CHAPTER 9: THE AMERICAN WEST

CHAPTER 9: THE AMERICAN WEST, Expansion and
Contraction, 1860-1920
Contents
Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: 1
Documents: 5
Document 1, Natives on Westward Expansion (Smithsonian,
1867; 1929) 5
Document 2, The Frontier Guardian on “More Indian Outrage,”
1851 (teachushistory.org, 1851) 5
Document 3, The Rocky Mountain News reports on the Sand
Creek Massacre (PBS.org, 1864) 7
Document 4, Representative Grow (PA) explains how the
Homestead Act provides, “Free homes for free men” (American
Memory, 1860)10
Document 5, Frances Garside, “The farmers’ wives are not
merely ‘helpmeets’” in Kansas (Garside, 1995) 13
Document 6, Narrative of Cathay Williams, a female Buffalo
Soldier (sangres.com, 1876) 14
Document 7, Illustration of blacks moving west from Louisiana
to Kansas after the Civil War (Library of Congress, 1870) 15
Document 8, Interview of Bones Hooks, a black cowboy
(American Memory, 1940) 15
Document 9, Benjamin Singleton testifies about the “Negro
Exodus from the Southern States” (PBS.org, 1880) 19
Document 10, George B. Morris on “The Chinaman as he is…”
(Library of Congress, c. 1868) 23
Document 11, Anti-Chinese boycott broadside (American
Memory, c. 1889) 24
Document 12, Samuel Clemens on Mining Towns from
Roughing It (Huntington Library, 1872) 25
Post-Reading Exercises 27
Works Cited 27

Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: The west was a place
that, through the end of the 1830s, was feared by most
Americans. People assumed the soil was poor, the climate bad
and the Indians terrifying. But by the mid-1840s, farmers,
ranchers and miners, among others, took a gamble and tried
their luck out west; by the end of the Civil War the
romanticized notion of their experience on the “‘frontier’” drew
increasingly more people out there in search of “wealth,
adventure, opportunity, and untrammeled
individualism.”[footnoteRef:1] In particular, it was the frontier
thesis of a young man named Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893
that propelled greater numbers of Americans to unknown
territory. His thesis said that the free lands that lie west,
coupled with the drive of Americans to settle on that land, gave
Americans the ruggedness, individuality and power they
possessed. [1: Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation: A
Concise History of the American People (McGraw Hill: New
York, 1996), 454.]
What these new settlers found in their quest for
excitement, however, was often extreme hardship in the new
western lands. The image of the frontier was one of uncharted
territory, virgin land, an unconquered and untamed
environment, an empty plot of land ripe for settlement. But
what these western-bound settlers usually found was a territory
with diverse groups of Indians, Mexicans, French, Asians and
others, all with different cultures, languages and ideas about “
‘America.’”
Prior to massive white expansion to the Far West, various
societies flourished in the Far West—the region beyond the
Mississippi River—places like New Mexico, California, Texas,
Colorado, and eventually territories like Oklahoma and the
Dakotas. The largest populations in the West were the Indian
tribes who lived there. Some of these tribes had been displaced

from their Eastern locations and relocated to western lands
during earlier disputes with eastern whites (namely during the
Indian Removal of the 1830s). Others had been inhabiting these
lands for centuries. These native groups were spread out across
the west and had varying reactions to outsiders encroaching on
their territory.
So when American settlers began moving west, in search
of more land, this migration often spelled massive devastation
for Native populations, at worst, and constant warfare, at best.
Documents 1-3 illustrate what westward settlement looked like
for both whites and natives. What justifications did each side
give in their battle for land? What were the positives of
westward expansion? The negatives?
Despite nearly constant warfare with natives in the west, people
flocked to western territories and states in great numbers. Most
of the westward settlers were from the eastern United States and
began their journey after the end of the Civil War. There was
also a huge influx of foreign immigration, with over 2 million
immigrants traveling to the western frontier between 1870 and
1900, from Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland, Russia,
Czechoslovakia, and other European countries. These migrants
and immigrants came to the west for specific reasons: the
prospect of getting rich off of gold or silver was incredibly
tempting; the seemingly endless fields for putting cattle and
sheep to pasture were quickly filling up in the East and were
already full in Europe; the transcontinental railroad, which had
been completed in 1869, provided a connection to new trading
spots and new settlement areas; and the government’s passage
of laws like The Homestead Act of 1862, which offered 160
acres of land to settlers for $1.25/acre and a promise to live on
that land for five years and improve it. All of these factors
made the frontier seem extremely promising, as you can see in
Documents 4 and 5. According to these documents, what was
the allure of the west? What were some of the problems settlers
had in the west?
Alongside white migrants to the west were African Americans

who left the racist South at the end of the Civil War in hopes of
a better life in the West. Many began the journey with great
hope—hope that their economic situation, their political
situation and their social and cultural situations would be better.
The black experience, as you’ll see in Documents 6-9, was
something of a mixed bag—for some, times were much better,
while for others, the journey and the West itself proved to be
almost as difficult and problematic as life in the South and East
had been and racism and discrimination certainly existed
throughout the new western regions.
Similarly, immigrants also came from countries like Mexico,
Japan and China, in the hopes of creating a better life and these
non-white settlers also found times were difficult in the west.
These groups were often marginalized because of their race and
ethnicity, but none more so than the Chinese. The Chinese
came over around the same time as the Europeans were coming
over in the mid-19th century. China was an incredibly
impoverished country at this time and many Chinese immigrated
in the hope of finding something better. After the gold rush hit
in the late 1840s, the Chinese began immigrating in large
numbers and by 1880, “more than 200,000 Chinese had settled
in the United States, mostly in California where they constituted
nearly a tenth of the population.”[footnoteRef:2] Most Chinese
came to work in the mines and were seen, early on, by white
settlers as industrious and hard-working. But as it became clear
that the Chinese were proving to be even more hard-working
and industrious than themselves, whites began to view the
Chinese in a hostile, racist manner. White settlers quickly came
to resent Chinese miners and this view soon made it into the
state legislatures and into popular culture, as you’ll see in
Documents 10 and 11. Why do you think the west was so
appealing to minority groups? Do you think the west provided
opportunity or more problems for these minority groups? [2:
Brinkley, 459.]
Despite some of the problems posed by westward

expansion, millions of people migrated and immigrated to the
west. Unlike today, however, when people move West because
of the good weather, the ocean, the flat land for horse riding
and the tall mountains for skiing, in the 19th century, people
moved West simply because land was cheap. When they got
here, though, they had to find a way to make some money, so
three major industries developed: gold and silver mining, cattle
ranching and farming. Document 12, a piece by famous author
Samuel Clemens, describes life in one of the mining towns that
cropped up in the west in the post-Civil War era. What were
mining towns like? Did mining provide useful opportunities or
pipe dreams?
Like mining, cattle ranching and farming also had their
positives and negatives, which meant that people continued
migrating west, but also that some Americans (particularly the
younger generations) began to look for something bigger, more
exciting, and more opportunity-filled, in America’s growing and
industrializing cities.
Documents:Document 1, Natives on Westward Expansion
(Smithsonian, 1867; 1929)[footnoteRef:3] [3: Santana, Chief of
the Kiowas, 1867. U.S. Bureau of Ethnography Annual Report,
17th, 1895-96; Chief Luther Standing Bear, My People, the
Sioux (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1929).]
Kiowa Chief Santana on Westward Expansion
A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers; but when I go
up to the river I see camps of soldiers here on its bank. These
soldiers cut down my timber; they kill my buffalo; and when I
see that, my heart feels like bursting; I feel sorry.
Sioux Chief Luther Standing Bear on Westward Expansion
It did not occur to me at the time that I was going away to learn
the ways of the white man. My idea was that I was leaving the
reservation and going to stay away long enough to do some
brave deed, and then come home again alive. If I could just do

that, then I knew my father would be so proud of me.
Document 2, The Frontier Guardian on “More Indian Outrage,”
1851 (teachushistory.org, 1851)[footnoteRef:4] [4: N.a., “More
Indian Outrage,” The Frontier Guardian, 1851.]
More Indian Outrage—Forty-five Head of Cattle Lost by a Party
of Oregon Emigrants — The Pawnee Considered Accessory to
the Stampede.
Since our last issue, a company of Oregon Emigrants from
Peoria County, Illinois, and some from Wisconsin; returned to
this place. They crossed the Missouri River at Ferryville, on the
10th of June, numbering seventeen wagons.
This company proceeded on their journey prosperously, until
they crossed the Horne; at which place, they were surrounded
by a large body of Pawnees, some of whom were on horseback,
the others on mules, and on foot. Before the Indians reached the
camp, they raised their Yell, or War-hoop, showing their hostile
feelings; and their determination to molest the pacific travelers.
Upon coming up to the camp, they demanded two cows from
the company; but by parleying with them, the concluded to take
one cow, and one sack of flour; and abandon their hostile
intentions. The company complied with their request, and gave
them the choice of the selection; which the Indians insisted on
having. The company then took up their line of march, and got
along well as far as Big Beaver Creek, one hundred and four
miles from Winter Quarters, at which place they arrived about
noon; (the date we have been unable to learn) this stream not
being fordable they commenced operations for bridging it, and
had to remain there all night. About ten 0'clock that night the
cattle took stampede; several of the company whom we have
seen, say; that they are satisfied the Indians were the cause of
it, as they had seen them several times on the way, prowling
round among the brush, and following them up. Next day, the
Red skins made their appearance at the camp, and proferred

[sic] their services to recover the cattle, on the condition that
the company would pay them handsomely for it; the latter
agreed to these conditions, and three days after, the Indians
brought back ten head, for which the emigrants paid them
fifteen dollars worth in provisions, and five in money.
The total number of cattle lost, were one hundred and twenty,
out of which sixty-four were recovered; part by the Indians and
the remainder by persons belonging to the company.
One of the emigrants is now in our Office, as we are writing
this article, who says; that out of the remaining fifty-six head,
they have been able to recover eleven more, making in all forty-
five head that they cannot find, Ten wagons of company, came
to this county; being unable to proceed any further this season
on account of their loss; the other seven joined our last
company from this place for Salt Lake.
The repeated aggressions, of the Omaha, Ottoe, and Pawnee
Indians, on this Frontier, and on the plains, should enlist the
special attention of the General Government, in Washington
City; and we think, prompt, and energetic measures ought to be
entered into by the Legislative Department there, to suppress
these high-handed acts of the sons of the forest, on the property
of American citizens; so that the honest, upright, and
persevering Emigrant, may not have his enterprizing [sic] spirit
broken, and his hard earned effects destroyed by these
desperadoes, without the least shadow of reclamation, or
remuneration whatever for his loss.
[one line unreadable due to crease] beyond his control to
govern or bring these Indians to anything like conciliatory
measures without the aid of an armed force. Here they are, at
loose ends, ready to assail every company that may happen to
come under their observation; and furthermore, the Major
states, though he has repeatedly, made application to several of
the Forts for assistance; his efforts have failed to secure any.
We sincerely hope, that something will be done soon, and that
effectually too; so us to insure the safety, and success of the
Westward-bound Emigrant.Document 3, The Rocky Mountain

News reports on the Sand Creek Massacre (PBS.org,
1864)[footnoteRef:5] [5: N.a., “The Battle of Sand Creek,” and
“The Fort Lyon Affair,” Rocky Mountain News, 1864.]
The Battle of Sand Creek
Among the brilliant feats of arms in Indian warfare, the recent
campaign of our Colorado volunteers will stand in history with
few rivals, and none to exceed it in final results. We are not
prepared to write its history, which can only be done by some
one who accompanied the expedition, but we have gathered
from those who participated in it and from others who were in
that part of the country, some facts which will doubtless interest
many of our readers.
The people of Colorado are well aware of the situation occupied
by the third regiment during the great snow-storm which set in
the last of October. Their rendezvous was in Bijou Basin, about
eighty miles southeast of this city, and close up under the foot
of the Divide. That point had been selected as the base for an
Indian campaign. Many of the companies reached it after the
storm set in; marching for days through the driving, blinding
clouds of snow and deep drifts. Once there, they were exposed
for weeks to an Arctic climate, surrounded by a treeless plain
covered three feet deep with snow. Their animals suffered for
food and with cold, and the men fared but little better. They
were insufficiently supplied with tents and blankets, and their
sufferings were intense. At the end of a month the snow had
settled to the depth of two fee, and the command set out upon
its long contemplated march. The rear guard left the Basin on
the 23rd of November. Their course was southeast, crossing the
Divide and thence heading for Fort Lyon. For one hundred miles
the snow was quite two feet in depth, and for the next hundred
it ranged from six to twelve inches. Beyond that the ground was
almost bare and the snow no longer impeded their march.
On the afternoon of the 28th the entire command reached Fort

Lyon, a distance of two hundred and sixty miles, in less than six
days, and so quietly and expeditiously had the march been made
that the command at the fort was taken entirely by surprise.
When the vanguard appeared in sight in was reported that a
body of Indians were approaching, and precautions were taken
for their reception. No one upon the route was permitted to go
in advance of the column, and persons who it was suspected
would spread the news of the advance were kept under
surveillance until all danger from that source was past.
At Fort Lyon the force was strengthened by about two hundred
and fifty men of the first regiment, and at nine o'clock in the
evening the command set out for the Indian village. The course
was due north, and their guide was the Polar star. As daylight
dawned they came in sight of the Indian camp, after a forced
midnight march of forty-two miles, in eight hours, across the
rough, unbroken plain. But little time was required for
preparation. The forces had been divided and arranged for battle
on the march, and just as the sun rose they dashed upon the
enemy with yells that would put a Comanche army to blush.
Although utterly surprised, the savages were not unprepared,
and for a time their defense told terribly against our ranks.
Their main force rallied and formed in line of battle on the
bluffs beyond the creek, where they were protected by rudely
constructed rifle-pits, from which they maintained a steady fire
until the shells from company C's (third regiment) howitzers
began dropping among them, when they scattered and fought
each for himself in genuine Indian fashion. As the battle
progressed the field of carriage widened until it extended over
not less than twelve miles of territory. The Indians who could
escaped or secreted themselves, and by three o'clock in the
afternoon the carnage had ceased. It was estimated that between
three and four hundred of the savages got away with their lives.
Of the balance there were neither wounded nor prisoners. Their
strength at the beginning of the action was estimated at nine
hundred.

Their village consisted of one hundred and thirty Cheyenne and
with Arapahoe lodges. These, with their contents, were totally
destroyed. Among their effects were large supplies of flour,
sugar, coffee, tea, &c. Women's and children's clothing were
found; also books and many other articles which must have been
taken from captured trains or houses. One white man's scalp was
found which had evidently been taken but a few days before.
The Chiefs fought with unparalleled bravery, falling in front of
their men. One of them charged alone against a force of two or
three hundred, and fell pierced with balls far in advance of his
braves.
Our attack was made by five battalions. The first regiment,
Colonel Chivington, part of companies C,D,E,G, H and K,
numbering altogether about two hundred and fifty men, was
divided into two battalions; the first under command of Major
Anthony, and the second under Lieutenant Wilson, until the
latter was disabled, when the command devolved upon
Lieutenant Dunn. The three battalions of the third, Colonel
Shoup, were led, respectively, by Lieutenant Colonel Bowen,
Major Sayr, and Captain Cree. The action was begun by the
battalion of Lieutenant Wilson, who occupied the right, and by
a quick and bold movement cut off the enemy from their herd of
stock. From this circumstance we gained our great advantage. A
few Indians secured horses, but the great majority of them had
to fight or fly on foot. Major Anthony was on the left, and the
third in the centre.
Among the killed were all the Cheyenne chiefs, Black Kettle,
White Antelope, Little Robe, Left Hand, Knock Knee, One Eye,
and another, name unknown. Not a single prominent man of the
tribe remains, and the tribe itself is almost annihilated. The
Arapahoes probably suffered but little. It has been reported that
the chief Left Hand, of that tribe, was killed, but Colonel
Chivington is of the opinion that he was not. Among the stock

captured were a number of government horses and mules,
including the twenty or thirty stolen from the command of
Lieutenant Chase at Jimmy's camp last summer.
The Indian camp was well supplied with defensive works. For
half a mile along the creek there was an almost continuous
chain of rifle-pits, and another similar line of works crowned
the adjacent bluff. Pits had been dug at all the salient points for
miles. After the battle twenty-tree dead Indians were taken from
one of these pits and twenty-seven from another.
Whether viewed as a march or as a battle, the exploit has few, if
any, parallels. A march of 260 miles in but a fraction more than
five days, with deep snow, scanty forage, and no road, is a
remarkable feat, whilst the utter surprise of a large Indian
village is unprecedented. In no single battle in North America,
we believe, have so many Indians been slain.
It is said that a short time before the command reached the
scene of battle of an old squaw partially alarmed the village by
reporting that a great herd of buffalo were coming. She heard
the rumbling of the artillery and tramp of the moving squadrons,
but her people doubted. In a little time the doubt was dispelled,
but not by buffaloes.
A thousand incidents of individual daring and the passing
events of the day might be told, but space forbids. We leave the
task for eye-witnesses to chronicle. All acquitted themselves
well, and Colorado soldiers have again covered themselves with
glory.
The Fort Lyon Affair
The issue of yesterday's News, containing the following
despatch, created considerable of a sensation in this city,
particularly among the Thirdsters and others who participated in
the recent campaign and the battle on Sand creek.

Washington, December 20, 1864
"The affair at Fort Lyon, Colorado, in which Colonel
Chivington destroyed a large Indian village, and all its
inhabitants, is to be made the subject of congressional
investigation. Letters received from high officals in Colorado
say that the Indians were killed after surrendering, and that a
large proportion of them were women and children."
Indignation was loudly and unequivocally expressed, and some
less considerate of the boys were very persistent in their
inquiries as to who those "high officials" were, with a mild
intimation that they had half a mind to "go for them." This talk
about "friendly Indians" and a "surrendered" village will do to
"tell to marines," but to us out here it is all bosh.
The confessed murderers of the Hungate family - a man and
wife and their two little babes, whose scalped and mutilated
remains were seen by all our citizens -- were "friendly Indians,"
we suppose, in the eyes of these "high officials." They fell in
the Sand creek battle.
The confessed participants in a score of other murders of
peaceful settlers and inoffensive travelers upon our borders and
along our roads in the past six months must have been friendly,
or else the "high officials" wouldn't say so.
The band of marauders in whose possession were found scores
of horses and mules stolen from government and from
individuals; wagon loads of flour, coffee, sugar and tea, and
rolls of broad cloth, calico, books, &c, robbed from freighters
and emigrants on the plains; underclothes of white women and
children, stripped from their murdered victims, were probably
peaceably disposed toward some of those "high officials," but
the mass of our people "can't see it."

Probably those scalps of white men, women and children, one of
them fresh, not three days taken, found drying in their lodges,
were taken in a friendly, playful manner; or possibly those
Indian saddle-blankets trimmed with the scalp's of white
women, and with braids and fringes of their hair, were kept
simply as mementos of their owners' high affection for the pale
face. At any rate, these delicate and tasteful ornaments could
not have been taken from the heads of the wives, sisters or
daughters of these "high officials."
That "surrendering" must have been the happy thought of an
exceedingly vivid imagination, for we can hear of nothing of the
kind from any of those who were engaged in the battle. On the
contrary, the savages fought like devils to the end, and one of
our pickets was killed and scalped by them the next day after
the battle, and a number of others were fired upon. In one
instance a party of the vidette pickets were compelled to beat a
hasty retreat to save their lives, full twenty-four hours after the
battle closed. This does not look much like the Indians had
surrendered.
But we are not sure that an investigation may not be a good
thing. It should go back of the "affair at Fort Lyon," as they are
pleased to term it down east, however, and let the world know
who were making money by keeping those Indians under the
sheltering protection of Fort Lyon; learn who was interested in
systematically representing that the Indians were friendly and
wanted peace. It is unquestioned and undenied that the site of
the Sand creek battle was the rendezvous of the thieving and
marauding bands of savages who roamed over this country last
summer and fall, and it is shrewdly suspected that somebody
was all the time making a very good thing out of it. By all
means let there be an investigation, but we advise the honorable
congressional committee, who may be appointed to conduct it,
to get their scalps insured before they pass Plum creek on their
way out.

Document 4, Representative Grow (PA) explains how the
Homestead Act provides, “Free homes for free men” (American
Memory, 1860)[footnoteRef:6] [6: Aaron G. Grown, “Free
homes for free men,” in the House of Representatives, February
29, 1860.]
Document 5, Frances Garside, “The farmers’ wives are not
merely ‘helpmeets’” in Kansas (Garside, 1995)[footnoteRef:7]
[7: Frances Garside, “Populist Women’s Perspective,” in
Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon, eds., America’s Working
Women: A Documentary History, 1600 to the Present (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1995), 160-163.]
SEPTEMBER 1891:
With the beginning of harvest comes the hardest time of the
whole year for women folks
on the farm. When the heads of wheat begin to turn brown, the
housewives bestir themselves to
lay in large stores of supplies to cook for harvest hands, and to
try to secure help in the kitchen
during the busy season.
Improved machinery for reaping grain lessens the number of
hands required for harvesting, and the steam thresher increases
the amount required at threshing time, but compensates
somewhat by shortening the time of their stay. Threshers are
looked upon as a sort of plague, or necessary evil and the
common enemy of woman kind. They drop in unexpectedly
before breakfast or just after supper, and always at dinner. The
unsuspecting family may be taking a quiet breakfast when eight
or ten men will walk in, wash their faces and sit down to the
table. The horrified housekeeper knows full well that this means
twenty men for dinner and for every meal until the great wheat
stacks are exhausted which takes sometimes two or three weeks.

New machinery has done much to lighten and lessen the work of
men on the farm—riding plows, patent drills, self binders,
headers and steam threshers all tend to do this; but machinery
has as yet wrought but little benefit to farmers' wives.
Dishwashing, cooking, scrubbing and ironing, like perpetual
motion, seem to be beyond the skill of inventors. Women's work
on the farm is constant, unceasing toil—a never-ending,
recurring round of duties, "world without end."
All the hard work consequent upon the harvest, which is mostly
cooking, has to be done in hot weather, the hardest time of the
whole year to do this kind of work, and also at a time when it is
next to impossible to obtain help for the kitchen. Many a
farmer's wife with a babe lying in the crib and two or three
small children to be cared for, patiently gets through the
herculean task all alone, except such help as the men folks can
give morning and evening. The farmers' wives are not merely
"helpmeets" in subduing the wilds of this western country, but
have done their full share of solid, hard work as equal partners;
and if there is a credit balance on either side, it is in favor of
the women.
The women on the farms are intelligent as a class. They work,
and read and think. They
devote what leisure time they have to reading, instead of
fashionable dress and society calls.
Consequently they are well informed on the leading topics of
the day; and many a woman now
living on a Kansas farm, in her girlhood attended the best
schools in the east. Yet these women
are disfranchised. The legislature of Kansas passed a law called
the "Municipal Suffrage Law,"
which granted to women living in cities the right to vote for
municipal offices, but neglected to
provide any privileges for this great army of women who reside
in the country; and if in the
campaign of 1890 the farmer women massed their strength and
energy to elect the candidates on

the People's ticket, no one can blame them. It spoke well for
their political sagacity and excellent
knowledge of "ways and means."
Document 6, Narrative of Cathay Williams, a female Buffalo
Soldier (sangres.com, 1876)[footnoteRef:8] [8: Cathay
Williams, “My Father was a freeman…,” told in Trinidad,
printed in the St. Louis Daily Times, January 2, 1876.]
St. Louis Daily Times, January 2, 1876
My Father a was a freeman, but my mother a slave, belonging to
William Johnson, a wealthy farmer who lived at the time I was
born near Independence, Jackson county, Missouri. While I was
a small girl my master and family moved to Jefferson City. My
master died there and when the war broke out and the United
States soldiers came to Jefferson City they took me and other
colored folks with them to Little Rock. Col. Benton of the 13th
army corps was the officer that carried us off. I did not want to
go. He wanted me to cook for the officers, but I had always
been a house girl and did not know how to cook. I learned to
cook after going to Little Rock and was with the army at The
Battle of Pea Ridge.
Afterwards the command moved over various portions of
Arkansas and Louisiana. I saw the soldiers burn lots of cotton
and was at Shreveport when the rebel gunboats were captured
and burned on Red River. We afterwards went to New Orleans,
then by way of the Gulf to Savannah Georgia, then to Macon
and other places in the South. Finally I was sent to Washington
City and at the time Gen. Sheridan made his raids in the
Shenandoah valley I was cook and washwoman for his staff I
was sent from Virginia to some place in Iowa and afterwards to
Jefferson Barracks, where I remained some time. You will see
by this paper that on the 15th day of November 1866 I enlisted
in the United States army at St. Louis, in the Thirty-eighth

United States Infantry Company A., Capt. Charles E. Clarke
commanding. The regiment I joined wore the Zouave uniform
and only two persons, a cousin and a particular friend, members
of the regiment, knew that I was a woman. They never 'blowed'
on me.
They were partly the cause of my joining the army. Another
reason was I wanted to make my own living and not be
dependent on relations or friends. Soon after I joined the army,
I was taken with the small-pox and was sick at a hospital across
the river from St. Louis, but as soon as I got well I joined my
company in New Mexico. I was as that paper says, I was never
put in the guard house, no bayonet was ever put to my back. I
carried my musket and did guard and other duties while in the
army, but finally I got tired and wanted to get off. I played sick,
complained of pains in my side, and rheumatism in my knees.
The post surgeon found out I was a woman and I got my
discharge. The men all wanted to get rid of me after they found
out I was a woman. Some of them acted real bad to me. After
leaving the army I went to Pueblo, Colorado, where I made
money by cooking and washing. I got married while there, but
my husband was no account. He stole my watch and chain, a
hundred dollars in money and my team of horses and wagon. I
had him arrested and put in jail, and then I came here. I like this
town. I know all the good people here, and I expect to get rich
yet. I have not got my land warrant. I thought I would wait till
the railroad came and then take my land near the depot. Grant
owns all this land around here, and it won't cost me anything. I
shall never live in the states again. You see I've got a good
sewing machine and I get washing to do and clothes to make. I
want to get along and not be a burden to my friends or relatives.
Document 7, Illustration of blacks moving west from Louisiana
to Kansas after the Civil War (Library of Congress,
1870)[footnoteRef:9] [9: “Negro Exodusters en route to
Kansas, fleeing from the yellow fever,” Photojournal from
engraving. Harpers Weekly, 1870. Historic American Building

Survey Field Records, HABS FN-6 #KS -49-11, Prints and
Photographs Division (106).]
Document 8, Interview of Bones Hooks, a black cowboy
(American Memory, 1940)[footnoteRef:10] [10: Bones Hooks
interview, December 23, 1940.]
Matthew (Bones) Hooks, who for years worked on Panhandle
ranches as a horse wrangler and "bronc-buster", [know?] many
tales of cowboy life in the early days, but he refuses to tell the
most interesting ones" because it would rattle skeletons in the
closets of prominent families"--old-timers who are still living or
their descendants.
Bones, without calling embarrassing names, recites a case in
point. Called as a witness before a grand jury recently, he
recognized in the judge a pioneer cattleman.
"Bones, do you know anyone who has stolen cattle"--the judge
caught the glint of memory in the piercing black eyes and
hastily added-"now?" And Bones, whose lips had been forming
the question, "What time are you talking about, Judge?" could
honestly answer, "No".
Both of them were recalling a certain day in the past when the
judge, then a young man just starting out in the cattle business,
and a young Negro cowboy drove a fine young male calf from
the pastures of the Capitol Syndicate (XIT Ranch) to the white
man's ranch.
The embryo cattleman could not afford to buy a good bull--
Bones said "surly"; he would not use the word "bull" before a
lady interviewer--which he needed for breeding purposes. He

went to the Negro cowboy, who was working an the XIT at the
time, and asked him if he knew where he could get one. Bones
looked over the range and, seeing no one near, selected a fine-
looking calf, which they drove toward the home ranch of the
judge-to-be. Coming upon a still better animal, Bones
exchanged the tired calf for the other, and proceeded an his
way.
The young rancher tied up the calf until it was weaned to keep it
from getting back with the mother cow. "It took about four days
to wean a calf," said Bones. "After that time he would go down
to the water hole and drink and then mosey out on the range and
eating grass and forget all about him mamma".
Bones, who was very young when he was working on Panhandle
ranches in the days before law and order came, has good reason
to remember the Vigilantes who took the place of the "law" in
those days. The Negro cowboy, since the death of "Skillety
Bill" Johnson of Canadian, is the last person to know the
password of the Vigilantes.
When Skillety Bill died, persons interested in {Begin deleted
text}he{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}the{End inserted
text} history of the Panhandle went through his personal effects.
Among his papers they found the notation that Bones was the
only person left knowing the password. These same persons
went to Bones and asked for the password, but he refused. "I am
going to keep my word until I die," he said, "and then my
papers will be left to the [museum?]. The password will be
among them."
According to Bones, Skillety Bill got his name because he
worked on the Frying Pan Ranch. Cowboys from the Panhandle
ranches in the early days went to [Mobeetie?] (early
Sweetwater), adjacent to Fort Elliott, to "celebrate". Negro
women in the families of colored troops stationed at the army

post would see Bill Johnson coming and say "There comes that
Skillety (their version of Prying Pan) Bill fellow".
Skillety Bill figured in one of the most important episodes in
Bones' life. The Negro boy was working at the time in old Greer
County, which was a part of the "neutral Strip", locally called a
second "No Man's Land". Bones, young and inexperienced, had
hired out to wrangle horses for a certain cattleman.
One day, while be was tending the horses and minding his own
business, Vigilantes rode up and asked him, "Are you working
for those cattlemen down the creek?" Bones admitted that he
was. Before he could says "Jack Robinson", the Vigilantes
jerked him up and started to hang him an the nearest tree. They
had already hanged the two white men mentioned to other
convenient trees.
One of them Bones knew to be innocent. He was only a young
boy who had come into the country looking for work two or
three days before, and {Begin deleted text}ho{End deleted text}
{Begin inserted text}who{End inserted text} like himself, had
hired out to the first men that offered him a job. But the
Vigilantes, catching both of the white men with a herd of stolen
cattle, took only circumstantial evidence into consideration and
hanged them both.
Bones was certain that they were going to add him to their
victims, when Skillety Bill spoke up in behalf of the colored
lad, saying that he was a mere boy, wrangling horses for the
boss and only carrying out orders of the cattle thief, whom he
had taken to be a bona fide cattleman.
"A red-haired man astride a limb of the tree gave the rope
around my neck a rough jerk," Bones vividly recalled;" and
said, 'Aw, come on, let's got it over with'; but Skillety Bill
saved my life."

After this narrow escape, Bones went into Oklahoma (then the
Indian Territory) and so successfully "lost" himself that his own
family and others thought him dead. At last he ventured back
into Greer County. Walking through the streets of a Panhandle
town, which he refuses to name, he came face to face with the
sheriff (Skillety Bill).
The sheriff looked at him closely and finally said, "I thought
you were dead. How long are you going to be here?"
"Only a little bit--a few days", Bones replied.
The sheriff started off down the street, turned back, and said,
"How long did you say you were going to be in town? Did you
say'a little bit'?"
Bones, answered quickly, "Yes, sir, a little bit". He knew what
would happen to him if he did not get out of town in a "little
bit"--and he got.
The pioneer Negro broncho-buster knows cowboy life as few
white persons now living. He was an interested listener around
the campfires of nearly every ranch in the Panhandle. He heard
many a lurid tale around a cow-chip blaze--words that can not
be repeated in the hearing of ladies or in polite society. "Every
horse, every man, bread and other articles of the camp, had a
nickname, often unmentionable in mixed groups, "he said.
Bones recalls an incident that occurred during a visit of Mrs.
Charles Goodnight to a camp one day. One of the cowboys, who
did not know of the lady's presence, said, "Bones, bring me up a
horse."
"Which one?"

"that old--," the cowboy stopped suddenly and clapped his hand
over his mouth, preventing the escape of the horse's
unmentionable name when he saw Mrs. Goodnight standing
there. "You know which one I want, "he added significantly.
Bones honors and reveres the pioneer women of his beloved
Panhandle, because they helped him as they helped so many
others. When the cowboys tormented him--as they were always
doing in some fashion--they took his part and made the white
boys stop shooting blank cartridges at his feet or whatever they
were doing to him at the moment.
It was one of those pioneer women who taught Bones not to
"cuss". His favorite by word was "I'God"--a corruption of "by
God". This pioneer mother came to him one day and said,
"Bones, young Bob is taking up your speech and I don't want
him to say 'I'God'. I can't keep his from saying it as long as he
hears you, so I'm going to have to break you of the habit. If
you'll quit, I'll buy you a Sunday suit."
Bones wanted that suit. When Bob repeated the byword, the
Negro boy would say, "Bob, white boys can get suits any time,
but this the only way that I can get one. You mustn't say 'I'God',
or I won't get that suit".
Bones, who attends every celebration of old-timers, at one of
these recent gatherings met the daughter of one of the pioneer
families for whom he used to work--he frequently associated
with the children of the early settlers, especially the boys. He
reminded her of the time when she was a very young lady
indeed. At that time she had never seen a colored person.
"Remember when you first saw me eating with the other
cowboys? "he said. "You peeked aut from behind your mother's
skirt and said, 'Mamma, one of them didn't wash his face'"

Bones said that he usually ate with the other cow hands. Once,
when someone objected to the presence of the Negro boy at the
same table, a pioneer housewife told the objector, "Everyone is
treated alike at my table".
"In the early days," Bones said in answer to a question, "when a
cowboy died on the trail, accidentally or otherwise, he was
buried in a hole dug in the sod without loss of time and without
much ceremony. The name of the dead man was sent to his
family if anyone knew his real name or who his people were.
"Later, coffins were made of pine boards. Those who died were
buried as soon as possible in those days, for obvious reasons.
Relatives and friends sat up with the dead to keep the cats and
dogs away.
"Services for the dead were held by a friend or someone who
was qualified--later by traveling preachers. Towns were far
apart, and preachers and doctors had to go miles and miles to
serve these communities.
"Meetings"--church services--" were held in the homes of
pioneers until churches were built", he concluded.
Document 9, Benjamin Singleton testifies about the “Negro
Exodus from the Southern States” (PBS.org,
1880)[footnoteRef:11] [11: Testimony of Benjamin Singleton,
Washington, DC, April 17, 1880, before the Senate Select
Committee Investigating the “Negro Exodus from the Southern
States.” ]
Benjamin Singleton (colored) sworn and examined.
By Mr. Windom:
Question. Where were you born, Mr. Singleton?
Answer. I was born in the State of Tennessee, sir.

Q. Where do you now live?
A. In Kansas.
Q. What part of Kansas?
A. I have a colony sixty miles from Topeka, sir.
Q. Which way from Topeka -- west?
A. Yes, sir; sixty miles from Topeka, west.
Q. What is your colony called?
A. Singleton colony is the name of it, sir.
Q. How long has it been since you have formed that colony?
A. I have two colonies in Kansas -- one in Cherokee County,
and one in Lyon, Morris County.
Q. When did you commence the formation of that colony -- the
first one?
A. I was in 1875, perhaps.
Q. That is, you first began this colonizing business in 1875?
A. No; when I first commenced working at this it was in 1869.
Q. You commenced your colony, then, in 1869?
A. No, I commenced getting the emigration up in 1875; I think
it was in 1875.
Q. When did you leave Tennessee, Mr. Singleton?
A. This last time; do you mean?
Q. No; when you moved from there to Kansas?
A. It has been a year this month, just about now.
Q. You misunderstand me; you say you were born in Tennessee?
A. Yes, sir.

Q. And you now live in Kansas?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When did you change your home from Tennessee to Kansas?
A. I have been going there for the last six or seven years, sir.
Q. Going between Tennessee and Kansas, at different times?
A. Yes, sir; several times.
Q. Well, tell us about it?
A. I have been fetching out people; I believe I fetched out 7,432
people.
Q. You have brought out 7,432 people from the South to
Kansas?
A. Yes, sir; brought and sent.
Q. That is, they came out to Kansas under your influence?
A. Yes, sir; I was the cause of it.
Q. How long have you been doing that -- ever since 1869?
A. Yes, sir; ever since 1869.
Q. Did you go out there yourself in 1869, before you
commenced sending them out?
A. No, sir.
Q. How did you happen to send them out?
A. The first cause, do you mean, of them going?
Q. Yes; What was the cause of your going out, and in the first
place how did you happen to go there, or to send these people
there?
A. Well, my people, for the want of land -- we needed land for
our children -- and their disadvantages -- that caused my heart

to grieve and sorrow; pity for my race, sir, that was coming
down, instead of going up -- that caused me to go to work for
them. I sent out there perhaps in '66 -- perhaps so; or in '65, any
way -- my memory don't recollect which; and they brought back
tolerable favorable reports; then I jacked up three or four
hundred, and went into Southern Kansas, and found it was a
good country, and I though Southern Kansas was congenial to
our nature, sir; and I formed a colony there, and bought about a
thousand acres of ground -- the colony did -- my people.
Q. And they went upon it and settled there?
A. Yes, sir; they went and settled there.
Q. Were they men with some means or without means?
A. I never carried none there without means.
Q. They had some means to start with?
A. Yes; I prohibited my people leaving their country and going
there without they had money -- some money to start with and
go on with a while.
Q. You were in favor of their going there if they had some
means?
A. Yes, and not staying at home.
Q. Tell us how these people are getting on in Kansas?
A. I am glad to tell you, sir.
Q. Have they any property now?
A. Yes; I have carried some people in there that when they got
there they didn't have fifty cents left, and now they have got in
my colony -- Singleton colony -- a house, nice cabins, their
milch cows, and pigs, and sheep, perhaps a span of horses, and
trees before their yeards, and some three or four or ten acres
broken up, and all of them has got little houses that I carried
there. They didn't go under no relief assistance; they went on

their own resources; and when they went in there first the
country was not overrun with them; you see they could get good
wages; the country was not overstocked with people; they went
to work, and I never helped them as soon as I put them on the
land.
Q. Well, they have been coming continually, and adding from
time to time to your colony these few years past, have they?
A. Yes, sir; I have spent, perhaps, nearly six hundred dollars
flooding the country with circulars.
Q. You have sent the circulars yourself, have you?
A. Yes, sir; all over these United States.
Q. Did you send them into other Southern States besides
Tennessee?
A. O, yes, sir.
Q. Did you do that at the instance of Governor St. John and
others in Kansas?
A. O, no, sir; no white men. This was gotten up by colored men
in purity and confidence; not a political negro was in it; they
would want to pilfer and rob at the cents before they got the
dollars. O, no, it was the muscle of the arm, the men that
worked that we wanted.
Q. Well, tell us all about it.
A. These men would tell all their grievances to me in Tennessee
-- the sorrows of their heart. You know I was an undertaker
there in Nashville, and worked in the shop. Well, actually, I
would have to go and bury their fathers and mothers. You see
we have the same heart and feelings as any other race and
nation. (The land is free, and it is nobody's business, if there is
land enough, where the people go. I put that in my people's
heads.) Well, that man would die, and I would bury him; and the
next morning maybe a woman would go to that man (meaning

the landlord), and she would have six or seven children, and he
would say to her, "Well, your husband owed me before he died"
and they would say that to every last one of them, "You owe
me." Suppose he would? Then he would say, "You must go to
some other place; I cannot take care of you." Now, you see, that
is something I would take notice of. that woman had to go out,
and these little children was left running through the streets,
and the next place you would find them in a disorderly house,
and their children in the State's prison.
Well, now, sir, you will find that I ahve a charter here. You will
find that I called on the white people in Tennessee about that
time. I called conventions about it, and they sat with me in my
conventions, and "Old man," they said, "you are right." The
white people said, "You are right; take your people away." And
let me tell you, it was the white people -- the ex-governor of the
State, felt like I did. and they said to me, "You have tooken a
great deal on to yourself, but if these negroes, instead of
deceiving one another and running for office, would take the
same idea that you have in your head, you will be a people."
I then went out to Kansas, and advised them all to go to Kansas;
and, sir they are going to leave the Southern country. The
Southern country is out of joint. The blood of a white man runs
through my veins. That is congenial, you know, to my nature.
that is my choice. Right emphatically, I tell you today, I woke
up the millions right through me! The great God of glory has
worked in me. I have had open air interviews with the living
spirit of God for my people; and we are going to leave the
South. We are going to leave it if there ain't an alteration and
signs of change. I am going to advise the people who left that
country (Kansas) to go back.
Q. What do you mean by a change?
A. Well, I am not going to stand bulldozing and half pay and all
those things. Gentelmen, allow me to tell you the truth; it seems

to me that they have picked out the negroes from the Southern
country to come here and testify who are in good circumstances
and own their homes and not the poor ones who don't study
their own interests. Let them go and pick up the men that has to
walk when they goes, and not those who have money.
There is good white men in the Southern country, but it ain't the
minority (majority); they can't do nothing; the bulldozers has
got possession of the country, and they have got to go in there
and stop them; if they don't the last colored man will leave
them. I see colored men testifying to a positive lie, for they told
me out there all their intgerests were in Louisiana and
Mississippi. Said I,"You are right to protect you own country,"
and they would tell me, "I am obliged to do what I am doing."
Of course I have done the same, but I am clear footed.
Q. Now you say that during these years you have been getting
up this colony you have spent, yourself, some six hundred
dollars in circulars, and in sending them out; where did you
send them, Mr. Singleton?
A. Into Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia,
Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, and all
those countries.
Q. To whom did you send them; how were they circulated?
A. Every man that would come into my country, and I could get
a chance, I would put one in his hand, and the boys that started
from my country on the boats, and the porters in the cars. That
is the way I circulated them.
Q. Did you send any out by mail?
A. I think I sent some perhaps to North Carolina by mail -- I
think I did. I sent them out by people, you see.
Q. Yes; by colored people, generally?
A. Some white people, too. There was Mrs. Governor Brown,

the first Governor Brown of Tennessee -- Mrs. Sanders, she was
a widow, and she married the governor. He had thirty on his
place. I went to him, and he has given me advice. And Ex-
Governor Brown, he is there too.
Q. You say your circulars were sent all over these States?
A. Yes, sir; to all of 'em.
Q. Did you ever hear from them; did anybody ever write to you
about them?
A. O, yes.
Q. And you attribute this movement to the information you gave
in your circulars?
A. Yes, sir; I am the whole cause of the Kansas immigration!
Q. You take all that responsibility on yourself?
A. I do, and I can prove it; and I think I have done a good deal
of good, and I feel relieved!
Q. You are proud of your work?
A. Yes, sir; I am! (Uttered emphatically.)
Document 10, George B. Morris on “The Chinaman as he is…”
(Library of Congress, c. 1868)[footnoteRef:12] [12: George
Morris, “The Chinaman as he is: From Miscellaneous
Selections,” c. 1868.]
John Chinaman is the dirtiest neighbor anyone can have they
have their filthy habits from childhood up the moment you cross
the borders of Chinatown you experience a peculiar strange
smell a sort of combination of opium mixed with tobacco fish
and vegetables but unlike anything else you cannot get used to
it and a great many people get sick at the first smell of it . . .
inflicting a severe headache . . . Many of the buildings in
Chinatown are made of brick of American architecture

whenever the Chinese get into a building they commence to
remodel it and change the appearance of the front putting up
queer signs and painting the balconies and front fanciful colors
and hanging out curious Chinese lanterns in a few months after
they have occupied it the place looks as if it were a hundred
years old the walls become blackened up filthy dirty and
discolored this applies to the lower class however it must be
understood from the start that there are grades of society the
same as among other nations . . .
Document 11, Anti-Chinese boycott broadside (American
Memory, c. 1889)[footnoteRef:13] [13: The National Bakers
Union, No. 45, “Boycott!,” c. 1889.]
Document 12, Samuel Clemens on Mining Towns from
Roughing It (Huntington Library, 1872)[footnoteRef:14] [14:
Mark Twain, Roughing It, Chicago, IL: 1872.]
It was in the Sacramento Valley...that a deal of the most
lucrative of the early gold mining was done, and you may still
see, in places, its grassy slopes and levels torn and guttered and
disfigured by the avaricious spoilers of fifteen and twenty years
ago. You may see such disfigurements far and wide over
California—and in some such places, where only meadows and
forests are visible not a living creature, not a house, no stick or
stone or remnant of a ruin, and not a sound, not even a whisper
to disturb the Sabbath stillness— you will find it hard to believe
that there stood at one time a fiercely-flourishing little city, of
two thousand or three thousand souls, with its newspaper, fire
company, brass band, volunteer militia, bank, hotels, noisy
Fourth of July processions and speeches, gambling hells
crammed with tobacco smoke, profanity, and rough-bearded
men of all nations and colors, with tables heaped with gold dust

sufficient for the revenues of a German principality streets
crowded and rife with business—town lots worth four hundred
dollars a front foot—labor, laughter, music, dancing, swearing,
fighting, shooting, stabbing a bloody inquest and a man for
breakfast every morning—everything that delights and adorns
existence—all the appointments and appurtenances of a thriving
and prosperous and promising young city,—and now nothing is
left of it all but a lifeless, homeless solitude. The men are gone,
the houses have vanished, even the name of the place is
forgotten. In no other land, in modern times, have towns so
absolutely died and disappeared, as in the old milling regions of
California.
It was a driving, vigorous, restless population in those days. It
was a curious population. It was the only population of the kind
that the world has ever seen gathered together, and it is not
likely that the world will ever see its like again. For, observe, it
was an assemblage of two hundred thousand young men—not
simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings, but stalwart, muscular,
dauntless young braves, brim full of push and energy, and
royally endowed with every attribute that goes to make up a
peerless and magnificent manhood—the very pick and choice of
the world's glorious ones. No women, no children, no gray and
stooping veterans,—none but erect, bright-eyed, quick-moving,
strong-handed young giants—the strangest population, the finest
population, the most gallant host that ever trooped down the
startled solitudes of an unpeopled land. And where are they
now? Scattered to the ends of the earth—or prematurely aged
and decrepit—or shot or stabbed in street affrays—or dead of
disappointed hopes and broken hearts all gone, or nearly all—
victims devoted upon the altar of the golden calf—the noblest
holocaust that ever wafted its sacrificial incense heavenward. It
is pitiful to think upon.
It was a splendid population—for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-
brained sloths staid at home you never find that sort of people

among pioneers— you cannot build pioneers out of that sort of
material. It was that population that gave to California a name
for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through
with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or
consequences, which she bears unto this day—and when she
projects a new surprise, the grave world smiles as usual, and
says "Well, that is California all over."
But they were rough in those times! They fairly reveled in gold,
whisky, fights, and fandangoes, and were unspeakably happy.
The honest miner raked from a hundred to a thousand dollars
out of his claim a day, and what with the gambling dens and the
other entertainments, he hadn't a cent the next morning, if he
had any sort of luck. They cooked their own bacon and beans,
sewed on their own buttons, washed their own shirts—blue
woolen ones; and if a man wanted a fight on his hands without
any annoying delay, all he had to do was to appear in public in a
white shirt or a stove-pipe hat, and he would be accommodated.
For those people hated aristocrats. They had a particular and
malignant animosity toward what they called a "biled shirt."
It was a wild, free, disorderly, grotesque society. Men—only
swarming hosts of stalwart men—nothing juvenile, nothing
feminine visible anywhere!
In those days miners would flock in crowds to catch a glimpse
of that rare and blessed spectacle, a woman! Old inhabitants tell
how, in a certain camp, the news went abroad early in the
morning that a woman was come! They had seen a calico dress
hanging out of a wagon down at the camping-ground— sign of
emigrants from over the great Plains. Everybody went down
there, and a shout went up when an actual, bona fide dress was
discovered fluttering in the wind! The male emigrant was
visible. The miners said:
"Fetch her out!"

He said: "It is my wife, gentlemen--she is sick—we have been
robbed of money, provisions, everything, by the Indians—we
want to rest."
"Fetch her out! We've got to see her!"
"But, gentlemen, the poor thing, she—"
"Fetch her out!"
He "fetched her out," and they swung their hats and sent up
three rousing cheers and a tiger; and they crowded around and
gazed at her, and touched her dress, and listened to her voice
with the look of men who listened to a memory rather than a
present reality—and then they collected twenty-five hundred
dollars in gold and gave it to the man, and swung their hats
again and gave three more cheers, and went home satisfied.
Once I dined in San Francisco with the family of a pioneer, and
talked with his daughter, a young lady whose first experience in
San Francisco was an adventure, though she herself did not
remember it, as she was only two or three years old at the time.
Her father said that, after landing the ship, they were walking
up the street, a servant leading the party with the little girl in
her arms. And presently a huge miner, bearded, belted, spurred,
and bristling with deadly weapons—just down from a long
campaign in the mountains, evidently—barred the way, stopped
the servant, and stood gazing, with a face all alive with
gratification and astonishment. Then he said, reverently:
"Well, if it ain't a child! "And then he snatched a little leather
sack out of his pocket and said to the servant:
"There's a hundred and fifty dollars in dust, there, and I'll give
it to you if you let me kiss the child!"

That anecdote is true.
But see how things change. Sitting at that dinner table, listening
to that anecdote, if I had offered double the money for the
privilege of kissing the same child, I would have been refused.
Seventeen added years have far more than doubled the price.
Post-Reading Exercises
1. Using the documents in this chapter, write a 1-2 page essay
discussing some of the positives and negatives of westward
expansion? For example, what was the relationship between
whites and Native Americans like in the second half of the
nineteenth century? Between whites and the Chinese? You
should be sure to use specific examples and quotes from the
primary source documents in this chapter.
2. Pretend you are a journalist in the 1860s who has been asked
to write an article about whether easterners should move to the
west. Take either a pro or con stance on this issue and write
your article accordingly (either convince easterners to move
west, or convince them not to), being sure to use specific
examples and quotes from the primary source documents in this
chapter.
3. JOURNAL OPTION: For this chapter of OB, instead of
answering Question 1 or 2, you may instead choose to turn in a
2-4 page typed document (double-spaced) with brief notes on
each document in the chapter, as well as 5 questions about the
chapter’s material. Please see the handout under Files titled
“Journal Notes/Questions Guide” for more specific instructions
on how to do this properly.
Works Cited

Document 4: American Memory. (1860, February 20). American
Memory. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from G.A. Grow, "Free
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9

CHAPTER 9: THE AMERICAN WEST

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CHAPTER 9: THE AMERICAN WEST