Opening Quote: Source: the Significance of the Frontier in American History

Notes CH 26 Part 1 (594-604 Mining)The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution 1865-1896

Opening Quote: Source: “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.”****************

“Up to our own day American History has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of Free Land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.” Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893

IMPORTANT NOTE********************************************************************************

FJT is speaking to the story that begins in 1607 with the first English settlers in Jamestown to 1893…their continuous movement into the “wilderness” that cleansed them of the Europeanness …and that this cleansing, done by their difficult trials hacking out a life from the wilderness, in turn created the UNIQUE AMERICAN IdentityIN WORLD CULTURE…and that the attributes attained through this struggle created THE AMERICAN, UNIQUE IN THE WORLD…

FJT delivers his speech…titled above…at the Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893…he is at the time the head of the American Historical Association and a professor of history…his essay, is written in reaction to the Census Bureau’s announcement in 1890 that the “FRONTIER” IS CLOSED…that the ERA OF FREE AND OPEN LAND IN THE WEST IS OVER….

FJT comments on the significance of what this great space of open free land has meant to US….and asks some great questions: What would be next? What would be the new influence on the character of our people? and How would this change us?

Other historians [New Western Historians], Patty Limirick, CU, have since questioned FJT’s essay….MAYBE THE MOST SIGINIFICANT HISTORICAL ESSAY EVER PUBLISHED IN OUR NATION…his essay has been and maybe still is considered to be accurate in many ways…however…These NWH have brought up many great points to consider…and I address many of these next…

Intro:

The Great West has always been a land of mystery and enchantment to those in the East.

The West is a place of Myth…Tall tales, romanticized over our long history…a place of dreams…a place where you could go and find….fortune, freedom, a new beginning…IT SYMOBLIZES OUR HOPE.

Success here was EARNED by hard work, individual toughness, and high moral standards…

THE CHARACTER OF THE GREAT AMERICAN MAN -

NOTE:As sure as I am about this being completely true …. [NWH though ask] -What really happened? What of Women? What of the Native American? What about all of the original Spanish-speaking people? What were the contributions of the Asian Immigrant or the immigrants from all parts of the World who came to mine the minerals or the Blacks who come from the South to escape Jim Crow? THE WEST IS THE MOST DIVERSE PART OF OUR NATION…. AND ALSO THE MOST URBAN- YES, URBAN….MORE PEOPLE BY 1900 LIVED IN CITIES IN THE WEST BY % THAN ANY WHERE ELSE IN AMERICA…REALLY…SO HOW IS THE STORY ONLY ABOUT WHITE MALE PIONEERS WHO GO TO AN EMPTY PLACE AND CONQUER IT? …..What of the giant corporations that come in and dominate the various industries or the great US Army that destroys the Native American cultures or the Federal Governments control of Natural Resources – WATER, LAND –etc….AS EXPANSIVE AS THE WEST WAS AND IS ….IT WAS NOT EMPTY….AND THE “MARLBORO MAN” DID NOT “WIN THE WEST,” it is a complicated story….with many actors and actresses… [NWH state] -.WHICH ACTUALLY MAKES THE STORY EVEN MORE AMAZING….THAN THE ROMANTIC MYTHS THAT DEFINE THE WEST… STILL… TO THIS DAY…THE ONES WE CLING TO AND DREAM OF….. THE WEST IS AMAZING…AND A GREAT STORY that encompasses the stories of many….

THE WEST:

The Great West is a rough square that measures about a thousand miles on each side. Embracing Mountains, plateaus, deserts, and plains…From Canada to Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean…. Its inhabitants at this time [1865] were; Mormons in Utah, a large settled area along the Pacific coast, a large settled area in eastern Texas, several scattered settlements throughout the southwest, AND NATIVE AMERICANS….the buffalo, wild horse, longhorn cattle, and many isolated small settlements left over from the fur trapping days…

By 1890 this entire area had been carved into STATES AND FOUR TERRITORIES – Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Indian Territory (Oklahoma). PIONEERS FLUNG THEMSELVES GREEDILY ON THIS ENORMOUS PRIZE, AS IF TO RAVISH IT. PROBABLY NEVER BEFORE IN HUMAN EXPERIENCE HAD SO HUGE AN AREA BEEN TRANSFORMED SO RAPIDLY…and why the myths…of how the West was won 

Notes continued>

The Clash of Cultures on the Plains

There were appx. 360,000 Native Americans living in the West in 1860…most scattered in small tribes across the West.

But….they stood in the way….in the path…of an advancing civilization…USA….The White Pioneer.

CLASH….OCCURS…between the acquisitive, Industrial white civilization and the highly evolved Native American Civilization….that had adapted over centuries to the demanding environment of the sparsely watered West.

Migration, Conflict, and Cultural Change…has been the story of the American West since the dawn of the Ages…

****Consider……. the story that began the text…thousands of years ago people crossed a frozen bridge that linked Asia to the North American continent…and over thousands of years migrated into North and South America, walking….and settling….and building communities, cultures, and lasting civilizations….eons before any Europeans came to this continent….MIGRATION, CONFLICT, AND CULTURAL CHANGE…happened and in a more recent time….continued….As the age of the Civil War comes, 1860’s …many of the original Native American tribes have had to deal with conflict and change…..Comanche drives the Apache off of the central plains into the Rio Grande Valley in the 1700’s…The Sioux are displaced from the Great Lakes Woodlands in the 1700’s and into the Great plains where they evolve into the fierce mobile horse culture that our US Army will contend with while trying to make a path for the Railroads and surging flow of white pioneers…The Sioux are transformed from crop growing villagers to nomadic buffalo hunters and traders. SO CHANGE IS NOT NEW TO THE NATIVE AMERICAN….MIGRATION IS NOT NEW …AND CONFLICT IS NOT NEW… BUT…THIS TIME THE CONFLICT IS WITH A MORE TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED CULTURE…who brings not just weapons but disease as well…and ideas that challenge the cultures of these people that had adapted over thousands of years….THIS interaction will continue to challenge Native American people, TO THIS DAY.

“Tell your people that since the Great Father promised that we should never be removed we have been moved five times…I think you had better put the Indians on wheels and you can run them about wherever you wish.” Sioux Indian to Congressional Commission

When white soldiers and settlers edged onto the plains in the decades before the Civil War…they accelerated a fateful cycle that exacerbated (made worse) already fierce enmities among the Indians and undermined the foundations of Native American Cultures…Disease, destruction of the Buffalo, farming the grasslands and fencing them off, Mining, White settlement….all cause the Native Americans to begin to war amongst themselves for the ever scarcer lands…and resources to survive in a forbidding ARID environment.

************The “Plains” Indians are the target initially for the “RECONSTRUCTION” of the WEST…that begins just prior to the Civil War in the 1850’s after we acquire these lands from Mexico…TWO TREATIES ARE SIGNEDwith “chiefs” of various “tribes”and the Federal Government..FT. LARAMIE and FT. ATKINSON in 1851 and 1853. THESE TREATIES MARK THE BEGINNING OF THE “RESERVATION SYSTEM” IN THE WEST…these two (2) treaties attempted to establish boundaries for the territory of each tribe and attempted to separate the Indians into two (2) “great colonies” one to the North and one to the South…with a corridor opened in the middle to allow for white settlement.

***********problem…the white treaty makers misunderstood both Indian government and Indian society…”tribes and chiefs” were often FICTIONS of the white imagination….the Native Americans lived in scattered bands and did not recognize authority outside their immediate family or possibly village…and these NOMADS certainly were not familiar with the “ownership” of land or any “political boundaries.”

*******In the 1860’s…The Federal Government as POLICY…. Intensified their actions and herded the Indians into even smaller confines….one to the North – The “Great Sioux Reservation” in Dakota Territory and to the South in “Indian Territory” (created in the 1830’s by Jackson and Congress- present day Oklahoma) – This widens the “corridor” for the settlers and now TCRR builders…and Opens Land for the “Homestead Act of 1862.”

The Indians received PROMISES….from Washington DC…THAT THEY WOULD BE LEFT ALONE…and provided with food, clothing, and other supplies….IN RETURN FOR THEIR LANDS….

**************Of course, Corruption occurred, and the Indians are mismanaged and left to fend for themselves…LEFT WITH JUST BROKEN PROMISES….over and over and over and over…BUT FOR THE WHITES WE SPEAK OF PROGRESS….Federal Indian Agents stole and corrupted as much as possible…BUT WHO CARED…WEREN’T THEY[Native Americans] JUST SAVAGE HEATHENS IN THE WAY OF PROGRESS…..THE INEVITABLE MARCH…”WHITE MAN’S BURDEN” …to remake the Indian Cultures….into “CIVILIZED” FARMERS THAT COULD ASSIMILATE INTO WHITE CULTURE…(remember the Cherokee…successful assimilation, yet…still pushed off their lands…) In reality….the classic western statement that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” was in fact the reality at this time…

WAR - is it any wonder that Native Americans would fight back…hoping they could delay the inevitable…hoping that they could preserve something for their future generations…hoping that they could at least DIE FOR THEIR FREEDOM.

********In various parts of the West, after the Civil War….during Southern Reconstruction…a Western Reconstruction was occurring…Federal Policies were that if the Native Americans would not relinquish their lands THAN THE US ARMY WOULD TAKE THEM….at all costs….The Native Americans attempt to stop this…and at times are successful TEMPORARILY…Their mobility and fierce fighting ability causes much trouble for the US Army….and many legendary battles occur, of course called massacres when the Indians win and great strategic victories when the US ARMY won… The US Army sent to the west was made up of many new immigrants and Black Soldiers (called “Buffalo Soldiers” by the Natives).

Receding Native Population---the legend of Custer v. Sioux….”battle of Little bighorn” and the end of the Great Sioux Reservation….

Massacres…Savagery…these battles between Indians and white setters/US Army…were often brutal. Women and Children were often killed….most often native women and children…”the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” SAND CREEK, CO. 1864 – 400 Indians- men, women, children….rounded up and slaughtered and mutilated…”TOTAL WAR” is practiced by the US Army…just as in the Civil War…

FETTERMAN MASSACRE, 1866 – Montana-Wyoming, Sioux attempting to block construction of the BOZEMAN TRAIL…to the gold fields…kill over 100 US Soldiers, not a single survivor – one man counted with 105 arrows in him….ANOTHER TREATY IS SIGNED…The 2nd Treaty of Ft. Laramie, 1868 – and the government abandoned the construction of the Bozeman Trail and “GUARANTEED” THE GREAT SIOUX RESERVATION, AGAIN……hmmm….but of course (sarcasm) when gold is “discovered” by whites, for some reason allowed into the SIOUX reservation by GEN. GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER –“YELLOW HAIR”, IN 1874….ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE…in the Black Hills of South Dakota….HORDES OF MINERS ENTER THE SIOUX RESERVATION LANDS…Sitting Bull, the Great and Masterful strategist of the Sioux, declares WAR….

SIOUX WARS…BATTLE OF “LITTLE BIGHORN [1876] AND AFTERMATH..– Gen. George Armstrong Custer- 7TH US CALVARY, “Yellow Hair,” the youngest general in the US Army during the Civil War…graduate of West Point…and some historians say, recklessly courageous, WAS GIVEN INSTRUCTIONS: to suppress the Sioux and return them to the reservation…

Battle of Little Bighorn [Montana] – Custer and the 7th Calvary…with Indian guides (Indians of other tribes with which centuries old rivalries existed often worked with the US Army against other Indians…sometimes in hope of better treatment, sometimes under threat, sometimes due to the ancient rivalries) ATTACK A LARGER FORCE OF SIOUX CAMPED ALONG THE LITTLE BIGHORN RIVER…in these parts a rolling countryside made it difficult to determine from a distance what existed beyond undulating hills…264 men of the US Army attacked over 2500 Indian Warriors…NOT ONE US ARMY SOLDIER SURVIVED….

CONSEQUENCES OF THE “LOSS” – Pres. Grant orders a huge Army to the West…Newspapers from around the country speak to this “massacre”…and Grant’s orders are to pursue the Sioux until they either return to the reservation or are all killed….Eventually over the next year…The Indians are chased down and defeated and Sitting Bull actually goes into Canada…(protected by Canada) but soon the Sioux miss their home and cross back into the US and move quietly on to their reservation…afterwards Sitting Bull tours with Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show…as an oddity of the fading legendary West.

In 1877, as the Sioux were in Canada, the last large band of warring Natives, The Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph and others…are baited into a conflict…in Western Oregon, Washington, and Idaho…after a GALLANT…struggle that took place over a 1700 mile fight….that lasted 3 months…(the Nez Perce hoped to join with the Sioux in Canada) Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce surrender and agree to move to their reservation on what was left of their ancestral lands in Idaho…HOWEVER…as punishment for their fight…they are sent to KANSAS…where over 40% of the Nez Perce die from disease and malnourishment (starvation)…what was left eventually is allowed to return to their reservation. As Joseph surrenders he gives one of the most famous statements in American History….and one that sums up the plight of ALL NATIVE AMERICANS EVENTUALLY WHO FOUGHT AGAINST THE US GOVERNMENT… SEEN in the caption of THE MAP (digital edition –“Indian Wars -1860-1890”) p. 594***********

Caption:Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce (educated in white Christian missionary schools in Oregon) after the great Nez Perce War…See Red Line from western Oregon/Washington to Northern Montana…

“Our chiefs are killed…The Old men are all dead…The little children are freezing to death…I want to have time to look for my children…Hear me, my chiefs…My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

*******In the Southwest USA…the fierce Apache in Arizona and New Mexico… Led by Geronimo – “one who yawns”….were the most difficult and last of the GREAT INDIAN WARS ending in 1886 with his surrender to General Nelson Miles [We will see him again in the Philippine Wars soon]…fought in the WEST.

*****Mexican Soldiers murdered Geronimo’s Mother, wife, and children in 1851. The Apache and Mexico at this time were at “peace.” From this point until his surrender in 1886 he became a legendary leader and fighter…..the canyons of the desert southwest were a great place from where to fight…He and his people become legendary for their daring exploits and escapes from capture…he and his people avoid capture by the Mexican and US authorities for over 35 years…HIS BAND WAS ONE OF THE LAST MAJOR FORCES OF INDEPENDENT NATIVE AMERICAN WARRIORS WHO REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE UNITED STATES OCCUPATION OF THE AMERICAN WEST…..AND BECAME FAMOUS OR INFAMOUS….IN ALL OF THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE DAY…

Geronimo became a legend due to the times…and after being in prison in Florida, Alabama, and Ft. Sill Oklahoma…is reunited with his last family…married 9 times during the fighting…in 1894… he appears later with Teddy Roosevelt at his inauguration in 1905 and later dictates his story to be published as a book…He died being thrown from his horse in 1909…as a prisoner at Ft. Sill Oklahoma…his last words to his nephew were, “I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive.”

The vanquished Native Americans were finally “reconstructed” in ghettos on reservations as “wards” of the government…their white “masters” discovered it was cheaper to feed them rather than fight them…The “taming” of the Indian was engineered by a number of factors: