Chapter 6 -- The South and West Transformed
1865-1900
Name:
Section 1: The New South
Why It Matters After Reconstruction ended, the South struggled to develop its industry. Although there were pockets of success,
the South was not able to overcome its economic and social obstacles to industrial development overall. As a result, the South
remained largely agricultural and poor.
Section Focus Question: How did the southern economy and society change after the Civil War?
Industries and Cities Grow
During the Gilded Age, many southern white leaders envisioned a modernized economy that included not only agriculture but
also mills and factories. Henry Grady was among those who called for a “New South” that would use its resources to develop
industry.
New Industries Spread Through the South Before the Civil War, the South had shipped its raw materials—including cotton,
wood, and iron ore—abroad or to the North for processing into finished goods. In the 1880s, northern money backed textile factories
in western North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, as well as cigar and lumber production, especially in North Carolina and
Virginia. Investment in coal-, iron-, and steel-processing created urban centers in Nashville, Tennessee and Birmingham, Alabama.
During this time, farming also became somewhat more diversified, with an increase in grain, tobacco, and fruit crops. Even the
landscape of farming changed as smaller farms replaced large plantations.
Railroads Link Cities and Towns A key component of industrialization is transportation. To meet this need, southern rail lines
expanded, joining rural as with urban hubs such as Mobile and Montgomery in Alabama and the hustling ports of New Orleans,
Louisiana, and Charleston, South Carolina. Yet by the 1880s, only two rail lines—from Texas to Chicago and from Tennessee to
Washington, D.C.—linked southern freight to northern markets.
To combat economic isolation, southerners lobbied the federal government for economic help and used prison labor to keep
railroad construction costs down. Gradually, rail connections supported the expansion of small hubs such as Meridian, Mississippi,
and Americus, Georgia. The new cities of Atlanta, Dallas, and Nashville developed and began rivaling the old.
Southern Economic Recovery is Limited Despite these changes, the southern economy continued to lag behind the rest of the
country. While the North was able to build on its strong industrial base, the South first had to repair the damages of war. Moreover,
industry rests on a three-legged stool: natural resources, labor, and capital investment. The South had plenty of the first but not
enough of the second and third.
Sustained economic development requires workers who are well trained and productive as well as consumers who can spend.
Public education in the South was limited. In fact, the South spent less than any other part of the country on education, and it lacked
the technical and engineering schools that could have trained the people needed by industry. At the same time, low wages
discouraged skilled workers from coming to the South, and the lure of higher wages or better conditions elsewhere siphoned off
southern workers.
Additionally, very few southern banks had survived the war, and those that were functioning had fewer assets than their northern
competitors. Most of the South’s wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few people. Poor tenant farmers and low-paid factory
workers did not have cash to deposit. With few strong banks, southern financiers were often dependent on northern banks to start or
expand businesses or farms. The southern economy suffered from this lack of labor and capital.
Checkpoint What factors limited southern economic recovery?
Southern Farmers Face Hard Times
Before the Civil War, most southern planters had concentrated on such crop as cotton and tobacco, which were grown not for
their own use but to be sold for cash. The lure of the cash crop continued after the war, despite efforts to diversify. One farm
magazine recommended that “instead of cotton fields, patches of grain, let us have fields of grain, and patches of cotton.”
Cotton Dominates Agriculture Cotton remained the centerpiece of southern agricultural economy. Although at the end of the
Civil War cotton production had dropped to about one third of its prewar levels, by the late 1880s, it had rebounded. However, during
the war, many European textile factories had found suppliers outside the South, and the price of cotton had fallen. Now, the South’s
abundance of cotton simply depressed the price further.
Dependence on one major crop was extremely risky. In the case of southern cotton, it was the boll weevil that heralded disaster.
The boll weevil, a beetle which could destroy an entire crop of cotton, appeared in Texas in the early 1890s. Over the next decade, the
yield from cotton cultivation in some states dropped by more than 50 percent. By 1900, cotton’s appeal and its problems dominated
the southern economy, much as they had before the Civil War.
Farmers Band Together Faced with serious difficulties, Texas farmers in the 1870s began to organize and to negotiate as a group
for lower prices for supplies. The idea spread. Local organizations linked together in what became known as the Farmers’ Alliance.
These organizations soon connected farmers not only in the South but also in the West. Farmers’ Alliance members tried to convince
the government to force railroads to lower freight prices so members could get their crops to markets outside the South at reduced
Chapter 6, Sep 2014
Reprinted from Prentice Hall United States History ©2012
Replaces previous edition dated Aug 2014
SAB x5030
rates. Because of regularly rising rates, the Alliances also wanted the government to regulate the interest that banks could charge for
loans.
Checkpoint Why did southern farmers face hard times?
Black Southerners Gain and Lose
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments had changed African Americans’ legal status. Over time, however, these
legal gains were pushed back by a series of Supreme Court decisions.
Political and Economic Gains Citizenship afforded black southerners the right to vote in local and federal elections, and for a
few black people it provided the means to serve their country in government or in the military. Some African Americans opened
urban businesses or bought farmland. In developing the Farmers’ Alliances, white leaders in some places invited black farmers to
join, reasoning that the alliance would be stronger if all farmers took part. In this way, the Farmers’ Alliances offered a glimpse of the
political possibilities of interracial cooperation.
Perhaps the most important gain for southern African Americans, however, was access to education. Hundreds of basic-literacy
schools and dozens of teachers’ colleges, supported by the federal government or by northern philanthropists, enabled African
Americans to learn to read and write.
White Backlash Begins Many realities of southern black lives did not change much, however. Some white southerners focused
their own frustrations on trying to reverse the gains African Americans had achieved during Reconstruction.
Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan used terror and violence to intimidate African Americans. Meanwhile, many African American
freedoms were whittled away. Churches that were once integrated became segregated. New laws supported the elimination of black
government officials.
With Congress’s enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, they guaranteed black patrons the right to ride trains and use public
facilities such as hotels. However, in a series of civil rights’ cases decided in 1883, the Supreme Court ruled that decisions about who
could use public accommodations was a local issue, to be governed by state or local laws. Southern municipalities took advantage of
this ruling to further limit the rights of African Americans.
Checkpoint How did southern blacks lose their rights?
SECTION
1 Assessment
Comprehension
1. Terms and People For each item
below, write a sentence explaining its
role in southern life.

cash crop

Farmers’ Alliance

Civil Rights Act of 1875
2. NoteTaking Reading Skill:
Identify Supporting Details Use
your concept web to answer the
Section Focus Question: How did
the southern economy and society
change after the Civil War?
Progress Monitoring Online
For: Self-test with vocabulary practice
Web Code: nca-1501
Writing About History
3. Quick Write: Define a topic for an
Oral Presentation Begin planning
an oral presentation on the economic
recovery of the South after the Civil
War. First, make a list of what you
already know about that topic. Then,
narrow down the list to focus on a
specific topic. Describe this topic in
one sentence.
Critical Thinking
4. Categorize What positive steps did
the South take to industrialize after the
Civil War?
5. Recognize Cause and Effect How did
southern agriculture suffer from the
domination of cotton?
6. Make Comparisons How did southern
African Americans both gain and lose
civil rights after the Civil War?
Section 2: Westward Expansion and the American Indians
Why It Matters In 1787, the Constitution granted sole power for regulating trade
with the Native Americans to the federal government. This is just one of many
decrees that would establish the long, strained relationship between the federal
government and Native Americans. During the 1830s, the federal government forced
Native Americans from the East to resettle west of the Mississippi River and
promised them the land there forever. In the 1840s through the 1860s, pressure from
white settlers weakened this promise. In the ensuing contest, Native American cultures
were irrevocably changed.
Section Focus Question: How did the pressures of westward expansion
impact Native Americans?
2
Cultures Under Pressure
By the end of the Civil War, about 250,000 Indians lived in the region west of the Mississippi River referred to as
“The Great American Desert.” While lumped together in the minds of most Americans as “Indians,” Native Americans
embraced many different belief systems, languages, and ways of life.
Diverse Cultures Geography influenced the cultural diversity of Native Americans. In the Pacific Northwest, the
Klamaths, Chinooks, and Shastas benefited from abundant supplies of fish and forest animals. Farther south, smaller
bands of hunter-gatherers struggled to exist on diets of small game, insects, berries, acorns, and roots. In the arid lands
of New Mexico and Arizona, the Pueblos irrigated the land to grow corn, beans, and squash. They built adobe homes
high in the cliffs to protect themselves from aggressive neighbors. The more mobile Navajos lived in homes made of
mud or in hogans that could be moved easily. The most numerous and nomadic Native Americans were the Plains
Indians, including the Sioux, Blackfeet, Crows, Cheyenne, and Comanches. The Plains Indians were expert horsemen
and hunters. The millions of buffalo that roamed the Plains provided a rich source for lodging, clothing, food, and tools.
Indian cultures, however, shared a common thread—they saw themselves as part of nature and viewed nature as
sacred. By contrast, many white people viewed the land as a resource to produce wealth. These differing views sowed
the seeds of conflict.
Threatened by Advancing Settlers In the early 1800s, the government carried out a policy of moving Native
Americans out of the way of white settlers. President Jackson moved the Cherokees off their land in Georgia and onto
the Great Plains. To white settlers, Native Americans were welcome to this “Great American Desert,” so called as it was
thought to be uninhabitable. To limit conflict, an 1834 law regulated trade relations with Indians and strictly limited the
access of white people to this Indian Territory. White settlement generally paused at the eastern rim of the territory and
resumed in the Far West.
By the 1850s, however, federal policy toward Native Americans was again challenged: Gold and silver had been
discovered in Indian Territory as well as settled regions further west. Americans wanted a railroad that crossed the
continent. In 1851, therefore, the federal government began to restrict Indians to smaller areas. By the late 1860s,
Indians were forced onto separate reservations, specific areas set aside by the government for the Indians’ use. No
longer free to roam the Plains, Indians faced suppression and poverty.
Two more staggering blows threatened Native American civilizations: White settlers introduced diseases to which
Indians had no immunity, and the vitally important buffalo herds were destroyed. In the 1870s, hunters slaughtered
hundreds of buffaloes in a single day. They skinned the animals for their hides and left the meat to rot. Trainloads of
tourists came to kill buffaloes purely for sport, leaving behind both the valuable meat and hides.
Checkpoint What three circumstances hurt Native Americans?
New Settlers and Native Americans Clash
The rapid industrial development and expansion following the Civil War set Native Americans and white settlers on
a collision course. Advances in communication and transportation that supported industrial growth also reinforced faith
in manifest destiny. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, encouraged the poor to move West:
Primary Source “lf you strike off into the broad, free West, and make yourself a farm from Uncle
Sam’s generous domain, you will crowd nobody, starve nobody, and neither you nor your children
need evermore beg…”
—New York Tribune, February 5,1867
Generally ignored was the fact that Native Americans inhabited half of the area of the United States. Indians fought
to retain or regain whatever they could.
Rebellion and Tragedy on the Plains In 1862, while the Civil War raged in the East, a group of Sioux Indians had
resisted threats to their land rights by attacking settlements in eastern Minnesota. In response, the government waged a
full-scale war against the Sioux, who then were pushed west into the Dakotas.
The Sioux rebellion sparked a series of attacks on settlements and stagecoach lines as other Plains Indians also saw
their way of life slipping away. Each battle took its toll, raising the level of distrust on all sides. In the fall of 1864, a
band of Colorado militia came upon an unarmed camp of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, who were under U.S. Army
protection, gathered at Sand Creek. The troops opened fire, killing many men, women, and children despite the Indians’
efforts to signal their friendship by raising the American flag.
Praise turned to scorn for the commanding officer, John Chivington, when the facts of the encounter became known.
The Sand Creek Massacre spawned another round of warfare as Plains Indians joined forces to repel white settlement.
Once the Civil War ended, regiments of Union troops—both white and African American—were sent to the West to
subdue the Indians. Recruitment posters for volunteer cavalry promised that soldiers could claim any “horses or other
plunder” taken from the Indians. The federal government defended its decision to send troops as necessary to maintain
order.
Peace Plans Fail As the Plains Indians renewed their efforts to hold onto what they had, the federal government
announced plans to build a road through Sioux hunting grounds to connect gold-mining towns in Montana. Hostilities
3
intensified. In 1866, the legendary warrior Red Cloud and his followers lured Captain William Fetterman and his troops
into an ambush, killing them all.
The human costs of the struggle drew a public outcry and called the government’s Indian policy into question. As
reformers and humanitarians promoted education for Indians, westerners sought strict controls over them. The
government-appointed United States Indian Peace Commission concluded that lasting peace would come only if Native
Americans settled on farms and adapted to the civilization of the whites.
In an effort to pacify the Sioux and to gain more land, the government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The
government agreed not to build the road through Sioux territory and to abandon three forts. The Sioux and others who
signed the treaty agreed to live on a reservation with support from the federal government. The Bureau of Indian Affairs,
established in 1824, handled affairs between Native Americans and the government. The agency appointed an agent
who was responsible for distributing land and adequate supplies to anyone willing to farm as well as for maintaining
peaceful relations between the reservation and its neighbors. A school and other communal buildings were also
promised by the treaty.
As often happened, some Indians could not live within the imposed restrictions. Unfortunately, many Indian agents
were unscrupulous and stole funds and resources that were supposed to be distributed to the Indians. Even the most
well-meaning agents often lacked support from the federal government or the military to enforce the terms of the treaties
that were beneficial to Native Americans.
Checkpoint Why did tensions exist between settlers and Indians?
The End of the Indian Wars
The conditions facing Native Americans had all the ingredients for tragedy. Indians were confined to isolated and
impoverished areas, which were regularly ravaged by poverty and disease. Promises made to them were eventually
broken. Frustration, particularly among young warriors, turned to violence. Guns replaced treaties as the government
crushed open rebellions.
Red River War The Red River War, a series of major and minor incidents led to the final defeat of the powerful
southern Plains Indians, including the Kiowas and Comanches. It marked the end of the southern buffalo herds and the
opening of the western panhandle of Texas to white settlement. At the heart of the matter was the failure of the United
States government to abide by and enforce the terms of the 1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge. White buffalo hunters were
not kept off Indian hunting grounds, food and supplies from the government were not delivered, and white lawlessness
was not punished. Hostilities began with an attack by Indians on a group of Texans near the Red River in June 1874.
They came to an end in June 1875 after the last Comanche holdouts surrendered to U.S. troops.
Battle of Little Big Horn It was the lure of gold not animal hides that led to the defeat of the Indians on the northern
Plains. The Black Hills Gold Rush of 1875 drew prospectors onto Sioux hunting grounds in the Dakotas and
neighboring Montana. When the Sioux, led by chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, assembled to drive them out, the
U.S. Army sent its own troops against the Native Americans.
In June 1876, a colonel named George Custer rushed ahead of the other columns of the U.S. cavalry and arrived a
day ahead of the main force. Near the Little Bighorn River, in present-day Montana, Custer and his force of about 250
men unexpectedly came upon a group of at least 2,000 Indians. Crazy Horse led the charge at what became known as
the Battle of the Little Big Horn, killing Custer and all of his men.
Cries for revenge motivated army forces to track down the Indians. Sitting Bull and a small group of followers
escaped to Canada. Crazy Horse and his followers surrendered, beaten by weather and starvation. By then, the will and
the means to wage major resistance had been crushed.
Chief Joseph and the Nez Percés Farther west, in Idaho, another powerful drama played out. In 1877, the federal
government decided to move the Nez Percés to a smaller reservation to make room for white settlers. Many of the Nez
Percés were Christians and had settled down and become successful horse and cattle breeders. They had pride in
themselves and a great deal to lose.
Trying to evade U.S. troops who had come to enforce their relocation, the Nez Percés’s leader Chief Joseph led a
group of refugees on a trek of more than 1,300 miles to Canada. Stopped just short of the border, Chief Joseph
surrendered with deeply felt words: “I will fight no more forever.” Banished with his group to a barren reservation in
Oklahoma, he traveled twice to Washington, D.C., to lobby for mercy for his people.
Wounded Knee With the loss of many leaders and the destruction of their economy, Native Americans’ ability to
resist diminished. In response, many Indians welcomed a religious revival based on the Ghost Dance. Practitioners
preached that the ritual would banish white settlers and restore the buffalo to the Plains. As the popularity of the
movement spread, government officials became concerned about where it might lead.
In 1890, in an effort to curtail these activities, the government ordered the arrest of Sitting Bull. In the
confrontation, he and several others were killed. Troops then set out after the group of Indians as they fled. Hostilities
broke out at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, when the well-armed cavalry met and outgunned Indians. The ground was
stained with the blood of more than 100 men, women, and children. The tragic end of the Ghost Dance War at
Wounded Knee sealed the Indians’ demise.
Checkpoint What rebellions ended major Indian resistance?
4
The Government Promotes Assimilation
The reservation policy was a failure. Making Indians live in confined areas as wards of the government was costly in
human and economic terms. Policy makers hoped that as the buffalo became extinct, Indians would become farmers and
be assimilated into national life by adopting the culture and civilization of whites.
Reformers Criticize Government Policy A few outspoken critics defended the Indians’ way of life. In A Century
of Dishonor, Helen Hunt Jackson decried the government’s treatment of Native Americans:
Primary Source “There is not among these three hundred bands of Indians one which has not suffered cruelly at the
hands either of the Government or of white settlers. The poorer, the more insignificant, the more helpless the band, the
more certain the cruelty and outrage to which they have been subjected… It makes little difference where one opens the
record of the history of the Indians; every page and every year has its dark stain...”
—Helen Hunt Jackson, 1881
Susette La Flesche, the granddaughter of a French trader and an Omaha Indian woman, also used her writing and
lecturing talents to fight for recognition of the Indians and Indian rights in the courts. Born on the Omaha reservation in
Nebraska, she studied in the East and returned to the reservation to teach.
Congress Passes the Dawes Act In 1871, Congress had passed a law stating that “no Indian nation or tribe within
the United States would be recognized as an independent nation, tribe or power with whom the United States may
contract by treaty.” Indians were now to be treated as individuals.
Partly in response to reformers like La Flesche and Jackson and partly to accelerate the process of assimilation,
Congress passed the Dawes General Allotment Act (sometimes known as the Dawes Severalty Act) in 1887. The
Dawes Act replaced the reservation system with an allotment system. Each Indian family was granted a 160-acre
farmstead. The size of the farm was based on the eastern experience of how much land was needed to support a family.
In the arid West, however, the allotment was not big enough.
To protect the new Indian owners from unscrupulous speculators, the Dawes Act specified that the land could not be
sold or transferred from its original family for 25 years. Congress hoped that by the end of that time, younger Indians
would embrace farming and individual landownership. To further speed assimilation, missionaries and other reformers
established boarding schools, to which Indian parents were encouraged to send their children. Indian children were to
learn to live by the rules and culture of white America. The struggle to retain their homeland, freedom, and culture
proved tragic. Although Native Americans faced their enemy with courage and determination, tens of thousands died in
battle or on squalid reservations. Only a small number were left to carry on their legacy.
Checkpoint How did the Dawes Act change the way Indians were treated?
SECTION
2 Assessment
Comprehension
1. Terms and People For each item
below, write a sentence explaining
its significance to the fate of Native
Americans.

reservation

Sand Creek Massacre

Sitting Bull

Battle of the Little Big Horn

Chief Joseph

Wounded Knee

assimilate

Dawes General Allotment
Act
Progress Monitoring Online
For: Self-test with vocabulary practice
Web Code: nca-1502
2. NoteTaking Reading Skill:
Identify Supporting Details Use
your concept web and timeline to
answer the Section Focus Question:
How did the pressure of westward
expansion impact Native Americans?
Critical Thinking
4. Recognize Cause and Effect Why did
Native Americans and white settlers
clash?
Writing About History
3. Quick Write: Research an Oral
Presentation Use library or Internet
resources to gather information on one
of the battles in the Indian Wars.
Afterwards, list at least two written
sources and two images that you
might use in an oral presentation.
6. Identify Central Issues What steps were
taken to foster assimilation of Native
Americans?
5. Analyze Information How did Native
Americans try but fail to keep their land?
Section 3: Transforming the West
Why It Matters The West was swept by enormous change after the Civil War. As railroads increased access, settlers,
ranchers, and miners permanently transformed millions of acres of western land.
Section Focus Question: What economic and social factors changed the West after the Civil War?
5
Miners Hope to Strike It Rich
Mining was the first great boom in the West. Gold and silver were the magnets that attracted a vast number of
people. Prospectors from the East were just a part of a flood that included people from all around the world.
Mining Towns Spring Up From the Sierra Nevada to the Black Hills, there was a similar pattern and tempo to
the development of mining regions. First came the discovery of gold or silver. Then, as word spread, people began to
pour into an area that was ill prepared for their arrival. The discovery of gold at Pikes Peak in Colorado and the Carson
River valley in Nevada are classic examples. Mining camps sprang up quickly to house the thousands of people who
flooded the region. They were followed by more substantial communities. Miners dreamed of finding riches quickly and
easily. Others saw an opportunity to make their fortune by supplying the needs of miners for food, clothing, and
supplies.
The rough-and-tumble environment of these communities called out for order. To limit violence and administer
justice in areas without judges or jails, miners set up rules of conduct and procedures for settling disputes. In extreme
situations, self-appointed law enforcers known as vigilantes punished lawbreakers. As towns developed, they hired
marshals and sheriffs, like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, to keep the peace. Churches set up committees to address
social problems.
Some mining towns—like Leadville, Colorado, and Nevada City, Montana—were “boomtowns.” They thrived only
as long as the gold and silver held out. Even if a town had developed churches and schools, it might become a ghost
town, abandoned when the precious metal disappeared. In contrast, Denver, Colorado; Boise, Idaho; and Helena,
Montana, were among the cities that diversified and grew.
Large Companies Make Mining Big Business The first western mining was done by individuals, who extracted
the minerals from the surface soil or a streambed. By the 1870s, the remaining mineral wealth was located deep
underground. Big companies with the capital to buy mining equipment took over the industry. Machines drilled deep
mine shafts. Tracks lined miles of underground tunnels. Crews—often recruited from Mexico and China—worked in
dangerous conditions underground.
The arrival of the big mining companies highlighted an issue that would relentlessly plague the West: water and its
uses. Large-scale mining required lots of water pumped under high pressure to help separate the precious metals from
silt. As the silt washed down the mountains, it fouled water being used by farmers and their livestock. Despite these
concerns, the federal government continued to support large mining companies by providing inexpensive land and
approving patents for new inventions. Mining wealth helped fuel the nation’s industrial development.
Checkpoint What were the two major phases of mining?
Railroaders Open the West
As industry in the West grew, the need for a railroad to transport goods increased as well. The idea of a
transcontinental railroad, a rail link between the East and the West, was not new. Arguments over the route it should
take, however, had delayed implementation. While the Civil War kept the South out of the running, Congress finally
took action.
Building the Transcontinental Railroad Unlike Europe, where railroads were built and owned by governments,
the United States expected its railroads to be built by private enterprise. Congress supported construction of the
transcontinental railroad in two ways: It provided money in the form of loans and made land grants, giving builders
wide stretches of land, alternating on each side of the track route.
Simultaneously in 1863, the Central Pacific started laying track eastward from Sacramento, California, while the
Union Pacific headed westward from Omaha, Nebraska. Construction proved to be both difficult and expensive.
The human cost of building the railroad was also high. Starved for labor, the Central Pacific Company brought
recruits from China and set them to work under harsh contracts and with little regard for their safety. Inch by inch, they
chipped and blasted their way through the granite-hard Sierra Nevada and Rockies. Meanwhile, working for the Union
Pacific, crews of Irish immigrants crossed the level plains from the East. The two tracks eventually met at Promontory,
Utah, in 1869, the same year that the Suez Canal was completed in Egypt. The continent and the world were shrinking
in size.
Railroads Intensify Settlement The effects of the railroads were far reaching. They tied the nation together, moved
products and people, and spurred industrial development.
The railroads also stimulated the growth of towns and cities. Speculators vied for land in places where a new
railroad might be built, and towns already in existence petitioned to become a stop on the western rail route . Railroads
intensified the demand for Indians’ land and brought white settlers who overwhelmed Mexican American communities
in the Southwest. There was no turning back the tide as waves of pioneers moved west.
The addition of states to the Union exemplifies the West’s growth. Requirements for statehood included a
population of at least 60,000 inhabitants. Between 1864 and 1896, ten territories met those requirements and became
states.
Checkpoint How did the government encourage the development of a transcontinental railroad?
6
Ranchers Build the Cattle Kingdom
Cattle ranching fueled another western boom. This was sparked by the vast acres of grass suitable for feeding herds
of cattle. Once the railroad provided the means to move meat to eastern markets, the race was on for land and water.
Vaqueros and Texas Longhorns Long before the arrival of eastern settlers in the West, Mexicans in Texas had
developed an efficient system for raising livestock. The Texas longhorn, which originated in Mexico, roamed freely and
foraged for its own feed. Each owner marked—or “branded”—the cattle so they could be identified. Under this openrange system, property was not fenced in. Though ranchers claimed ownership and knew the boundaries of their
property, cattle from any ranch grazed freely across those boundaries. When spring came, the ranchers would hire
cowboys to comb thousands of acres of open range, “rounding up” cattle that had roamed all winter. The culture of the
cowboy owed its very existence to the Mexican vaqueros who had learned to train horses to work with cattle and had
developed the roping skills, saddle, lariat, and chaps needed to do the job.
Cowboys and Cattle Drives Once cows were rounded up, cowboys began the long cattle drive to take the animals to
a railroad that would transport them to eastern markets. The trek from Texas, Colorado, or Montana to the nearest
junction on the transcontinental railroad could take weeks or even months.
The cowboys’ work was hard, dangerous, low-paying, and lonely—often involving months of chasing cattle over
the countryside. A band of cowboys often included a mix of white, Mexican, and African American men.
The Cow Towns Cattle drives concluded in such railroad towns as Dodge City, Kansas, where the cattle were sold
and the cowboys were paid. These cow towns gave rise to stories about colorful characters such as Wild Bill Hickok,
Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and Jesse James. They were also the site of rodeos, competitions based on the cowboys’
skills of riding, roping, and wrestling cattle. Bill Pickett, an African American cowboy, is credited with inventing
bulldogging, in which a cowboy leaps from his horse onto a steer’s horns and wrestles the steer to the ground.
The End of Open-Range Ranching Open-range ranching flourished for more than a decade after the Civil War.
During that time, several million cattle were driven from Texas north to the railroad stops in Wyoming, Nebraska, and
Kansas. But by the mid-1880s, however, the heyday of open-ranching came to an end.
Several factors contributed to the demise of the open range. The invention of barbed wire made it possible to fence
in huge tracts of land on the treeless plains. The supply of beef exceeded demand, and the price of beef dropped sharply.
Added to these factors was a period of extreme weather in the 1880s—brutally freezing winters followed by summer
droughts. As springs dried up, herds of cattle starved. The nature of cattle ranching changed as ranchers began to raise
hay to feed their stock, and farmers and sheepherders settled on what had been open range.
Checkpoint How did the railroad affect the cattle industry?
Farmers Settle of Homesteads
The Great Plains were the last part of the country to be heavily settled by white people. It was originally set
aside for Indians because it was viewed as too dry for agriculture. Yet, with the coming of the transcontinental
railroad, millions of farmers moved into the West in the last huge westward migration in the mid- to late 1800s.
Farmers Move to the Plains The push-and-pull factors that encouraged settlement were varied. Like the miners
and cattle ranchers, farmers were looking for a better life. Railroads advertised land for sale, even sending agents to
Europe to lure new immigrants, especially from Scandinavia. Other immigrants fled political upheavals in their native
lands. Under the Homestead Act, passed in 1862, the government offered farm plots of 160 acres to anyone willing to
live on the land for five years, dig a well, and build a road.
Some of these new settlers were former slaves who fled the South after the end of Reconstruction. Benjamin
Singleton, a black businessman from Tennessee, helped organize a group of African Americans called the
“Exodusters.” They took their name from the biblical story of Moses leading the exodus of the Jews out of bondage
and into a new life in the “Promised Land.” The Exodusters’ “promised land” was in Kansas and Oklahoma, where they
planted crops and founded several enduring all-black towns.
Mining, railroad building, and cattle herding were generally male occupations, so much of the western migration
was led by men. But women arrived, too. Everyone had a job to do, either tending the family and farm or working as an
entrepreneur running a boardinghouse, laundry, or bakery.
Challenges Demand Solutions The life of homesteaders was hard. Windstorms, blizzards, droughts, plagues
of locusts, and heart-rending loneliness tested their endurance. On the treeless plains, few new arrivals could afford to
buy lumber to build a home. Instead, they cut 3-foot sections of sod and stacked them like bricks, leaving space for a
door and one window. The resulting home was dark, dirty, and dingy.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and farmers on the Plains had many needs beyond housing. The development
of barbed wire, a length of wire with twisted barbs, enabled a farmer to fence land cheaply to keep out wandering
livestock. The development of a plow that could tackle the sod-covered land, the grain drill that opened furrows and
planted seed, the windmill that tapped underground water, and dry-farming techniques were some of the innovations that
enabled farmers to succeed. To spur development of better ways to farm, Congress passed the Morrill Act in 1862,
which granted land to states for the purpose of establishing agricultural colleges.
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Nothing, however, prepared farmers for a series of blizzards and droughts in the 1880s and 1890s that killed animals
and ruined harvests. Some of the discouraged and ill-prepared settlers headed back east. The farmers who remained
became more commercial and depended more on scientific farming methods.
Checkpoint Why did farmers move to the Plains?
Competition, Conflict, and Change
There is a sharp contrast between the picture of the West depicted in novels and movies and the reality of life on the
Plains. The West was a place of rugged beauty, but it was also a place of diversity and conflict.
Economic Rivalries The various ways that settlers sought to use western land were sometimes at odds with one
another. Conflicts between miners, ranchers, sheepherders, and farmers led to violence and acts of sabotage. And no
matter who won, Native Americans lost. Grazing cattle ruined farmers’ crops, and sheep gnawed grass so close to the
ground that cattle could not graze the same land. Although miners did not compete for vast stretches of grassland, runoff
from large-scale mining polluted water that ran onto the Plains—and everyone needed water.
Early on, geologist John Wesley Powell recognized water as an important but limited resource. He promoted
community control and distribution of water for the common good. Despite his efforts, water usage remained largely
unregulated to the benefit of some but not all.
Prejudices and Discrimination From the 1850s onward, the West had the widest diversity of people in the nation.
With fewer than 20 percent of the nation’s total population, it was home to more than 80 percent of the nation’s Asian,
Mexican and Mexican American, and Native American residents. Chinese immigrants alone accounted for 100,000
immigrants, almost all of them in the West.
Ethnic tensions often lurked beneath the surface. Many foreign-born white people sought their fortunes on the
American frontier, especially in the years following the mid-century revolutions in Europe. Their multiple languages
joined the mix of several dozen Native American language groups. Differences m food, religion, and cultural practices
reinforced each group’s fear and distrust of the others. But mostly it was in the larger cities or towns that discrimination
was openly displayed. Chinese immigrants, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans were most often its targets.
Conflict came in many guises. For example, ranchers often belittled homesteaders, labeling them “sodbusters” to
mock their work in the soil and their modest houses. Conflict also arose because the view of the ownership of natural
resources varied. For many generations, Mexicans had mined salt from the salt beds of the El Paso valley. Mexicans
viewed these areas as public property, open to all. However, when Americans arrived in the 1870s, they laid claim to the
salt beds and aimed to sell the salt for profit. In 1877, in what became known as the El Paso Salt War, Americans and
Mexicans clashed over access to this crucial commodity. When the battles ended, the salt beds were no longer
communal property. Now, users would have to buy this natural product.
Closing the Frontier The last major land rush took place in 1889 when the federal government opened the Oklahoma
Territory to homesteaders. On April 22, thousands of “boomers” gathered along the border. When the signal was given,
they charged in to stake their claims. However, they found that much of the best land had already been taken by
“sooners,” who had sneaked into the territory and staked their claims before the official opening.
The following year, the 1890 national census concluded that there was no longer a square mile of the United States
that did not have at least a few white residents. The country, the report said, no longer had a “frontier,” which at the time
was considered an uninhabited wilderness where no white person lived. The era of free western land had come to an
end.
However, the challenges and tensions were far from over. Controversies over Indians’ land rights were still to
come. So, too, were more battles over water and over the mistreatment of minority citizens—especially the Chinese and
the Mexican Americans. One historian has described Mexican Americans as “foreigners in their own land.” And as the
number of African Americans increased in the West, they, too, would battle discrimination.
Checkpoint What were some of the causes of prejudice and discrimination in the West?
SECTION
3 Assessment
Comprehension
1. Terms and People For each of the
following terms, write two or three
sentences explaining its significance

vigilante

transcontinental railroad

land grant

open-range system

Homestead Act

Exoduster
Progress Monitoring Online
For: Self-test with vocabulary practice
Web Code: nca-1503
Writing About History
3. Quick Write: Outline an Oral
Presentation Make an outline for
an oral presentation on the
challenges of farming on the Great
Plains. Write your main ideas and
supporting details on separate note
cards. Determine the order in
which you will likely deliver your
speech, and number each card
accordingly. Include any facts and
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Critical Thinking
4. Make Comparisons How did mining in
the West change over time?
5. Recognize Cause and Effect How did
railroads contribute to the settlement and
growth of the West?
6. Express Problems Clearly How did
economic and cultural diversity cause
conflicts in the West?
2. NoteTaking Reading Skill:
Identify Main Ideas Use your chart
to answer the Section Focus Question:
What economic and social factors
changed the West after the Civil War?
quotations on the cards as well.
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