1. Ch. 16
The Conquest of the West
After the Civil war, a dynamic period in American
history opened-the settlement of the West. The
lives of 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
2. What is the West?
• A mix of myth with reality
• The “Great American Desert” Stephen Long
• Diverse land and inhabitants
3. Who lived there?
One historian wrote: “compared to the West,
the East looks like a family reunion”.
5. Native Americans
• The Great Plains were • As ranchers, miners and
home to many Native farmers moved out to
Americans the Plains—Native
• Some were farmers Americans were
• But the majority were deprived of their
nomads—roamed the hunting grounds
vast distances following • The Buffalo was killed
their source of food— for sport—by the
the buffalo millions
6.
7. Plain Indian Tribes
• Pueblo-contact with the Spanish-caste system
developed-Apache, Navajos, etc.
• Very diverse
• Sioux-nomads and the buffalo
• All were susceptible to diseases—outmanned
and outgunned
8. Hispanics
• New Mexico, Texas and California—as the Anglo
American presence increased and new ranching
and farming operations followed, Hispanics
were no longer in control of the region and
were relegated to unskilled farm work and
industrial labor
10. Homestead Act
• “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
11. Migration from the East
• After the Civil War, over 2 million
came from the East—
Scandinavians, Germans, Irish, Russia
ns, Czechs and others
19. The Changing Western Economy
• In the 19th century the region produced 3
major industries: mining, ranching and
commercial farming
• Gold, silver and copper
• Boom to Bust
20. Cattle Kingdom
• 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.
21. Open Range-a vast area of grassland
owned by the government.
• After the Civil War meat
• Hispanic cowhands prices soared
developed the tolls • Millions of longhorns roamed
in Texas
and techniques for • How to move the cattle to the
RR
rounding up and • Long cattle drives-The
driving cattle. Chisholm Trail
• Barbed wire
• Lariat, lasso, stampe • http://player.discoveryeducati
on.com/index.cfm?guidAssetI
de d=5EB648BC-FBA8-42BD-
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31. Last of the Indian Wars
With broken treaties, the Native
Americans were forced to relocate.
• Reservations-land set
aside for Native • The Sioux
Americans • The Lakota
• The Cheyenne
35. 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.
36. The Battle of the Little Big Horn
• http://www.history.com
/videos/sitting-bull
37. 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
38. 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
40. • The U.S. government • The Dawes Act-similar
just wanted the Native to the Homestead Act—
Americans to just the Dawes Act allowed
assimilate the Indians land –it
• Assimilation-to be failed to help the
absorbed into a culture Indians.
• “A Century of Dishonor”
a book by Helen Hunt
Jackson that was critical
of the US policies
