The document discusses several key issues around the closing of the American western frontier in the late 19th century, including: 1) Various groups migrated westward for opportunities including free land, profit, and manifest destiny, straining relations with native peoples and leading to conflicts over land and resources. 2) Iconic figures and groups emerged during this period like cowboys, gunslingers, miners, ranchers, settlers, and soldiers, many of whom faced hard lives and conflicts on the frontier. 3) Native American tribes suffered tremendously from loss of lands and buffalo herds, disease, and conflicts with white settlers and government policies which led to many being forced onto reservations.

1. The Closing of the Western Frontier Susan Pojer

2. Essential Questions What national issues emerged in the process of closing the western frontier? Why does the West hold such an important place in the American imagination? In what ways is the West romanticized in American culture?

3. WESTWARD MOVEMENT After government was stable people in the east began to Move west even more than before. Manifest Destiny, Railroads, Adventure, free land and profit all lead to the growing need of Americans to migrate to the frontier. ***Why would the government offer free land to people out west?

4. the Railroad builders

5. RAILROADS Transcontinental – East to West Easier to get people out west – more willing to come. Many came out west working on the railroads (Irish, Chinese, blacks, etc.)

6. Railroad Construction

7. Promontory Point, UT (May 10, 1869)

8. the cowboys

9. COWBOYS Huge cattle population out west. Government land could be used for grazing Cattle had to be herded over long distances – hard life for cowboys.

10. The Bronc Buster Frederick Remington

11. Black Cowboys

12. the GUNSLINGERS

13. Colt .45 Revolver God didn’t make men equal. Colonel Colt did!

14. Legendary Gunslingers & Train Robbers Jesse James Billy the Kid

15. Dodge City Peace Commission, 1890

16. the MINERS

17. Prospecting

18. Mining Centers: 1900

19. Anaconda Copper Mining Co. (MT)

20. Mining (“Boom”) Towns-- Now Ghost Towns Calico, CA

21. The Cattlemen & the Sheep herders

22. RANCHERS Free land for cattle Homestead Act – 160 acres free – must farm for 5 years and build a structure with a window and a door. People would race for land – Oklahoma Land Rush (Boomers and Sooners)

23. Homesteads From Public Lands

24. RANCHERS CONT. Ranchers – wealthy could use free government land Issues between farmers and ranchers Hard life

25. The Cattle Trails

26. Land Use: 1880s

27. New Agricultural Technology “ Prairie Fan” Water Pump Steel Plow [“Sod Buster”]

28. Barbed Wire Joseph Glidden

29. The Range Wars Sheep Herders Cattle Ranchers

30. The Farmers

31. FARMERS Homestead Act Built fences to keep cattle out

32. What is the Message of this Picture?

33. The Realty--A Pioneer’s Sod House, SD

34. Frontier Settlements: 1870-1890

35. Minority groups in the West

36. Black “Exoduster” Homesteaders

37. Blacks Moving West

38. The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great Plains

39. A Romantic View

40. The Buffalo Soldiers & the Indian Wars

41. The “Chinese Question” Exclusion Act (1882) - Oriental Exclusion Act - Chinese Exclusion Act

42. the plains indians

43. NATIVE AMERICANS DOWNFALL LAND Loss of land to westward movement BUFFALO Land blocked – killed for sport DISEASE Small Pox - #1 cause of death OPINION Fear – seen as uncivilized - “Only good Indian is a dead Indian”

44. Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1851) Colorado Gold Rush (1859)

45. INDIAN WARS SAND CREEK MASSACRE Col. John Chivington Killed 450 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) Chief Black Kettle tried to hold up white flag – it was ignored. “Kill and scalp all”

46. Colonel John Chivington Kill and scalp all, big and little! Sandy Creek, CO Massacre November 29, 1864

47. Capt. William J. Fetterman 80 soldiers massacred December 21, 1866

48. Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek (1867) 2 nd Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1868) Reservation Policy

49. Gold Found in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory! 1874

50. BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG HORN George Custer 1876 – he lead a troop of 264 men toward a Sioux Camp Sitting Bull waiting for him – Custer was surrounded and he and all the men were killed **Greatest Indian Victory

51. The Battle of Little Big Horn 1876 Chief Sitting Bull Gen. George Armstrong Custer

52. CHIEF JOSEPH Believed Black Hills could not be sold Wanted Peace Forced to run with people to Canada – many died Eventually captured and forced to a reservation

53. Chief Joseph I will fight no more forever! Nez Percé tribal retreat (1877)

54. Geronimo, Apache Chief: Hopeless Cause

55. Dawes Severalty Act (1887): Assimilation Policy Carlisle Indian School, PA

56. DAWES ACT Broke up Indian land – 160 acre units Not allowed to sell land for 25 years Schools set up to “civilize” – English, Christianity, etc.

57. GHOST DANCE Celebration – not a call to war Vision that chief would drive white man away Military concerned – Chief Sitting Bull killed

58. Arapahoe “Ghost Dance”, 1890

59. WOUNDED KNEE Chief Big Foot led the Sioux away Military rounded up 350 freezing and starving Sioux – taken to Wounded Knee SD. Shot fired – 300 unarmed Indians killed and left to freeze. Many children butchered. Ended Indian Wars.

60. Chief Big Foot’s Lifeless Body Wounded Knee, SD, 1890

61. Indian Reservations Today

62. Crazy Horse Monument: Black Hills, SD Lakota Chief

63. Korczak Ziolkowski, Sculptor Crazy Horse Monument His vision of the finished memorial.

64. Mt. Rushmore: Black Hills, SD

65. the myth & legend of the west

66. The Traditional View of the West

67. William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West Show

68. “ Buffalo Bill” Cody & Sitting Bull

69. Legendary Female Western Characters Calamity Jane Annie Oakley

70. The Fall of the Cowboy Frederick Remington

71. what were the long-term effects of the westward experience?

72. Destruction of the Buffalo Herds The near extinction of the buffalo.

73. Yellowstone National Park First national park established in 1872.

74. National Parks

75. Conservation Movement John Muir With President Theodore Roosevelt

76. Sierra Club Founded in 1892