SPRING 2007
n e w s
t e a c h e r s
Fall 2007 Book Discussion Series
Focuses on Early Contact and Settlement
Tracing Vermont and New Hampshire
Emigrants in the West
By Sarah Rooker
between the indigenous people and the colonists,
and the contours of early colonial life up through the
middle of the 18th century. Specific books have not
yet been determined, but the topics to be considered include: the native peoples of eastern North
America; similarities and differences between colonial settlement in New England, the Mid-Atlantic,
and the South; contact and conflict between natives
and settlers; the origins of African slavery in
America; culture and politics in the colonial era,
with a focus on early New England towns; and the
settlement of New Hampshire and Vermont.
Fall Sessions
The fall sessions will be held on Tuesdays
from 4-6 p.m: October 16, 30, November 13,
27, 2007, once again in Claremont, NH, and
Dummerston and Hartford, VT. These book
groups are open to all teachers in the Connecticut
River Valley watershed. Books will be provided.
Check the Flow of History website for further
details (www.flowofhistory.org), or contact
Project Historian Alan Berolzheimer at
[email protected], 802-649-2857.
How can you help your students make a local connection to their study of
westward expansion? By tracing the stories of Vermont and
New Hampshire residents who went west. In preparing for our upcoming
summer institute, we spent time searching theWeb for stories of local res-
In this issue:
idents in the West. This is a survey of our finds—we limited the list to
Tracing Vermont and New Hampshire
Emigrants in the West . . . . . . . . . . .1
websites that include primary sources that could be used in the classroom.
Joseph Savage, Hartford,VT,
Emigrant to Kansas . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Book Groups Share
some Western Favorites . . . . . . . . . .6
Children’s Lit of the
Wild,Wild West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Fall 2007 Book Groups . . . . . . . . . .8
Board of Directors
Bridget Fariel, President
Teacher, Rivendell Academy
Susan Bonthron, Secretary
Documentation Specialist
Jen Brown,Treasurer
Teacher, Dummerston School
Sarah Rooker
History Harvest Director
Alan Berolzheimer
Historian
c/o Southeast Vermont Community
Learning Collaborative
Box 1559
Brattleboro,VT 05302
The Spring 2006 Flow of History book groups have
just wrapped up their in-depth study of “The
American West and the Shaping of American
Character.” The context for this subject, of course,
is the westward migration of European Americans
beyond the Appalachian frontier and eventually
across the Mississippi River, and their settling in
western lands that were home to various groups of
Native Americans.That momentous story of contact
and settlement had earlier historical precedents on
the North American continent, and next fall our
Flow book groups will go back to the future and
examine early European settlement, relations
History Harvest Teaching
American History Program
Partners:
Rivendell Interstate School System
Southeast Vermont Community
Learning Collaborative
University of Vermont
Great Falls Regional
Chamber of Commerce
Julia Lovejoy migrated from Lebanon, N.H. to Kansas to fight slavery. Courtesy of www.territorialkansasonline.org.
In 1816 Gershom Flagg, from Orwell,Vermont, was
seized with “Ohio fever” and later “Illinois fever,”
where he eventually settled and farmed. His letters
home compare conditions in Ohio and Vermont and
describe manyVermonters on the move west. His letters are online at the Illinois Historical Society:
http://www.iltrails.org/madison/flagltr.htm. The
website also has excerpts from “Mr. Peck’s 1837
Emigrant Guide” which explains how to get to Illinois
and how best to pack for the journey: http://
www.iltrails.org/1837_emigrant_information.html.
Joseph Savage (see article on page 2) was just one
Vermonter in territorial Kansas who emigrated to
serve the abolitionist cause. A search of “Vermont” or
“New Hampshire” at the Territorial Kansas website
(http://www.territorialkansasonline.org) brings up
numerous primary documents including those of Julia
Louisa Lovejoy from Lebanon, N.H. (see photo
above). She was an ardent abolitionist who wrote letters home to eastern newspapers including the
Independent Democrat of Concord. From Lawrence, on
August 25, 1856, Lovejoy wrote, “We are in the midst
Timeline of Westward Migration and U.S. Expansion
1804- Lewis and Clark expedition explores the
1806 Missouri River and the Oregon Territory,
establishing contact with Native Americans
in the region, describing flora and fauna.
Credits:
Alan Berolzheimer, editor
Jessica Butterfield, graphic design
Prospect Park, printing
www.flowofhistory.org
P: 1.866.889.0042
E: [email protected]
of war—war of the most bloody kind—a war of
extermination. Freedom and slavery are interlocked
in deadly embrace, and death is certain for one or the
other party.” She closed: “Everything is as gloomy as
the grave! The ruffians are circulating their handbills,
in which is printed,‘We give no quarter, nor ask quarter.’Women and children now will not be spared, and
only God knoweth where it will end. Do come and
help us. Come on through Iowa. Forty wagons are
now on their way here in that direction, we learn. If
any of the friends of freedom will set apart a day of
fasting and prayer for bleeding Kansas, they will confer a favor. Do help us in some way and God will
reward you.”
Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), was born
in Vermont, as was Brigham Young. Many joined the
Mormon settlement in Utah, includingWilliam Snow
from St. Johnsbury. His path is typical of many settlers
who moved in incremental steps. Beginning in 1835,
he moved from Ohio to Illinois to Missouri and finally
to Utah, where he settled with his four wives. Snow
continued on page 4
1823 Champlain Canal connects Lake Champlain
and western Vermont to the Hudson River.
1832 Erie Canal connects NewYork with the
Great Lakes and the Northwest Territory.
1808 John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company
takes over from previous French and Spanish
companies and begins to organize trading
outposts along the upper Missouri River.
1845 Annexation of Texas.
1811 Construction of the National Road begins at
Cumberland, MD; reaches Wheeling on the
Ohio River in 1818 andVandalia, IL in 1839.
1846 BrighamYoung leads Mormons from
Nauvoo, IL, to the Great Salt Lake in UT.
continued on page 4
1845 John C. Fremont maps the West.
Joseph Savage (1823-1891), Hartford, VT, Emigrant to Kansas
High School or Adult Fiction
by Alan Berolzheimer
Giants in the Earth, O.E. Rolvaag
A classic novel of Norwegian immigrants
on the Plains.
Between July and December of 1854, six parties of New Englanders embarked for
Kansas, to take a stand for free labor and against slavery. The recently passed
Kansas-Nebraska Act stipulated that these states would be organized as free or
slave according to the concept of “popular sovereignty,” in other words, by a
plebiscite among their residents. Proponents of slavery began flooding into
Kansas Territory from Missouri and other parts of the South; antislavery advocates were compelled to go there, too. Among those who journeyed to Kansas
from Vermont and New Hampshire in the ranks of the New England Emigrant
Aid Society was Clarina Howard Nichols—well-known newspaper publisher,
women’s suffrage advocate, --and the first woman to address the Vermont legislature. Another Kansas emigrant from the region served by today’s Flow of History
network was Joseph Savage of Hartford,Vermont.
Joseph Savage of Hartford,Vermont, emigrated to Kansas in 1854 with the second party of the New England Emigrant Aid Society. Courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society.
Born in Hartford on July 28, 1823, Savage was a descendant of an English
settler from the early seventeenth century. He was a modest Yankee
farmer, looking for a better opportunity out west, when he became
caught up in the Kansas free-soil controversy in 1854. Like so many other
New England emigrants, Savage’s agricultural livelihood was being
squeezed by declining productivity. In a recollection that was later presented to the Douglas County (Kansas) Historical Society, Savage
explained that the orchards on his father’s farm that had once produced
75 barrels of apples a year produced nothing by the 1850s. This decline
he attributed to clear cutting for timber that exposed the apple trees to
cold and wind. Savage had gone to Boston to pursue a scheme to purchase land in Wisconsin, but the city was abuzz with the Kansas question
and he made an impromptu decision to join the second New England
Emigrant Aid party. Savage staked a claim in Lawrence and returned to
Hartford that fall to bring the rest of his family out to start a new life in
Kansas.
Savage wrote detailed “Recollections” of his 1854 experiences, which
were published in a Lawrence newspaper in 1870. He described many
fascinating events. One recalls the origins of a poem by the eminent abolitionist poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, “Song of the Kansas Emigrant.”
The second party was to start onWednesday, and who can judge
of my glad surprise to meet on Tuesday, the day before starting, four
of my companions from home, with instruments of music in their
hands, to accompany us to Kansas. This was the origin of the old
Lawrence Band—a band that has made patriotic music in times and
celebrations that have tried men’s souls; a band that played the
funeral dirge around the grave of a murdered Barber, and around the
graves of those other martyrs to freedom who fell in quick succession
after him.
At Boston a large crowd gathered at the depot to see the second
party off for Kansas.The great American poet, J[ohn]. G[reenleaf].
2
Whittier, had written a poem expressly for us. It was printed on nice
large cards and distributed freely among the crowd, and a request
given by Dr.Webb for all to join in the song, which they did in good
earnest. It was set to Auld Lang Syne.We played the tune over once on
our instruments, and then the song was sung by many with tears in
their eyes. The song was worthy of the poet and the occasion, and
should be written in letters of gold, or chiseled in the solid marble on
the monument which will some day be here erected to freedom.We sang
this song on our weary march across the Shawnee reserve, around our
camp fires, and in the lonely tent on the town site; it was the inspiring
sentiment in the hearts of those who dared to brave all for freedom,and
thus forever consecrate these hills and valleys to her children.
Savage also told of conflict between the pro- and antislavery forces in
Kansas that year.
Just as I was coming into camp for my dinner, Frank Bailey called to
me to come up there, for we were going to have a fight. I ran up, rifle
in hand, and saw Baldwin’s tent lying prostrate on the ground. Mr. B.
swearing vengeance on theYankees and their settlement on his claim.
He had his rifle, and for a while he acted as though he would shoot
some of us with it. He finally went off, saying that he would raise men
enough to clear us all out of the country. I relate these incidents
minutely, because they caused by far the greatest excitement of anything in our early settlement.
Heading back east after the residents of the territory elected a proslavery delegate to Congress in November 1854, Savage’s party encountered
a group of revelers “celebrating their victory over theYankees.”
One man rushed out and seized our horses by their heads, and called
out to know if we were “all right on the ‘goose question.’”This phrase,
“all right on the goose,” was universally used at that time on the
My Antonia,Willa Cather
The tale of the daughter of a Bohemian
immigrant family planning to farm on
the Plains.
O, Pioneers,Willa Cather
The main character is a strong woman; the
descriptions of the prairie are poetic. It presents a balanced picture of frontier living.
Children’s Lit of the Wild, Wild West
A Lesson Plan by Beth Hayslett,Woodstock (VT) Middle School
YOU & YOUR PARTNERS’ NAMES:
During the next week or so, we will be looking at, reading, and evaluating five or six children’s books that are
set in the West. At the end of the project, each group (2-3 people) will be responsible for reading its book
aloud to the class and teaching us something related to it.The books from which we will be selecting are:
New Hope; Henri Sorensen
The Sweetwater Run:The Story of Buffalo Bill Cody and the Pony Express; Andrew Glass
Rhyolite:The True Story of a Ghost Town; Diane Siebert
Death of the Iron Horse; Paul Goble
The Toughest Cowboy, Or How theWildWestWas Tamed; John Frank
Iva Dunnit and the BigWind; Carol Purdy
Nine for California; Sonia Levitin
Shane, Jack Schaefer
VOCABULARY ROUND-UP
A tale of 1889Wyoming when homesteaders
and cattle ranchers were battling for territory.
Select 3-6 words that you think an eight-year-old child might not know.Write them down,
look them up, and write down the relevant definition.
High School or Adult
Nonfiction
Blood and Thunder,
Hampton Sides (Doubleday)
Kit Carson, Narbona, and Navajo struggles
after American conquering of Santa Fe.
Breaking Clean, Judy Blunt (Vintage)
Life on a Montana ranch growing up in the
1950s-70s.
“The Leader of the People”
John Steinbeck
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
FORM-u-lATIN’ QUESTIONS
Have you spent much time around an eight year old recently? Leapin’ lizards, they sure can ask a lot of questions! Write down 5 questions that you think an eight year old might ask about this story.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Short story of the Plains.
Lies My Teacher Told Me,
James Loewen (Touchstone)
Interesting analysis of inaccuracies and
mythmaking by U.S. history textbooks,
showing in example after example how our
perspectives distort our teaching of events.
Undaunted Courage,
Stephen A. Ambrose (Simon & Shuster)
Has valuable material to use in high school
history class.
Whistling Season, Ivan Doig
(Harcourt)
FURTHER RESEARCH
Now, pick one of those five questions and get ready to ride out and rustle up some answers—we’ll be heading for the library at sunrise.
Step One: Rewrite the question from “Form-u-latin’ Questions” that you think is the most interesting,
teachable topic.
What an 8 year old asks:
Step Two: Formulate your research question.
What an 8th grader asks:
Step Three: Write, in sentence form, your group’s plan for finding this information.Your plan must contain at least TWO key words that you could use to search the Internet or the library card catalog, the kinds
of general books that might contain this information, and a question for the librarian.
Set in early-20th-century Montana when
one-room schools were beginning to vanish.
Step Four: In the space below, write down your bibliographic information and take notes. Attach Internet
printouts or photocopies.
Willow Creek,Wallace Stegner
(Penguin)
BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFO:
Short memoir about his parents who
were pioneers.
NOTES:
IS IT A GOODYARN?
Evaluate the story. Is it a good story? Would an 8 year old like it? Do you like the illustrations? What historical facts could a child learn from this story? If you are not sure if something is a historical fact, write it down
as a question to which you could find the answer (i.e.Was Davy Crockett a real person?), and then do a bit
of research. Do you think this book would be a good book for an elementary teacher to include in a unit
about the West? Why or why not?
7
Song of the Kansas Emigrant
Book Groups Share Some Western Favorites
by Alan Berolzheimer
We cross the prairie as of old
The pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make theWest as they the East,
The homestead of the free!
At the end of the spring session on “The American West and the Shaping of American Character,” Flow of History book group participants in Hartford, Dummerston,
and Claremont did show-and-tell with some of their favorite books on the subject. Below is the compiled list, with slight annotations.
Picture Books
Black-Eyed Susan, Jennifer Armstrong
(Yearling)
This provides a good contrast to Little House
on the Prairie because not everyone is cheerful
and heroic; Mother is very depressed (Pa too as
a result).
Crow andWeasel, Barry Lopez
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Plains Indian coming of age tale, for
older students.
Dancing with the Indians,
Angela Shelf Medearis (Holiday House)
Based on author’s family history—recounts an
African-American family’s participation in a
Seminole powwow in 1930’s Oklahoma.
Dandelions, Eve Bunting (Voyager Books)
A girl and her family move to Nebraska and
face challenges as they build their sod house.
The book provides great illustrations and
discussions of women’s lives.
A Fourth of July on the Plains,
Jean Van Leeuwen (Dial Books)
and written record made by a student at the
Carlisle Indian School.
My First Little House Series,
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Harper Trophy)
Adapted from the original books.
Nine for California, Sonya Levin
(Orchard Books)
Humorous story of a mother journeying with
her children to join her husband in the
California gold fields.
Prairie Christmas, Elizabeth Van Steenwyk
(Eerdman’s Books)
Single mom delivers baby on Christmas on the
plains in 1880.
Straight Along a Crooked Road,
Marilyn Cram Donahue (Walker &
Company)
Rhyming book with minimal words about the
Gold Rush.
Hog Music, M.C. Helldorfer
(Viking Juvenile)
A silly story of a hat that makes a journey west,
getting lost and re-found along the way; whimsical and informative about transportation
modes in the early nineteenth century.
Horse Raid, Susan Korman (Soundprints)
A young Indian is conveyed by time travel back
to an Arapaho camp, from which he makes a
raid on a Comanche village, achieving manhood
in the process.
Iva Dunnit and the BigWind,
Carol Purdy (Puffin)
Tall tale: single mom and kids survive a big
windstorm.
The Ledgerbook of Thomas Blue Eagle,
Gay Matthei (Charlesbridge Publishing)
Picture book, fictional but authentic, of a drawn
6
Sacagawea, Joseph Bruchac (Silver Whistle)
Told in alternating points of view of Sacagawea
and Clark.
Sweetgrass Basket, Marlene Carvell
(Dutton Juvenile)
Two sisters at the Carlisle Indian Boarding
School.
Juvenile Non-Fiction
Dear Mr. President: Letters to the Oval
Office from the Files of the National
Archives (National Geographic)
Has some good letters related to the West.
I Could Do That, Linda Arms White
(Farrar, Straus, & Giroux)
Swamp Angel, Anne Isaacs (Puffin)
A tall tale on the Tennessee frontier.
Question-and-answer text about the world of
the Iroquois.
The Toughest Cowboy, John Frank
(Simon & Schuster)
IfYou TraveledWest in a CoveredWagon,
Ellen Levine (Scholastic)
Describes cowboys in hyperbolic terms, PaulBunyanesque in their prowess and griminess, and
yet seduced into maudlin refrains by a poodle.
WagonWheels, Barbara Brenner
(an I Can Read Book)
Shortly after the Civil War a black family travels
to Kansas to take advantage of the free land
offered through the Homestead Act.
Chapter Books
The Ballad of LucyWhipple, Karen
Cushman (Harper Trophy)
Life in a gold rush town.
Only Opal,The Diary of aYoung Girl,
Barbara Cooney (Philomel)
Based on the true story of Opal Whitely and
her moving poetic journal about moving from
lumber camp to lumber camp in the northwest.
We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedom's southern line,
And plant beside the cotton-tree
The rugged Northern pine!
A little girl runs away from New Hampshire to
California to become a stagecoach driver.
When Vermonter Daniel Hamilton decides to
move his family to California, 14-year-old
Luanna is devastated. Descriptions of the threeyear journey are historically accurate; wagontrain life is accurately depicted, from the
Hamiltons' fellow travelers, to the type of shoes
they wear, to the land itself.
Based on a diary account of the Oregon Trail.
Gold Fever, Verla Kay (Scholastic)
Riding Freedom, Pam Munoz-Ryan
(Scholastic Paperbacks)
Picture book biography of Esther Morris,
leader of women’s suffrage in Wyoming and
first woman to hold a political office.
IfYou Lived with the Iroquois,
Ellen Levine (Scholastic)
Question-and-answer text about the OregonTrail.
Keepers of the Earth: Native American
Stories and Environmental Activities for
Children, Michael Caduto and Joseph
Bruchac (Fulcrum Publishing)
A Picture Book of Davy Crockett, David
Adler (Holiday House)
Biography of Davy Crockett.
TheWest:An Illustrated History for
Children, Steven Ives and Ken Burns (Little,
Brown & Co.)
Joseph Savage was a member of the band. Courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society.
border, to distinguish the Pro-slavery from the
Antislavery party.As pistols were being drawn on
both sides, one man, soberer than the rest that
were there all right on the goose question, or
some other question, kindly led away the man at
the bridle-bit, and we went on to Kansas City
unmolested.
Savage’s return to Hartford was joyous:
“Away up among the Green Mountains of
Vermont, a few miles from where White river
makes its junction with the Connecticut, I met
my wife and children.They came running out of
the house to meet me, and declared that father
looked better with his Kansas beard on than they
ever saw him before. It was one of the happiest
days of my life, and I have often wondered how
it was possible for man to enjoy so much happiness in this changing, fleeting world.”The family
returned to Kansas, but met considerable misfortune. One child died on the way—even the
Southerners on the boat paid their respects with
uncovered heads and sympathy—Savage’s wife
and her newborn baby died within a few months
of their arrival, and two other children died by
1857. Joseph Savage nonetheless remained in
Kansas for the rest of his life, becoming an
accomplished writer and amateur historian and
natural scientist. This decision can be seen as a
testament to his faith and his commitment to the
cause of freedom, transplanted from Vermont to
Kansas. He noted in his memoir:
To-day, those happy ones that so kindly greeted me [in Vermont] are all but one hushed in
death, and their bodies are mouldering beneath
the sacred soil of Kansas, awaiting the morning
of the resurrection.
Companion to the PBS series TheWest.
When Esther Morris HeadedWest:Women,
Wyoming, and the Right toVote, Connie
Nordhielm Woodridge (Holiday House)
Savage and Nichols are perhaps the most
prominent figures from Vermont and New
Hampshire who joined the approximately 650
people who went to Kansas with the New
England Emigrant Aid Society in 1854, but there
were others. The first group included four men
from West Randolph, Vt. (George W. Goes, and
Ira M. Jones, both farmers; Oscar Harlow, a
merchant; and GeorgeW. Hutchinson, listed as a
clergyman and “speculator”). Savage’s party
included several other men from the Upper
Valley region: his own brother, Forrest, who
died in Lawrence in 1915; three others from
Hartford: brothers (or cousins) Azro and N.
Hazen, and James Sawyer, who left Kansas within a year for Wisconsin and ultimately died in
New Jersey; Francis O. Tolles, a farmer from
Perkinsville; and one Edward W. Winslow from
Barnard. Later parties included New
Hampshirites Nathaniel and Alice Andrews and
their four children from Sutton, and Edward P.
Foot of Claremont.
This article has focused on Joseph Savage,
and the sources consulted contain no additional
information about the other people noted here
except for their names and occupations. Perhaps
you’ll be inspired to adopt one of these relatively anonymous people from your area who made
history by migrating west during a critical
episode in our national life, and give them a
voice by investigating their story. Your students
will thank you!
We're flowing from our native hills
As our free rivers flow:
The blessing of our Mother-land
Is on us as we go.
We go to plant her common schools
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells.
Upbearing, like the Ark of old,
The Bible in our van,
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.
No pause, no rest, save where the streams
That feed the Kansas run,
Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun!
We'll tread the prairie as of old
Our fathers sailed the sea,
And make theWest as they the East
The homestead of the free!
John Greenleaf Whittier - July, 1854
Sources:
“Recollections of Joseph Savage,” ed. Shelley
Hickman Clark and James W. Clark, in
“Lawrence in 1854,” Kansas History (Spring
2004): 30-44. www.kshs.org/publicat/
history/2004spring_clark.pdf
“The Emigrant Aid Company Parties of 1854,”
by Louise Barry, Kansas Historical Quarterly 12
(May 1943): 115-155. www.kshs.org/publicat/
khq/1943/43_2_barry.htm
About Wyoming and female suffrage.
3
TracingVermont, continued from page 1
made the overland journey by ox team from
Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Salt Lake City in 1850.
He writes of numerous deaths from cholera,
problems with company discipline, and traveling
conditions. His journal, along with the journals
and diaries of many others who made the overland route to Utah, can be found at the Library
of Congress online exhibit: “Trails to Utah and the
Pacific: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869.”
h t t p : / / m e m o r y. l o c . g o v / a m m e m /
award99/upbhtml/overhome.html.
Gold Fever brought many fromVermont and
New Hampshire to the West. Investigating the
1870 census can reveal many names of gold miners from the region. By searching the California,
Colorado, or Montana census with “Vermont” or
“New Hampshire” entered into the birthplace
box, a list of those born in the region will pop
up. Doing this for California in 1860 turns up a
list of 3,355Vermonters and 2,547 people from
New Hampshire. One can then pick a community and see how many of these emigrants were
married, where any children were born (thus
sometimes tracking the family across the country), and what they did for a living.This kind of
research can also be done with multiple students in
a computer lab through www.heritagequest.com
with a membership to the Vermont Historical
Society or participation in the New Hampshire
State Library system. http://www.nh.gov/
nhsl/nhewlink/public/databases.html.
The railroad forever changed the West.
Frederick Billings, born inWoodstock,Vt., made
a fortune in the gold rush and was president of
the Northern Pacific Railroad. His experiences
in theWest and observations of both the destruction wrought by mining and the majesty of the
landscape made him an ardent conservationist.
He came home toVermont and promoted methods of farming and forestry that wouldn’t ruin
the land. At the same time, he was directing the
completion of the transcontinental railroad. He
believed that by promoting western scenery as
tourist destinations, he might inspire protection
of the country’s natural wonders. An exhibit
comparing life in Billings, Montana, to
Woodstock, Vermont, can be found at the
Western Heritage Center: http://www.ywhc.org/
Billings/index2.html.
The IndianWars are tied to the gold rush and
the building of the railroad. Men from Vermont
and New Hampshire were involved in many battles, including the Battle of Little Big Horn.
William Whitlow was a barber from Cavendish,
Vt., who went off at the age of 19 to fight with
the 4th Vermont Regiment in the Civil War. He
then joined the 7th U.S. Cavalry and was in a
hilltop fight at Little Bighorn in 1876. He stayed
with the Cavalry as they pursued the Nez Perce
in their flight across Montana and he was killed
the following year.The Friends of Little Bighorn
website lists all those who fought in this
momentous confrontation at:
www.friendslittlebighorn.com/
7th%20US %20Cavalry,%201876.pdf.
The amount of primary sources available
online is enormous. Finding relevant materials
for your students requires narrowing down the
possibilities. By limiting your search to specific
themes of westward expansion and to finding the
stories connecting this region to the West,
students will have rich materials to work with.
Of course, a simple call to your local historical
society or a visit to the state historical societies
will also provide you with primary sources
about theWest.
A page from the diary ofWilliam Snow of St.
Johnsbury,Vt., a Mormon, chronicling his journey
from Iowa to Utah in 1850. Courtesy of American
Memory, Library of Congress.
ALL FOR THE LOVE OF GOLD: Gold Fever brought many from Vermont and New Hampshire to the West. Investigating the 1870 census can reveal many names of gold
miners from the region.… The railroad forever changed the West. Frederick Billings, born in Woodstock, Vt., made a fortune in the gold rush and was president of the
Northern Pacific Railroad.... The Indian Wars are tied to the gold rush and the building of the railroad.
Timeline of Westward Migration and U.S. Expansion, continued
1848 Gold discovered at Sutter’s Mill, on the
South Fork of the American River in
northern California.
War with Mexico, U.S. acquires
California and the Southwest.
1851 Indian Appropriations Act consolidates
western tribes on agricultural reservations. A series of treaties signed with
the Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and
other Plains tribes delineates the extent
of their territories and allows passage
across them in exchange for payments.
1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act allows the slavery
question to be decided by popular sovereignty; triggers bloody battles between
pro- and anti-slavery groups in Kansas.
13,000 Chinese immigrants enter U.S.
1860 Pony Express begins fast overland mail
from Missouri to California (discontinued in 1861 with completion of a
transcontinental telegraph).
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1862 Homestead Act encourages settlement
of “unoccupied” western lands.
Union Pacific Railroad authorized to
build a line from Nebraska to Utah to
meet the Central Pacific
Sioux (or Santee) Uprising (or Dakota
War) in Minnesota. Number of Indians
killed is unknown, white deaths estimated
at between 300 and 1,000.
1863 Gold discovered in Bannack, MT.
1864 Sand Creek Massacre, eastern Colorado
(Cheyenne,Arapaho), triggers the wider
American war with the Plains Indians.
1866 Mineral Act grants title to millions of
acres of land to mining companies.
1866- Red Cloud's War to close off the
1867 Bozeman Trail running from Fort
Laramie to the Montana gold fields.
Thousands of Chinese men imported to
work on the Central Pacific Railroad.
1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge, the largest
such gathering in U.S. history. Members
from the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Apaches,
Comanches, and Kiowas supposedly
agree to move onto reservation lands—
but the treaty is disavowed by other
tribal leaders.
1868 Wyoming Territory formed.
Nez Perce Treaty, the last Indian treaty
ratified by the U.S. government.
Second Treaty of Fort Laramie ends
Red Cloud’s War and guarantees Sioux
rights to the Black Hills of Dakota.
1869 Transcontinental railroad completed as
the Union Pacific and Central Pacific
meet in Promontory Point, UT.
Wyoming grants women suffrage.
1871 Indian Appropriation Act ends the treaty
system and mandates that all future relations will be conducted by congressional
statutes or executive orders. Indians are
no longer legally considered members
of sovereign nations.
1874 Gold discovered in the Black Hills, the
most sacred lands of the Lakota; gold rush
prompts the Second SiouxWar (1875).
1876 Battle of Little Big Horn; Lt. Col.
George A. Custer and more than 260 men
meet death at the hands of several thousand
Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.
1877 Nez Perce War, Chief Joseph leads a
1,500-mile flight to avoid forced
relocation to reservations.
1878 The Northern Cheyenne escape from a
reservation in Oklahoma and return to
their lands in MontanaTerritory; pursued
by the army and vigilantes, only 114 of
more than 350 people make it back alive.
1879 The first students, a group of 84 Lakota
children, arrive at the U.S. IndianTraining
and Industrial School at Carlisle, PA.
1881 Helen Hunt Jackson publishes Century
of Dishonor criticizing the U.S.
government's treatment of Indians.
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.
1885 Congress forbids unauthorized fencing
of public lands in the West.
Geronimo leads Apache people off their
reservation.
Sitting Bull tours with Buffalo Bill’sWild
West Show.
1887 Dawes Act reduces Indian landholdings
by allotting 160 acres to the heads of
families and 80 acres to individuals;
“surplus lands” on the reservations are
opened up to white settlement.
1889 Indian Territory (Oklahoma) is opened
to white homesteaders; 50,000 settlers
race across the land and claim all 1.92
million acres by sunset.
SD, MT,WA become states.
Wovoka (Paiute) announces his vision of
a new world set aside for native people
and the disappearance of white people: the
birth of the Ghost Dance religion.
1890 Wounded Knee Massacre at Pine Ridge
Reservation, SD, follows the killing of
Sitting Bull.
1893 Experts estimate that fewer than 2,000
buffalo remain of the more than 20
million that once roamed the Western
plains.
F.J.Turner, “The Significance of the
Frontier in American History.”
Sources:
www.chatham.edu/PTI/A%20Restless%20People/
Henze_02.htm
http://bc.barnard.columbia.edu/~lgordis/earlyAC
/resources/indremtl.html
http://lonehand.com/pioneers.htm
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes
/nativeamericanchron.html
Various U.S. history textbooks.
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