HIST 1312 1st Edition Lecture 15 Outline of Last Lecture I Topics for Quiz Outline of Current Lecture II The Transformation of the West a Farming in the Trans Mississippi West b The Cowboy and the Corporate West c Conflict on the Mormon Frontier d The Subjugation of the Plains Indians e Let Me Be a Free Man f Remaking Indian Life g The Dawes Act and Wounded Knee h Settler Societies and Global West Current Lecture The Transformation of the West At the close of the Civil War the frontier of continuous white settlement did not extend far beyond the Mississippi River Farming in the Trans Mississippi West o Even as sporadic Indian wars raged settlers poured into the West o Territorial and state governments eager for population and railroad companies anxious to sell the immense tracts of land they had acquired from the government flooded European countries and eastern cities with promotional literature promising easy access to land o Hundreds of thousands of families acquired farms under the Homestead Act and even more purchased land from speculators and from railroad companies These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute o Farm families generally invested in the kinds of labor saving machinery that would bring in cash not machines that would ease women s burdens in the household o Despite the emergence of a few bonanza farms that covered thousands of acres and employed large numbers of agricultural wage workers family farms still dominated the trans Mississippi West The Cowboy and the Corporate West o A collection of white Mexican and black men who conducted the cattle drive the cowboys became symbols of a life of freedom on the open range o Large corporate enterprises appeared throughout the West Western mining Conflict on the Mormon Frontier o The Mormons had moved to the Great Salt Lake Valley in the 1840s hoping to practice their religion free of the persecution they had encountered in the East o They called their community Desert o In 1857 a group of Mormons attacked a wagon train of non Mormon settler traveling through Utah toward California o In the 1880s Utah banned the practice of polygamy The Subjugation of the Plains Indians o The incorporation of the West into the national economy spelled the doom of the Plains Indians and their world o In 1869 President Grant announced a new peace policy in the West but warfare soon resumed o Hunting by mounted Indians had already reduced the buffalo population estimated at 30 million in 1800 but it was army campaigns an d the depredations of hunters seeking buffalo hides that rendered the vast herds all but extinct Let Me Be a Free Man o The army s relentless attacks broke the power of one tribe after another o In 1877 troops commanded by former Freedmen s Bureau commissioner O O Howard pursued the Nez Perce Indians on a 1 700 mile chase across the Far West They were removed to Oklahoma o Two years later the Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph delivered a speech in Washington to a distinguished audience that included President Hayes o Condemning the policy of confining Indians to reservations Joseph adopted the language of freedom and equal rights before the law o The most famous Indian victory took place in June 1876 at Little Bighorn when General George A Custer and his entire command of 250 men perished Events like these delayed only temporarily the onward march of white soldiers settlers and prospectors Remaking Indian Life o The Indian idea of freedom however which centered on preserving their cultural and political autonomy and control of ancestral lands conflicted with the interests and values of most white Americans o In 1871 Congress eliminated the treaty system that dated back to the revolutionary era by which the federal government negotiated agreements with Indians as if they were independent nations o The Bureau of Indian Affairs established boarding schools where Indian children removed from the negative influences of their parents and tribes were dressed in non Indian clothes given new names and educated in white ways The Dawes Act and Wounded Knee o The crucial step in attacking tribalism came in 1887 with the passage of the Dawes Act The act broke up the land of nearly all tribes into small parcels to be distributed to Indian families with the remainder auctioned off to white purchasers Indians who accepted the farms and adopted the habits of civilized life would become full fledged American citizens o Some Indians sought solace in the Ghost Dance a religious revitalization campaign Large numbers of Indians gathered for days of singing dancing and religious observances Fearing a general uprising the government sent troops to the reservations On December 29 1890 soldiers opened fire on Ghost Dancers encamped near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota killing between 150 to 200 Indians mostly women and children Settlers Societies and Global Wests o The conquest of the American West was part of a global process whereby settlers moved boldly into the interior of regions in temperate climates around the world bringing their familiar crops and livestock and establishing mining and other industries