CHAPTER 7-1

PEOPLE OF THE PLAINS

-1820

-US government assigns Major Stephen Long to explore the region beyond the Mississippi

-Long refers to a large area as a “Great American Desert”

  • Found on many maps
  • Many settlers avoid it
  • Many travel around Cape Horn to get to California and Oregon

A Nomadic Life

-“Desert” was home to endless wildlife

-Known as the Great Plains

-Also home to many Native Americans

  • Omaha
  • Osage
  • Farmers and hunters
  • Sioux
  • Comanche
  • Blackfeet
  • Nomadic peoples of the plains
  • Used dogs to haul their goods
  • Traveled from one hunting region to another

-1600s

  • Horse enters the Plains life picture
  • Stolen or traded from the Spanish

-1750s

  • Almost all tribes have access to the horse
  • Vital part of their social, economic and political life
  • Comanche were the best riders
  • Others nearly as skilled

-Apaches and Navajo of the southwest captured the horses and sold them to the northern tribes

-Horse makes Plains people much more effective hunters

-Easier to follow/hunt buffalo

-Buffalo became the main animal to hunt

  • Provides many necessary items
  • Food, clothing, shelter and tools
  • Also provided sport, ritual, worship and training for fighting
  • Horseback provided the Native Americans the means to better fight the settlers and the railroad

Railroads Open the West

-Dakota Newspaper

  • Quote from page 243

First Transcontinental Railroad

-Began at a furious pace after the Civil War

-Completed in 1869

-1850s

  • 10 routes surveyed for the transcontinental railroad
  • Part of the reason for the Gadsen Purchase
  • Congress wanted to fund the project
  • Sectional disputes delayed the beginning
  • South wanted to start at New Orleans
  • North wanted St. Louis or Chicago

-During the south’s absence due to the Civil War the remaining Congress passed an act to encourage the building a Pacific Railroad

  • Union Pacific
  • Build from the west - Sacramento

Central Pacific

-Build from the east – Omaha

-Federal government loaned both companies money

-$16k – $32K - $48K per mile depending on the terrain

-Companies also received land grants

  • 640 acres per mile of right away

-Construction proceeded rapidly

  • Union Pacific at one point had 10,000 workers
  • Irish immigrants

Central Pacific

Had many Chinese workers

-Laid as much as 10 miles of track a day

-May 10, 1869 the 2 tracks meet

  • Promontory Point, Utah
  • Entire countries celebrates

-Other Railroads

  • Northern Pacific
  • Atchison
  • Topeka
  • Santa Fe
  • Southern Pacific
  • Great Northern

-People of great ability necessary to build the railroads

  • James Hill
  • 1879 – built the Great Northern
  • connected Minnesota with Washington Territory
  • had no government help

-Hill ensured his line would have customers by encouraging settlement as soon as the rails were laid.

-He offered free transportation from eastern ports

-He offered credit

-He offered farm machinery

-He offered free advice on how to grow crops

-Enable him to charge low rates

-Quote from Hill – page 245

Killing of the Buffalo

-Railroads played a major role in the killing of the buffalo

-Natural habitat was the Great Plains

-Migrated north to south during the seasons

-Union Pacific RR cut the huge herds in half

-Initially buffalo supplied the workers with meat

-Later buffalo hunting became a “sport” for city vacationers

-1871 – discovery that buffalo hides were valuable commodity

  • Professional hunters kill buffalo just for their hides
  • Bones were used a fertilizer

-1886 – Only a few hundred buffalo remain deep in Canadian woods

PLAINS WARS

-Plains Indians begin to fight to protect their way of life

-Had fought and maintained their way of life for previous 250 years

  • Against French, English, Spanish and Americans

-United States government spent millions to eliminate the Indians from the plains

Taking of Native American Lands

-First concentrated fighting broke out in Colorado just after the Civil War

-Government officials attempt to take land promised to the Arapaho and Cheyenne that they could keep “forever”

-Promise was made 10 years earlier

-War continues for 3 years

  • Ends when Black Kettle and his people are trapped at Sand Creek Colorado
  • Colonel John Chivington
  • Black Kettle attempts to surrender
  • Ignored by Chivington
  • Killed men, women and children

-1862

  • Santee Sioux of Minnesota
  • Attack settlers who had moved into their hunting lands
  • Defeated by the military
  • Forced to reservations in Dakota Territory

-Oglala become enraged when territorial governments want to build a railroad through their sacred land. Black Hills

-Led by Red Cloud

  • Successful in the beginning
  • Eventually they lose their land to miners looking for gold

Efforts Toward Peace

-After bloody wars humanitarians in the East call for a change in government responsibility for the Indians

  • Divided between the dept. of War and Dept of Interior
  • One was to placate the Indians with gifts while the other was to make war with those who resisted.

-1867

  • Government sent a peace commission to meet with several Indian nations
  • Comanche
  • Kiowa
  • Cheyenne
  • Arapaho

-Effort to end constant fighting

-Agreements reached

  • Indians were to live on 2 major reservations
  • One in Oklahoma and one in Dakota Territory
  • Since all Indian nations were not represented conflicts continue

Hostilities Resume

-1874

  • Gold discovered in Dakota Territory
  • Miners trespass onto Sioux and Cheyenne lands
  • Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull attack miners/settlers

-June 1876

  • Battle of Little Bighorn – Montana
  • Known as Custer’s Last Stand
  • Sioux victory was short-lived
  • 1881 – surrender
  • for the final time to the US government

Final Clash

-December 1890

-Wounded Knee, SD

-190 unarmed Indians killed

-Tragic encounter ends wars

Elimination of the buffalo was the real reason for the Indian demise

-Chief Joseph attempts to escape to Canada with his Nez Perce

-Quote from Chief Joseph – Page 247

The Dawes Act

-1887

-Congress passes this act

-Broke up Indian nations even on the reservations

-Gave each family 160 acres

  • 25 year probation
  • If they remained on the land they received the land and US citizenship

-A result of opposition to the US Army’s extermination policy

-Book written by Helen Hunt Jackson

  • A Century of Dishonor
  • Criticized government policy toward the Indians

-New legislation passed

  • Did more harm than good
  • Indians did not understand the concept of land ownership
  • Demoralized by reservation life

-1887 – 1943

  • Indians lose real estate to speculators and dishonest government agents –
  • They lost 86 million acres of their original 138 million set aside for them.

Photo – page 243

Graph study – page 244

Linking Past and Present – page 245

Critical thinking activity – page 245

Photo – page 246 – History and Art

Sidelight : The Ghost Dance – page 246

Photo – page 247

BUILDING SKILLS – PAGE 248

DID YOU KNOW PAGE 248