Chapter 17: Conflict and Change in the West, 1865-1902

1. War for the West
   1. The Plains Indians
      1. The acquisition of horses and guns had already transformed their lives, but horses did not reach the northern plains in large numbers until the 1700s.
      2. Expanding white settlements along the Atlantic pushed all tribes toward the Great Plains.
      3. Two different ways of life were evident among the Plains Indians.
         1. People who spoke Caddoan or Siouan languages lived a settled life in villages; the acquisition of horses changed their culture only slightly.
         2. Horses revolutionized the lives of other Plains Indians because the Indians could kill twice as many buffalo; this substantially increased the people the plains could support.
         3. Horses also increased the Native Americans’ mobility so they could follow buffalo herds that provided most of the essentials for Native American life.
      4. According to Native American tradition, land was to be used but not owned and high social standing was achieved by sharing possessions, not accumulating them.
   2. The Plains Wars
      1. In 1851, Congress approved a new policy that gave tribes definite territories and initially planned for large reservations that would take up much of the Great Plains.
         1. By the end of the Civil War, railroad construction crews prepared to build westward.
         2. The Fort Laramie Treaty was one of the several negotiated in 1867 and 1868 in fulfillment of the new policy.
      2. Federal officials permitted white hunters to kill buffalo, mostly for profit from hides.
         1. This slaughter of the buffalo proceeded rapidly and doomed the Native American way of life.
      3. The U.S. Army mounted a major show of force on the southern plains, which led to the Conference at Medicine Lodge Creek in 1867.
         1. Treaties signed at this conference resulted in most of the major southern tribes accepting reservations in Indian Territory, later known as Oklahoma.
         2. Federal officials began increasing military actions to control Native Americans.
   3. The Last Native American Wars
      1. After the Great Sioux War, no Native American group could sustain resistance against whites.
         1. Small groups occasionally left reservations but were tracked down.
         2. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce attempted to flee, but he eventually surrendered on the condition that the Nez Perce be permitted to return home.
         3. The last sizable group to refuse to live on reservations was Geronimo’s Apaches, who finally gave up in 1886.
      2. The last major confrontation between the U.S. Army and the Native Americans took place in late 1890 in South Dakota as the Native Americans clung to the hope of the ghost dance.
         1. Events at Wounded Knee marked the symbolic end of armed conflict on the plains.
      3. Once the federal government chose to encourage rapid western development, the outcome was inevitable for the Native Americans.
         1. The Native Americans were desperate since they were fighting for their way of life.
2. Mormons, Cowboys, and Sodbusters: The Transformation of the West, Part I
   1. Zion in the Great Basin
      1. The Mormons, led by Brigham Young, had already started developing the Great Basin before the end of the Civil War.
         1. When the Mormons chose to settle near the Great Salt Lake, they expected to establish a remote settlement so that no one would interfere with their lives.
         2. The Mormon community was a theocracy, and Young chose a system of creating farms and irrigation projects based on the right to divert water for irrigation.
         3. Congress recognized this new definition in 1866, and it became the basis for laws on water rights in all of the western states.
      2. The settlement thrived and established stakes, or satellite communities. By the Civil War, more than 20,000 Mormons lived in Utah territory.
         1. After the Civil War, greater federal assistance for economic development of the West pressured the Mormons to renounce polygamy.
      3. The leadership of the Mormon Church cleared the way for statehood in 1890.
         1. They did so by dissolving the church-sponsored political party and encouraging Mormons to divide themselves among national political parties.
         2. After the Mormons disavowed polygamy, Utah became a state in 1896.
   2. Cattle Kingdom on the Plains
      1. A more individualistic enterprise, the cattle industry, dominated the western economy.
         1. The expanding cities in the East were hungry for meat, and cattle were wandering the ranges of southern Texas.
         2. To get cattle to the Midwest, Texans revived the cattle drive and herded cattle north through Texas and Indian Territory to the railroads that would take them east.
         3. Between 1866 and 1880, four million cattle walked north from Texas.
      2. The first cattle drives in 1866 went to Sedalia, Missouri.
         1. As railroad construction pushed westward, there were an increasing number of cattle towns in Kansas, including Abilene, Elllsworth, Newton, and Dodge City.
         2. Many cowboys spent their earnings in saloons, brothels, and gambling houses in these towns.
         3. There, too, eastern journalists and dime-novel authors discovered their culture and embroidered the exploits of town marshals like Hickock and Earp.
      3. Besides taking cattle to railroads, cattlemen also found open ranges in the north and this extended open-range cattle raising from Texas into the northern Great Plains.
      4. Beef prices fell as so many cattle ranches began operations in the 1800s.
         1. Cattle raising became more of a business and less of a romantic adventure.
         2. Ranchers fenced their ranges and made certain that their cattle survived the winter.
         3. Texas became known for its huge ranches; the King Ranch eventually reached a million acres, although most ranches were considerably smaller.
         4. As the cattle industry expanded, so did the romanticizing of the cowboy.
   3. Plowing the Plains
      1. Farmers entering this region encountered unfamiliar environmental constraints; sparse rainfall was the most serious constraint.
         1. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened the region, most farmers stayed in the eastern part of the territory, where the terrain and climate were similar to those they knew.
         2. After the Civil War, farmers pressed steadily westward as a result of the free land under the Homestead Act or cheap land from the railroads.
      2. Those who expected to take advantage of the opportunities were diverse.
         1. Most homesteaders, however, were families who moved from the East, since farmland there had become too expensive for them to buy.
         2. Single women, including some schoolteachers, could and did claim their own land.
      3. The Homestead Act had clear limits, since the 160 acres provided were sufficient to support a family only east of the line of aridity.
         1. Federal officials were often lax in enforcing ownership requirements, and this laxity invited fraud.
      4. Fewer trees presented another constraint.
         1. Many families carved homes out of the land itself, since lumber was in short supply.
         2. Barbed wire provided a cheap and easy alternative to wooden fences.
      5. Windmills helped pump scarce water, but the much-reduced level of rainfall was a serious problem.
         1. Below-normal rainfall after the late 1880s drove some settlers off the plains.
3. Railroads, Mining, Agribusiness, Logging, and Finance: The Transformation of the West, Part II
   1. Western Railroads
      1. Most western railroads were built to connect the Pacific coast to the eastern half of the nation; only slowly did they find business along their routes.
         1. Railroad promoters turned to the federal government for monetary assistance.
         2. The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 provided loans and land to build tracks so that the riches of gold and silver could be brought east.
         3. The Union Pacific and the Central Pacific were the first recipients of this act.
         4. Chinese immigrants were often used to solve the labor shortages.
      2. The first transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah.
      3. While westerners greeted the arrival of railroads with joyful celebrations, some soon wondered if they had traded isolation for reliance on others’ greed.
   2. Western Mining
      1. Between 1859 and 1885, prospectors discovered gold and silver in the West.
         1. Such discoveries brought a rush of fortune seekers, and boomtowns seemed to spring up overnight to meet the miners’ needs.
         2. These discoveries prompted the construction of rail lines to the sites of the discoveries; rail lines, in turn, permitted more rapid exploitation of resources.
   3. The Birth of Western Agribusiness
      1. In California and other parts of the West, agriculture involved huge areas of land as well as intensive use of heavy equipment and wage labor.
      2. California farmers were quick to take advantage of, the refrigerator car and ship, to transport their goods.
   4. Logging in the Pacific Northwest
      1. Rainfall is so heavy that the region supports a rain forest.
      2. Loggers first cut the California redwoods, then they moved north to Oregon and Washington.
   5. Water Wars
      1. Californians worked out a system of water rights similar to that of the Mormons.
         1. Irrigation was vital to a farmer’s success and western cities saw the lack of water as a major constraint on their ability to grow.
         2. Competition for scarce supplies of water sometimes led to conflict; while some disputes became violent, courtroom battles were more typical.
      2. The Reclamation Act of 1902 promised federal construction of irrigation facilities.
4. Ethnicity and Race in the West
   1. Immigrants to the Golden Mountain
      1. Three hundred thousand Chinese immigrants came to the U.S. between 1854 and 1882, and most worked in mining.
         1. Almost from the beginning, they encountered discrimination and violence.
         2. The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) prohibited entry to most Chinese.
   2. Forced Assimilation
      1. Federal policy toward Native Americans proceeded from expectations of assimilation but ended up doing more to eradicate Native American culture than integrate Native Americans.
      2. After 1871, federal policy shifted to viewing Native Americans as wards of the federal government; education was an important element in "civilizing" Native Americans.
      3. The Dawes Severalty Act (1887) committed the U.S. government to "Americanizing" Native Americans.
         1. Native Americans were forced onto reservations despite the fact that individual land ownership was at odds with their traditional beliefs and practices.
   3. Mexican Americans in the Southwest
      1. Mexicans living in lands acquired by the U.S. automatically became citizens, but some were still discriminated against.
         1. Others, such as in New Mexico, stood equal to whites in politics and society.
      2. Migration from Mexico increased after their revolution began in 1910.
5. The West in American Thought
   1. The West as Utopia and Myth
      1. Most Americans relate to the West as either a utopia or a myth, since it has given them a context for their hopes and a way of expressing their fears.
         1. The West appealed to Americans who sought to fulfill the American dream and improve their social and economic standing.
         2. The West achieved mythical status in popular novels, movies, and eventually television.
   2. The Frontier and the West
      1. Frederick Jackson Turner’s "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" explained the American character in terms of the settlement of the frontier.