Cattle Ranchers

1
Cattle Ranchers
2
Texas Cattle

• In the 1800s, ranchers in Texas raised and sold
  longhorn cattle.
• Texas had a lot of cattle, but the market was not
  good. Cattle sold for only 4.00 each. In the
  eastern and northern parts of the country, cattle
  sold for about 40 each. This difference was
  because of supply and demand.
• Demand is the amount of something that people
  want to buy at certain prices. When the prices
  are low, people usually buy more of it. Supply is
  the amount of something that people want to sell
  at certain prices. When the price is high, people
  want to produce and sell more of it.
  GPS
  SS5E1b

3
The Cattle Drives

• Cowhands led cattle to railroads, where the
  cattle were shipped to eastern and northern
  cities.
• Ranchers wanted to sell their cattle to eastern
  and northern cities where supply was low and
  demand was high.
• To get them to the cities they had to lead them
  to railheads. A railhead is a town where the
  tracks begin or end.
• Because the railheads sometimes were hundreds of
  miles away, cowhands had to lead them on cattle
  drives.

4
Life on the Drives (see map on page 240)

• A cowhands job was hard, sometimes boring, and
  usually dirty.
• Often the cowhands were African Americans or
  Mexicans. One well known African American cowhand
  was Nat Love, who wrote a book about life on the
  trail.
• One famous trail is the Chisholm Trail. The trail
  stretched from southern Texas across the Red
  River, and on to the railhead in Abilene,
  Kansas.
• GPS SS5H3a

5
The End of the Drives

• Cattle drives ended for several reasons. One
  reason was the invention of barbed wire. Barbed
  wire is twisted wire with a sharp point every few
  inches. Barbed wire was put up by new settlers
  and cattle drives could not cross the land as
  easily.
• Also the growth of more railroads. After
  railroads were built in Texas, cowhands could
  ship their cattle.

6
Conflicts on the Plains

• American Indians and settlers fought on the Great
  Plains in the late 1800s.
• Settlers were moving west in search of gold or
  land. They settled on land already lived on by
  American Indians.
• The Government built roads and railroads on the
  land. They tried to convince the American Indians
  to move to reservations. A reservation is land
  that the government set aside for American
  Indians.

GPS SS5H3
7
Conflicts on the Plains

• The Government hoped that the Plains Indians
  would move to the reservations and begin farming.
  But the Plains Indians were used to hunting
  buffalo and moving around. They didnt want to
  move.
• Plains Indians fought soldiers who tried to force
  them onto reservations. Most of the fighting
  occurred in the 1860s and 1870s.

8
Sand Creek Massacre

• In 1864, volunteer fighters of the Colorado
  militia attacked a Cheyenne Indian village near
  Sand Creek, Colorado. The village people were
  asleep. Chief Black Kettle raised a white flag
  and an American flag to surrender, but it was
  ignored. The soldiers continued to kill almost
  half of the men, women, and children. After this
  massacre, the Plains Indians did not believe that
  peace was possible with the U.S. Government.

9
Battle of the Little Bighorn

• The Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming are
  sacred to the Lakota Indian tribe. In the 1870s
  Lieutenant colonel George Custer led soldiers to
  the Black Hills and found gold. Thousands of
  Lakota and Cheyenne Indians gathered to protect
  the land. In 1876 Custer tried to force the
  American Indians on reservations. They attacked
  them at their village on the Little Bighorn
  River. Led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting
  Bull, the American Indians won, killing all of
  the U.S. soldiers.

GPS SS5H3 e
10
Massacre at Wounded Knee

• Many Plains Indians followed a religion called
  Ghost Dance. When Sitting Bull became a ghost
  dancer, the government sent police to arrest him
  and he died. Many of the Ghost Dancers, led by
  Chief Big Foot, were scared and hid in the
  Badlands of South Dakota. U.S. soldiers captured
  Big Foot and killed many men, women, and children
  in the fight.

11
Destruction of the Buffalo

• Because of the settlers and railroads, many of
  the buffalo habitats were destroyed. A habitat is
  the area where an animal or plant normally lives
  or grows.
• Settlers killed the buffalo for meat, for sport,
  or for the skins. This caused the buffalo to
  become extinct, no longer exists. By 1889, only
  about 1,000 buffalo were left.

12
Government Policy

• Government officials tried to force American
  Indians to change their way of life.
• Lawmakers tried to get the American Indians to
  assimilate into American life. Assimilate means
  changing a groups culture and traditions so that
  it blends with a larger group.