Dakota led a Sioux army of 2,500 (led by Sitting Bull) to ambush & kill Lt Col Custer & his 197 soldiers Custers Last Stand set off demands for revenge among Americans Indians revolted when gvt attempted to take land and then led them to believe they would return to ancestral lands in Idaho. Instead taken to Kansas where 40% died from disease. Searching for an Indian Policy In 1884, missionaries urged govt to outlaw Sacred Sun Dance, called the Ghost Dance by the whites. The U.S. army was ordered to stop the Dakota Sioux ghost dances & machine gunned 200 men, women, & children. This is called the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890). The End of Tribal Life In 1871, the U.S. adopted its 4 th Indian policy: Assimilation U.S. citizenship was offered to all Indians who farmed, lived away from their tribe & adopted the habits of civilized life Dawes Severalty Act Dawes Severalty Act in 1887 offered farms (160 acres to families & 80 to men) & the protection of U.S. laws It dissolved the legal entities of tribes & wiped out all tribal ownership of land. This legislation ignored traditional culture, trying to make individualists out of the Indians. Kill the Indian and save the man Richard Pratt, founder of Carlisle The End of Tribal Life The final blow to Indian culture came with annihilation of buffalo: Began with the construction of the transcontinental RR in 1860s From1872 to 1874, 3 million buffalo were killed per yr In 1865, there were 15 million but by 1885, there were fewer than 1000 Buffalo Bill, working for Kansas Pacific, killed 4000 in 18 months. 1 hunter = 100 buffalo per day The Final Fling Oklahoma remained a territory and thousands of Sooners jumped boundary lines into the last Indian land In 1889, Congress responded to demands to open the Oklahoma Territory to white settlement On April 22, 1889, Boomers flooded into OK White migrants claimed 2 million acres in Oklahoma homesteads Moved out Creeks & Seminoles Had 60,000 by end of yr & became state Lands Lost by Native Americans (1894) Indian Reservations Today Conclusions: The End of the Frontier By 1890, the western frontier ended Miners, ranchers, & cowboys flooded West at the expense of Indians who were restricted to smaller & smaller reservations Westerners were commercially connected to Eastern markets but would grow increasingly frustrated by the economic & political concentration of power in the East A continuation of antebellum Manifest Destiny With no more West to conquer, where would American expansion go next?