Ch. 16 Qs

What factors led to the massive increase in Anglo-European settlement of the Far West after the Civil War?

They came for gold and silver deposits, short grass pastures for cattle and sheep, and the sod sob the plains and the meadowlands of the mountains for farming.

What factors led to the decline of Mexican-American economic and social dominance in California and Texas? What did the socioeconomic status of most Mexican Americans by the end of the nineteenth century?

IN CA: Reckless expansion, growing indebtedness, and a severe drought that devastated Mexican ranching culture IN TX: fraud, coercion and the inability to compete with Anglo-American ranching kingdoms Mexicans in southern Texas became an increasingly impart first working-class relegated largely to unskilled farm for industrial labor

How were market forces changing the nature of American agriculture? What was the result?

Market forces were changing the nature of American agriculture by making farmers try to do in agricultural economy what was done in the manufacturing economy. Commercial farmers were not self-sufficient and made no effort to become so. They specialized in cash crops, which they sold in national or world markets. They did not make their own household supplies or group their own food but bought them instead at town or village stores. This kind of farming, when it was successful, raised the farmers' living standards. But it also made them dependent on bankers and interest rates, railroads and freight rates, national and European markets, world supply and demand. Unlike the capitalists of the industrial order, they could not regulate their production or influence the prices of what they sold.

Describe the evolution of basic national Indian policy up to the 1880s. What did the polices accomplish? How were the policies and their implementation flawed?

Policy during American Indians during the 1850's to 1880's was constantly changing. After granting Indians limited sovereignty in 1860 through the Senate white demands for access to lands in Indian Territory gave whites new reservation policies known as "concentrations". In 1867 Congress established the Indian peace commission to try and calm the Indians and prepare a new final Indian policy.

What was the basic objective of the Dawes Act, and how did it try to accomplish this goal?

The Dawes Act provided for the gradual elimination of tribal ownership of land and the allotment of tracts to individual owners: 160 acres to the head of a family, 80 acres to a single adult or orphan, 40 acres to each dependent child. Adult owners were given United Sates citizenship, but unlike other citizens, they could not gain full title to their property for 25 years. The act applied to most of the western tribes. The pueblo, who continued to occupy lands long ago guaranteed them, were excluded from its provisions. The Bureau of Indian Affairs relentlessly promoted the idea of assimilation that lay behind it

Describe the vision of the Homestead Act and how it was flawed. What changes were made to try to remedy weaknesses of the act?

The Homestead Act of 1862 permitted settlers to buy plots of 160 acres for a small fee if they occupied the land they purchased for five years and improved it. They thought land would be enough to sustain a farm family (rising costs to run a farm). They made calculations based on Eastern experiences, which was innapropriate for the west. Many abandoned before 5 years.

Describe the building of the transcontinental railroad and subsidiary lines. Why can it be said that the western railroads were essentially public projects, despite their private ownership?

The building of the transcontinental railroads and subsidiary lines was a dramatic and monumental achievement; thousands of immigrant workers-mostly Irish on the east and Chinese on the west-labored in difficult conditions to get through mountains, cross deserts, protect themselves from Indians, and to finally connect the two lines at Promontory Point in Northern Utah in the spring of the 1869. The western railroads can be said to be public projects because the federal government encouraged railroad development by offering direct financial aid, favorable loans, and more than 50 million acres of land.

How did the railroads stimulate settlement of the Great Plains?

The railroads stimulated development in the Great Plains because the railroads made access to the Great Plains, the railroad companies promoted settlement in the Great Plains in order to provide themselves with customers and to increase the value of their land, they set low rates so anyone could afford a ticket, they sold their land at very low prices, and provided liberal credit to prospect settlers.

Describe the origins, purposes, and practices of the "long drive" and "open range" periods of the "cattle kingdom". What ended this colorful but brief boom?

The western cattle industry was Mexican and Texan by ancestry. Long before citizens of the United States invaded from the Southwest, Mexican ranchers had developed the techniques and equipment that the cattlemen and cowboys of the Great Plains later employed: branding (a device known in all frontier areas where stock was common), roundups, roping, and the gear of the herders - their lariats, saddles, leather chaps, and spurs. Americans in Texas adopted these methods and carried them to the northernmost ranges of the cattle kingdom. Texas also had the largest herds of cattle in the country; the animals were descended from Spanish stock - wiry, hardy longhorns - and allowed to run wild or semi wild. From Texas, too, came the horses that enabled the caretakers of the herds, the cowboys, to control them - small, muscular broncos or mustangs well suited to the requirements of cattle country. After fattening massive herds on the unfenced pastures of the public domain, cowboys drove the hardy longhorns hundreds of miles with their horses on the famous "long drives," much of them through dangerous Indian country. As railroads extended further west they opened up new, more convenient trailheads. They also brought competition from sheep herders and more settled farmers bent on fencing in the open range. The great open-field cattle herds moved steadily westward and then finally disappeared in the late 1880s, when cattle raising became largely restricted to enclosed ranches.

To what factors does the text attribute much of the romantic image of the Far West? Explain.

The western landscape, the cowboy culture, and the idea of the frontier are attributed to the romantic image of the Far West. The rugged and natural western landscape inspired artists and attracted tourists. Life was free-spirited. The Far West was to be the last frontier.

Up to 1869, in what two fields did the greatest number of Chinese immigrants work? How did employment tendencies, residence patterns, and social relationships change in the Chinese communities later in the nineteenth century?

Transcontinental railroad and gold mining. Employment tendencies changed as they all made communities called Chinatowns.

Describe how the influx of white settlers in the West led to violence and warfare. What were the major encounters? Why did the whites ultimately prevail?

White settlers continued to push Indian populations further and further West taking lands cultivated by Indian cultures and killing of the buffalo herds. These clashes caused many Indians to revolt against the white invader. But many tribes couldn't get passed their own personal issues to all fight together against the white settlers which made it easier for white settlers to push and kill off tribes one by one