The West What is the “frontier” –empty land on the margin of a settled area Traits of...

The West

• What is the “frontier”– empty land on the margin of a settled area

• Traits of frontiersmen– Tough and strong– Inquisitive but practical– Restless– Strong individualism

Native Americans

• By 1700s, abandon farming & live off buffalo

• loosely organized– tribes made up of small bands– band governed by chief or council of elders

Gold Rush changes life

• Great plains area (trans-Mississippi) used as a one large Indian reservation

• Gold Rush begins in 1849– white settlers migrate across plains– government attempts to establish “small

reservations” to move Indians out of path of migration

New reservation system unsuccessful

• Warriors refuse to be constrained

• white settlers encroach on Indian lands

• leads to a final series of wars

Further erosion of Native American culture

• Congress passes Dawes Severalty Act (1887)

• White buffalo hunters exterminate buffalo and end unique way of life

• Indians overwhelmed by attempts to force them to adapt

Black Hills Gold Rush,1875• Prospectors enter Native American hunting grounds• Sioux determine to stop them• Led by Chief Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull• Custer sends in troops and is killed at “Custer’s Last

Stand”• Custer’s death leads to demand for revenge• Within months most Indians have surrendered or are

killed

Sitting Bull, (Tatanka Iyotake) (c. 1831-1890) Native American, Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux

General George A. Custer, photo of painting in an album by Barry, D. F. 1854-1934.

Photograph of lithograph by Gaylord Watson, 1881, depicting a romantic land known as the "Great West." (Copyright 1997, State Historical Society of Wisconsin)

Geronimo

Gold Rush & Mining

• Families migrate in April for 6 month journey

• Individuals practice surface mining

• Companies start deep lode mining

• Camps spring up

Gold miner working in sluice box, Two Bit Creek, South Dakota.

Lee, Russell, 1903- photographer.

Pushing a car load of gold ore along track in mine. Mogollon, New Mexico.

Lee, Russell, 1903- photographer.

Impact of mining• Positive

– Helped finance Civil War & industrialization– Increases silver circulation– led to early statehood

• Negative– created ghost towns– scarred land– led to invasion of reservations

Eureka, Colorado. A ghost gold mining town. Pool hall.

Lee, Russell, 1903- photographer.

Cattle Ranching & Farming• Profits enormous

• Cowboys work hard for little pay

• Open range ends

• Improved breeds of cattle

• Better farming equipment

• New farming techniques

• The Grange

Cattle being rounded up near Eagle Pass, Texas.

Lee, Russell, 1903- photographer.

Barbed Wire Fence [35mm slide]

Jones, Suzi, photographer.