THE GREAT WEST AND THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION, 18651896

1
THE GREAT WEST AND THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION,
1865-1896

• Chapter 26

2
Indians Embattled In The West

• The Great West
• At the time of the Civil War was a vast unsettled
  area
• By 1890 territories carved out and Indians being
  squeezed out
• 1865-1890 final showdown for the independent
  Indian tribes.
• Area inhabited by plains Indians
• hunted and relied on the vast herds of Buffalo
  that roamed freely over the prairie.

3
Pressure on Western Indians

• 1500Horse
• Pre-Civil War
• Guns
• Diseases
• Cattle
• Result More pressure on and competition between
  tribes

4
Treaties

• Whites tried to pacify the tribes by signing
  treaties with the chiefs
• Fort Laramie in 1851
• Fort Atchison in 1853.
• Beginning of the reservation system in the west.
  
• Treaties doomed to failure

5
Reservations

• In the 1860s Indians confined to even smaller
  reservations in exchange for promises to be left
  alone, food and other supplies.
• Northern plains Indians --the large Dakota
  territory (Great Sioux Reservation)
• South, Indian territory in present-day Ok.
• Promises were broken.
• How
• Sioux uprising in Min. during the civil war is
  bloodily crushed

6
Indian Wars

• 1868-90 -- Constant warfare between Indians and
  feds.
• Buffalo soldiers of the 10th Cavalry.
• Western Indians were a much bigger challenge than
  Eastern Indians.
• Reasons

7
Receding Native Population

• Atrocities on both sides
• Chivingtons Massacre at Sand Creek, Colo. 1864.
  
• Fetterman massacre. 1866.
• Bozeman Trail
• Second Treaty of Fort Laramie.

8
2nd Treaty of Ft. Laramie (1868)
Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek (1867)
ReservationPolicy
9
Little Big Horn

• Custer leads a scientific expedition into the
  Black Hills of South Dakota
• Reports discovery of gold on Sioux territory.
• Hordes of gold seekers stream into the Sioux
  territory.
• The Sioux attack these invaders of their land
  led by Sitting Bull.
• Custers 7th Cavalry sent in to bring peace.
• Custers troops wiped out at Little Big Horn in
  present-day Montana when Custer blunders into an
  ambush sprung by a superior force. All 264
  killed.

Gen. GeorgeArmstrong Custer
Chief Sitting Bull
10
Apache

• Apaches in Arizona and New Mexico were the most
  difficult to subdue.
• Led by Geronimo.
• Ultimately Resettled in Oklahoma

11
Nez Perce

• Nez Perce go to war in Idaho in 1877.
• Government shrunk reservation by 90. Why?
• Chief Joseph leads his band on 1700 mile trek
  over the Continental divide.
• Surrenders and sent to reservation in Kansas
  where 40 die of disease.

12
Bellowing Herds Of Bison

• 1865--15 Million buffalo.
• Integral to the way of life for Nomadic Western
  Indians.
• They were the staff of life for Indians,
• By 1885 fewer than a 1000.
• Shot to feed RR gangs, for skins, for sport and
  as a way to subdue the Indians.

13
The End Of The Trail

• 1880s national conscience awakening.
• Helen Hunt Jackson -- A Century of Dishonor
  Ramona
• Humanitarians
• Christianize the Indians
• Turn them into productive farmers
• Integrate them as citizens.
• Hardliners insisted on forced containment.

14
Assimilating Indians

• Missionary policies ignored the culture of the
  Indians.
• Christian missionaries on the reservations tried
  to force Indian culture out of the Indians.
  Didnt work
• Ghost Dance cult
• Wounded Knee massacre.

15
Dawes Severalty Act (1887)Assimilation Policy
Carlisle Indian School, PA
16
Dawes Severalty Act of 1887

• Attempt to transform Indians into good American
  farmers.
• Major shift in Indian policy. Ends reservation
  system.
• Provisions
• Dissolved many tribes as legal entities
• wiped out tribal joint ownership of land.
• Individual family heads given 160 acres of land.
• Full title and citizenship in 25 years if behaved
  themselves.
• Leftover reservation land sold money to be used
  to educate and civilize the Indians.
• Missionaries and teachers sent to reservations to
  Christianize and teach women to sew and keep
  house.

17
Dawes Failure

• Dawes act failed.
• Why?
• By 1900 Indians had lost half of the land they
  had held 20 years earlier.
• Dawes Act remains as basic framework for dealing
  with Indians until 1934

18
Mining

• Mining brought many people west and helped settle
  the west.
• Gold in California in 1849,
• Gold Rush in Colorado in 1858 Pikes Peak or
  Bust.
• Comstock load in Nevada in 1859.
• Additional smaller strikes in Montana, Idaho and
  other Western states.
• Many boomtowns spring up

19
Mining

• Small-time mining replaced by corporations
• Increased role for women in West
• Effect on economy of mining.
• Helped finance the Civil War,
• Facilitated building of the RR,
• Reduced the value of silver

20
Mining Centers 1900
21
Cattle Drives

• 1866-1888 was the era of the Cattle drives
• Wild Longhorns in Texas and Mexico.
• Reason cattle driven north
• 1000-10,000 head herds
• Abilene, Dodge City, Ogallala and Cheyenne.

22
Cattle Drives

• Pros and cons for terminus towns
• Wyatt Earp Batt Masterson
• 4 million steers were driven north. Profits as
  high as 40.
• Why Cattle drives ended

23
Free Land For Free Families

• Homestead Act of 1862.
• Any adult could claim 160 acres of public land on
  certain conditions
• Details
• Dramatic change in land policy.
• Trickle-down
• Intent was to provide a stimulus to the family
  farm, seen as the back-bone of democracy.

24
Reality of Western Farming

• Problem 160 acres often inadequate to sustain a
  farmer in the Trans-Mississippi west because of
  the scant rainfall.
• Perhaps 2/3 failed to stay for the full five
  years.
• In 40 years, nearly half a million families took
  advantage of the Homestead Act,
• Many more than that purchased their lands from
  the RR, land companies or the states.
• Rampant Fraud.

25
A Pioneers Sod House, SD
26
Great American Desert

• Western Prairie had think sod, no trees. Thought
  to be un-farmable.
• Rich soil underneath
• Sod-busting
• Oxen and heavy plow
• 1870s farmers stream onto Western Prairie

27
Busting in Kansas

• Farmers pushed too far west.
• 100th Meridian.
• 1870s Farmers do well. Why?
• 1880s and early 1890s many of these farmers
  busted. Why?
• Western Kansas lost half its population between
  1888 and 1892.
• What new innovations help western farmers.
• dry-land farming
• heartier wheat
• new crops
• irrigation

28
Average Annual Precipitation
29
The Far West Comes Of Age

• 1870 and 1890 a boom time for the far west.
• Colorado, Dakotas, Montana, Washington, Idaho and
  Wyoming all become states during this period..
• Oklahoma Land Rush
• Last gasp of the large-scale opening of new lands
  for settlement
• April, 1889 Oklahoma thrown open to settlement.
• Sooners
• Boomers
• By end of year, 60,000 inhabitants. Oklahoma a
  state in 1909.

30
The Folding Frontier

• The frontier is considered to have closed in
  1890.
• No longer a discernable frontier line.
• No longer good free land readily available.
• Lots of unsettled land, but largely undesirable.
  
• No longer line beyond which wilderness and no
  civilization.
• Role of Frontier in shaping America

31
Frontier Settlements 1870-1890
32
Frederick Jackson Turner
The Significance of the Frontier in American
Society (1893)
33
The Farm Becomes A Factory

• Farming more of a business post-Civil War.
• More farmers raise cash crops. Problems with
  this?
• Farmers have to buy more stuff.
• Increased mechanization boosted production, but
  also boosted the cash farmers need.
• Needed heavy machinery in order to plant and
  harvest their bigger crops on larger farms.
• Many bought the new harvester-reaper

34
Unhappy Farmers

• Much more dependence on banks, RR and
  manufacturing
• Farmers had to be much better businessmen
• Farmers were and felt much more vulnerable and
  powerless.
• Farmers grew resentful of eastern banking and RR,
  which they blamed for their problems.
• Farming became a much larger-scale operation.
• Small farmers were pushed out by increased
  mechanization

35
Deflation Dooms the Debtor

• 1880s and 1890s deflation and depressed
  commodity prices
• Farmers, in debt to buy land and harvesters,
  behind the 8-ball. Debts harder to pay off.
• Causes of deflation
• Not enough dollars in circulation
• Money supply did not keep pace with increased
  economic activity.
• After the Civil War, Grant contracts the money
  supply to get rid of greenbacks and to shore up
  US credit.

36
Falling Grain Prices

• Effect of mechanization on grain supply.
• Farmers went bankrupt in great numbers
• Especially in the south, farmers became tenants
  rather than owners.
• By 1880 ¼ of all American farms operated by
  tenants.

37
Unhappy Farmers

• Farmers faced additional problems
• Grasshoppers
• Boll weevil
• Droughts
• Land was over-taxed by state and federal
  government
• Protective tariff
• Trusts exacted inflated prices.
• RR freight rates were sometimes ruinous.
• Farmers still half the population in 1890 but
  hopelessly disorganized

38
The Farmers Take Their Stand

• The Grange (1867).
• Oliver Kelley the founder
• Spread quickly by 1875 had 800,000 members
• Advocated regulation of RR rates, grain storage
  fees.
• Coops.
• Got into politics.
• Got states to pass laws regulating RR and grain
  elevators, but Supreme Court struck down these
  laws.
• Wabash Cases

39
Prelude to Populism

• Farmers Alliance founded in Teas in late 1870s.
• By 1890 more than a million members.
• Problems
• targeted to land-owners, thus ignoring all the
  tenant farmers
• excluded blacks, half all southern farmers
• Goals
• nationalize RR,
• abolish national banks,
• institute a graduated income tax
• government-owned warehouses where they could
  store their crops until market prices rose while
  taking out loans against the assumed future value
  of their crops.

40
Prophets of Populism

• Mary Lease. Raise More Hell and less Corn.
• Electoral success of Farmers Alliance.
• Jim Crow laws passed as a result.
• Movement matures into the Populist Party.

41
McKinley

• William McKinley of Ohio.
• Mark Hanna
• McKinley political philosophy.
• Hannas money and political influence get
  McKinley the nomination on the first ballot
• Republican Platform?

42
Bryans Cross of Gold

• In 1896 Democrats were in turmoil. Cleveland
  very unpopular
• Silverite faction in firm control.
• William Jennings Bryan
• Cross-of-Gold Speech
• Floor the convention and gets him the nomination

43
Cross of Gold Speech
You shall not press down upon the brow of labor
this crown of thorns you shall not crucify
mankind upon a cross of gold!
44
Democratic Platform

• Platform calls for unlimited minting of silver at
  the ratio of 16 ounces for each ounce of gold.
• Why?.
• Many conservative democrats bolt the party and
  support McKinley.
• Populists endorse Bryan and sacrifice their
  identity.

45
Silver v. Gold

• Republicans assumed tariff would be the primary
  issue, but Bryan made it silver.
• He traveled tirelessly giving 600 speeches.
• His campaign like a religious crusade.
• Silver became the rallying cry.
• Debtors and Farmers v. eastern big-money
  interests.
• Gold standard a scapegoat.
• Return of Jacksonian Democrats?

46
Hanna Leads Gold Bugs

• Conservatives and business interests saw the
  free-coinage of silver as the road to economic
  ruin.
• Allowed Hanna to raise tons of money from big
  businesses
• Republicans had a 16-1 money advantage.
• Hanna wages campaign of fear against Bryan.
• Slogan McKinley and a full dinner pail.
• McKinley campaigns from his porch
• Employers scare employees

47

• McKinley wins decisively by 500,000 votes and
  271-176 in Electoral College. Turnout is very
  high

48
Election of 1896

• Why Bryan loses
• Election was a major victory for middle-class
  values, big business and conservative monetary
  policies.
• Most significant election since Lincoln and until
  FDR in 1932.
• Renewed Republican dominance of Presidency

49
Inflation Without Silver

• McKinley was a cautions, temperate, conservative
• Worked well with congress and with his own party
• Did not advocate major reforms.
• Tariff rates back to 46.5
• Soon after the election, prosperity returned
  natural business cycle. Republicans took credit.
• Inflation happened naturally.
• New gold discoveries and new processes for
  extracting gold from ore increase money supply

50
Was Bryan right?

• Was a shortage of currency
• Did hurt debtors and farmers
• Banking system did favor big business.
• But, Silver would have taken US off Gold standard
• Silver the wrong cure