Section 19.1: Miners, Ranchers, and Cowhands

1
Section 19.1 Miners, Ranchers, and Cowhands

• Today we will describe the geography of the West
  and explain how its people earned their living.

2
Vocabulary

• frontier the boundary between civiliza-tion and
  wilderness
• boomtown town that grows dramatic-ally in a
  short time
• vaquero a Mexican cowboy
• prospector person looking for valuable
  minerals, like gold or silver
• vigilante unofficial crime fighter

3
Check for Understanding

• What are we going to do today?
• How does a vaquero get to work?
• What does a prospector hope to find?
• Why is living on the frontier dangerous?
• Is Batman a vigilante? (Explain)

4
What We Already Know

• Americans had begun moving west across the Great
  Plains in large numbers since the 1830s.

5
What We Already Know

• The California gold rush attracted millions of
  people to the West Coast in 1849.

6
What We Already Know

• Americans had settled in Texas and had helped
  make it part of the United States in 1845.

7
One Americans Story

• Nat Love (aka Deadwood Dick) born a slave in
  Tennessee in 1854 left the South and went west
• As a cowhand, he became well known for his expert
  horsemanship and rodeo skills.
• In his 1907 autobiography, Love offered a lively
  but exaggerated account of his life.
• Few cowhands led lives as exciting as
  thatdescribed by Nat Love, but they all helped
  to open a new chapter in the history of the
  American West.

8
Geography and Population of the West

• Places such as St. Joseph and Independence,
  Missouri, were the last cities and towns before
  the frontier.

9
Geography and Population of the West

• Most white people considered the Great Plains an
  empty desert.
• Few had been attracted to its rolling plains, dry
  plateaus, and harsh deserts.

10

• However, settlers had followed miners streaming
  into California after the 1849 gold rush.
• By 1850, California had gained statehood. Oregon
  followed in 1859.

11

• The Great Plains had few trees, but its
  grasslands were home to about 300,000 Native
  Americans in the mid-1800s.

12

• Most Plains Indian bands followed the buffalo
  herds that rumbled across the open plains.
• Despite the presence of these peoples, the United
  States claimed ownership of the area.

13
Railroads played a key role in settling the
western United States.

• Trains carried minerals, timber, crops, and
  cattle to eastern markets, and brought miners,
  ranchers, and farmers to the west.

14

• As the railroads opened new areas to white
  settlement, they also helped end the way of life
  of the Wests first settlers
  ....the Native Americans.

15
Adivina esto, Batman?
16
Why were few people been interested in settling
on the Great Plains before the Civil War?

1. It was already the home of several powerful
   American Indian groups.
2. The presence of so many buffalo made farming
   impossible.
3. It was so dry and treeless that most people
   considered it a desert.
4. The government had banned settle-ment west of the
   Mississippi River.

17
What is the frontier? Where the end of
civilization meets the beginning of wilderness
18
How did the transcontinental railroad spur
Western settlement?

1. Carrying natural resources of the West to the
   East
2. Providing jobs for settlers in railroad
   construction
3. Bringing new settlers from the East to the West
4. transporting soldiers west to fight the Indians

Choose all that are true!
19
Mining in the West

• In 1859, gold and silver strikes drew as many as
  100,000 miners to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

20
Mining in the West

• The same year, Comstock Lode in western Nevada
  produced some 300 million in silver and gold.

21

• Any settlement near an ore strike became a
  boomtown, a town that has a sudden burst of
  economic or population growth.

22
Mining in the West

• Gold fever also attracted miners from other parts
  of the world, including Europe, South America,
  Mexico, and China.
• Few prospectors became rich, and most left
  disappointed and broke.

23
Over time, large mining companies replaced
individual prospectors.

• Small-scale miners could not afford water cannons
  to blast away hillsides to expose gold deposits,
  or the equipment needed to sink shafts thousands
  of feet into the ground.

24
Results of Western Mining

• Hillsides were stripped of vegetation and rivers
  were left polluted.
• Once-thriving communities became ghost towns.
• Nevada, Colorado, and South Dakota all grew so
  rapidly that they soon gained statehood.

25
??????? ??? ???, ???????
26
Why did large mining companies eventually replace
individual prospectors?

1. Individual miners could not afford the equipment
   needed to make mining profitable.
2. The mining companies bought up the smaller
   individual claims.
3. The government would only send troops to protect
   the larger mining sites for Indian attacks,
   leaving prospectors defenseless.
4. Prospectors couldnt afford to pay the high taxes
   placed on mining income by the government.

27
Why did the mining boom end?

1. The costs of operating them had become too high.
2. Too many miners left to work in the oil fields.
3. The Indian threat frightened too many mine
   workers away.
4. Ranching was easier and much more profitable.

28
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• The cattle trade had existed in the Southwest
  since the 1500s, but cattle herds remained small
  until the Civil War.

29
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• With no efficient way to get the beef to markets
  in the more heavily populated cities of the East,
  ranchers mostly sold their cattle locally.

30
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• An Illinois
• livestock dealer
• named
• Joseph McCoy
• realized that railroads could bring cattle from
  Texas ranches to meat-hungry Eastern cities.

31
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• By the 1860s, railroad lines were extended from
  Chicago and St. Louis into Kansas.

32
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• Cowhands had only to drive cattle herds north
  from Texas to his stockyards in Abilene, Kansas.

From there, the beef could be shipped to Chicago
and points east by rail car.
33
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• Cattle fed on the open range for a year or two
  and ranchers then hired cowhands to round up the
  cattle and take them to Abilene, where they were
  sold for as much as ten times their original
  price.

34
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• The success of the Abilene stockyards spurred the
  growth of other Kansas cow towns, including
  Wichita and Dodge City.

35
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• Cowhands followed specific trails across the
  plains, such as the Chisholm Trail, which
  stretched from San Antonio to Abilene.
• From 1867 to 1884, about four million cattle were
  driven to market on this trail.
• As cattle raising became more profitable,
  ranching spread north across the plains from
  Texas to Montana.

36
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• The first cowhands were vaqueros, who had
  developed in Mexico with the Spaniards in the
  1500s.
• From the vaquero, the American cowhand learned to
  rope and ride.
• Cowhands also adapted the saddle, spurs, lariat,
  and chaps of the vaqueros.

37
Rise of the Cattle Industry

• About
• one in three cowhands in the West was either
  Mexican or African American.

Also among the cow-hands were a large number of
former Civil War soldiers.
38
Palaisipan sa akin ito, Batman?
39
Before the mid-1800s, why were beef cattle only
sold locally in Texas?

1. Consumers in the East didnt trust the quality of
   Texas beef.
2. There was no way to ship the beef cattle from
   Texas to other markets.
3. Before the mid-1800s, beef was not a popular meat
   on most tables.
4. Government regulations didnt permit meat and
   poultry to be sold across state lines.

40
How did Joseph McCoy change the history of the
West?

1. He invented the repeating rifle, which helped
   bring about the defeat of the Indians.
2. He invented barbed wire, which ended the open
   range and made farming possible on the plains.
3. He came up with the idea of driving cattle from
   Texas ranches up to Kansas railroad towns for
   shipment to Eastern cities.
4. He developed the idea of vigilante justice, which
   brought law and order to towns without official
   sheriffs or marshals.

41
What helped the cattle industry to grow?

1. The Plains Indians were all defeated and forced
   to move onto reservations.
2. Railroad lines were built linking Kansas with
   Chicago and St. Louis.
3. The mining boom ended in 1882.
4. Barbed wire was invented in 1882.

42
Who were the first American cowhands?

1. Civil war veterans
2. Former slaves
3. European immigrants
4. Mexican vaqueros

43
The Wild West

• At first, cow towns had
• no local governments.

44
The Wild West

• There were no law officers to handle the fights
  that broke out as cowhands drank and gambled
  after a long drive.

45
The Wild West

• A more serious threat to law and order came from
  con men, who saw the new towns as places to get
  rich quick by cheating others.

J.R. Soapy Smith
46
The Wild West

• Outlaws like Billy the Kid and Jesse and Frank
  James made crime a way of life.
• Some women, such as Belle Starr, became outlaws,
  too.

47
The Wild West

• For protection, citizens formed vigilante groups,
  taking the law into their own hands.

48
The Wild West

• Vigilante justice often consisted of hanging
  suspects from the nearest tree or shooting them
  on the spot, so it was common for innocent people
  to be unjustly executed.

49
The Wild West

• As towns became more settled, vigilantes were
  replaced by elected sheriffs and federal
  marshals, who would arrest lawbreakers and hold
  them in jail until the time of trial.

50
Riddle mér þetta, Batman?
51
Why did Westerners form vigilante groups?

1. They didnt want to become dependent on the
   government for protection.
2. There were no authorized government officials in
   their vicinity for them to call on.
3. Taking the law into their own hands made them
   feel self-reliant.
4. The towns were to poor to be able to pay for real
   law enforcement officials.

52
What did vigilante justice look like?

1. Posse made up of private citizens
2. Active participation by sheriffs or marshals
3. Accused people locked up until trial
4. Swift execution by hanging or shooting
5. Great care exercised to protect the rights of the
   accused
6. Innocent people unjustly punished

Choose all that are true!
53
End of the Long Drives

• In 1886, the price of beef dropped sharply
• as the supply increased.

54
End of the Long Drives

• More farmers moved in to farm or raise sheep,
  fencing in their lands with barbed wire, and the
• open range disappeared.

55
End of the Long Drives

• In the harsh winter of 18861887, thousands of
  cattle froze to death
• and many ranchers were put out of business.

56
Meanwhile, as the mining and cattle industries
were developing, the Native Americans of the
Great Plains were being pushed off their land.
57
Teka-teki saya ini, Batman?
58
What economic activities drew large numbers of
people to the West beginning in the 1860s?

1. oil drilling
2. mining
3. ranching
4. farming
5. manufacturing

Choose all that are true!
59
What factors led to the end of the cattle boom?

1. The price of beef dropped as the supply grew.
2. Buffalo were competing with the cattle for food
   on the prairie.
3. The use of barbed wire by farmers closed the open
   range.
4. The severe winter of 1886-87 destroyed a large
   percentage of the cattle herds.
5. Raids by vaqueros and vigilantes made ranching
   too dangerous.

Choose all that are true!