Period 6 1865 - 1898

Period 6: 1865 - 1898 Chapter 17: The Last West and the New South, 1865-1900 [339 - 353] Due Date: January 11 The West: Settlement of the Last Frontier - After Civil War many Ams settled in vast arid territory of west (Great Plains, Rocky Mtns, Western Plateau) - AKA “the Great American Desert” (between MI river and Pacific) - Low rainfall, winter blizzards, hot dry summers - Large number of buffalo provided food, clothing, shelter and tools for Indians in 1865 - By 1900 Buffalo herds wiped out, western lands contained homesteads, railroads, new states formed, - Rush to get Western natural resources almost made buffalo extinct and damaged environment; Indians impacted with population and culture - - The Mining Frontier - California Gold Rush 1848- start of quest for gold and silver extending into 1890s - Series of gold and silver strikes kept steady flow of new prospector settlement - Discovery of gold near Pikes Peak Co in 1859 attracted 100,000 settlers - Discovery of Comstock Lode in 1859 enabled Nevada to enter Union in 1864 - Idaho and Montana statehood because of mining booms - Prospectors first used placer mining to locate trace amounts of gold using basic tools; led to deep-shaft mining that require expensive equipment - Rich strikes created boomtowns overnight (saloons, dance-hall girls, and vigilante justice) - Became ghost towns after gold ran out - Mark Twain started career as writer working on VA City newspaper in 1860s - San Francisco, Sacramento, and Denver served the miens and expanded into prosperous cities - Chinese Exclusion Act - As mines developed, mining companies employed experienced miners from Europe, Latin America, and China - In many mining towns ½ of population foreign-born - ⅓ of western miners in 1860s were Chinese immigrants; Americans resented the competition - Hostility to foreigners: Miners Tax of $20/month on all foreign-born miners - Political pressure from western states caused passage of Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 - Prohibited further immigration to US by Chinese laborers; immigration from China severely restricted until 1965 - First major act of Congress to restrict immigration on the basis of race and nationality - Mining stimulated settlement of West and reshaped economics and politics of nation - Increase in silver created crisis over relative value of gold and silver-backed currency - Bitter political issue in 1880s and 1890s - Mining boom left environmental scars and caused American Indians to lose lands The Cattle Frontier - Traditions of cattle business in late 1800s borrowed from the Mexicans - 1860s: wild herds of 5 million head of cattle roamed over Texas grasslands - Easy business because both cattle and grass were free - Construction of RR into KS after war opened up easter markers for TX cattle - Joseph G. McCoy built first stockyards in Abilene KS to hold cattle for Chicago - - - - Dodge City and other cow towns built up along railroads to handle millions of cattle driven up trails out of TX during 1860s and 1870s - Cowboys (many African Americans or Mexicans) made about $1/day - Long cattle drives ended in 1880s after overgrazing destroyed grass and winter blizzard and drought of 1885-86 killed off 90% of cattle - Homesteaders cut off access of formerly open range and lowered cattle ranching - Wealthy cattle owners developed huge ranches and improved breeds of cattle - Wild West largely tamed by 1890s - Eating habits changed from pork to beef and rugged American cowboy idea developed The Farming Frontier - Homestead Act of 1862: encouraged farming on Great Plains by offering 160 acres of public land free to any family that settled on it for 5 years - Promise of free land + promotions of railroads and land speculators led to thousands of americans to attempt to farm the Great Plains from 1870-1900 - 500,000 families took advantage of Homestead Act - 2.5 million had to purchase land b/c best land went to RR companies and speculators - Problems and Solutions - “Sodbusters” first built homes of sod bricks - Challenges of extreme hot and cold weather, plagues of grasshoppers, scarce water, and lonesome lives experienced by many pioneer families - Joseph Glidden invented barbed wire in 1874 - Helped farmers to fence lands b/c of shortage of lumber - Used mail-order windmills to for wells - Long spells of severe weather, falling prices for crops, and cost of new machinery caused failure of ⅔ of farmsteads by 1900 - Dry farming and deep=plowing techniques adopted by farmers to use limited moisture - Planted hardy Russian wheat to withstand harsh weather - Dams and irrigation helped provide better physical environment Closing of the Frontier - Oklahoma Territory opened for settlement in 1889 and hundreds of homesteaders moved there - Once set aside for use of American Indians - 1890: US Census Bureau declared majority of frontier to have been settled - Turner’s Frontier Thesis - Historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote an influential essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” in 1893 reacting to the closing of the frontier - Argued that 300 years of frontier experience had shaped culture by promoting independence and individualism - Frontier acted as social leveler; fostered social and political democracy - Turner was troubled over the closing of the frontier bc thought that it would lead to more class divisions - In 1890s: largest movement of Americans to the cities and industrialized areas; dominance of rural America and era of western frontier on decline American Indians in the West (1865) - New Mexico and Arizona: Pueblo groups (Hopi and Zuni) lived in permanent settlements as farmers and raised corn and livestock - Southwest: Navajo and Apache people were nomadic hunter-gatherers who raised crops and livestock, and produced arts and crafts - Pacific Northwest (Washington and Oregon): Chinook and Shasta developed complex communities from abundant fish and game - - - - - ⅔ of western tribal groups lived on the Great Plains - Nomadic tribes→ Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Crow, and Comanche - Given up farming in colonial times after introduction of the horse from Spain - 1700s: skilful horse riders and hunted buffalo - Large tribes, but lived in smaller bands of 300-500 - Conflict in 1800s w/ US gov result of Americans having little understanding of the Plains people’s loose tribal organization and nomadic lifestyle Reservation Policy - 1830s: Andrew Jackson’s policy of removing eastern American Indians to the West was based on belief that lands west of the Mississippi would permanently remain “Indian country” - 1851: negotiations at Fort Laramie and Fort Atkinson assigned the Plains tribes to reservations with definite boundaries - Most plains tribes refused to restrict their movements and continued to follow buffalo Indian Wars - Late 1800s: settlement of miners, ranchers, and homesteaders on Indian lands led to brutal violence and fighting; US army responsible for several massacres - 1866: during the Sioux War an army column under Ct. William Fetterman was wiped out by Sioux warriors - Treaties followed wars attempting to place Indians on smaller reservation with federal agents promising gov support - Gold miners refused to stay off lands if gold was to be found on them - Minor chiefs and younger warriors denounced treaties and tried to return to old lands - Indian Appropriation act of 1871: ended recognition of tribes as independent nations by the federal gov and nullified previous treaties made with the tribes - Led to conflicts such as the Red River War against the Comanche and a 2nd Sioux War led by Sitting Bull and Crazy horse - Sioux defeated but ambushed and destroyed Colonel George Custer’s command at Little Bighorn in 1876 - Chief Joseph’s led band of Nez Perce into Canada but ended in defeat and surrender in 1877 - Pressure of US Army forced compliance of tribes; slaughter of most of buffalo in 1880s doomed the way of life of the Plains people - Ghost Dance: last effort of Indians to resist US gov controls through religious movement - Gov campaign to suppress movement and belief of Indian return to prosperity - Sioux medicine man Sitting Bull killed during his arrest - Dec. 1890: US army gunned down >200 Indians in the “battle” (massacre) of Wounded Knee in the Dakotas - Marked the end of the Indian Wars Assimilations - Helen Hunt Jackson chronicled injustices done to Indians in book A Century of Dishonor in 1881 - Created sympathy for Indians but also generated support for ending Indian culture through assimilation - Reformers advocated formal education, job training, and conversion to Christianity - Set up boarding schools (i.e. Carlisle School in PA) to segregate Indian children from their people and teach them white culture and farming and industrial skills Dawes Severalty Act (1887) - - - Act designed to break up tribal organizations (which many felt kept Indians from becoming law-abiding citizens) - Act divided the tribal lands into plots of up to 160 acres and granted citizenship to those who stayed on the land for 25 years and “adopted the habits of civilized life” - Gov distributed 47 million acres of land to American Indians - 90 million acres of former reservation land (often the best land) sold to white settlers by the gov, speculators, or American Indians - Policy a failure - Disease and poverty reduced Indian population to 200,000 persons - Changes in the 20th Century - In 1924: federal gov granted citizenship to all American Indians in partial recognition that forced assimilation had failed - Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1930s: Congress adopted the Indian Reorganization Act 1934 which prompted the reestablishment of tribal organization and culture The Latino Southwest - After end of Mexican War in 1848, landowners in CA and SW guaranteed property rights and granted citizenship - Legal proceedings often resulted in sale or loss of lands to new Anglo arrivals - Hispanic culture preserved in dominant Spanish-speaking areas like New Mexico territories, border towns, and the barrios of CA - Mexican Americans moved to find work in sugar beet fields and CO mines - Before 1917: border w/ Mexico was open and few records kept for either seasonal workers or permanent settlers - Mexicans drawn by the explosive economic development of the region The Conservative Movement - Concerns over deforestation sparked conservation movement - Paintings and photos of western landscaped helped to push Congress to preserve western icons such as Yosemite Valley as CA state park in 1864 (national park in 1890) and to dedicate Yellowstone as the first national park in 1872 - Carl Schurz (Sect. of Interior in 1880s) advocated creation of forest reserves and a federal forest service to protect federal lands from exploitation - Presidents Benjamin Harrison & Grover Cleveland reserved 33 million acres of national timber - Forest Reserve Act of 1891 and Forest Management Act of 1897 withdrew federal timberlands from development and regulated their use - “Conservationists” believed in scientific management and regulated use of natural resources - “Preservationists” such as John Muir (leading founder of Sierra Club in 1892) aimed to preserve natural areas from human interference - Education efforts ot the Arbor Day, Audubon Society, and the Sierra Club were sign of growing conservation movement by 1900 The New South - Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, spread the gospel of the New South with editorials arguing for economic diversity and laissez-faire capitalism To attract businesses local govs offered tax exemptions to investors and promise of low-wage labor Economic Progress - Efforts to create a “New South” in late 1800s included growth of cities, textual industry, and improved railroads - Birmingham Alabama developed into one of nation’s leading steel producers - Memphis Tennessee center for South’s growing lumber industry - Richmond VA became capital of nation’s tobacco industry - - - - GA, NC, and SC overtook New England states as main producers of textiles By 1900: South had 400 cotton mills w/ 100,000 white workers Southern RR companies converted to standard-gauge rails in North and Wes so South wa integrated into the national rail network - South’s rate of postwar growth 1865-1900 surpassed rest of country in population, industry, and railroads Continued Poverty - South remained a largely agricultural section and poorest region in the country - Northern financing dominated much of southern economy - Northern investors controlled ¾ of southern RRs and by 1900 had control of steel industry in S - Large share of profits from new industries went to northern banks and financiers - Industrial workers in south earned ½ of national average and worked longer hours - Most southerners remained in traditional roles and barely got by as sharecroppers and farmers - Poverty of majority of southerners caused by the South’s late start at industrialization and their poorly educated workforce - Small number had technological skills needed for industrial development - South failed to invest in technical and engineering schools - Political leadership in late 1800s provided little support for education of poor whites or poor African Americans - SOuthern workforce faced limited economic opportunities without adequate education Agriculture - South’s postwar economy based on cotton - Increased production in cotton in south caused cotton on world markets to decline more than 50% by 1890s - Per capita income in South declined as many farmers lost farms - By 1900: ½ of regions white farmers and ¾ of black farmers were tenants or sharecroppers - Shortage of credit forced formers to borrow supplies from local merchants in the spring with a lien (mortgage) on their crops to be paid at harvest - Combination of sharecropping and crop liens forced poor formers to remain tenants tied to the land by debt - George Washington Carver was an African American scientist at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama who promoted the growing of peanut, sweet potatoes, and soybean crops - Work played important role in shifting S agriculture toward a more diversified base - 1890: the Farmers’ Southern Alliance had more than 1 million members - 1890: the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance had 250,000 members - Both organizations rallied behind political reforms to solve the farmers’ economic problems - Economic interests of upper class and powerful racial attitudes of whites stood in way of becoming potent political force Segregation - 1877: North withdrew protection of freedmen and left southerners to work out solutions to their own socio economic problems - Democratic politics who came to power in S after Reconstruction (AKA redeemers) won support from business community and the white supremacists used race as a rallying cry to deflect attention away from real concerns of tenant farmers and the working poor - Exerted political power by playing on the racial fear of whites - Discrimination and the Supreme Court - Starting in late 1870s, US Supreme Court struck done Reconstruction acts applying to civil rights - - - Civil Rights Cases of 1883: Court ruled that Congress couldn’t legislate against the racial discrimination practiced by private citizens, including railroads, hotels, and other public businesses - 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson - upheld LA law requiring “separate but equal accommodations” for passengers on railroads - Federal court decisions supported wave of segregation laws known as Jim Crow Laws that southern states adopted in 1870s - Only use of streets and most stores was not restricted according to race Loss of Civil Rights - Discriminatory laws resulted in disenfranchisement of black voters by 1900 - Literacy tests, poll taxes, and political party primaries for whites only implemented to prevent southern blacks from voting - Grandfather clauses only allowed a man to vote if his grandfather had cast ballots in elections before Reconstruction - Supreme Court upheld discriminative decisions - Discrimination included African Americans being barred from serving on juries, if convicted of crimes they were often given stiffer penalties - Lynch mobs killed more than 1,400 men during 1890s - Economic discrimination kept most southern blacks out of skilled trades and even factory jobs - Poor whites and immigrants learned industrial skills to help them rise into middle class while African Americans left in farming and low-paying domestic work Responding to Segregation - Ida B. Wells editor of the Memphis Free Speech black newspaper campaigned against lynching and the Jim Crow laws - Death threats and destruction of her printing press required her to continue newspaper from the North - Bishop Henry Turner formed the International Migration Society in 1894 to help blacks emigrate to Africa; many blacks moved to Kansas and Oklahoma - Booker T. Washington (a former slave) established and industrial and agricultural school for blacks in Tuskegee AL in 1881 Washington organized the National Negro Business League in 1900; established 320 chapters across the country to support businesses owned and operated by blacks - Emphasis on racial harmony and economic cooperation won Washington praise from Andrew Carnegie and President Theodore Roosevelt - Later civil rights leaders criticized him as too willing to accept discrimination while others praised him for paving the way for black self-reliance b/c of his emphasis on starting and supporting black-owned businesses Farm Problems: North, South, and West - By 1800s farmers a minority in US society - Changes in Agriculture - Farming became increasingly commercialized and more specialized - Northern and western farmers in late 1800s focused on single cash crops such as corn or wheat for national and international markets - As consumers: Farmers produce food from stores in town and bought manufactured goods from mail-order catalogs from Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck - As producers: more dependent on large, expensive machines (steam engine, seeders, and reaper-thresher combines) - Small farms driven out of business bc couldn’t afford new equipment - - Falling Prices - Increased US production and world production drove prices down for wheat, cotton, etc - Deflation resulted from shortage of money growth - Farmers faced with high-interest rates on mortgages and need to grow more and more to pay off old debts - Vicious cycle of overproduction, more debts, foreclosures by banks, and moe independent farmers forced to become tenants and sharecroppers - Rising Costs - Industrial corporations able to keep prices high on manufactured goods by forming monopolistic trusts - Wholesalers and retailers (“the middlemen”) took cut before selling to farmers - RRs, warehouses, and elevators too away more profit by charging high or discriminatory rates for shipment and storage of grain - RR charged more for short hauls on little-competition lines than for long hauls on lines with competition - Local and state govs taxed property and land heavily but didn’t tax income from stocks and bonds - Tariffs protecting various US industries viewed as another unfair tax paid by farmers and consumers for industrialist benefit Fighting Back - Farmers began to organize for their common interests and protection - National Grange Movement - National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry organized in 1868 by Oliver H. Kelley as a social and educational organization for farmers and their families - Granges existed in almost every state in 5 years - Grange became active in economics and politics to defend members against middlemen, trusts, and RRs - Grangers established cooperatives (businesses owned and run by farmers to save costs charged by middlemen) - Grange with help from local businesses successfully convinced state legislatures to pass laws regulating rates charged by RRs and elevators - Granger laws made it illegal for RRs to fix prices by pools and to give rebates to privileged customers - Munn v. Illinois 1877: SC upheld right of state to regulate businesses of a public nature such as RRs - Interstate Commerce Act (1886) - State laws regulating railroad rates had legal problems especially w/ railroads that crossed state lines - States could regulate only local or short-haul rates - Interstate commerce was a federal matter; RR companies adapted to Granger laws by raising their interstate rates - Wabash v. Illinois 1886: SC ruled that individual states could not regulate interstate commerce - Nullified many state regulations achieved by Granges - Interstate Commerce Act of 1886: required RR rates to be “reasonable and just” and set up the first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) which could investigate and prosecute pools, rebates, and other discriminatory practices - Congressional response to the outcry of farmers and shippers - ICC helped the RRs more than the farmers - - - Lost most of cases in federal courts in 1890s - ICC helped RRs by stabilizing rates and reducing destructive competition Farmers’ Alliance - Farmers expressed their discontent by forming state and regional groups--farmers’ alliances - Alliances taught about scientific farming methods; but always had the goal of economic and political action - 1890: 1 million farmers (white and black) had joined farmers’ alliances Ocala Platform - The National Alliance met in Ocala Fl to address the problems of rural America (farmers) - Attacked both major parties as serving Wall Street bankers and big business and created a platform that would impact politics - Supported direct election of senators, lower tariff rates, a graduated income tax, and a new banking system regulated by the federal gov - Demanded that Treasury notes and silver be used to increase the amount of money in circulation (farmers hoped would cause inflation and raise crop prices) - Proposed federal storage for farmers’ crops and federal loans -- free farmers from dependence on middlemen and creditors - Didn’t form political party but influenced elections of 1892 and 1896 Historical Perspectives: How did the frontier develop? Ch 17 AMSCO EBQ 1. the key idea in the excerpt is that grady believes the south needed to industrialize 2. which of the following best demonstrates henry grady's vision for the south? birmingham, atlanta, became one of the nation's leading steel producers 3. henry grady's comments best expresses the viewpoint of which group of people? advocates of a new south 4. the ocala platform resulted from a protest movement that primarily involved small farmers 5. the economic reasoning behind the ocala platform assumes that increasing the money supply would increase prices and incomes 6. the ocala platform proved an important link between which of the following groups? farmer organizations and the populist movement 7. harlan's opinion goes against the majority opinion on the supreme court that facilities could be segregated by race if they were "separate but equal" 8. harlan's opinion was consistent with the beliefs expressed by the Writer W.E.B. Du Bois