The Settling of the WestThe Settling of the West• Indian Reservations• The Long Walk• The Dawes General

Allotment Act• A Miner’s Life• The Great Race• Impact of the RR• A Cowboy’s Life• A Farmer (Homesteader’s)

Life• Transcontinental RR• The Populist Party

Homesteader Omer Yern and family Custer Country, Nebraska, 1886. (Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society.)

Reservation SystemReservation System

• Areas of federal land set aside for Indians. • Operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs• The Government expected the Indians to

stay on the land which made their former way of life (ie. Hunting) difficult.

• Many wars were fought over this system between the tribes and the U.S. government.

Map of the Indian and Oklahoma territories. 1892.

The Long WalkThe Long Walk

• In the year of 1864, thousands of Navajos were forced to leave their land and travel on foot to a reservation at a place called Bosque Redondo. Some of them had to travel more than 450 miles by foot, and many died along the way from cold, starvation, or murder. This trip came to be known as "The Long Walk."

Native American ResponseNative American Response

• Assimilation– Adapting to European traditions, Economically

and culturally

Native American ResponseNative American Response

• Resistance– The final act of fighting back was the

Wounded Knee Massacre

Dawes ActDawes Act

• The Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 lessened the tribal influence on Indian Society by making land ownership private rather than shared.

• Individual Indians got some land and settlers got the rest!

• It promised Indians citizenship, but never gave it to them.

A Miner’s LifeA Miner’s Life

• After the Gold Rush, many traveled west looking for fortunes.

• They found work in mining which was often dangerous!

• Boom towns would grow suddenly and become ghost towns when the land was all “mined” up.

THREE BRICEVILLE, TN MINERS (Photo courtesy of Bobby Wright)

Hydraulic MiningHydraulic Mining

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV547grgDL4

A Cowboy’s LifeA Cowboy’s Life

• The Stereotypes• The Reality

• The American Hero

Hollywood Vs. History

A Cowgirl’s lifeA Cowgirl’s life

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3GIg0w0gAo&feature=BFa&list=PLEF6B371304B9A817

A Farmer’s LifeA Farmer’s Life

Many more people went west after the US Civil War ended in 1865. Thousands of freed black slaves became homesteaders.

These people were known as the homesteaders and their homes called sodhouses. Many thousands of them moved west from the 1850s onwards to begin new lives. They came from the east and from Europe - mainly England, Germany and Sweden, to escape poverty and over-crowding and sometimes to escape religious persecution.

Transcontential Railroad, the Transcontential Railroad, the Great Race and Impact of the Great Race and Impact of the

RRRR

The Uniting of the RailroadsThe Uniting of the Railroads

• Promontary Point: May 10, 1869

Manifest Destiny and Westward Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion Expansion

• VIDEOS!– Transcontinental Railroad– The Great Train Robbery

ReviewReview

• Are there any questions?

Populist Party (1870s-1890s)Populist Party (1870s-1890s)• 3rd party “the people v. the elites”;

“farmer/laborer coalition”

• Movement of Small Farmers (agrarian) from the South and West; eventually tried to appeal to urban workers in the West

• Discuss their “Platform” using Primary Source “The Omaha Platform of the Populist Party” (1892)– What did they stand for?– Who did they oppose or see as their enemy/

oppressor?