America’s Westward Movement

The Closing of the Frontier

Beginnings• From the early stages of

American history, Americans began moving West away from the more settled regions to frontier areas.

• First, these early Western settlers moved to the Appalachian Mountains, and later they crossed over them into Western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Early Westward Movement

• Early Western settlers moved into an area called the Northwest Territory, which included Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and much of Minnesota.

• Later, settlers moved into the Southern frontier, to areas that would become Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

Interaction with Native Americans

• All of the land settled by the American settlers was inhabited by Native Americans or used by them for hunting and farming.

• Negotiations for land took place, and treaties were signed to avoid conflict, but these deals were usually ignored by the settlers when they became inconvenient.

• Wars between settlers and Native Americans took place throughout the early Western Expansion.

Indian Removal

• In the 1820’s, as the Cotton industry began to grow, white settlers saw the potential of more land to be had in the deep Southeast, or Alabama, Florida, Mississippi.

• To get ownership of this land the U.S. government forcefully removed the Five Civilized Tribes to the new Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma.

Louisiana Purchase

• In 1803, Thomas Jefferson purchased 828,800 square miles of territory from France, west of the Mississippi River.

• In 1804 he sent an expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the territory.

The Fur Trade and Mountain Men

• The First Americans to enter the far West in large numbers were trappers and fur traders.

• Until the 1840’s beaver hats were fashionable in Europe, and this demand made trapping a lucrative business.

• These “Mountain Men” usually forged good relations with Native Americans, and learned many skills from them, and picked up key information on the geography of the area.

• The Mountain Men were skilled in hunting, survival, and tracking, marking passes through mountain ranges, and setting trails for future settlers like the Oregon Trail.

Texas• Americans began entering

Mexico, in what is now Texas from the time Mexico became independent in 1810. The Mexican government initially encouraged these settlers.

• These new Texans brought slavery and cotton with them from the U.S. and many others established successful farms.

• By the 1820’s some of these Americans wanted independence from Mexico, which they won in 1836, forming the Republic of Texas. Texas joined the Union in 1845.

Mexican War

• From 1846 to 1848 the United States fought a war with Mexico over the disputed boundary in the new state of Texas.

• The U.S. victory in the war led to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and gave to the U.S. all of the territory seen at left in Red. Later the Gadsden Purchase added the territory in yellow.

California

• In 1848, gold was discovered in California by John Sutter. In 1849 thousands of people, popularly called “49er’s”, flocked to California to get into the mining business.

• The population of California had gone from 14,000 in 1848, to 200,000 in 1852.

• Some of the miners struck it rich, but most lived tough lives in mining camps hoping for the big strike.

• During this time San Francisco became a major city and port.

Other Mining Strikes• After most of the California gold

played out, other strikes were made in states such as Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, and South Dakota. Mining towns developed in each of these future states.

• Silver was also discovered in Nevada, where boom towns developed seemingly over night.

• These mining towns were often filled with saloons, casinos, and brothels, as they were fairly lawless, and there were few women of “respectable” character.

The Great American Desert

• The area that we now call the great plains was once thought by the white men that crossed it do be largely inhabitable, except to the Native Americans who lived there. They called the plains the “Great American Desert”.

• This largely treeless area of grasslands covers parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Buffalo • On the Great Plains lived an abundance of wild life, none more impressive than the American Bison, or buffalo.

• Millions of buffalo roamed the grasslands and provided the native tribes of the plains with food, clothing, shelter, and other tools.

• In the mid-1800’s white commercial hunters began to move into the area to hunt them for their skins.

• As railroads moved west even more hunting took place, along with deliberate hunting by the U.S. Army. By the end of the 1800’s only a few hundred buffalo were left.

Native Americans of the West• There were hundreds of Native

American Tribes in the western states, each with their own distinct culture.

• Some tribes like Pawnee, Iowa, and Wichita on the plains, the Pueblo,Navaho, and Apache in the Southwest, and the Nez Perce and Chinook in the Northwest were mostly sedentary,relying on both agriculture, hunting, and fishing for survival.

• Some tribes, like the Makah in what is now Washington State relied heavily on whaling.

• The more famous Western Indians were the plains tribes who were usually almost exclusively nomadic hunters.

A New Wave of Settlers

• After the mountain men, settlers began moving to Western areas to farm, following trails the mountain men had blazed, such as the Oregon trail, the Santa Fe Trail, and others.

• These new settlers crossed the great plains in wagon trains

• The journey west would usually take 3-6 months, and could be quite perilous.

Homestead Act

• In 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which gave 160 acres of unused federal land West of the Mississippi River to anyone 21 or older who was willing to file an application, settle and improve the land for 5 years, and then file a deed.

• The Homestead Act greatly increased Western Settlement.

• Though farming on the plains was tough, the steel plow, invented by John Deere in 1836, made it easier and eventually this was some of the most successful farmland in the world.

Conflict With Native Americans

• As more and more settlers moved West, conflict with Native Americans increased.

• Many times the settlers were breaking treaties signed by the government with the Indians.

• The United States Army was chiefly responsible for putting down the Native American “threat” to settlement.

• The official policy of the U.S. regarding the Indians of the West was to force them onto reservations.

Indian Wars (and massacres)

• There were literally hundreds of battles, skirmishes, and ambushes involving settlers, soldiers, and Indians in the West, from the sporadic fighting against the Apache in the desert, to the great battles against the Sioux on the Plains.

• The U.S. Army fought vicious campaigns to put the Indians on reservations, and while they typically were honorable, sometimes they resorted to the massacre of Native Americans as in the case of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 described below

• “I saw the bodies of those lying there cut all to pieces, worse mutilated than any I ever saw before; the women cut all to pieces ... With knives; scalped; their brains knocked out; children two or three months old; all ages lying there, from sucking infants up to warriors ... By whom were they mutilated? By the United States troops”. - John S. Smith, Congressional Testimony of Mr. John S. Smith, 1865

U.S. Cavalry

• Most of the Indian Wars were fought by the U.S. Army Cavalry. Infantry, of course played a role, but on the great plains, horse soldiers were vital.

• One of the most famous Cavalry outfits of the late 1800’s was the 10th Cavalry, sometimes known as the Buffalo Soldiers. This was an all African American Unit under white officers, famous for fighting Indians in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.

No More Forever• Despite the commitment of many Native Americans to fight to

the death for their lands and way of life, and the bravery of they frequently displayed, the U.S. Army, the destruction of the buffalo, and the closing down of the frontier proved to be too much for them.

• Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, once stated that the fight was no longer sustainable, and said “I will fight no more forever.”

• By the 1890’s, almost all of the Western tribes had been defeated and placed onto reservations.

• There they were encouraged to assimilate into white society.• Many times Indian Reservations were located on the least

valuable land.

Cattle and the Open Range

• When the Spanish settled in the Americas they brought cattle with them. These Spanish cattle flourished on the grassy plains of the West, especially in Texas.

• This breed of cattle was called the Texas Longhorn, for its distinctive long horns.

Cattle and the Open Range• In the 1830’s and 1840’s Texans were already attempting to drive

cattle long distances to places like New Orleans, and northern states like Illinois. These early cattle drives were not particularly successful.

• During the Civil War, before the Mississippi River was closed by Union forces, Texans drove cattle to the Confederacy for a supply of beef.

• In 1865 Phillip Armour opened a huge meat packing plant in Chicago, and demand for beef increased significantly.

• In 1866 the first large scale attempt to drive huge herds of Texas cattle north to railroad lines in Missouri was made. Farmers living on the trail resisted these attempts, and the drive failed.

• The following year, another large scale drive was made, this time to the rail head in Abilene, Kansas. Since this drive avoided farmland, the drive was successful, and the age of the open range began.

Cattle and the Open Range

• As the price of cattle increased to as much as $40 dollars a head, thousands of people flocked to the West to open large cattle operations, work as cowboys, or to capitalize on this new industry in other ways.

• From the 1860’s until the 1880’s, the Federal land in the West was “open range”, and the cattle were free to roam and graze on the vast expanses of grassland.

• Initially the herds were located in Texas, but as time went by, the herds were driven to open spaces in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana, to gain access to more grazing land.

How the Open Range worked.

• Most cattle were free to roam in a semi-wild state largely unattended for most of the year. To distinguish one company’s cattle from another’s, the cattle were given the company’s distinct brand.

• Early in the spring, roundups were held when each company would gather up their cattle and brand new calfs.

• Later, the cattle were driven rail heads, where they would be sold.

How the Open Range worked.• The men who worked the cattle came to be known as

cowhands, or sometimes, cowboys. These men had to be skilled horseback riders, and competent with roping. Most cowhands had 3 or more horses to use on a drive

• Specially trained personnel included a cook who operated a kitchen wagon called the chuck wagon, and the wrangler, whose responsibility was to train and care for the horses. Specialized horses called “cutters” and highly skilled riders could separate a single cattle from the heard, maneuver the cattle with their movements, and prevent stampedes.

• Before a drive the cowhands lived in a barracks style “bunkhouse”. During the drive the hands slept in the open.

How the Open Range worked.

• The average drive consisted of 3000 or more head of cattle. • To ensure that the cows did not lose to much weight on a

drive, the pace had to be somewhat slow. While the cattle could be driven as much as 25 miles a day, 15 miles was the best pace.

• As a result of the slow pace, drives would usually last two and sometimes three months.

• At night, hands worked in shifts to move the herd, and prevent stampedes and rustling, or stealing cattle.

• Since many drives took place in Indian Territory, conflict with Native Americans did occur, but was usually rare. Usually the companies paid the Indians 15 cents a head, and peace was maintained.

The End of the line.

• When the drive reached cowtowns, such as Abilene, Dodge City, or Witchita, the cattle would be sold, and the hands would receive their pay.

• The cowtowns were the first place the hands had to enjoy themselves for sometime, and gambling and drinking was quite common. Violence could often flair up, and town famed town marshalls such as Wild Bill Hickock, and Wyatt Earp as well as many others, were hired to keep the peace. Despite Hollywood’s portrayal of the West, deadly shootouts were actually rare. Large cities in the East such as New York, were far more violent.

• While gun violence was more rare than depicted, gambling parlors and saloons were certainly wild places.

• Because there were so few women in the West at this time, prostitution was common and accepted. Brothels could be found throughout the West.

The End of the Open Range

• The age of the open range was short lived. The increase of homesteaders in the West decreased the amount of free grazing land, and forced ranchers to fence off land to raise their cattle on. The invention of barbed wire in the 1880’s made it cheap and practical to fence in vast areas.

• By the 1880’s, overgrazing became a problem, as there were more cattle than available grassland.

• The particularly harsh winter of 1886-1887 killed thousands of cattle, hurting the cattle boom and hastening an end to the period.

• By the 1890’s there were hundreds of ranches that operated closer to the ever expanding railroads, which made the rancher and cowhands way of life, much more settled.

Images of the Open Range

Images of the Open Range

Transcontinental Railroad

• In the 1860’s, the U.S. government subsidized the building of a railroad to cross the entire country. Much intrigue and corruption went into choosing the routes, but eventually Omaha and Sacramento would chosen.

• The Union Pacific and Central Pacific Companies built the railroad, the former from the East, and the latter from the West.

• Most of the labor was done by immigrant Irish and Chinese, as well as Civil War veterans.

• Blasting through the Rocky mountains for tunnels, dealing with the threat of Native American uprisings, back breaking labor in brutal heat and freezing cold were just some of the difficulties of the project.

• In 1869, the final spike joining the two lines was made in Promontory point Utah. The journey between coasts which had previously taken 6 months, could now be made in a week.

Transcontinental Railroad

The Closing of the West

• As the Indians were gradually subdued and placed on reservations or assimilated, homesteaders created farms and communities in previously wilderness areas, and railroad and telegraph lines crisscrossed the country, the era of the frontier wilderness in the American West came to a close.

• By 1900, the West, effectively, had been “won”.