Brinkley Unfinished Nation 8 ed Chapter 16

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16: The Conquest of the Far West
Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation, 8th Edition

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The Societies of the Far West
• The Western Tribes
– Plains Indians
– Plains Warriors’ vulnerabilities

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The Societies of the Far West
(Continued)
• Hispanic New Mexico
– Taos Indian Rebellion
• Hispanic California and Texas
– Plight of Californios
– Mexicans in Texas

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Tejano Ranchers, 1877, by James Walker
The Spanish term Tejano or Texano refers to Texans of Mexican descent.
The mounted rancher has roped a white mustang; a saddle is ready
nearby. Small independent ranches were well established in south Texas
before large Anglo-American enterprises moved in.
Private Collection/© Peter Newark Pictures/Bridgeman Images

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The Societies of the Far West
(Continued, 2)
• The Chinese Migration
– Increasing Chinese immigration
– “Coolies”
– Railroad workers
– “Chinatowns”
– Chinese families
• Anti-Chinese Sentiments
– Chinese Exclusion Act

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A Chinese Family in
San Francisco
This portrait of Chun Duck Chin and his seven-year-old son Chun Jan Yut was taken in a studio
in San Francisco in the 1870s. Both father and son appear to have dressed up for the occasion,
in traditional Chinese garb, and the studio—which likely took many such portraits of Chinese
families—provided a formal Chinese backdrop. The son is holding what appears to be a chicken,
perhaps to impress relatives in China with the family's prosperity.
National Archives and Records Administration

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The Societies of the Far West
(Continued, 3)
• Migration from the East
– Homestead Act
– New western states

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The Changing Western Economy
• Labor in the West
– Multiracial working class
• The Arrival of the Miners
– Mining booms
– Comstock Lode
– Gender disparity

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The Changing Western Economy
(Continued)
• The Cattle Kingdom
– Mexican roots
– “Range wars”
– Decline of the open-range industry

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The Cattle Kingdom,
ca. 1866–1887
Cattle ranching and cattle drives are among the most romanticized features of the nineteenth-
century West. But they were also hardheaded businesses, made possible by the growing
eastern market for beef and the availability of reasonably inexpensive transportation—thanks
to the dense network of trails and railroads—to take cattle to the urban markets.

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The Romance of the West
• The Western Landscape and the Cowboy
– “Rocky Mountain school”
– Cowboys in fiction

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The Romance of the West (Continued)
• The Idea of the Frontier
– Romantic vision
– Mark Twain
– Frederic Remington
– Turner thesis
– “Passing of the frontier”

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American Progress, 1872
The Brooklyn artist John Gast painted this image of hardy settlers marching toward the frontier
for western travel guides. The goddess of progress, holding a schoolbook and telegraph line,
leads the way. Native Americans, buffalo, and a bear are pushed off to the margins by the
pioneers' approach.
The Library of Congress

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The Dispersal of the Tribes
• White Tribal Policies
– “Concentration” policy
– Buffalo herds decimated

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Held Up by Buffalo
Once among the most numerous creatures in North America, the buffalo almost
became extinct as a result of indiscriminate slaughter by white settlers and
travelers, who often fired at herds from moving trains simply for the sport of it.
Private Collection/© Peter Newark American Pictures/Bridgeman

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The Dispersal of the Tribes (Continued)
• The Indian Wars
– George A. Custer
– “Indian Hunting”
– Battle of the Little Bighorn
– Chief Joseph
– Geronimo
– “Ghost Dance”
– Wounded Knee massacre

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The Dispersal of the Tribes (Continued, 2)
• The Dawes Act
– Assimilation promoted
– Administrators inept and corrupt

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The Rise and Decline of the
Western Farmer
– From boom to bust
• Farming on the Plains
– Cheap rail rates
– Scarce water
– Reverse migration
• Commercial Agriculture
– Worldwide overproduction

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The Rise and Decline of the
Western Farmer (Continued)
• The Farmers’ Grievances
– Grievances against railroads
– Belief in conspiracy
• The Agrarian Malaise
– Reasons for discontent
– Isolation and obsolescence

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Debating the Past
• The Frontier and the West

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Consider the Source
• Walter Baron Von Richthofen, Cattle Raising on the
Plains in North America, 1885

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The Unfinished Nation, 8th Edition
Next: Chapter 17
Industrial Supremacy