Chapter 26 The Great West and Agricultural Revolution
The Clash of Cultures on the Plains
· 360,000 Native Americans in 1860
o Driving people off lands was common previously
o Cheyenne and Sioux on Spanish-introduced horses were close to crop-growing villagers and efficient nomadic hunters.
· Whites introduced cholera, typhoid and smallpox.
o Put pressure on steadily shrinking bison population by hunting and grazing own livestock on prarie grasses.
o I am traveling all over this country, and am cutting the trees of my brothers”
§ Killing their buffalo before they can arrive.
· Attempts to pacify the Indians.
o Fed gov signed w/ “chiefs” of “tribes” at Fort Laramie and Forrt Atkinson
§ Beginning of reservation system in West.
§ Est. boundaries for territories of tribe.
· Attempted to separate Indians to North and South and have corridor of whites.
o Did not work b/c whites didn’t understand Indians recognized no authority outside immediate family.
· Gov cont to herd Indians into smaller confines i.e. Great Sioux reservation”
· Indians surrendered lands only when promised be left alone and provided w/ foodstuffs.
o However Federal Indian agents corrupt.
· Would fight w/ Indians w/ U.S. army.
o 1/5 of US army African American “Buffalo Soldiers”
Receding Native Population
· Savage conflicts in Indian Wars.
o Colonel J.M. Chivington militia massacred Indians who thought promised immunity.
§ In return Sioux blocked construction of Bozeman Trail to Montana goldfields
· Ambushed William J. Fetterman in Bighorn Mountains.
§ Was the Fetterman Massacre
§ Led to the Treaty of Fort Laramie, a short-lived Indian victory that abandoned Bozeman Trail construction and “Great Sioux reservation” to be given to Sioux.
· More violence: Custer led expedition to “explore gold” in Black Hills.
o Attacked superior force at Bighorn River and the “White Chief with Yellow Hair” and no man left alive.
§ Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
· Nez Perce Indians and Chief Joseph fails in their attempt to reach Canada
o Betrayed into believing they’d return to Idaho, instead sent to Kansas, many died.
· Apache tribes most difficult to subdue.
o Led by Geronimo w/ hatred of whites.
o Chased into Mexico, eventually persuaded to surrender, would eventually become successful farmers in Oklahoma.
· Fire and sword policy killed Indian spirit.
· Eventually discovered cheaper to feed than fight.
o “Taming” of Indians due to railroad which enabled people to move into West, and how they had little resistance to white people’s diseases. Virtual extermination of buffalo also a factor.
Bellowing Herds of Bison
· Buffalo “hunchback crows” way of life for Indians.
o After Civil War 15 million
§ But William “Buffalo Bill” Cody killed over 4000 buffalos while over Kansas Pacific.
o Building of railroad began killing of buffalos.
o 1885 less than 1000 buffallo.
The End of the Trail
· National conscience stirs through Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor.
o Record of government ruthlessness w/ Indians.
o Ramona love story of injustice to Indians more sympathy for Indians.
· Debate between humanitarians “make them walk the ‘white man’s road’” and hard-liners who wanted punishment.
o Christian reformers sometimes withheld food to force Indians to give up religion.
o Successfully made fed gov outlaw Sun Dance.
§ Later Ghost Dance led to Battle of Wounded Knee where Indians slaughtered.
· Reformation of Indian policy begins w/ Dawes Severalty Act
o Dissolved many tribes, elim. Tribal ownership of land.
§ Individual family heads w/ 160 acres.
§ If behaved, would get full title and citizenship.
o Citizenship not granted until 1924.
· Remaining reservation land given to railroads, white settlers, money used for fed gov to “civilize”.
o Funded the Carlisle Indian School
§ “Kill the Indian and save the man”
· Dawes Act attempted to make individualists out of Indians.
o However Indian culture held on land.
o 1900 Indians lost 50% of 156 mil acres.
· Remained gov Indian policy until Indian Reorganization Act under the Indian New Deal which reversed individualist approach and attempted to restore tribal basis of Indian life.
o Indian population slowly goes up.
Mining: From Dishpan to Orebreaker
· 1858 gold discovery in Colorado had the fifty-niners or Pike’s Peakers go to Rockies.
o More miners than minerals, so many mined silver.
o Also went into Nevada after Comstock Lode uncovered gold.
§ $340 million mined by “Kings of Comstock”
· “Lucky strikes” in Montana, Idaho, other western states.
o Boomtowns aka Helldorados gave life to towns, but then made them ghost towns.
· After mining gold required machinery
o Big businesses eventually came to mining industry, replaced by impersonal corporations w/ expensive machinery, engineers.
o Soon gold washer another laborer.
· Mining frontier attracted women, men.
o Women had kind of equality that earned suffrage in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Idaho in that order.
o Financed the Civil War, facilitated building of railroads.
· Silver, gold = Treasurey to resume specie payments.
o “Silver Senators” used disproportionate influence to rep interests of silver miners.
· Added to American literature w/ Bret Harte and Mark Twain novels
Beef Bonanzas and the Long Drive
· A lot of cattle but previously no way to efficiently get to market.
o After railroads, beef barrons incl. Swifts and Armours made industrialized meatpacking business.
§ Stocks in Kansas City and Chicago, could ship fresh to East in refrige cars.
· Long Drive stimulated slaughterhouses.
o Texas cowboys drove herds over plains until they reached railroad terminal.
o Buffalo grazed on free gov grass.
o Where there was lush grass, there were profitable Long Houses.
§ If survived other factors
§ Over 4 mil steers driven from Texas.
· Railroads brought homesteaders and sheepherders = barbed wire
· Escape to make cattle-raising big business.
o Learned to fence ranches.
o Organized – The Wyoming Stock-Grower’s Association.
o This was heyday of cowboy.
The Farmer’s Frontier
· Homestead Act allowed settler to acquire as much as 160 acres of land if he “improved” on it for 5 years.
· Previously public land sold for revenue.
· Now to encourage rapid filling.
o But more than 5 times amount who profited from Homestead Act purchased land from other companies.
· Many homesteaders forced to give up struggle against drought.
· Also used “dummy homesteaders”.
o A lot of corruption.
§ Railways = profitable marketing of crops.
· Made Amer, Euro immigrants buy cheap lands earlier granted by government.
o Due to crop failures elsewhere in world, settlers in 1870s went farther west to poor lands farther west.
· John Wesley Powell explorer of Colorado River’s Grand Canyon warned that very little rain fell west of 100th meridian that agricultural impossible w/o massive immigration.
o Because of drought, new technique of “dry farming”
§ Shallow cultivation to adapt to arid environment.
· Resulted in surface soil and Dust Bowl several decades later.
§ Other adaptations including tough strains of wheat resistant to cold and drought were more effective.
§ Barbed wire perfected by Joseph Glidden solved problem of how to build fences on praries.
The Far West Comes of Age
· Rapid expansion of West
· Colorado as the “Centennial State”.
o Republicans seeking more votes added North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming.
§ Utah admitted after Mormon church banned polygamyu.
§ Made settlement of Oklahoma available and “sooners” illegally went in.
· Evicted repeatedly by federal troops – after official opening, “boomers” went in.
The Feading Frontier
· 1890 census announted that frontier was closed.
· Written by Frederick Jackson Turner and the Significance of the Frontier in American History.
· Secretary of War had prophesized nation’s land to run out soon.
o Set aside land for first national parks = Yellowstone National park 1872 followed by Yosemite and Sequoia.
· Frontier was “safety valve”
o Free acreage = immigrant farmers.
o Possibility of westward migration = urban employers to maintain high wages to discourage migration west.
· Captured by writers incl Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Helen Hunt Jackson and Francis Parkman and painters including George Catlin, Frederick Remington and Albert Bierstadt.
The Farm Becomes a Factory
· Growing importance of “cash” crops.
· Aaron Montgomery firm sends out the first catalogue.
§ Speed of harvesting wheat dramatically increased through twine binder invention and the “combine”.
· Mechanized farming.
· Farm had status of factory.
§ By 1890 half dozen of farms larger than 15000 acres.
Deflation Dooms the Debtor
· When wheat fields of other countries flourished, farmer’s grain would fall and America’s farmers would face ruin.
o Circulation in 1870 to 1890 decreased, deflated, so prices were forced down, not good for farmers.
§ Farm machinery increased output of grain which lowered price and drove them deeper into debt.
§ Mortgages took homesteads.
· Continuous bankruptcy of farmers.
§ Tenancyu spreading and 1880 ¼ of American farmers operated by tenants.
Unhappy Farmers
· Earth was going sour.
o Drought throughout trans-Mississippi, beginning in 1887.
§ Land over assessed, paid local taxes where wealthy people had special deals.
· Had to sell in very competitive market.
§ At mercy of harvester, barbed-wire, fertilizer trust all of which raised prices a lot.
· Middlemen took from profits.
o Farmers still ½ of population in 1890
§ Helpless against consolidation of the industrialists.
The Farmers Take a Stand
· Greenback movement shortly after Civil War where farmers demanded inflation from decreasing prices.
· Grange Movement led by Oliver H. Kelley enhanced work of isolated farmers through activities.
· Economic cooperatives and cooperatively owned stores.
· Went into politics and attempted to regulate railway rates and storage fees.
o State laws to recognize principle of public control of private business.
§ Granger Laws badly drawn and fought by lawyers well.
· Wabash decision made Graners’ influence fade.
o States had no power to regulate interstate commerce.
o Farmer’s grievances through Greenback Labor Party
§ Combined inflationary appeal of Greenbackers w/ program for improving labor
· Managed to get some votes and 14 members to Congress.
§ James B. Weaver an old Granger candidate, lot’s of speeches but little of popular vote.
The Prelude to Populism
· Farmer’s Alliance found to socialize and break grip of railroads and manufacturers.
· Weakened due to ignoring landless tenant farmers, share-croppers, farmworkers.
· Excluded blacks.
§ Separate Colored Farmers’ National Alliance to attract black farmers.
o Out of Farmer’s alliance rose the Populists.
§ Called for nationalizing railroads, telephones, telegraph and instituting a graduated income tax.
· Free coinage of silver.
· Famous pamphlet Coin’s Financial School.
o Written by William Hope Harvey argued for free silver.
o Queen of Populist was Mary Elizabeth Lease loud and demanded that Kansans should raise “less corn and more hell”.
o Populists left mark in politics.
§ Racial divisions weaken Populists in South, but in West ranks very powerful.
Coxey’s Army and the Pullman Strike
· Jacob S. Coxey marched for Washington and demanded that gov relieve unemployment through inflation and support through greenblacks.
o Pullman Strike.
§ Organized by Eugene V. Debs who organized American Railway Union.
§ Cut wages about 1/3 so workers struck, paralyzed railway traffic.
· American Federation of Labor declined to support Pullman strikers and weakened labor’s cause.
§ U.S. Attorney General General Richard Olney dispatched federal troops.
· Stop the mail by President Cleveland.
§ “Government by injunction”.
· Saw unholy alliance b/w business and courts
Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan
· Election of 1896
o Republican nomination of William McKinley for GOLD
§ Aided by Marcus Hanna who believed that primary function of government to aid business.
o REPUBLICAN = HARD MONEY POLICIES, higher tariff.
o For Democratic nomination, Cleveland out.
§ Labor groups remember his intervention in Pullman strike.
§ Silverites voted for William Jennings Bryan was a great orator.
· Cross of Gold speech
o “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not
§ Populists now had Democrats taking their “16 to 1” ratio plank.
· Fearing hard-money and McKinley victory, endorsed “fusion” w/ Democrats and Bryan for president.
Class Conflict: Plowholders v. Bondholders
· William Jennings Bryan lost steam when uRepublican factory workers paid workers and told them not to come to work if Bryan won.
· McKinley ran strong in East, Bryanss states in debt-burdened South and trans-Mississsippi West.
o Demonstrated lack of appeal to unmortgaged farmer and to eastern worker.
· = new era in politics b/c when Bryan made evangelical appeal to supposed foes of existing social order, not enough of them banded together.
o Victory for big business, big cities, middle-class values, financial conservatism.
§ Last effort to win White House w/ mostly agrarian votes.
o Would lead to long Republican domination.
§ Led to diminishing voter participation, weakening of party organizations, fading away of money question and civil service reform.
§ Instead had concern for industrial regulation, welfare of labor.
Republican Stand-pattism Enthroned
· Current Wilson-Gorman law not raising enough revenue to cover annual Treasurey deficits, believed in higher tariffs.
o Therefore had the dingley Tariff Bill which had new rates that were high.
o Prosperity: Depression of 1893 finished and farm prices rose.
o Gold Standard Act passed as last opposition to silverite opposition and made paper currency redeemed freely in gold.
§ Provided for an inflation that gold-favoring east wanted to prevent.
o New gold discoveries = inflation.
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