Settling the West1865-1900

After the Civil War, a dynamic period in American History opened—the settlement of the West. The lives of the Western

miners, farmers, and ranchers were often filled with great hardships, but the wave of American settlers continued.

Railroads hastened this migration. During this period, many Native Americans lost their homelands and their way of life.

Who would settle the West??

• Miners

What kind of deposits did the west have?

Gold

http://www.history.com/shows/america-the-story-of-us/videos/gold-rush

Silver

Copper• Uses of Copper• Copper is used to pipe water supplies. The metal is also used in

refrigerators and air conditioning systems.• Computer heat sinks are made out of copper as copper is able

to absorb a high amount of heat.• Magnetrons, found in microwave ovens, contain copper.• Vacuum tubes and cathode ray tubes both use copper.• Some copper is added to fungicides and nutritional

supplements.• As a good conductor of electricity, copper is used in Copper

wire, electromagnets and electrical relays and switches.• Copper is a great water-proof roofing material. It has been used

for this purpose since ancient times.• Some structures, such as the Statue of Liberty, are made with

copper.• Copper is sometimes combined with nickel to make a corrosion

resistant material that is used in shipbuilding.• Copper is used in lightning rods. These attract lightning and

cause the electrical current to be dispersed rather than striking, and possibly destroying, a more important structure.

• Copper(II) sulfate is used to kill mildew.• Copper is often used to color glass. It is also one component of

ceramic glaze.• Many musical instruments, particularly brass instruments, are

made out of copper

Boom to BustGhost towns were repeated throughout

the mountainous west

Who else would settle the West?

• Ranchers—at first ranching was not practical—no water, cattle could not survive—tough prairie grasses—but in Texas—The Longhorn—lean and rangy—the longhorn could survive.

Open Range-a vast area of grassland owned by the government.

• Hispanic cowhands developed the tolls and techniques for rounding up and driving cattle.

• Lariat, lasso, stampede

• After the Civil War meat prices soared

• Millions of longhorns roamed in Texas

• How to move the cattle to the RR

• Long cattle drives-The Chisholm Trail

• Barbed wire• http://

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The Settlement of the Great Plains

Major Stephen Long-The Great American Desert- “wholly unfit for

cultivation”• 20 inches of

rain a year• Few trees• Millions of

buffalo• Native

Americans

Despite all –settlement occurred.Why?

Railroads—the government gave them land to build the RR—the RR in turn

sold land to prospective settlers

The Chinese

• “Rain follows the Plow”• Homestead Act- the

government would give up to 160 acres of land and receive the title to that land after 5 years.

• Life was hard

Native Americans

• The Great Plains were home to many Native Americans

• Some were farmers• But the majority were

nomads—roamed the vast distances following their source of food—the buffalo

• As ranchers, miners and farmers moved out to the Plains—Native Americans were deprived of their hunting grounds

• The Buffalo was killed for sport—by the millions

With broken treaties, the Native Americans were forced to relocate.

• Reservations-land set aside for Native Americans

• The Sioux• The Lakota• The Cheyenne

Lakota Chief Sitting Bull

Crazy Horse—Leader of the Oglala Lakota

Chief Joseph- “I will fight no more forever”

The Last Native American Wars• Battle of the Little Big Horn• The Battle of the Little Bighorn,

also called Custer's Last Stand, was an engagement between the combined forces of the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne tribes against the 7th Cavalry of the United States Army. The most famous of all of the Indian Wars, the remarkable victory for the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne occurred over two days on June 25-26, 1876 near the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana Territory. The U.S. cavalry detachment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, lost every soldier in his unit.

The Battle of the Little Big Horn

• http://www.history.com/videos/sitting-bull

Wounded Knee

• The Ghost Dance-a ritual of dance and prayer that hoped for the day of reckoning.

• U.S. forbade the Native Americans to perform.

• They continued despite the law

Wounded Knee• On the bone-chilling morning of December 29, devotees of

the newly created Ghost Dance religion made a lengthy trek to the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota to seek protection from military apprehension. Members of the(Lakota) tribe led by Chief Big Foot and the Sioux (Lakota) followers of the recently slain charismatic leader, Sitting Bull, attempted to escape arrest by fleeing south through the rugged terrain of the Badlands. There, on the snowy banks of Wounded Knee Creek (Cankpe Opi Wakpala), nearly 300 Lakota men, women, and children -- old and young -- were massacred in a highly charged, violent encounter with U.S. soldiers

The dead at Wounded Knee

• The U.S. government just wanted the Native Americans to just assimilate

• Assimilation-to be absorbed into a culture

• “A Century of Dishonor” a book by Helen Hunt Jackson that was critical of the US policies

• The Dawes Act-similar to the Homestead Act—the Dawes Act allowed the Indians land –it failed to help the Indians.