Lecture Chapter 18 The American West and The Creation of the Western Image The American West played an increasingly significant role in United States history between 1865 and 1890 During this period Anglo Americans settled 430 million acres of land and overwhelmed Native Americans in the so called Indian Wars Furthermore ten new states entered the Union bringing the total number of states to forty eight by 1912 Finally over the course of just a few decades three commercial empires rose and fell mining especially gold and silver farming and cattle Some questions to keep in mind 1 2 3 4 Where was the Old West between 1865 and 1890 Can you locate it on a map Who was Frederick Jackson Turner and why was he significant How did the United States deal with American Indians in the West What about those people that were already there can it be called a frontier if it was already inhabited 5 Is the West still appealing today Why or why not Frederick Jackson Turner was a farm boy from out west writes his thesis and later becomes a prof at the University of Wisconsin and later sells out to Harvard Major points 1 Turner conceived of the West not as a particular geographic place but as a frontier process as a series of West on a receding frontier line the point where savagery meets civilization 2 For Turner American history was largely a tale of people leaving settled areas for the frontier and their struggle to survive in new lands According to Turner this epic struggle explained American development 3 The frontier reproduces American democracy and individualism the frontier requires Americans to develop new institutions and free land makes free men 4 Finally Turner claimed that in 1890 the frontier had closed ending the first stage of American development Turner believed that the closing of the frontier created uncertainty and he questioned how Americans could maintain their democratic traditions and institutions without access to free land He is the fore father of American Exceptionalism Land gave individuals mobility Free land was the American Dream In the west democracy would prevail Prior to the settling of the west the closest democratic states were Kentucky and Tennessee why because they were egalitarian states Thus in the west we would have egalitarian communities 1 In sum Turner argued that civilization is a process in which society becomes ever more complex As complexity increases opportunities become more limited and civilization inevitably subordinates individuals to society Other reasons why the west was so attractive 1 Space There are three distinct environmental regions Trans Mississippi West Middle West to 98 parallel Far West Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains to Pacific Ocean Great Basin Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains A myth is created in the West of a garden of Eden Wilber described the trans Mississippi West as a lush paradise He based this claim on scientific evidence that purportedly proved that rain follows the plow The myth of the Garden undermined the idea that the West was the Great American Desert and convinced many American farmers that they could prosper on the Plains The credibility of the Garden myth was strengthened by the unusually high levels of rainfall recorded throughout the 1870s and early 1880s which further encouraged settlement But by the mid 1880s the Plains entered a period of low rainfall and massive out migration Families began to leave with signs on their wagons In God we trusted in Kansas we busted The heyday of the Old West was from roughly 1865 to 1890 During this period American migrants drove Indians from their homelands and settled more than 430 million acres of land which doubled the size of the nation Furthermore these settlers carved out ten new states Finally three western based commercial empires rose and fell between 1865 and 1890 mining especially gold and silver farming and the cattle industry The Images that arose form the western experience Americans continue to associate with the Old West became a breeding ground for a number of fictional characters who seem to embody rugged individualism and selfreliance such as the yeoman farmer the wealthy cattle baron the lawless gunslinger and the hardy cowboy Wild Buffalo Bill Cody Wild Bill Hickock Wyatt Earp Billy the Kid The emergence of the Trans Continental railroad represented what big business in the West Progress the rise of So how deals with the Indians the federal government so in essence the government the railroads and big corporations settle the west 2 Some settlers do fight Indians but soon after Little Big Horn the feds get on it and eradicate them Stagecoach scene is a myth One striking event was that at the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 many folks were shocked to know Indians still existed in the West Cowboys The Civil War introduced more people to beef so after the war there was a great demand for beef in the east Coast Historians say approximately 35 000 men worked as cowboys between 1864 and 1884 Of those 35 000 men approximately 25 were black 12 Mexican and 63 White Surprisingly enough cowboys work on cattle drives for only a 20 year period in this time they than 5 000 000 head of cattle from breeding grounds in Texas to railheads in Kansas The railroads then allowed western ranchers to ship cattle to markets in the East and to Europe The cowboy was the everyday laborer on the drives The cowboy worked in close cooperation with others during the drive and under the supervision of the trail boss He was hired by the owner and was under contract for the drive north Some of the trail drives were the Goodnight Loving that began near Weatherford Western Trail Chisholm Trail and Sedalia Baxter Trail Mention about the Spanish contributions in clothing and methods Give a slight history of the Mexican cattle men The fact of life in the West was not independence and self reliance but rather cooperation and interdependence The Native Population The end of the Civil War and the settling of the West ushered in a massive reduction in the indigenous population of North America has been a defining factor in American Indian history Historians estimate that the Indian population stood at 10 million during the 1600s By 1865 however just 300 000 remained Disease and near constant warfare among Indian tribes and between native peoples and the United States decimated indigenous tribes during this period Many Indians die of disease with out ever seeing a EuroAmerican After the Civil War