The document provides details about the settling of the American West in the late 19th century, including the gold rush in Nevada, cattle ranching and drives, farming on the Great Plains, and conflicts with Native Americans. It describes how the discovery of gold and silver in Nevada led to a boomtown of 30,000 people in Virginia City almost overnight in 1859. Cattle drives along trails like the Chisholm Trail brought over 1.5 million head of cattle from Texas to Kansas between 1867 and 1871. Farming on the Great Plains was challenging due to lack of water and trees and threats of fires and grasshoppers but new technologies like barbed wire and steam-powered farming equipment enabled settlement. Conflicts with Native Americans

1. SETTLING THE WEST

2. There‟s Gold In Them There Hills
 Placer Mining was used to extract gold &
minerals from the ground, but only the
shallow level of ground was penetrated with
this method.
 Equipment like picks, shovels & pans were used
in Placer Mining.

4. THE BIG STRIKE IN NEVADA
The Story of the
Comstock
Lode

5. 1859 BOOMTOWN
 Henry Comstock claimed some land
in Six-Mile Canyon, Nevada
 It was not even his land!
 He was able to insert himself into
one of the richest gold and silver
strikes in history
 News of this strike caused a boom of
30,000 people to crowd into Virginia
City, Nevada almost overnight!

6. Virginia City

7. Virginia City Video
1. What was the „blue mud‟ they found in Nevada?
2. How did Hearst make out with his land?
3. What are some of the numbers relating to the silver in the
hills.
4. How did they solve the problem of digging the silver
mine?
5. What were some of the dangers of digging so far below?
6. What caused the decline of the silver mine?
7. What is the Comstock Load‟s legacy?

8. Virginia City, Nevada had been
only a frontier outpost.
SUDDENLY, THE TOWN HAD:
1. AN OPERA HOUSE
2. SHOPS WITH EUROPEAN
CLOTHES & FURNITURE.
3. SEVERAL NEWSPAPERS
4. A 6 STORY HOTEL WITH
THE WEST FIRST
“RISING ROOM”..
• aka elevator

9. What Was A Boomtown Like?
• Crime was a serious problem
 All those people & no sheriff
 They did have Vigilance
Committees (volunteers who
enforced laws)
• They often punished innocent
people by accident or on
purpose.
• Women worked at “hurdy-
gurdy” houses where they
danced for a drink.

10. Ranching & Cattle Drives

11. Ranchers
Some sought their fortunes by building ranches on
the Great Plains
In the early 1800s, no one thought building a cattle
ranch on the Great Plains would be successful
They thought cattle from the east couldn‟t live on
the tough prairie grass.

12. •This breed of cow was adapted
to the tough grass and climate of
the Great Plains.
•The government offered free
range on their land to all cattle.
•It was free & unrestricted by the
ownership of private farms.
•A breed of cattle that descended
from Mexico had emerged in
Texas

13. Cowboys and Mexicans

14. Texas Longhorns
•Before the Civil War, there was no reason to round
up the Texas Longhorns because beef prices were so
low!
• Two developments raised their demand:
1. The Civil War
2. Construction of the Railroads
• During the Civil War, the Cattle were needed in
the east to feed the soldiers.
• Cattle could be driven up North to the Rail lines &
Transported to the east at 10 times the price the
cowboys could get in Texas for the same cows.

15. Chisholm Trail
•One of the most famous routes to
bring cattle north was the Chisholm
Trail that led to the town of Abilene,
Kansas.
• Between 1867 & 1871 nearly 1.5
million head of cattle traveled on
the Chisholm trail.
•When Abilene was full of cowboys, it
rivaled any mining town in
rowdiness!

17. The
Cattle
Trails

18. Wild Bill Hickok
With the prosperity of the cattlemen came an
era of lawlessness. The famed gunman Wild
Bill Hickok served as Abilene 's marshal in 1871
and is reputed to have killed more than 50
alleged lawbreakers during his brief tenure.
The appearance of homesteaders and fenced
ranges discouraged the Texas cattle
trade, much of which was diverted to Wichita.
Winter-wheat cultivation was introduced in
Abilene in the mid-1870s and remains
economically important. Abilene is still a
shipping point for livestock, as well as for grain
and other agricultural products, and it has
some light industry.
Abilene." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
1 Jan. 2008 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9003356>.

20. Wild Bill Hickok
In 1876 Hickok married a widow, Mrs.
Agnes Lake Thatcher, but he soon left her
(in Cincinnati) to visit the goldfields of the
Black Hills in the Dakota Territory. It was
there, at a poker table in Nuttall & Mann's
No. 10 saloon in Deadwood, that Hickok
was shot dead by a drunken stranger, Jack
McCall. The cards Hickok was holding—a
pair of black aces and a pair of black eights
plus an unknown fifth card—became
known as the dead man's hand. McCall's
motive was never learned; he was tried,
convicted of murder, and hanged on March
1, 1877.
Hickok, Wild Bill." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
1 Jan. 2008 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9040358 >.

21. The Long Cattle Drive
•Thousands of Cattle were rounded up & gathered from the
open ranges.
•The brands on the cattle was the only thing that
distinguished one from the other.
•The ranchers branded their cattle before moving them.
•Stray calves with no brand were divided up between the
different owners and branded.
•Most of the cowboys on the cattle drives were former
Confederate soldiers who after the war were trying to
rebuild their lives.
•Many were Mexican & some were African
Americans who had been
freed after the Civil War.

22. •The open range would end when ranch
owners began to build fences to prevent
sheep herders from grazing the land meant
for cattle.
•The price of beef fell due to oversupply &
many went bankrupt.
•Then, in the winter of 1886, blizzards
covered the ground so deep that cattle could
not graze any grass.
•Temperatures fell to 40 degrees below
zero.
•The fences were usually made of barbed
wire not wood fences.

23. Barbed Wire
Joseph Glidden

24. Cattle Industry Legacy
•The Cattle Industry survived, but
it was changed forever.
•The days of the open range had
ended.
•Herds were fenced in on ranches
and the cowboy became a ranch
hand who worked on the farm of
the wealthy owner.

25. Farming the Plains

26. Geography of the Great Plains
•Extends all the way to the Rocky Mountains to about the
center of Abilene, Texas.
•Rainfall is about 20 inches each year on the Great Plains &
trees grow only along the banks of Rivers & Streams.
•Many people considered the Great Plains to be a desert
unfit for farming or grazing.

27. The Great Plains
 The Transcontinental Railroad encouraged the
establishment of towns along the railroad.
• The Government encouraged people to settle the
Great Plains by passing the Homestead Act.
• People could claim up to 160 acres of public land &
get the title to the land if they lived there for 5
years.
 The people who decided to take the offer faced
many challenges!

28. Problems on the Prairies
• No trees to build a home
• People were forced to build homes from sod cut from
the ground
• No water to drink
• They had to dig wells 300 feet deep to tap drinking
water
• Summer temperatures soared to over 100 degrees!
• Prairie fires were a constant threat
• Grasshopper swarms swept over farms & destroyed
entire crops.
• Winter brought blizzards and bitter cold!

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

30.  New Farming Methods:
 Dry farming required planting seeds deep into the
ground where there was enough moisture to help
them grow.
 New Equipment made dry farming easier:
 seed drills, steel plows, reapers and threshing
machines helped to farm wheat.

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

32. • New machines allowed a single family to bring in a
huge harvest!
• Some of these wheat farms were 50,000 acres.
• They were called Bonanza Farms because they
made so much profit!
• Bonanza farms owners, like the mining
companies, formed companies, invested in
equipment and hired people to work.

33. Bonanza Farms

34. • The United States became the world‟s largest exporter of
wheat in the 1880s.
• Other Nations trying to compete caused an oversupply of
wheat & Prices crashed!
• A terrible drought in the late 1880s also strained the
farms.
• Most farmers had to borrow money on their lands. When
they couldn‟t pay, the bank took their ranches.
• Some were given the chance to stay and work on the
farms they once owned, as tenant workers.
• By 1900, 1/3 of the farms were rented instead of

35. Closing the Frontier
 Much of the land in the west was still unoccupied by
1890, but the Government reported that it was nearly
full when it took a census of People living in the west.
 It was upsetting to some people who always had the
hope ofthough news spread that the
Even being able to go west and make a new start.
 The real story ofclosing, many more wasn‟t
frontier was the people who went west
about heroes who rode off into the sunset.
 people traveled west in the 1900s
It was about “regular ole‟ people” who built places to
making their new starts, but unlike the
live, formed communities and worked hard to do what
had to be of “getting rich quick”, the work
stories done.
 They didn‟t get their new environment. lives
was hard in rich, but most were proud of the
they had made on the frontier.

36. Native Americans

37. Native Americans
 Native Americans lived in North America long
before Europeans even knew the continent existed.
 The Great Plains people were nomads who
followed the buffalo.
 Suddenly people arrived calling themselves
“Americans”, claiming land for themselves and
killing buffalo almost to the point of extinction.
 Americans broke treaties that promised Native
Americans rights to lands & forced them to
relocate.

38. Native Americans
 Native Americans resisted by attacking wagons, trains,
stage coaches and ranches.
 The first major clash happened in 1862 when the Sioux
people in Minnesota launched an uprising.
 The Dekota Sioux had been moved to a reservation in
Minnesota with the promise of the United States
government paying them each year for the land they
left behind.
 The money was called annuities because it came once
each year.
 American traders in the area made up fake debts owed
to them by the Sioux & took the annuities meant for
the Sioux.

39. Native Americans
 The United States government was late making the annuities
payments in the year of 1862. As the Sioux waited for the
money, many of their people were starving.
 Chief Little Crow asked the American traders to allow his
people to get food on credit until the annuities arrived.
 The trader who answered Little Crow was Andrew Myrick: “If
they are hungry let them eat grass or their own dung.”
 Two weeks later, Myrick was found shot to death with grass
stuffed in his mouth.
 Little Crow & the Sioux killed hundreds of soldiers & civilians
before the uprising was put down.
 307 Dakota Sioux were sentenced to death, but President
Lincoln reviewed the evidence & reduced the number of
people to be executed to 38.

40. Colonel JohnCheyenne were waiting at a fort to
The
Chivington
negotiate a peace treaty with the
Americans. Because they had been
attacking women & children, Chivington
killed them.
“Kill and scalp all, big and
little!”
The Cheyenne were flying a
Sandy Creek, CO
white flag & an America flag, but Sand Creek Massacre
Chivington ignored the symbols
of peace. November 29, 1864

41. Native Americans
 The United States Senate investigated Chivington‟s
attack & brought no charges against him.
 This outraged many Americans who saw what he did
to the Cheyenne as unjustifiable.

42. Capt. William J. Fetterman
80 soldiers massacred
December 21, 1866
Lakota Sioux leader,
Crazy Horse led
Fetterman into a trap.
Crazy Horse tricked
Fetterman into following
a small band of Lakota, &
lured him into an ambush
where hundreds of Lakota
Indians waited to
massacre him & his men.

43. Mt. Rushmore: Black Hills, SD

44. Battlefield Detectives: Custer‟s Last Stand
1. Why did the Americans attack the Natives?
2. What battle tactics did Custer use?
3. What battle tactics did the Natives use?
4. Why did the Americans fail?

45.  GOLD had been discovered in Black Hills, South Dakota. So many Americans
had rushed to the area killing buffalo so rapidly they were disappearing.
 Professional hunters hunted the buffalo to sell the hides. Many hunters killed
buffalo by the hundreds just for sport leaving their bodies to rot. The Railroad
companies hired sharp shooters to kill large numbers of buffalo who were
blocking the railways‟ traffic.
 The Lakota Sioux & Cheyenne Indians were not supposed to leave the
reservation, but left to hunt for food near the Bighorn Mountains in Montana.
 Lt. Colonel George A. Custer underestimated the 2,500 Native Americans &
attacked them in daylight as they camped by the Little Bighorn River.
 The Lakota Sioux & Cheyenne Indians killed all of Custer‟s men. Newspapers
reported Custer as the victim.
 Lakota Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull tried to flee with his people to Canada, but the
Americans forced him & his people back onto the reservation in the Black Hills.

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

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

48. Nez Percé Chief Joseph!
When Americans tried
to force Chief
Joseph’s tribe onto a
smaller Reservation
in Idaho, he fled
running for than 1300
miles before being
captured.
“Our Chiefs are killed…The little
Children are freezing to death. My
People…have no blankets, no food
Hear me, my chiefs; I am tired; my
Heart is sick and sad. From where
The sun now stands I will fight no
More forever.”

49. “Ghost Dance”, 1890
A terrible battle took place at
Wounded Knee Creek as the
Participants of the Ghost dance
Were attacked.
Chief Sitting
Bull Was Blamed
The Native Americans were not
Supposed to practice this type of ritual
Which would cause the settlers to disappear
& bring back the buffalo.

50. Tragedy at Wounded Knee
 The government sent police to arrest Chief
Sitting Bull for leading the Ghost Dance.
Sitting Bull‟s people tried to stop the arrest, and an
exchange of gunfire killed many
Including Chief Sitting Bull.

51.  After Chief Sitting Bull was killed, the
People who were part of the Ghost Dance
Ran from the reservation.
 On Dec. 29, 1890, American troops caught
Up with the Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee Creek
& tried to force a surrender.
 A terrible battle took place by Wounded
Knee Creek.

52. Chief Big Foot’s Lifeless
Body
Wounded Knee, SD, 1890
25 U.S. Soldiers killed
200 Lakota men,
Women and Children
Killed.

53. Helen Hunt Jackson
She described all
The broken promises
The American
government
Had given to the
Native
Americans including
Facts from the
Massacre
At Sand Creek.
A Century of Dishonor (1881)

54. Dawes Act (1887):
Assimilation was
The process of
Assimilation Policy
Forcing Native
Americans
To abandon
Their culture &
Become American.
Carlisle Indian School, PA

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

56. “Buffalo Bill” Cody & Sitting
Bull

57. Geronimo, Apac
he Chief:
Hopeless Cause

58. Indian Reservations Today