Chapter 16: 444-459

Tribes of Pacific Coast decimated by disease; 150K

Southwest=Mix of Mexican, Native, Spanish cultures• Apaches, Navajos, Pueblos, Comanches

Plains Indians• Sioux (most powerful), Pawnee, Arapaho,

Cheyenne• Dependent on buffalo

By the post-Civil War era Mexicans/Mexican-Americans were delegated to working class

Lost land Faced discriminatory laws Many took up migrant farming or

unskilled labor

Started during Gold Rush; “Gold Mountain”

Racism, discrimination, struggle to gain financial success• Foreign Miners Tax; $20/month

Worked for Central Pacific on transcontinental RR (90% of workforce)

200K by 1880; mostly in CA

Moved to urban areas Created “China Towns”

• Kept clothing style, language, food, etc. Servants, small business owners,

laundry Few females

• Often prostitutes

As Chinese population increased so did Anti-Chinese feelings

Criticized for “clannishness” & keeping culture, rather than assimilating

One San Francisco newspaper • “The manners and habits of the Chinese are

repugnant to Americans in California. Of different language, blood, religion, and character, and inferior in most mental and bodily qualities.”

Anti-Coolie clubs Workingmen’s Party created in 1878 Kearney, party’s founder:

• “The Chinese must go!” • “We intend to try and vote the Chinaman

out, to frighten him out, and if this won’t do, to kill him out and when the blow comes we won’t leave a fragment for the thieves to pick up…The heathen slaves must leave this coast, if it cost 10,000 lives…”

Anti-Chinese Riot in 1886

Banned Chinese immigration for 10 years (renewed in 1892 & 1902)

Banned Chinese in U.S. from citizenship

Hoped to protect “American” workers

Chinese immigration

Most from eastern U.S. 2 million from Europe between 1870

& 1900 Homestead Act (1862)

• 160 acres, had to stay five years & pay small fee

• Most failed to stay Economic troubles, isolation, weather

Timber Culture Act (1873)-allowed homesteaders to claim another 160 acres if they planted 40 acres of trees

Other laws followed suit Fraudulent claims, speculators Towns sprouted mostly along rail

lines Nebraska Railroad Maps

#34—Kansas—1861 #36—Nevada—1864 #37—Nebraska—1867 #38—Colorado—1876 #39—North Dakota—1889 #40—South Dakota—1889 #41—Montana—1889 #42—Washington—1889 #43—Idaho—1890 #44—Utah—1896

1889 & 1893 Broke up Indian

Territory 160 acres 89ers, Boomers,

& Sooners Land Run of 1889

Labor shortage Higher wages Temporary work; lack of job security Social classes dictated by race

1849—CA—Gold Rush 1858—Pike’s Peak, CO—Gold 1858—Nevada, Comstock Lode—Gold &

Silver• Produced $306 million

1874—Black Hills, Dakota Territory—Gold 1897—Alaska--Klondike Booms led to new cities overnight Vigilante rule

Gender imbalance Difficult working conditions Heat, explosions, fires 1 in 30 injured & 1 in 80 killed in the

mines Gaming & Entertainment in Gold Rus

h Towns

Open range• Grazing for free

Started by Texan & Mexican ranchers 5 million cattle roamed Texas Cattle drives started in earnest after

Civil War Driven north to towns on rail lines

• Dodge City, KS; Abilene, KS; Sedalia, Mo• *See map on p. 454

Cattle drives became romanticized Cowboys were often former Confederate

soldiers or African Americans Farmers moved in (Homestead Act) and

impeded on open range• Led to range wars

Large profits led to corporations moving in Severe winters (1885-1886 & 1886-1887)

killed thousands of cattle• Diminished the Cattle Kingdom

Long drives were replaced by rail lines & refrigerated railcars

Ranches stayed though 250,000 female ranch owners by

1890

Paintings of the West became popular Tourism took off in 1880s and 1890s Fascination with cowboys

• Lack of social constraints, connection to the land, ruggedness, individualism

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Still popular today

• Country music, western movies & novels

“The Last Frontier” Twain, Remington, Roosevelt all

romanticized the West

Remington’s A Dash for the Timber, 1889

Arizona Cowboy, 1901

The Stampede; Horse Thieves, 1909

1890 census marked the end of the frontier

Frederick Jackson Turner, historian from U. of Wisconsin• The Significance of the Frontier in American

History”—1st delivered in 1893 Frontier was line between “savagery” and

“civilization”

• Restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism” all be attributed to the the frontier

• Valuable land would be harder to acquire "And now, four centuries from the discovery of

America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history."