HIST 151 Lecture 4 Chapter 17 The Contested West 1865 1900 Outline of Last Lecture I Ku Klux Klan II Tenure of Office Act Impeachment III Spoils System IV Carpetbaggers and Scalawags V Election of 1876 and Compromise of 1877 Outline of Current Lecture I Homestead Act Homesteading and Sharecroppers II Mormons III Chinese Railroad Workers Coolies Current Lecture Homestead Act Homesteading and Sharecroppers Encouraged easterners from past the Mississippi to go west The Act offered 40 to 180 acres of free land and 5 000 to go and never come back If you stayed on the same land for 5 years and did something to turn a profit the land was yours forever Homesteaders would get their first tax bill in the 6th year and if they could pay it it proved they had turned a profit The government did this because there was overpopulation in the east and it was an investment for the government to make money from new towns and resources Sharecroppers didn t qualify for the act but they went anyway because they were poor They worked the land for the Homesteaders They could work the crop and give the Homesteaders part of the crop for rent They were mostly white renting borrowing and in debt Mormons This is the only major religion that was born in the United States created by Joseph Smith Early Mormons practiced polygamy with one man and many women The majority of people didn t like this or find it appropriate so Smith goes out west to Illinois and is executed along with some of his group 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 Brigham Young becomes the next leader and decides to go to the desert Utah and make his own country The government doesn t like this and sends troops There was a compromise where the Mormons were allowed to have their own state but they had to stop practicing polygamy Chinese Railroad Workers Coolies Single males directly from China began arriving at Angel Island in San Francisco We had never really seen Asians before and hadn t heard Chinese so everybody was very confused by these people They looked funny to us because they were wearing what looked like pjs and had a long braid with the front of their head shaved Of course this was sacred tradition in China but in America we cut off their braids and gave them extremely dangerous railroad jobs and called them Coolies which is a very derogatory term There was no assimilation and China Towns began appearing 80 of America s railroad was built by these workers because they saw American posters in China promising riches
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