The WestGrant

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The West/Grant
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• The West
• Reasons for
• 1. Destruction of the Civil War
• 2. Failed entrepreneurssecond chance
• 3. Discrimination
• 4. Adventure
• 5. Government Incentives
• a. Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and
  1864Transcontinental
• Railroad.
• b. Morrill Land Grant Act 1862states given
  millions of acres. Land grant colleges.
• c. Homestead Act 1862160 acres for a small
  fee, build a house and live there five years to
  claim ownership, and be a citizen.
• 6. Private property
• Settlers
• 1. German immigrants Texas, along the Missouri
  River

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• 2. Scandinavian immigrants Upper Great Plains
  and Dakotas
• 3. Exodusterssouthern blacks who wanted to
  escape the South.
• Benjamin Pap Singleton led 50,000.
• Indians of the Great Plains/ Indian Problem
• 1. ½ lived in the Great Plains
• 2. Life or death struggle for their land
• 3. Nomadic/adapted well to their surroundings
• 4. Effectively used their bows and arrows
  against whites. The single shot rifle was no
  match whites not able to compete until the Colt
  six-shooter.
• 5. According to Gen. Sherman, 50 Indians could
  halt 3,000 soldiers

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• 6. Old Indian Policy
• a. push them to desert in the west
• b. had to change with white
  migrationraids, etc.
• 7. New Indian Policy
• a. put them on reservations, not bothered
  by whites
• b. Peace Commission treaties 1867 and 1868.
  
• c. Depended on the government for supplies
  corrupt agents.
• Bureau of Indian Affairs
• d. Conflict when Indians didnt get
  supplies.
• e. beginning of the end of the Indian way
  of life.
• 8. Important Battles
• a. Sand Creek Massacre 1864
• -Col. John Chivington murdered between
  150 and 500
• Cheyenne, mostly women and children.
• -Cheyenne, after a peace campaign,
  moved to a reservation.

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• b. Little Bighorn 1876
• -Sioux angered by the Bozeman, and
  given the western half of South Dakota. Fort
  Laramie Treaty
• -Gold discovered in Black Hills
• -Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse didnt
  sign the treaty and left the reservation. Custer
  sent to round them up.
• -200 men of Custers regiment were
  wiped out in an hour.
• c. Wounded Knee 1890
• -Ghost Dancereturn to natural life.
  Encouraged by Sitting Bull.
• -Alarmed the army and government
• -Sitting Bull killed, followers rounded
  up. Someone fired a shot in the process. 230
  women and children and 120 men killed.
• -Last major battle

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• Cattle Ranching
• 1. Mexicans taught Americans ranching
  technique, dress,
• introduced the Longhorn.
• 2. After the Civil War
• a. millions of cattle in Texas.
• b. beef declared healthier than
  porkdifficult to digest and
• unhealthy.
• c. beef prices went from between 3 and 6
  to 40 in Illinois and
• 80 in New York.
• 3. Cowtowns
• a. Joseph McCoyAbilene, Kansas
• b. Cheyenne, Wyoming. Dodge City,
  Ellsworth, Kansas.
• c. Lawlessness until permanent residents.

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• 4. Chisholm Trail
• a. Southeast Texas, converged in Fort
  Worth, fanned out in Kansas.
• b. Indianstoll booths
• 5. Cowboy
• a. seasonal worker. 1 per 300 to 500 head
  of cattle.
• b. 1/3 were Indians, blacks, or Mexicans
• c. provide their own dress and bedding,
  work on little sleep, rough conditions.
• 6. Longdrive
• a. up by 330 and in the saddle by 4.
• b. stampedes, disease.
• c. singing calmed the heard at night
• 7. Cattle Barons
• a. 3 dozen controlled Texas20 million
  acres
• b. Charles Goodnight
• c. large scale ranching ended in mid-1800s.

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• 8. Buffalo Slaughter
• a. 15 million killed, mostly by settlers.
  City-folk looking for adventure.
• b. Northern herd gone by 1878, northern by
  1884.
• c. 1,000 left.
• d. Indians became more dependent on whites.
• Mining
• 1. Gold
• a. 1848 in California
• b. Pikes Peak, Colorado, 1858.
• c. 1874-1875 in Black Hills
• d. Comstocks Lode, Nevada. Most lucrative
• 2. Copper found in Butte, Montana.
• 3. Silver rush in Virginia City, Nevada.

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• 4. Most people didnt get rich.
• 5. Cycle gold found, rush, start a town, gold
  runs out, ghost town.
• 6. Towns were lawless at first peddlers,
  saloonkeepers, hustlers, prostitutes. Eventually
  became stable.