Chapter 25

Fredrick Jackson Turner

Author of the famous "frontier thesis" in which Turner argued that the taming of the West had shaped the nation's character. The experience of molding wilderness into civilization, he argued, encouraged Americans' characteristic embrace of individualism and democracy. Although Turner is now criticized for, among other things, entirely ignoring the role of Native Americans in the West, his argument remains a keystone of thought about the West in American history.

Sand Creek

On November 29, 1864, militia under the command of John C. Chivington assaulted a Cheyenne village in southeastern Colorado Territory. Initially hailed as a military triumph, it was later found that Chivington's men had attacked the village without provocation, killing over one hundred women and children.

Peace Policy

Refers to President Ulysses Grant's attempt in 1868 to end the Plains Indians Wars by enlisting Christian missionaries to supervise Indian reservations. Though it was hoped that the churches would be more gentle agents of "assimilation," the policy failed and was eventually terminated in 1881.

Wounded Knee

A battle between the U.S. Army and the Dakota Sioux, in which two hundred Native Americans and twenty-nine U.S. soldiers died. Tensions erupted violently over two major issues: the Sioux practice of the "Ghost Dance," which the U.S. government had outlawed, and the dispute over whether Sioux reservation land would be broken up because of the Dawes Act.

Little Big Horn

A particularly violent example of the warfare between whites and Native Americans in the late nineteenth century, also known as "Custer's Last Stand." In two days, June 25 and 26, 1876, the combined forces of 2500 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians defeated and killed more than 250 U.S. soldiers, including Colonel George Custer. The battle came as the U.S. government tried to compel Native Americans to remain on the reservations and Native Americans tried to defend territory from white gold-seekers. This Indian advantage did not last long, however, as the union of these Indian fighters proved tenuous and the U.S. Army soon exacted retribution.

Dawes Severalty Act

An act that broke up Indian reservations and distributed land to individual households. Leftover land was sold for money to fund U.S. government efforts to "civilize" Native Americans.

What was Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis? Significance?

● Frederick Jackson Turner's essay is called "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (1893) ● Turner's prophesied that the next 500 years would would be needed to fill the west ● Turner theorized that when hard times came, that the unemployed city goers would flee to the west, took up farming and prospered ● Most city dwellers didn't head out west during depressions as most didn't know how to farm and moving out west was expensive ● Safety-valve theory - free acreage lured many immigrant farmers out west ● '"American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West."' - Frederick Jackson Turner (The American Pageant 25-9)

What factors contributed to changing lifestyles for many Native Americans in the years leading up to the Civil War?

● Indian lifestyle changed partly due to the demanding environment of the western plains ● Competition ● White southerners and settlers edging onto the Plains before the Civil War ○ White intruders spread cholera, typhoid, and smallpox to the native people of the Plains ○ "...whites put further pressure on the steadily shrinking bison population by hunting and by grazing their livestock on the prairie grasses.​" (The American Pageant, 25-1) ● Americans viewed land as powerful and could owned ● Natives viewed land as spiritual and something that can't be owned ● Natives relied heavily on the Buffalo but Americans hunted the buffalo hurting Native American life ● Horses introduced to Native Americans

What industries shaped the West?

● Mining Industry ○ Drew people out west ○ Precious metals helped finance the civil war ○ Facilitated the building of the railroads ○ Intensified the conflict between indians and whites ○ Injected the silver issue into politics ○ Added to American folklore and literature, shown in Mark Twain's books ● Cattle Industry ○ Profitable ○ Dangerous; indians, stampedes, cattle fever ○ Brought Cowboy era and folklore

Approximately how many Native Americans lived in the US in 1860?

● Native Americans numbered about 360,000 in 1860 ● Located mostly in the trans-Missouri west ● 54 million to 360,000 Natives

What challenges did farmers face in the late 1800s? How did they respond to these challenges?

● Public land was primarily sold for revenue, but the Homestead Act made it so farming families could afford to buy large holdings of land, yet the Act turned out to be a cruel hoax. ○ Due to draught, farmers were forced to give up one side of their acquired land making the draughted 160 acres of land not enough to survive off of ○ The Act was naked fraud ● 6 year drought in Western Kansas, eastern Colorado, and Montana in the 1880's ○ Caused Western Kansas to lose half its population ● A the new way of farming, "Dry Farming" took root in the Plains ○ Shallowed cultivation ○ Created a pulverizing surface soil that contributed to the Dust Bowl ○ Out of this, many farmers abandoned corn and stuck to drought resistant grain ○ More than 45 million acres were irrigated in 17 western states

Describe the federal govt's policy towards Native Americans in the latter half of the 19th C. Include, explain, and provide examples of the following in your response: reservation system, warfare, and assimilation.

● Reservation System: ​The system that allotted land with designated boundaries to Native American tribes in the West, beginning in the 1850s and ending with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. Within these reservations, most land was used communally, rather than owned individually. The U.S. government encouraged and sometimes violently coerced Native Americans to stay on the reservations at all times. ● Government established territories for each tribe and tried separating the tribes into two big colonies to the north and south of the white settlement ● Indian governments and societies were often misunderstood by white treaties ○ "Native Americans recognized only the authority of their immediate families or perhaps a band elder. And the mobile culture of the Plains Indians was utterly alien to the concept of living out one's life in the confinement of a defined territory." (The American Pageant 25-1) ● The Indians only surrounded their ancestral land if Washington could promise to leave them undisturbed, provide them with food, clothing and other necessities ● Federal Indian Agencies were corrupt ○ They provided Indians with moth infested blankets, spoiled beef, and other defective previsions ● Whites would often shoot peaceful indians ○ Sand Creek Massacre → Chivington's militia attacked a Cheyenne indian village without means, killing over two hundred women and children ○ Indians triumphantly fought back against the whites during the battle of the Little Bighorn ■ The U.S army hunted down the Indians who humiliated Custer (led Little Bighorn) ● "The vanquished Native Americans were finally ghettoized on reservations, where they could theoretically preserve their cultural autonomy but were in fact compelled to eke out a sullen existence as wards of the government." (The American Pageant 25-2) ○ Whites realized it was cheaper to feed Indians then to fight them ○ Indians were neglected to death by the whites ○ On these reservations, Indians often died from diseases ● Peace Policy: Refers to President Ulysses Grant's attempt in 1868 to end the Plains Indians Wars by enlisting Christian missionaries to supervise Indian reservations. Though it was hoped that the churches would be more gentle agents of "assimilation," the policy failed and was eventually terminated in 1881. ○ Didn't create much peace between indians ○ Many Indians had little interest in being farmers and went off the reservation ● Congress declared in 1871 that the U.S would no longer recognized Indian tribes as sovereign nations and would no longer make treaties with them. ● Many whites wanted to forcely contain and suppress the indians ● Reformers wanted to treat indians kindly and lead them to assimilate into white society ○ No whites respect for Native American culture ● Dawes Severalty Act - "...dissolved many tribes as legal entities, wiped out tribal ownership of land, and set up individual Indian family heads with 160 free acres. If the Indians behaved themselves like "good white settlers," they would get full title to their holdings, as well as citizenship, in twenty-five years." (The American Pageant 25-4) ● Probationary period ● Carlisle Indian School - Native American children separated from their parents and tribe and were taught English, and white values and customs ○ "Kill the Indian and save the man" was the school's motto ○ Would starve Indian children in order for them to give up their Indian religion and assimilate ● Assimilation - the adoption of the dominant culture ● Dawes Severalty Act 1887