UNIT 2

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UNIT 2 BRIDGE TO THE 20TH CENTURY 1877-1917

• Changes on Western Frontier
• 1877-1900

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Introduction

• White settlers began moving West onto the Great
  Plains where the Native Americans lived. A major
  clash occurred between 2 very different cultures.

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The Great Plains

• Great Plains Area

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Great Plains contd

• Great Plains
• broad expanse of flat land
• much of it covered in prairie, steppe and
  grassland
• west of the Mississippi River and east of the
  Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada.
• parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas,
  Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota,
  Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming, and
  the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and
  Saskatchewan.

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Culture of the Plains Indians

• Easterners thought of Plains as vast desert
  occupied by savage tribes, but Native Americans
  were very highly developed.
• To the East, near lower Missouri River, tribes
  such as the Osage and Iowa, hunted and planted
  crops and settled in small villages

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• Farther West, nomadic tribes such as Sioux and
  Cheyenne gathered wild foods and hunted buffalo.
  
• They traded and followed tribal law, created
  tools and clothing as well.

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Culture of Plains, contd

• Spanish brought horses to New Mexico in 1598.
• By mid 1700s, because of their horses and guns,
  Native Americans could travel farther and hunt
  more efficiently and almost all tribes left their
  farms to roam and hunt buffalo.
• Wars occurred because of hunters from one tribe
  trespassing on land of other tribes.

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• Plains warrior gained honor by killing his
  enemies and counting coup touching a live enemy
  with a coup stick and escaping unharmed.
• They also called truces to trade goods, pass
  along news, etc.

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Buffalo uses

• Made tepees and arrow shields from hides.
• Used skin for clothing, shoes, blankets.
• Meat was dried into jerky or mixed with berries
  and fat to make staple food called pemmican.
• Skull was considered sacred and was used in many
  of their rituals.

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• Horns were carved into bowls and spoons.
• Bones were made into hide scrapers, tool handles,
  etc. Hoofs were ground up and used as glue.
• Buffalo provided basic needs and was very
  important to life on the Plains.

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Family Life

• Lived in small extended family groups and bands
  with others that spoke the same language.
• No individual dominated the group. Land was for
  use of the whole tribe and leaders of a tribe
  ruled by counsel not force.

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• Young men trained to become warriors and hunters.
• Women butchered game and prepared hides.
• Women SOMETIMES chose their own husbands.
• Children learned behavior/culture through
  stories, myths, games.

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Importance of Spirits

• Tribes believed spirits controlled events in the
  natural world.
• Shamans men or women who showed great deal of
  sensitivity to the spirits.

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Settlers Push Westward

• Native Americans believed that land COULD NOT be
  owned.
• Settlers wanted to own land to have a stake in
  their country.

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• Settlers argued Native Americans gave up their
  rights (forfeited) to the land because they
  didnt improve it. So they pushed west along
  railroad and wagon trails to claim the land.

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SILVER AND GOLD!!!

• Gold discovery in Colorado in 1858 drew many
  miners to the region.
• Mining camps and frontier towns had filthy living
  quarters with rows of tents and shacks with dirt
  streets.
• Fortune seekers included Irish, German, Polish,
  Chinese and African-Americans.

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• In 1834, the federal government had passed an act
  that designated the entire Great Plains as one
  enormous reservation, or land set aside for
  Native American tribes.

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• In the 1850s, however, the government changed its
  policy and created treaties that defined specific
  boundaries for each tribe.

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• Most Native Americans ignored the government
  treaties and continued to hunt on their
  traditional lands, clashing with settlers and
  miners, with tragic results.

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• One of the most tragic events occurred in 1864.
  Most of the Cheyenne, assuming they were under
  the protection of the U.S. government, had
  peacefully returned to Colorados Sand Creek
  Reserve for the winter.

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• Yet General S.R. Curtis, U.S. Army commander in
  the West, sent a telegram to militia colonel John
  Chivington that read, I want no peace till the
  Indians suffers more.

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• In response, Chivington and his troops descended
  on the Cheyenne and Arapaho, about 200 warriors
  and 500 women and children, camped at Sand Creek.

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• The attack at dawn on November 29, 1864 killed
  over 150 inhabitants, mostly women and children.

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• The Bozeman Trail ran directly through Sioux
  hunting grounds in the Bighorn Mountains. The
  Sioux Chief, Red Cloud, had unsuccessfully
  appealed to the government to end white
  settlement on the trail.

Chief Red Cloud
Red Cloud and his Council.
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• In December 1866, the warrior Crazy Horse
  ambushed Captain William J. Fetterman and his
  company at Lodge Trail Ridge. Over 80 soldiers
  were killed.

Crazy Horse
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• Native Americans called this fight the Battle of
  the Hundred Slain. Whites called it the Fetterman
  Massacre.

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• Skirmishes continued until the government agreed
  to close the Bozeman Trail. In return, the Treaty
  of Fort Laramie, in which the Sioux agreed to
  live on a reservation along the Missouri River.

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• Sitting Bull , leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux, had
  never signed it. Although the Ogala and Brule
  Sioux did sign the treaty, they expected to
  continue using their traditional hunting grounds.

Sitting Bull
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• The Treaty of Fort Laramie provided only a
  temporary halt to warfare. The conflict between
  the two cultures continued as settlers moved
  westward and Native American nations resisted the
  restrictions imposed upon them .

Fort Laramie
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• In late 1868, war broke out yet again as the
  Kiowa and Comanche engaged in six years of
  raiding that finally led to the Red River War of
  1874-75.

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• The U.S. Army responded by herding the people of
  friendly tribes onto reservations while opening
  fire on all others.

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• General Philip Sheridan, a Union army veteran,
  gave orders to destroy their villages and
  ponies, to kill and hang all warriors, and to
  bring back all women and children.

The only good Indian is a dead Indian.
- General Philip Sheridan
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• Within four years of the Treaty of Laramie,
  miners began searching the Black Hills for gold.
  The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho protested the
  trespassing of their sacred grounds.

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• In 1874, Colonel George A. Custer reported that
  the Black Hills had gold from the grass roots
  down, a gold rush was on in the Black Hills.

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• In early June 1876, the Sioux and Cheyenne held a
  sun dance, during which Sitting Bull had a vision
  of soldiers and some Native Americans falling
  from their horses.

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• When Colonel Custer and his troops reached the
  Little Big Horn River, the Native Americans were
  ready for them.

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• Led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull, the
  warriors, with raised spears and rifles,
  outflanked and crushed Custers troops.

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• Within an hour, Custer and all of the men of the
  Seventh Cavalry were dead.

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• By late 1876, the Sioux were beaten. Sitting Bull
  and a few followers took refuge in Canada, where
  they remained until 1881.

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• Eventually, to prevent his peoples starvation,
  Sitting Bull was forced to surrender.

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• Sadly, in 1885, Sitting Bull appeared in William
  F. Buffalo Bill Codys Wild West Show.

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• Many Indian sympathizers supported assimilation,
  a plan under which Native Americans would give up
  their beliefs and way of life and become part of
  the white culture.

Before and After.
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• In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act aiming to
  Americanize the Native Americans. The act broke
  up the reservations and gave some of the
  reservation land to individual Native Americans,
  160 acres to each head of household and 80 acres
  to each unmarried adult.

Indian boarding school in Colorado.
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• The government sold the remainder of the
  reservations to settlers, and the resulting
  income would be used by Native Americans to buy
  farm equipment.

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• By 1932, whites had taken about two-thirds of the
  territory that had been set aside for Native
  Americans. In the end, the Native Americans
  received no money from the sale of these lands.

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• Perhaps the most significant blow to tribal life
  on the plains was the destruction of the buffalo.
  Tourists and fur traders shot buffalo for sport.

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• In 1800, approximately 65 million buffalo roamed
  the plains, by 1890, fewer than 1000 remained.

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• The Sioux continued to suffer poverty and
  disease. In desperation, they turned to a Holy
  Man who promised that if the Sioux performed a
  ritual called the Ghost Dance, Native Americans
  lands and their way of life would be restored.

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• The Ghost Dance movement alarmed military
  leaders, who then ordered the arrest of Sitting
  Bull. Sitting Bulls bodyguard shot one of
  police. The police then killed Sitting Bull. The
  remaining Sioux fled.

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• On December 28, 1890, the Seventh Cavalry,
  rounded up about 350 starving and freezing Sioux
  and took them to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek in
  South Dakota.

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• The next day, the soldiers demanded that the
  Native Americans give up their weapons. A shot
  was fired, and soldiers opened fire with deadly
  cannons.

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• Within minutes, the Seventh Cavalry slaughtered
  300 unarmed Native Americans, including several
  children. The soldiers left the corpses to freeze
  on the ground. The Battle of Wounded Knee brought
  the Indian wars to an end.

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CATTLE

• With buffalos gone, horses and cattle take center
  stage in Great Plains
• Mexicans taught settlers how to manage large
  herds
• Animals were called Texas longhorns, sturdy,
  short-tempered breeds

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• The cowboys way of life stemmed from Spanish
  ranchers in Mexico.
• Cowboys clothes, food, vocabulary was influenced
  by the Mexican vaquero his leather overalls,
  called chaparreras became known as chaps and
  he ate charqui, known as jerky. The Spanish
  bronco caballo (rough horse) became known as the
  bronco.

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Wheres the Beef???

• Cowboys werent in great demand until railroads
  reached the Great Plains.
• After the Civil War, demand for beef skyrocketed
  because of fast-growing cities.

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• Texas ranchers were having a hard time shipping
  the cattle to Chicago in 1865/66 because of the
  route they had to take to get to the railroads in
  Missouri. So

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• Cattle dealer Joseph McCoy created a shipping
  yard through several towns where the trails and
  railroad came together. He built cattle pens, a
  hotel and helped survey the Chisholm Trail, a
  major cattle route from San Antonio, Texas
  through Oklahoma to Kansas.

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• It was a great success. Ranchers were hiring
  cowboys to drive their cattle to Abilene, Kansas.

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A Cowboys Day

• About 25 of these cowboys were African-American
  12 were Mexican.
• Real-life cowboys did nonstop work, working 10 to
  14 hours a day on a ranch and 14 or more on the
  trail.
• As young as 15 and done by 40.
• Trail horse usually belonged to his boss.
• Guns were used to protect herd from diseased
  animals, not to hurt or chase outlaws.

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A Cowboys Day contd

• Season began in the spring. They gathered and
  branded their herd and then the trail boss would
  choose a crew for the long drive which lasted
  about 3 months.

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• It was 1 cowboy for every 250-300 cattle a cook
  who drove a chuck wagon and set up camp and a
  wrangler who cared for the extra horses. Trail
  boss earned about 100 a month for supervising
  the drive.

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• Cowboy is in saddle from dawn to dusk. He sleeps
  on the ground and bathes in rivers. They risked
  death and loss every day and lightning was a
  constant danger as well.

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End of Open Range

• Between 1883-1887, dry summers, bad winters,
  overgrazing of land and invention of barbed wire
  wiped out whole herds.

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• Ranchers then started caring for smaller herds
  that would yield more meat per animal. They
  fenced the land with barbed wire (Joseph F.
  Glidden invented it).
• The era of wide open West was over!