c. 1850-1900 Prior to the discovery of gold, much of the West was considered a wasteland & much was part of North MexicoDuring the last decades of the 1800s, the U.S. was segmented into 1) an industrialized society and 2) a frontierThe 1890 census was the first to record that the frontier had been settledAdditionally, by 1890 the US surpassed Great Britain in iron and steel productionSettlement in the West was powered by industry Mexico was under Spanish domination until 1821. * By the 1860s, agricultural settlement reached the western margins of the tall grass prairies Ecology-60 million years ago, the Rocky Mountains rose out of the sea and covered western North AmericaWith no outlet, the shallow inland sea dried upA hard pan was leftSediment washed down from the mountains over time to form a loose, featureless surface Ecology-The climate suffered from cycles of drought because moist winds from the Pacific ocean delivered rain on the western slope of the Sierras Only drought-resistant grasses and plants could survive in this climateThe ecosystem could support certain plants and animals, but had not nurtured very much human settlement About 100,000 Native American groups lived on the plains in 1850They were very diverseThey have been categorized across six linguistic families and 30 “tribal” groupsMandan, Arikara, Pawnee ~lived in permanent villages ~planted corn & beans ~however, smallpox & measles ravaged settled groups Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, Cheyenne, “Blackfeet,” “Crow,” & SiouxWere dispersed in hunting groupsFirst arrived on the plains in the 1600sHunted buffaloMoved from lake country in northern Minnesota when fish and game dwindled Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, Cheyenne, “Blackfeet,” “Crow,” & SiouxBecame nomadicLived in portable skin teepeesAcquired horses from southwestern groupsCame to claim the entire Great Plains North of the Arkansas RiverDrove out or subjugated longer-settled groups One notable group of Plains Native American Indians were the Lakota SiouxThey had strict gender rolesWomen were more subordinate than in other groupsSaw God as a series of powers pervading the universeThe Sun Dance was one form of religious worship for them Image of Sun Dance from http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/2/lectures/lakota/sundance.detail.jpg. * The Lakota Sioux were not a self-contained group of peopleThey traded with others, including whitesPelts and buffalo robes were traded for kettles, knives, blankets, & guns, which the Lakota came to rely upon Again, prior to the 1840s gold rush, land in the west was seen as only worthy of Native American Indian settlement and useIn 1834, congress formally designated the Great Plains as permanent Indian countryThe army constructed border forts from Lake Superior to Fort Worth TexasThey were made of stone because they would be in place “forever”“Mainstream” Americans would theoretically trade with the Native Americans, but not settle the west What changed these per ...

1. c. 1850-1900
Prior to the discovery of gold, much of the West was considered
a wasteland & much was part of North MexicoDuring the last
decades of the 1800s, the U.S. was segmented into 1) an
industrialized society and 2) a frontierThe 1890 census was the
first to record that the frontier had been settledAdditionally, by
1890 the US surpassed Great Britain in iron and steel
productionSettlement in the West was powered by industry
Mexico was under Spanish domination until 1821.
*
By the 1860s, agricultural settlement reached the western
margins of the tall grass prairies
Ecology-60 million years ago, the Rocky Mountains rose out of
the sea and covered western North AmericaWith no outlet, the
shallow inland sea dried upA hard pan was leftSediment washed
down from the mountains over time to form a loose, featureless
surface

2. Ecology-The climate suffered from cycles of drought because
moist winds from the Pacific ocean delivered rain on the
western slope of the Sierras Only drought-resistant grasses and
plants could survive in this climateThe ecosystem could support
certain plants and animals, but had not nurtured very much
human settlement
About 100,000 Native American groups lived on the plains in
1850They were very diverseThey have been categorized across
six linguistic families and 30 “tribal” groupsMandan, Arikara,
Pawnee
~lived in permanent villages
~planted corn & beans
~however, smallpox & measles ravaged settled groups
Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, Cheyenne, “Blackfeet,” “Crow,” &
SiouxWere dispersed in hunting groupsFirst arrived on the
plains in the 1600sHunted buffaloMoved from lake country in
northern Minnesota when fish and game dwindled
Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, Cheyenne, “Blackfeet,” “Crow,” &
SiouxBecame nomadicLived in portable skin teepeesAcquired
horses from southwestern groupsCame to claim the entire Great
Plains North of the Arkansas RiverDrove out or subjugated
longer-settled groups

3. One notable group of Plains Native American Indians were the
Lakota SiouxThey had strict gender rolesWomen were more
subordinate than in other groupsSaw God as a series of powers
pervading the universeThe Sun Dance was one form of religious
worship for them
Image of Sun Dance from
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/2/lectures/lakota/su ndance.detail.jp
g.
*
The Lakota Sioux were not a self-contained group of
peopleThey traded with others, including whitesPelts and
buffalo robes were traded for kettles, knives, blankets, & guns,
which the Lakota came to rely upon
Again, prior to the 1840s gold rush, land in the west was seen as
only worthy of Native American Indian settlement and useIn
1834, congress formally designated the Great Plains as
permanent Indian countryThe army constructed border forts
from Lake Superior to Fort Worth TexasThey were made of
stone because they would be in place “forever”“Mainstream”
Americans would theoretically trade with the Native Americans,
but not settle the west
What changed these perceptions?
1. Native American country became seen as a “bridge to the
Pacific”People left for Oregon in 1842So many wagons crossed

4. the western landscape that they rutted it and affected the
ecologyTalk of a transcontinental railroad began in 1848
*
The Pony Express began to deliver mail to CAIn 1861,
telegraph lines brought San Francisco in communication with
the EastThe government granted land to railroad development
projects
The Union Pacific met the Central Pacific railroads in
Promontory, Utah in 1869Railroads laid the basis for economic
exploitation of the Great Plains
From http://www.ldsces.org/inst_manuals/chft/images/31-
01.gif.
*
2. Cattle raising was thought of as a good ventureBecause of
this the buffalo had to goA huge market was created in the
1870s when eastern tanneries learned to treat hides and use
them efficiently for a) shoes & b) harnessesSystematic buffalo
slaughter began
Great herds (already decimated by disease and shrinking
pastures) were gone in about ten yearsKilling buffalo was also a
conscious way to starve plains Native American Indians into

5. submission
*
With the railroads in place, ranchers could get their cattle to
market Long cattle drives were initiated to help ranchers get
their cows to market in MissouriCattle towns emerged at
markets where weary cowboys would stop to bingeCowboys,
many of whom were African American and Hispanic, were
farmhands on horsebackCowboys worked hard, long hours under
harsh conditions
When the railroad came to Texas in the 1870s, the long drive
was abandonedMany ranchers bought, leased or claimed huge
tracts of landBy the early 1880s, the plains overflowed with
cattle, ravaging grass and trampling water holes – altering the
ecologyIn 1885, a severe blizzard & then a summer drought
killed hundreds of thousands of cattle
Cattle were dumped on the market by desperate ranchersNative
grasses were destroyedOpen-range ranching endedRanchers
began to fence their land and plant hay to replace the tall
grassesMany ranchers adapted, raising sheep
Hispanic shepherds revealed that the sheep would feed on the
mesquite and the prickly pear, which replaced the grass

6. Land associated with railroad development was sold to generate
funds and to create traffic160 acres of public land was given to
all takers under the Homestead Act of 1862Magazines
advertised that anything would grow in Kansas and claimed that
the area received ample rainfall to attract settlersTo be sure,
there was a wet cycle in the area 1878-1886 However, the area
was still desolate and distant for most homesteaders
Some women found the plains experience to be liberatingIn the
harsh environment, many gender roles were dismantledWomen
would often be called upon to do “men’s jobs”Many of the
homesteader women became self-reliant as men gave up or
diedIn fact, the Homestead Act accorded widows & single
women the same rights as men
While men brought in large harvest wages, women provisioned
various necessities such as eggs or socksThus, homesteading
men tended to place a high premium on marriage
The Chrisman sisters near Goheen settlement on Lieban Creek,
Custer County, Nebraska, 1886, Solomon D. Butcher,
photographer. From http://www.nebraskahistory.org/lib-
arch/research/photos/digital/women.htm. For an interesting
reality show that gives an idea of these concepts, see Youtube
[Frontier House PBS] at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TNR8GYGmqM&feature=re
lated.
*

7. The movement to the West was very largeIt was called an
exodus by manyMotivated by economic opportunity,
Norwegians & Swedes joined As a result, Swedish & Norwegian
became primary languages in parts of Minnesota & the Dakotas
The West was seen as a “Promised Land” for some African
AmericansIn the spring of 1879, some Southern black
communities left for Kansas6,000 left Mississippi and
LouisianaThese groups were called the Exodusters40,000 were
settled in Kansas according to the 1880 censusThis constituted
the largest group of African Americans in the West outside of
Texas
Exodusters in Nicodemus, KS
From http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-
kansas/ExodustersNicodemusKS-500.jpg.
*
Faced many hardships-Plagues of grasshoppersHot windsBrush
firesHailstorms

8. Produced many innovations-Steel plow, invented to break
tightly-matted groundDrought-resistant wheatIrrigation
systemsDry farming techniquesBarbed wire
By the late 1800s & the early 1900s-The Great Plains were fully
submitted to agricultural developmentThe plains’ wheat was
consigned to the world marketsEastern financiers were invested
in the situation
What did this situation mean for Native American Indians?
The Far WestExtraction of mineral wealth became the impetus
for Far West’s developmentBy 1860, California boasted 300,000
residentsSan Francisco existed as the central mining
hubHowever, the drive for mineral wealth spread to Nevada, the
Colorado Rockies, up to Canada, into Montana, and
WyomingProspectors, traders, gamblers, prostitutes, & saloon
keepers populated these areas, making their living in mining-
related fields
The Far WestOregon & Washington were stimulated by the
population growth, as markets were created for their farming,
ranching, logging, fishing and
timber industries
From http://www.washingtonstateparksfoundation.org/about.

9. Hispanics, Chinese, and Anglos
What were race relations like among these groups?
Golden CaliforniaWith its Spanish flavor and its warm climate,
California was billed as a charming destination for visitors and
settlers by the 1880sIt was also a part of the final push to the
Pacific in terms of “Manifest Destiny”The idea that this was the
U.S.’s “final frontier” spurred conservation efforts, such as
Yosemite National Park in 1890Population pressures caused
water shortages, which stimulated water-resource development
such as elaborate irrigation and aqueduct systems