The Western Crossroads

1
The Western Crossroads

• Mr. Polomis
• US History
• Chapter 5

2
Native American Resistance (Sec 1)

• Indian Country
• By 1850, 360,000 Native Americans lived west of
  the Mississippi River
• Some were confined on reservations in Oklahoma.
• 1851 The US govt promised the Sioux, Cheyenne,
  and other tribes control of the plains with the
  Treaty of Fort Laramie
• In return the US got the right to build roads and
  forts Indians could not attack westward
  settlers
• The govt broke their end of the treaty
• 1000s of non Indians went onto Indian territory
  in search of mineral wealth and fertile land

3
Continued

• More Indians were forced to reservations
• The job of running the reservations fell into a
  govt agency called the Bureau of Indian Affairs
  run through the War Dept.

4
Years of Struggle

• Plains tribes fought back against the US armys
  20,000 soldiers
• 4,000 were African Americans nicknamed Buffalo
  soldiers
• Sand Creek Massacre 1864 Colorado Territory
• Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle and his followers
  surrendered to the US govt
• Colonel John Chivington attacked the Indian
  camp when the men were out hunting
• The US govt killed some 200 Cheyenne women and
  children

5
Continued

• 1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge and the 2nd Treaty
  of Fort Laramie made the Sioux and Plains Indians
  move to reservations

6
Sioux Resistance

• US government wanted the Siouxs sacred ground
  the Black Hills because gold was discovered there
• Sioux leader sitting Bull urged his tribe to
  fight
• Crazy Horse joined the fight with Sitting bull
• Made their camp with 2,000 men on the little
  Bighorn River
• June 25, 1876 George Armstrong Custer attacked
  the Sioux tribe
• Less than an hour Custer and his battalion were
  killed

7
The Ghost Dance

• A Paiute holy man named Wovoka began a Ghost
  Dance religion on the reservation
• Sioux living on the reservations began to wear
  ghost shirts designed to stop bullets
• Some Sioux left the reservation and the U.S. Army
  were sent to capture them
• The two sides met at Wounded Knee Creek
• 300 Native Americans were killed 30 U.S.
  soldiers died
• Wounded Knee Massacre was the last Indian Wars
  on the Plains

8
Conflict in the Far West

• Navajos Indians
• U.S. government destroyed their homes and sheep
  herds were killed
• Were forced to Bosque Redono, a reservation in
  eastern New Mexico
• This became known as the Long Walk

9
Nez Perces Indians

• Lived in NE Oregon
• Were forced off their land and they tried to
  escape to Canada
• Their leader was Chief Joseph and they were
  captured 30miles from the Canadian border

10
Apache Indians

• Fought reservation life in New Mexico and Arizona
  
• Their leader was Geronimo
• His surrender marked the end of armed resistance
  to the reservation system

11
Rethinking Indian Policy

• People became outraged at the way Native
  Americans were forced off their land and put on
  reservations
• Helen Hunt Jackson wrote a book A Century of
  Dishonor about the govt broken promises
• Sarah Winnemucca A Paiute Indian who wrote a
  book Life Among the Piutes
• Govt officials tried to make Native Americans
  assimilate, or adapt to white America
• Set up school and farms for Indians to attend
• Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania was
  one example of a school

12
continued

• Govt wanted Indians to give up tribal ownership
  of land in favor of private ownership
• Congress passed the Dawes General Allotment Act
  in 1887 that established private ownership of
  Indian land

13
Section 2 Western Farmers and Cattle Ranchers

• Economic Development of the West
• People moved west for free or cheap land
• Homestead Act gave 160 acres to any citizen
  willing to live on the Great Plains for 5 years
• Pacific Railway Act gave land to railroad
  companies to build a transcontinental railroad
• Morrill Act gave land to states to help finance
  agricultural colleges which would train young
  farmers

14
Continued

• Companies built 4 transcontinental railroads
  across the U.S.
• 3 groups of people moved west after the Civil War
• Easterners
• African Americans
• Immigrants from Europe and Asia
• Black settlers were known as Exodusters (settled
  in Kansas)

15
Western Farms

• Few trees, built houses out of sod
• U.S. Dept of Agriculture helped farmers adapt to
  the plains environment
• Their agents also taught dry farming techniques
  planting and harvesting methods that conserve
  moisture
• New farm equipment also helped farming on the
  Plains
• Bonanza farms were created out west - Large
  scale farms usually owned by a large company and
  run like a factory
• These farms were broken up in the 1890s
  because family farms were better at keeping the
  costs down.

16
The Cattle Boom

• New breed of cattle called a Texas Longhorn
• Breed of Spanish and English cattle
• These cattle could survive long drives, treks of
  hundreds of miles to a railhead town along the
  railroad
• Govt allowed ranchers to use common grazing land
  or open range farming
• Cattle Boom ended because of
• Overgrazing
• Invention of barbed wire (patented by Glidden)
• Bad weather on the Plains

17
Sec. 3 A Mining Boom

• Gold was discovered in Colorado and Nevada
• Also discovered in Nevada was the Comstock Lode-
  a rich silver vein that was the center of frantic
  prospecting
• Miners in Arizona used the patio process- used
  mercury to extract silver from the ore.

18
Mining in the far North

• Miners began to move to Canada, this made the
  country of Russia worry because they owned Alaska
• 1867- Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United
  States for about 2 cents an acre
• Americans thought the purchase worthless and
  called it Sewards Folly named after the Sec.
  of State Willard Seward
• In 1896 gold was discovered in the Klondike area
  of Alaska

19
Mining Camps

• Mining camps were dominated by men at first and
  violent, but with prosperity came families,
  community life and law and order
• Example- Denver, Colorado

20
Mining as Big Business

• In order to get ore, miners used one of two
  methods
• Hydraulic mining- used water pressure to wash
  away mountains of gravel and expose the minerals
  underneath
• Hard rock mining- sinking deep shafts to get ore
  locked in veins of quartz
• These methods were expensive, so big business
  dominated mining
• Workers formed unions to protect working
  conditions
• The environment suffered because miners were
  concerned with only getting rich.