Chapter 26

Chapter 26

The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution

1865-1896

Culture on the Plains

• 360,000 Native Americans in 1860

• Tribal warfare on the Plains

• Cheyenne and Sioux used horses- nomadic hunters now

• Whites= disease, decimate buffalo

• Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) and Treaty of Fort Atkinson (1853)

• Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian wars

Indian Wars/Massacres

• Sand Creek Massacre 1864• Captain Fetterman and Bighorn Mountain• 2nd Treaty of Fort Laramie 1868• Colonel George Custer Battle at Little

Bighorn 1876 vs. Sioux• Sitting Bull• Nez Perce and Chief Joseph• Surrendered and forced onto reservation

in Kansas

Indian Wars/Massacres

• Apache and Geronimo- refused to acknowledge US authority in West

• Reservation system= destruction on Native American traditions and culture– Railroads, disease, extermination of the

buffalo– 15 million at end of Civil War- near extinction

by 1885

Geronimo (ca. 1823–1909), Also Known by His Apache Name, Goyahkla (One Who Yawns)

Indian Wars/Massacres

• Helen Hunt Jackson• 2 sided argument with Native American

policy- humanitarians vs. hard liners• Sun Dance ritual outlawed 1884• Rise of the Ghost Dance started by Paiute• Massacre at Wounded Knee 1890

– Great Sioux Reservation being split up– Ghost Dance frightened BIA agents- army

called in– Sitting Bull killed= rumors– 200 Sioux killed, 29 soldiers (battle?)

Indian Policy

• Dawes Act 1887– 160 acres– Destroyed native social structure– Freed up land for railroads and white

settlement– Indian Reorganization Act 1934

• Carlisle Indian School– “Kill the Indian, save the man”

Vanishing Lands

Cowboys

• Longhorn cattle in Texas= hides– Railroad Long Drive to Cow Towns– Meat packing dominated by trusts– Cowboys need

• Homesteaders and barbed wire= closing off open range

• Cattle ranches- The Wyoming Stock Growers’ Association

Cattle Trails

Farmers

• Homestead Act 1862– 160 acres for 5 years, small fee– Plains prone to drought– Fraud of Homestead Act– Cultivation of Plains, barbed wire (Joseph F.

Glidden)

• 1870’s- push west of 100th meridian (semiarid)– Dry farming– Federal irrigation system

Average Annual Precipitation, with Major Agricultural Products, 1900Northern Hemisphere storms typically circle the globe in a west-to-east direction. Much of the life-nourishing water in these storms is dumped as rainfall on the western slopes of the Pacific coastal ranges and the Rocky Mountains, creating huge “rain shadows” in the Great Basin and in the western Great Plains. Westward-faring pioneers had to learn new agricultural techniques when they pushed settlement into the drought-prone regions west of the 100th meridian, as reflected in the patterns of crop distribution by 1900.

End of the Frontier

• 1890 census

• 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner- The Significance of the Frontier in American History– Frontier Thesis– Frontier= romantic symbol, allowed mobility,

“safety valve”

• National parks created

Organized Farmers• Weather and natural disasters 1880’s-1890’s• Over taxation as compared to wealthy easterners

– Had tariff for protection, Western farmers= competition in global market

– At the mercy of the trusts

• The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry 1867– Social activities organize farmers for betterment– Granger Laws

• Greenback Labor Party 1878= 14 Congressmen, 1880= James B. Weaver

Populism

• Farmers’ Alliance- cooperatives– 1 million members by 1900– Excluded African Americans, sharecroppers,

tenant farmers etc.

• The People’s Party (Populism) formed 1890’s– Free and unlimited coinage of silver– Federal “sub treasury”– Mary E. Lease– James B. Weaver

Labor Unrest

• Jacob Coxey 1894 Coxey’s Army with 500 unemployed workers marching to DC– Wanted inflation, public works projects

• American Railway Union formed by Eugene V. Debs 1894

• Pullman Strike- cut wages, not rent– Rail service west of Chicago stopped– 2,000 soldiers sent in (disrupted postal service)– 13 strikers killed, 57 wounded- Debs to jail for

contempt of court (no jury trial!)

1896 Election

• Republicans- William McKinley (Ohio) with Mark Hanna as campaign manager– platform: gold standard, tariff, anger at

Democrats for Panic of 1893

• Democrats split (Cleveland hated)- nominated William Jennings Bryan (Nebraska)– Cross of Gold speech– Platform: unlimited coinage of silver (16 to 1

ratio)– “Gold Bugs” left Democratic party, Populists also

endorsed Bryan

1896 Election• Bryan= campaigner with 600 speeches in 26 states• Bryan victory= fear from industrialists= $16 million

– Business contracts contingent on McKinley victory, paid off employees, threatened pay in silver dollars if Bryan won

• McKinley= 271 EV vs. 176 (east and upper Mississippi Valley)

• Bryan= South and West (no labor or landless farmers)

• Election= turning point (end agrarian power)