Chapter 5

Changes on the Western Frontier

Cultures Clash on the Prairies

Section 1

Chapter 5 Section 1 Objectives: 1. Contrast the cultures of Native Americans and white settlers

and explain why white settlers moved west 2. Identify restrictions imposed by the government on Native

Americans and describe the consequences. 3. Identify the government’s policy of assimilation as well as

continuing conflicts between Native Americans and settlers 4. Trace the development of the cattle industry 5. Describe both the myth and the reality of the American cowboy

and explain the end of the open range.

Section 1 Objectives

Native American tribes were very highly

developed to their area and worked extensively to better themselves

Native Americans were nomadic in some areas and farmers in other areas.

They used the Horse to become more mobile and be able to hunt but on the flip side the extra mobility the horse gave them also caused them to go to war with other tribes as well.

The Culture of the Plains Indians

White settlers and Native Americans had

varying opinions on how land should be treated

Native Americans felt land could not be owned while settlers felt it could and should be owned

They claimed because the Native Americans had not settled and bettered the land they forfeited the right to it and moved forward and overtook it

Settlers Push Westward

One of the big attractions for settlers to move

westward was the allure of finding gold and silver

Mining towns were filthy and had awful living conditions

People from all nationalities came to the west trying to find gold and silver

Some of the early mining towns were Virginia City, Nevada and Helena, Montana

Settlers Push Westward

The Government changed their policy passed

in the 1850’s which had named the entire Great Plains a big reservation into creating specific boundaries for each tribe in the land

The Native Americans fought this and continues to hunt wherever and clashed with settlers and miners

Some major conflicts were as follows: Massacre at Sand Creek Death on the Bozeman Trail

The Government Restricts Native Americans

Massacre at Sand Creek-

1864 Colonel John Chivington and his troops attacked the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes at Sand Creek Colorado and killed over 150 mostly women and children

Death on the Bozeman Trail- This trail was in the Big Horn Mountains 1866 The Warrior Crazy Horse ambushed Captain

William J. Fetterman and killed over 80 of his men The Government agreed to the Treaty of Fort

Laramie and shut down the trail

The Government Restricts Native Americans

Settlers continued to move forward and Native

Americans continued to fight back in numerous encounters Red River War 1874-1875 – General Sheridan destroyed

all the enemy villages and captured the women and children and moved them to reservations

This ended the resistance on the Southern Plains In 1876 The Sioux and Cheyenne led by Sitting Bull,

Crazy Horse, and Gall defeated General Custer and killed him as well as all of his men

The Sioux though were later defeated in late 1876 and fled to Canada

Bloody Battles Continue

The Government wanted to “Americanize” the

Indians The Dawes Act was passed in 1887 breaking

up reservations and giving land to individuals (160 acres to each head of household and 80 acres to unwed adults)

The biggest blow to the plains was the destruction of the Buffalo by hunters

Assimilation

The settlers rounded up suffering Sioux and

carried them to a camp The settlers demanded them turn over their

weapons someone fired a shot and the setttlers’ massacred the Sioux ending the Indian Wars era

The Battle of Wounded Knee

They utilized many different mining styles

especially placer mining and quartz mining The boom in mining also provided a major

boost to the rail road industry. The most legendary mining boomtown in the

West was Leadville in the Colorado Mountains.

Growth of the Mining Industry

Many Americans headed west to the Rocky

Mountains to mine but not everyone as a large amount of people went to the Great Plains and formed cattle ranches

The Federal Government owned vast open plains in the middle of the country and these were known as the grasslands.

The 1st long trail to be used to drive cattle (only a fraction of cattle survided) was known as “the long drive” and it headed to Sedalia Missouri

Ranching and Cattle Drives

Long trails began to open as settlers moved their way through

the great plains. The major route that went up to Abilene, Kansas was called the Chisholm Trail.

Cowboys drove nearly 1.5 million heads of cattle up the Chisholm Trail between 1867 - 1871

Cowboys were generally former Confederate soldiers escaping the harsh life of reconstruction in the South

Sheep Herders began to settle on the plains and buy land and blocked cowboys from driving cattle through their land causing range wars to break out

They blocked the cowboys by way of a new invention known as barbed wire

Ranching and Cattle Drives

Cattle ranching became the way of life in the plains Cowboys herded up cattle “longhorns” on horses

that came from the Spanish Cowboys clothes, verbiage, and actions were derived

from the Mexican Vaquero’s The demand for beef skyrocketed as cities popped

up after the Civil War The major trail for cattle was known as the Chisholm

trail going from San Antonio, Texas through Oklahoma to Abilene, Kansas (35,000 head of cattle were shipped out in the first year alone)

Cattle Becomes Big Business

Cowboys would work 10-14 hours on the ranch and

when on the trail another 14 hours or so Cowboys started with a spring roundup where they

would round up cattle on the open range and corral them up then prepare them to go up the Chisholm Trail

The drive on the trail generally lasted about 3 months

Cattle frontier ended as the lands became over grazed, extension of bad weather, and the invention of barbed wire

Cowboys and the Open Range

Settling on the Great Plains

Section 2

Geography of the Plains

The Great Plains is a place in the US that geographically extends into the Rocky Mountains.

The plains are a North – South line that goes from the middle of the Dakotas through Abilene, Texas

There is on average less than 20” of rain a year meaning that trees only grow near waterways

Stephen Long one of the first American settlers into the great plains named it “The Great American Desert” in 1819 due to it’s lack of rain and vast flat area.

The Beginnings of Settlement

Early settlers in the Great Plains had to adjust to life in this part of the country

There were wild fires scorching summers with little

shade to shield them from it there was swarms of

grasshoppers that would destroy crops

They would have to drill wells as deep as 300 feet to obtain water

It was more difficult to build houses

The Government promoted the settlement of the

Great plains in their desire to see the country spread from coast ot coast.

The government put into place the Homestead act which gave Americans a way to gain large amounts of land for little cost for settlement purposes

A big pusher of the western settlement movement was the rail road

This meant a big boom in business for the rail road industry and connected both coasts together

The Beginnings of Settlement

Dugouts and Soddies-

Trees were scarce so people made dugouts to live in in the side of hills or ravines.

They also made Soddies if they were in the broad plains by stocking blocks of prairie turf on top of each other

Womens Work – Women worked alongside the men in everything they

did This ranged from plowing fields to sheering sheep to

doctoring to providing meals and school work at home

Settlers meet the Challenges of the

Plains

Technical Support for the Farmers-

Machines were being developed to assist farmers like steel plows, reaping machines, planting machines, reapers for wheat

Agricultural Education – Morrill Act of 1862 and 1890 gave land to the

states to create agricultural colleges Hatch Act of 1887 established agricultural

experimental stations

Settlers meet the Challenges of the

Plains

These machines were expensive and many

farmers went into debt trying to purchase them

Bonanza farms were formed (huge amounts of land with 1 crop on them)

Shipping costs on the railroad became another big issue of the farmers

Settlers meet the Challenges of the

Plains

Farmers and the Populist Movement

Section 3

There was major economic issues after the US

went away from the Greenback and moved into the dollar that was backed by gold and silver

Farmers were losing money on everything Farmers were also losing money as the

railroads took advantage of them by overcharging for shipping

Farmers Unite to Address Common Issues

In 1867, Oliver Hudson Kelley started the

Patrons of Husbandry or Grange to provide an outlet for farmers struggling

From this the Farmers Alliance was formed they used this to educate farmers on how to better themselves and understand what was going on so they could make better decisions

Farmers Unite to Address Common Issues

Populism was a political party developed to protect

the people. The Populist party wanted to increase the money

supply have a graduated income tax, a federal loan program

The Populist party platforms eventually became the platforms of the democrats

In 1893 most of the railroads went bankrupt and the governments gold and silver supply had run thin and wall street took a hit causing over 3 million people to lose their jobs during this depression

The Rise and Fall of Populism

During this the country became divided on what

metal should be the standard for American Currency Gold or Silver Silverites backed Silver Gold Bugs backed gold William McKinley was the Republican in favor of Gold

and William Jennings Bryan was the Democrat in favor of bimetalism policy

McKinley won the election with his “Front Porch campaign” and when McKinley was elected Populism collapsed in America

The Rise and Fall of Populism