Chapter Sixteen

The Last West, and the New South

1865-1900
The West: Settlement of the Last
Frontier
 The Mining Frontier
• First exodus to California caused by the
discovery of gold in 1848
• Gold and silver were found in Colorado,
Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, and South
Dakota
• 100,000 miners went to Pike’s Peak in 1859
• Nevada, Idaho, and Montana entered the
Union due to the spike in mining
 Mining Continued
• Placer Mining
– Looking for gold in the streams
– Very inexpensive
• Deep Shaft Mining
– Needed expensive equipment
• Mark Twain started his career in a mining town (Think this’ll be on
the AP? :P)
• Most of the population of mining towns foreign
• Miners Tax
– $20 a month to foreign miners
• Chinese Exclusion Act – 1882
– Chinese were barred from the Union
– First act of the Union to stop immigration
• Native Americans lost much land
 The Cattle Frontier
• Joseph G. McCoy discovered the profits that
could be had on importing cattle from Kansas
to Chicago
• Problems
– Overgrazing left no food left
– Blizzard wiped out 90% of the population
• Barbed wire patented (Erm, invented)
 The Farming Frontier
• The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged settlement
• Sodbusters
– First settlers
– Built houses from sod bricks
• Problems
– Water and wood were rare
– Horrible weather
– Low price for crops
– High price for machinery
• Joseph Glidden invented Barbed Wire
• Dry Farming
– Russian wheat could survive horrible weather
– Dams and irrigation
 Turner’s Frontier Thesis
• By the 1890’s, the entire Oklahoma frontier
was settled
• The Significance of the Frontier in American
History
– Written by Fredrick Jackson Turner
– ‘Promoted a habit of independence and
individualism’
• Rural farming began a slow descent
 The Removal of Native Americans
• Two thirds of the Indians lived on the Great Plains
• Life revolved around the buffalo
• Andrew Jackson attempted to create
Reservations, but the homesteaders took them
over
• War
– 1864: Military slaughtered Cheyenne at Sand Creek
– Sioux destroyed Captain Fetterman’s army
– Custer destroyed by Sitting Bull at Little Big Horn
(1876)
 Indian Conditions (Continued)
• A Century of Dishonor
– By Helen Jackson
– Campaigned for sympathy for the Indians
• Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
– Broke up Indian tribes
– 47 million acres of land given to the Indians
– This Act epic-failed
• Ghost Dance Movement
– Ritualistic dance done by the Indians
– Hundreds massacred because of it
• Aftermath: US policy in the 20th century
– All Indians granted citizenship
The New South
 Economic Progress
• Birmingham, Alabama
– Steel center
• Memphis, Tennessee
– Lumber center
• Richmond, Virginia
– Tobacco center
 Continued Poverty
• The north controlled much of the south
• Causes of Poverty
– The south began their Industrialization too late
– The workforce was entirely without schooling
 Agriculture
• Economy mainly based on growing cotton
• Cotton prices around the world fell
• Most farmers were tenants or sharecroppers
• George Washington Carver
– Tuskegee Institute
– Grew crops like peanuts, sweet potatoes, etc
• Farmer’s Southern Alliance
• Colored Farmer’s National Alliance
– Both tried to solve the economic problems of the
farmers
 Segregation
• Treated blacks as social inferiors
• Blamed poverty on the ‘race’
• In the 1870’s, the supreme court began to undo civil rights
laws
• Civil Rights Case of 1883
– ‘Court ruled that congress could not legislate against racial
discrimination’
• Plessy vs. Ferguson (Important if you don’t already know)
– SEPARATE BUT EQUAL
• Jim Crow Laws
– Segregated bathrooms, water, seats, and basically everything
public
 Segregation Continued
• Disfranchisement abounded in the south
– Disfranchisement being not allowing people to
vote
• Examples of Discrimination
– Couldn’t serve on juries
– Given harsher punishments
– Lynching
– Jobs
 Response of Blacks
• Bishop Henry Turner
– International Migration Society
• Helped blacks emigrate to Africa
• Ida B. Wells
– Campaign against lynching and Jim Crow Laws
• Booker T. Washington
– National Negro Business League
• Self help
Farm Problems – North, South, West
 Changes in Agriculture
• Farming became much more commercialized
• Prices for wheat and corn fell drastically
• Manufactured goods’ prices skyrocketed
 Fighting Back
• The National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry
– Oliver H. Kelley
– Social organization for farmers
– Most powerful in the Midwest
– Got the rates of railroads reduced
– Munn vs. Illinois
• The Supreme Court ruled that the state had the right to
regulate public business (Railroads)
 Fighting Back (Continued)
• Interstate Commerce Act (1886)
– Ruled that railroad rates had to be appropriate
– Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
• Enforced anti-discrimination
• Wabash vs. Illinois
– Individual states were not allowed to regulate
interstate commerce
– Destroyed what had been gained by the Grangers
 Fighting Back (Continued Again)
• Farmer’s Alliance
– Crop prices continued to bottom out
– A million farmers joined the Farmer’s Alliance
• Ocala Platform
– An organization known as the National Alliance
was formed
– Supported direct election of senators, lower
tariffs, income tax, and a new banking system
– Did not actually form a 3rd party