America in the Gilded Age: The South The South: Still recovering from the Civil War but was no longer forced to reconstruct The New South? Sharecropping Jim Crow reigned supreme as whites legally segregated the South into 2 distinct societies America in the Gilded Age: The North The North: Experienced a 2 nd Industrial Revolution, mass immigration, & urbanization Railroads, Steel, & Oil America in the Gilded Age: The West The West: Manifest Destiny continued after 1865 as miners homesteaders, & ranchers headed West The United States by 1890 Established new states & closed the frontier by 1890 Colorado Washington Montana North Dakota South Dakota Idaho Wyoming Western raw materials fueled eastern factories..but this came at the expense of Native Americans Crushing the Native Americans The Plains Indians In 1865, 2/3 of all Indians lived on the Great Plains Tribes of several 1,000 people were subdivided into bands of 100s which made it difficult for the U.S. to negotiate treaties Their culture was dependent upon the buffalo & the horse Searching for an Indian Policy Before the Civil War, the West was one big reservation Indian Intercourse Act The Indian Intercourse Act (1834) forbade whites from entering Indian country without a license Searching for an Indian Policy concentration policy Butrapid Western expansion in the 1850s brought a new Indian concentration policy with distinct boundaries for each tribe as long as the waters run and grass grows Searching for an Indian Policy Concentration did not last as whites ignored these boundaries: Sand Creek Massacre Sand Creek Massacre (1864) Col John Chivington attacked 700 sleeping Indians in CO after a peace agreement was signed Sioux War Sioux War ( )gold miners wanted a Bozeman Trail (across Sioux hunting grounds) to connect mining towns; Sioux murdered 88 U.S. soldiers Kill and scalp all, big and little Congress investigated & condemned Chivingtons attack Searching for an Indian Policy In 1867, the U.S. formed the Indian Peace Commission : Ended Bozeman Trail plans Made small reservations in the Dakota & Oklahoma territories Few Native Americans settled into these reservations peacefully: Red River War (1874) Little Big Horn (1876) Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) Black soldiers in the U.S. army called buffalo soldiers were used to fend off Indian attacks in the West The discovery of gold in South Dakota led a Sioux army of 2,500 to ambush & kill Lt Col Custer & his 197 soldiers Custers Last Stand set off demands for revenge among Americans The U.S. army was ordered to stop Sioux ghost dances & machine gunned 200 men, women, & children The End of Tribal Life In 1871, the U.S. adopted its 4 th Indian policy: Assimilation U.S. citizenship was offered to all Indians who farmed, lived away from their tribe & adopted the habits of civilized life Dawes Severalty Act Dawes Severalty Act in 1887 offered farms (160 acres to families & 80 to men) & the protection of U.S. laws Kill the Indian and save the man Richard Pratt, founder of Carlisle The End of Tribal Life The final blow to Indian culture came with annihilation of buffalo: Began with the construction of the transcontinental RR in 1860s From 1872 to 1874, 3 million buffalo were killed each year 1 hunter = 100 buffalo per day Settlement of the West Rails Across the Continent In 1862, Congress authorized the transcontinental railroad: Union Pacific worked westward from Nebraska (Irish laborers) Central Pacific worked eastward from CA (Chinese immigrants) May 10, 1869 the 2 tracks met at Promontory Point in Utah By 1900, 4 more lines were built to the Pacific Federal Land Grants to Railroads by 1871 The national govt doled $65 million & millions of acres in land grants (received reduced rates for shipping) The Transcontinental Railroad In 1870, RR companies developed the 1 st time zones to better schedule the RR system; the US would not adopt time zones until 1918 Pullman cars & refrigeration cars Railroad Construction, The Farming Bonanza The U.S. govt offered incentives for farmers to settle the West: Homestead Act Homestead Act (1862)gave 160 acres of land if families pledged to live there for 5 years Other govt acts helped develop western lands by planting trees & building irrigation systems Due to land grants, RRs were the largest western landowners 500 million acres doled to businesses but only 80 million to homesteaders 2/3 of all homesteaders failed to farm their land The Farming Bonanza In 1870, homesteaders pushed West & adapted to the harsh farming conditions: Farmers used dry farming techniques & planted tougher varieties of wheat New machinery sped harvesting & planting; led to bonanza farms By 1890, the U.S. became a major crop exporter A pioneer sod house Homestead Sales, In 1900, the West made up 30% of the U.S. population (was 1% in 1850) The Mining Bonanza Mining was the 1 st magnet to attract settlers to the West CA (1849) started the gold rush, but strikes in Pikes Peak, CO & Carson River Valley, NV (1859) set off wild migrations to the West: Comstock Lode Comstock Lode = $306 million Big Bonanza John Mackays Big Bonanza made him richest man in world Mining Regions of the West Discoveries of gold & silver led to overnight mining towns Created need for local govt, law enforcement, sanitation, businesses, prostitutes placer miners Individual placer miners took little skill or money to start, but could not reach deep lodes Corporations had the expensive machinery to extract most of the gold in the West Mining Bonanza to of the mining population was foreign born: Latin American miners brought experience & new techniques Chinese brought a tireless ethic Led to hostility & riots: Foreign Miners Act Foreign Miners Act in 1852 charged a monthly mining fee Chinese Exclusion Act Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 suspended Chinese immigration Pacific Chivalry: Encouragement to Chinese Immigration "Courts of Justice Closed to Chinese Extra Taxes to 'Yellowjack'" The Cattle Bonanza In the 1860s, cattle ranching boomed Ranchers used the open range to graze longhorns By 1867, ranchers started using trains to ship cattle to Chicago A cattle bought for $4 in Texas sold for $40 in Kansas The Cattle Bonanza of all cowboys were black & were Mexican By 1880, the open range was ending: Wheat growers, homesteaders, & barbed wire blocked the range Many switched to raising sheep Exodusters Exodusters were black farmers who moved West to escape Southern crop liens & Jim Crow Laws The Final Fling In 1889, Congress responded to demands to open the Oklahoma Territory to white settlement On April 22, 1889, about 100,000 Boomers & Sooners flooded into the last Indian land White migrants claimed 2 million acres in Oklahoma homesteads Moved out Creeks & Seminoles Oklahoma Boomers waiting for noon Sooners couldnt wait until noon Lands Lost by Native Americans (1894) Indian Reservations Today The Myth of the West Frederick Jackson Turner Frontier Thesis Literature Dime novels cowboys, gunslingers, lawmen, outlaws, bank robbers More myth than reality Still shapes our concept of west Conservation Movements Movement to protect land from development, mining, deforestation, etc. Land used for parks (Yellowstone, Yosemite, etc.) John Muir leader of movement
