Summary: Settlers were encouraged to move westward after the Civil War by federal legislation such as the Homestead Act, which gave 160 acres of land to American citizens who were committed to settling on the land and who could pay the $10 registration fee. However, farming on the plains proved much more difficult than many settlers thought it would be. Thousands of blacks moved west after the Civil War to escape life in the South; mining, ranching, and lumbering also attracted settlers to the West. This westward expansion greatly affected the lives of Native Americans, who were removed to Oklahoma and South Dakota. Farmers in the West began to organize; Farmers' Alliances and the Grange were established to protect farmers' rights. The 1893 Turner Thesis (a well-known theory promulgated by a distinguished historian) proposed the idea that settlers had to become more adaptable and innovative as they moved westward and that these characteristics slowly became ingrained into the very fabric of American society.
Keywords
Homestead Act (1862): bill that did much to encourage settlers to move west; 160 acres of land were given to any settler who was an American citizen or who had applied for citizenship, who was committed to farming the land for six months of the year, and who could pay the $10 registration fee for the land.
Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890): battle that was the last large-scale attempt by Native Americans to resist American settlement in the Great Plains region. Federal soldiers opened fire on Native Americans, killing more than 200.
Dawes Act (1887): act designed to break up Native-American tribes by offering individual Native Americans land to be used for either farming or grazing.
Farmers' Alliances: organization that united farmers at the statewide and regional levels; policy goals of this organization included more readily available farm credits and federal regulation of the railroads.
Populist party: formed in 1892 by members of the Farmers' Alliances, this party was designed to appeal to workers in all parts of the country. Populists favored a larger role of government in American society, a progressive income tax, and more direct methods of democracy.
Turner Thesis: 1893 thesis by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner suggesting that the innovations practiced by western settlers gradually became ingrained into the fabric of American society; democracy and self-improvement were also central to western expansion, Turner claimed. In short, Turner suggested that many of the characteristics of the "American character" were created by westward expansion. Later historians questioned parts of this thesis.
FEDERAL LEGISLATION ENCOURAGES WESTERN SETTLEMENT
Adventurous Americans had settled west of the Mississippi and out to the Pacific in the decades prior to the Civil War. However, several acts passed by the federal government in 1862 set the stage for the massive movement westward that would take place after the Civil War.
The one act that gave land directly to settlers was the Homestead Act. This legislation allocated 160 acres to any settler who (1) was an American citizen, or who, in the case of immigrants, had at least filed for American citizenship; (2) was 21 years old and the head of a family; (3) was committed to building a house on the property and living there at least six months of the year; and (4) could pay a $10 registration fee for the land. After actively farming the land for five years, the farmer was given actual ownership of his 160-acre plot. By 1900, nearly 610,000 parcels of land had been given out under the provisions of the Homestead Act, allowing nearly 85 million acres of land to go over to private ownership.
A bill that indirectly gave land to settlers was the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act. To encourage the building of "land-grant" colleges in Western territories that had already been granted statehood, hundreds of thousands of acres of land were given to state governments. This land could be sold by the states to pay for these colleges. At 50 cents an acre (and sometimes less), settlers and land speculators received land from individual states.
The expansion of the railroad was closely tied to western expansion. In acts of 1862 and 1864, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads received grants of land to extend their rail lines westward. Part of the legislation also gave the railroads 10 square miles on both sides of the track for every mile of track it constructed. This land was sometimes sold to settlers as well, sometimes at exorbitant prices.
FARMING ON THE GREAT PLAINS
In the ideology of Thomas Jefferson, the yeoman farmer was the central figure in the development of the American character. The abilities, fortitude, and luck of the yeomen were severely tested as they moved to the Great Plains. Many settlers who went west were immigrants with families (unlike the single male immigrants who lived in New York, Boston, and other Eastern cities).
The harshness of life on the plains was simply too much to bear for many settlers and their families. Temperatures ranged from over 100 degrees in the summer to bitter cold in the winter, and many of the sod houses built by settlers did little to keep out the heat or the cold. Having enough water was a constant problem, with some of the water collected in barrels or buckets carrying "prairie fever" (typhoid fever). In a single year, a settler and his land might be attacked by fierce blizzards, howling dust storms, and locusts or grasshoppers. The rosy picture of life on the Great Plains presented in recruitment brochures found in New York or in Currier & Ives prints popular in the East were a harsh contrast with reality. By 1900, two-thirds of the homestead farms failed, causing many ex-farmers to return to the East.
How did the settlers who survived on the Great Plains manage to do so? Survival on the plains largely depended on cooperation with other settlers who lived nearby. Groups of men would put up new barns and construct fences; women on the plains would get support from wives of other settlers. In short, successful farmers on the plains were no longer the individual yeomen envisioned by Jefferson.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF AGRICULTURE ON THE PLAINS
More important, success on the plains became increasingly dependent on the use of technology and the introduction of business approaches to agriculture. The United States Department of Agriculture was established in 1862 and by late 1863 was distributing information to plains farmers on new farm techniques and developments. New plows and threshers (including some powered by steam) were introduced in the late 1860s and early 1870s.
Slowly, control of agricultural production on the plains was taken from individual farmers as large bonanza farms developed. While individual settlers were interested in producing enough for their families to survive, bonanza farms usually produced only one or two crops on them. Produce from these farms was sold to the Eastern United States or abroad. While individual settlers were being driven off the land because of the hardships of farming on the plains, bonanza farms were run as large businesses and had the technology and professional backing to be successful.
Bonanza farms were plentiful in the late 1870s and demonstrated the transformation that had taken place in agriculture. These farms were truly capitalistic; their success was dependent on the machinery that existed on the farms and on the railroad that would take their crops away for export. Farm production increased dramatically with the advent of bonanza farms. At the same time, the numbers of Americans involved in agriculture decreased (from nearly 60 percent in 1860 to 37 percent in 1900).
The new business techniques practiced by bonanza farms were successful in the short term, but created problems for both bonanza farms and individual farmers in the future. Several times in the 1880s and early 1890s, there was simply too much grain being produced on these farms, dropping the prices drastically. To remain economically successful, farmers proceeded to do the only logical thing: produce even more, which drove prices down even more. Many plains farmers in this period were unable to pay their mortgages, and farms were foreclosed. Bonanza farms usually had the technology for the production of only one or two crops and could not diversify; they too faced financial distress. Many farmers felt that federal policies had to do more to protect them, and thus started to organize to protect themselves.
WOMEN AND MINORITIES ON THE PLAINS
As stated previously, most settlers came to the plains as families (there were a tiny number of women who filed for land claims on their own). Diaries of many women who lived on the plains spoke of the loneliness of their existence, especially in the nonharvest periods when many men left for other work and women were left on the farms. Perhaps the greatest novel describing prairie life is O Pioneers! (1913) by Willa Cather. This book describes both the tremendous challenges and the incredible rewards found in life on the prairie. An equally compelling vision or prairie life is Giants of the Earth (1927) by O. E. Rolvaag. In this novel, the harshness of prairie life drives the wife of an immigrant settler to madness and eventual death.
It was in the Western states that the first American women received the vote. In 1887, two towns in Kansas gave women the vote (with one of them electing a woman mayor to a single term in office). The state constitution of Wyoming was the first to give women the vote on a statewide basis.
Thousands of blacks moved west after the Civil War to escape the uncertainty of life in the Reconstruction South. Many who ended up in the plains and elsewhere lacked the finances and farming abilities to be successful, and faced many of the same racial difficulties they had faced in the American South. However, some black farmers did emerge successfully as plains farmers. The most prominent of the Southern blacks who went west was the 1879 group, the Exodusters (modeling their journey after that of the Israelites fleeing Egypt to the Promised Land). Less than 20 percent of this group became successful farmers in the plains region.
MINING AND LUMBERING IN THE WEST
The rumors of gold at Pike's Peak, Nevada, silver at Comstock, Nevada, and other minerals at countless other locations drew settlers westward in the quest for instant riches (it should be noted that a large number of Californians traveled eastward for exactly the same reason). People of all backgrounds, including women and some Chinese who had left their jobs in railroad construction, all took part in the search for riches. Stories of the wild nature of many early mining towns are generally accurate; stories of the failure of most speculators to find anything to mine are almost always true. Most prospectors who did find something in the ground found it much too difficult to dig for and then to transport; often they sold their claims to Eastern mining companies such as the Anaconda Copper Company which did the work for them. For many of these companies, minerals such as tin and copper became just as profitable as gold and silver to mine.
Lumber companies also began moving into the Northwest in the 1870s to start to cut down timber. The lumber industry benefited greatly from the federal Timber and Stone Act, passed in 1878. This bill offered land in the Northwest that was unsuitable for farming to "settlers" at very cheap prices. Lumber companies hired seamen from port cities and others who had no interest in "settling" to buy the forest land cheaply and then to transfer the ownership of the land to the companies.
RANCHING IN THE WEST
In Texas, the ranching industry was profitable long before either farming or mining was fully developed. Settlers there had learned cattle ranching from the Mexicans. Much of the romantic view many still have of the West comes from our vision of cowboys driving cattle on the "long drive" from Texas to either Kansas or Missouri (nearly one-third of the cowboys involved were either Mexicans or blacks).
The long drive was economically inefficient, and with the removal of Native Americans and buffalo from the Great Plains in the 1860s and 1870s (to be discussed in the next section), many cattle ranchers moved their herds northward, allowing them to be closer to the cattle markets of Chicago, Kansas City, and St. Louis.
However, conflicts between farmers and ranchers soon developed. Farmers often accused ranchers of allowing herds to trample their farmlands. The invention of barbed wire by Joseph Glidden in 1873 was the beginning of the end for the cattle industry; as farmers began to contain their farmlands, the open range began to disappear.
A critical blow to the cattle industry occurred during the very harsh winters of 1885, 1886, and 1887. Many cattle froze to death or starved during these years, with some ranchers losing up to 85 percent of their cattle. Those ranchers who survived turned to the same business techniques that had saved many plains farms; scientific methods of breeding, feeding, and fencing were now utilized. In reality, the independent cowboy present in our myths of the West also died during this transformation.
THE PLIGHT OF NATIVE AMERICANS
The westward stream of settlers in the mid-1800s severely disrupted the lives of Native Americans. The migration patterns of buffalo, which the Native Americans depended on, were disrupted; settlers thought nothing of seizing lands that previous treaties had given to Native Americans. Some tribes tried to cooperate with the onrush of settlers, while others violently resisted. It is unlikely that anything would have saved Native-American territories from the rush of American expansionism. The completion of the transcontinental railroad required that rail lines run through territories previously ceded to Native-American tribes. A congressional commission meeting in 1867 stated the official policy of the American government on "Indian affairs": Native Americans would all be removed to Oklahoma and South Dakota, and every effort would be made to transform them from "savages" into "civilized" beings.
The tribe that resisted the onrush of settlement most fiercely was the Sioux. In 1865, the government announced their desire to build a road through Sioux territory; the following year, tribesmen attacked and killed 88 American soldiers. After negotiations in 1868, the Sioux agreed to move to a reservation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Yet, in late 1874, miners searching for gold began to arrive in the Black Hills. The chief of the tribe, Sitting Bull, and others of the tribe left the Dakota reservation at this point. General George Custer was sent to round up Sitting Bull and the Sioux. He and his force of over 200 men were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876. This was the last major Native-American victory against the American army. Large numbers of federal troops were brought into the region, returning the Sioux to their reservations.
Conflict with the federal army occurred once again in 1890 after the death of Sitting Bull. Some Sioux again attempted to leave their reservation; these tribesmen were quickly apprehended by the federal army. As the male Sioux were handing in their weapons, a shot was fired by someone. The soldiers opened fire on the Native Americans, killing over 200 men, women, and children in the Massacre at Wounded Knee.
Other tribes such as the Nez Perce also initially resisted, only to be eventually driven to reservations. Nez Perce warriors ended up taking part in Ghost Dances, which were supposed to remove the whites from Native-American territories, return the buffalo, and bring ancestors killed by the whites back to life. The Ghost Dances terrified white settlers who viewed them and served to bring more federal forces into territories nominally controlled by Native Americans.
The killing of herds of buffalo by white settlers for food, hides, and even for pure sport did much to destroy Native-American life, since Native Americans depended on the buffalo for their very existence. A fatal blow to the remaining land owned by Native-American tribes was the 1887 Dawes Act. This act was passed in the spirit of "civilizing" the Native Americans and was designed to give them their own plots of land to farm on. The real intent of the legislation was to attempt to destroy the tribal identities of Native Americans. Many Native Americans had little skill or interest in farming; many eventually sold "their" land to land speculators.
In 1889, there were still 2 million acres of unclaimed land in "Indian territory" in Oklahoma. On April 22, a mad rush took place by white settlers staking out claims on this territory (those who staked claims that day were called "boomers"; settlers who had entered Indian territory a day or more early to stake their claims were called "sooners").
By the end of the century, virtually all Native Americans had been placed on reservations. Many young Indians attempted to dress, talk, and act like white men in schools established by white reformers.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE AMERICAN FARMER AND POPULISM
As stated previously, American farmers from the West were in economic trouble by the mid-1880s. Many farmers from the South shared their plight. Several policies originated in Washington that farmers felt greatly hurt them economically. Congresses of this era favored high tariffs, which helped Eastern businessmen. Farmers felt they were hurt by the high tariff policy, as it kept foreigners from buying their produce. The issue that farmers were most upset about, however, concerned currency.
The Issue of the Gold Standard
After the Civil War, federal budget officials enacted a "tight money" policy and took the paper money used during the Civil War out of circulation. In addition, the dollar during this period was for the first time put on the gold standard, meaning that every dollar in circulation had to be backed by a similar amount of gold held by the federal government. This action also served to limit the amount of money in circulation. These financial measures ensured that inflation would not occur, but Western farmers were convinced that depressed that depressed farm prices were largely a result of these policies. Several congressional acts to increase the coining and mining of gold and silver met with limited success and were opposed by the presidents of the era.
The Beginning of Organization: The Grange and Farmers' Alliances
In 1867, the Grange organization was founded by Western farmers. By 1875, it boasted of over 800,000 members. Through the Grange, farmer cooperatives were formed, allowing farmers to buy in large quantities the products that they needed (and at lower prices). Farmers were also convinced that railroad rates were disadvantageous to them, and legislators in farm states began to receive communications from farmers urging regulation of railroad rates and policies. Some farmers supported the Greenback party, which supported getting more paper money into circulation, in the 1878 election. The Greenbacks managed to elect several congressmen from farm states but got little support elsewhere.
While the Grange organization largely operated on the local level, development of the Farmers' Alliances joined farmers at the statewide and even regional level. By 1889, the Southern Alliance claimed 1 million members, while a separate Colored Farmers' National Alliance also had 1 million members on the books. Membership in the Farmers' Alliances on the Great Plains was nearly 2 million. The policies endorsed by the Farmers' Alliances included federal regulation of the railroad, putting more money in circulation, the establishment of a state department of agriculture in every state, and readily available farm credits; it was proposed that the federal government have large warehouses where farmers could store their grain and get credit for it if prices were low during the harvest season. These measures were spelled out in detail at a national Alliance convention held in 1890 in Ocala, Florida. The Ocala Platform stated the principles that motivated most political activity by farmers for the remainder of the century. Some federal policies did at least partially meet the demands of agricultural interests; the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 stated that the federal government could regulate interstate railway rates, and the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 aimed to control the power of trusts and monopolies.
By 1890, some leaders of the Farmers' Alliances began to plan for political action on the national level. Alliance strength was particularly strong in the South, where four governors owed their election to Alliance support. Forty-seven congressmen in the South were also strongly supported by the Alliance. In the plains states, Alliance candidates were successful on the local level. Alliance support extended to women as well; several women held important leadership positions at the top levels of the Farmers' Alliances.
The Populist Campaign of 1892
On July 4, 1892, in a convention held in Omaha, Nebraska, a national convention of Farmers' Alliances created the People's party, whose followers soon became known as Populists. The Populist party was intended to appeal to workers of all parts of the country. Populists desired a much greater role of government in American society. The party platform expressed support for increasing the circulation of money, a progressive income tax (by which wealthy Eastern industrialists would pay the most and farmers would pay the least), government ownership of communication and transportation systems, and more direct methods of democracy (greater use of direct primaries, recall, referendum, etc.). To appeal to urban workers, the platform also supported an eight-hour workday. The Populists nominated James B. Weaver, a Union general from the Civil War, as their candidate.
Despite a spirited campaign by Populist supporters, the party only received 1 million popular votes and 22 electoral votes in the 1892 election. Few voters in the Northeast supported the Populists, and Democratic control of the electoral process in the South remained strong. Only in the western United States did Populism do well.
Populism in the 1890s
The reelection of Grover Cleveland angered the agricultural interests greatly, as he announced his continued support of the gold standard during his inauguration speech. A great depression hit America in 1893, with workers from all parts of the country being laid off (in some cities up to 25 percent of laborers were unemployed). Populist marchers joined with marchers from many groups protesting government financial policy in Washington in 1894.
IN the 1896 presidential election, the Republican candidate was William McKinley, who followed Cleveland in his support of the gold standard. The Democratic candidate, endorsed by the Populists, was William Jennings Bryan, who campaigned on a policy of free silver and an expanded availability of currency, stating, "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!". Many Populist leaders hit the campaign trail for Bryan, yet with little success. Bryan carried the South and the West, but was unable to garner support in the Midwestern or Northeastern states.
As the depression ended at the end of the decade, Populists and others in the agricultural sector began to recognize the massive changes that had taken place in the American economy since the end of the Civil War. The American economy was now a national economy and not a sectional one; the railroad had been largely responsible for this change. In addition, slowly, but surely, the United States was becoming an industrial nation and not an agricultural one.
THE IMPACT OF THE WEST ON AMERICAN SOCIETY
The myths we now associate with the frontier began to be created as early as the 1870s in dime-store novels by Edward L. Wheeler and others. Wheeler's story of Deadwood Dick: The Prince of the Road portrayed a Western America filled with gamblers, hard drinkers, and stagecoach robberies. The Wild West shows that began in 1883 and were promoted by Buffalo Bill Cody contributed to the myths begun by Wheeler: Spectators were shown log cabins, rodeos, and mock battles between cavalrymen and seemingly deadly Indians.
A different view of the West was presented by Frederick Jackson Turner, an academic who in 1893 published his "frontier thesis." The Turner Thesis stated that Americans were forced to adapt and innovate as they moved westward. The thesis also explained how westward expansion helped to ingrain these characteristics into the fabric of American society. Turner stated that their frontier had created a society of men and women who were committed to self-improvement, who supported democracy, and who were socially mobile. In short, the Turner Thesis maintained that much of the nature of America came from their experiences in the West.
Each of these views was partially correct. The view of western expansion espoused (and later partially rejected) by Turner ignored the fact that not everyone who settled in the West were whites. In addition, the massacre of large numbers of Native Americans violated the basic principles of democracy. There was also some truth to Buffalo Bill's view of western settlement, yet his view ignored the cultural and material progress that took place in the West as a result of western expansion. In 1893, the Turner Thesis and Buffalo Bill's shows both drew incredible interest. During that year, it became clear that the Western frontier was closed, for all practical purposes, and Americans were attempting to make sense of what that actually meant for the country. Historians today still revisit this question on a regular basis.
CHAPTER REVIEW
To achieve the perfect 5, you should be able to explain the following:
~The Homestead Act and the Morrill Land-Grant Act encouraged thousands to go westward to acquire land for farming.
~Farming on the Great Plains proved to be very difficult and was oftentimes accomplished by help from one's neighbor; many farmers were not successful on the Great Plains.
~Bonanza farms were part of a transformation of agriculture that began in the late 1860s.
~Western states were the first states where women received the vote.
~Mining and lumbering also attracted many settlers to the West.
~Native-American tribes were gradually forced off their lands because of American expansion to the West; some resistance to this by Native Americans did take place, such as at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and through the Ghost Dances.
~The 1887 Dawes Act did much to break up the remaining Native-American tribal lands.
~American farmers organized beginning in the late 1860s through the Grange, through the Farmers' Alliances, and eventually through the Populist party.
~Dime-store novels of the era and the Turner Thesis presented contrasting views of western settlement and its overall impact on American society.
Time Line
1848: California Gold Rush
1859: Silver discovered in Comstock, Nevada
1862: Homestead Act, Morrill Land-Grant Act / Department of Agriculture created by Congress
1867: Founding of the Grange
1869: Transcontinental Railroad completed
1870s: Popularity of Deadwood Dick stories by Edward L. Wheeler and other dime-store novels on the West
1874: Barbed wire invented by Joseph Glidden
1876: Battle of the Little Bighorn
1879: Exoduster movement leaves the South for the Great Plains
1880s: Large movement of immigrants westward
1883: "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show" begins
1886: Beginnings of harsh weather that would help destroy the cattle industry
1887: Dawes Act
1889: Indian territories open for white settlement
1890: Massacre at Wounded Knee / Wyoming women get the vote / High point of political influence of the Farmers' Alliances
1893: Beginning of great depression of the 1890s / Publication of the Turner Thesis
1896: William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech