Chp. 16: The Conquest of the Far West

Arapaho and Cheyenne were coming into conflict with white miners settling in the region. Bands of Indians attacked stagecoach lines and settlements in an effort to regain lost territory. In response to these incidents, whites called up a large territorial militia, and the army issued dire threats of retribution. Colonel J.M. Chivington led a volunteer militia force and massacred 133 people

some Texas cattle ranchers began driving their combined herds as much as 260,000 head, north to Sedalia, Missouri, on the Missouri Pacific Railroad. the caravan suffered heavy losses and only a fraction of the animals arrived in Sedalia. proved cattle could be driven to distant markets and pastured along the trail and that they would even gain weight during the journey

5000 Chinese workers strike against railroad company, demanded higher wages and shorter workday. Company isolated them, surrounded them with strike breakers, and starved them. Strike failed and most returned to jobs.

establishes "Indian territory" (later Oklahoma), composed of soldiers and civilians to recommend a new and presumably permanent Indian policy. Commission recommended replacing the "concentration" policy with a plan to move all the Plains Indians into two large reservations - Oklahoma and Dakotas

him and his Cheyenne warriors captured and killed by US forces

first transcontinental railroad, two lines joined at Promontory Point in northern Utah in the spring of 1869

agreed by Chief Cochise, agreed to peace in exchange for a reservation that included some of the tribe's traditional land

invented by Joseph H. Glidden and I.L. Ellwood, became standard equipment on the plains and revolutionized fencing practices

permitted homesteaders to receive grants of 160 additional acres if they planted 40 acres of trees on them.

Black Hills = Dakota territory

brought on by hunting and ecological changes

the tribal warriors surprised Custer and 264 members of his regiment surrounded them, and killed every man

provided that claimants could buy 640 acres at $1.25 an acre provided they irrigated part of their holdings within 3 yrs

the govt. forced them to move into a reservation that another branch of the tribe had accepted by treaty in the 1850s

created by Dennis Kearney, gained significant political power in CA,attacks Chinese immigration

presumably applied to nonarable land, authorized sales at $2.50 an acre

begins operations in Montana. Launched by William Clark, marked beginning of an industry that would remain important to Montana for decades

banned Chinese immigration into US for 10 yrs and barred Chinese already in country from becoming naturalized citizens.

published by Helen Hunt Jackson, the setting for utopia, once the New World as a whole, had shrunk to the West of the US

published by Mark Twain, character who repudiated the constraints of organized society and attempted to escape into a natural world, yearning for freedom reflected larger vision of West as last refuge from constraints of civilization

ends Apache resistance

provided for the gradual elimination of tribal ownership of land and the allotment of tracts to individual owners: 160 acres to the head of the family, 80 acres to a single adult or orphan, 40 acres to each dependent child. Adult owners were given US citizenship but unlike other citizens they could not gain full title to their property for 25 yrs. Applied to most of western tribes

formerly Indian Territory, granted territorial status

12/29/1890: 7th Cavalry (once was Custer's regiment) tried to round up group of 350 Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. 300 Indians massacred, 40 whites died.

prophet Wovoka a Paiute inspired a spiritual awakening that began in Nevada. The new revival emphasized the coming of a messiah but its most conspicuous feature was a mass emotional "Ghost Dance" which inspired ecstatic visions that many participants believed were genuinely mystical

published by Hamlin Garland, the agrarian frontier has seemed to be "the Golden West, the land of wealth and freedom and happiness. All of the associations called up by the spoken word, the West, were fabulous, mythic, hopeful."..."So this is the reality of a dream! A shanty on a barren plain, hot and lone as a desert. My God!"

proposed by Frederick Jackson Turner, argued the end of the "frontier" also marked the end of one of the most important democratizing forces in American life. Turner's definition of frontier: an empty, uncivilized land awaiting settlement

to gain statehood, Utah's political leaders had to convince Congress they had outlawed Mormon practice of polygamy

published by Owen Wister, romanticized the cowboy's freedom from traditional social constraints, his affinity w/ nature, supposed propensity for violence. Semi-educated man whose natural decency, courage, and compassion made him a powerful symbol of the supposed virtues of the frontier

to speed assimilation of tribes but Indians continued to resist forced assimilation