Regional divisions - The Wild West Flashcards
Which 2 reasons caused the rapid settlement of the American West by 1890?
- Government policy: wars, treaties and government policies through the US Army and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
- Actions of ordinary Americans: farmers, ranchers, miners, hunters and small businessmen.
Describe what the government policy was overtaken by.
It was frequently overtaken by social forces it could not easily control.
Describe the treaties with Indian Nations.
The treaties were undermined by the actions of white, such as the gold prospectors who poured into the Black Hills of the Dakotas from 1874, breaking the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie and causing renewed war against the Plains Indians.
Describe how life in the West was fast-changing and transient.
Mining towns like Virginia City in Nevada had sudden booms and then were deserted when the prospectors and speculators discovered mineral riches somewhere else.
What gave way to the age of the railroad?
The age of cattle drivers, ranch wars and stagecoaches.
How did Americans view the West?
A land of wide spaces waiting to be tamed by tough, self-sufficient pioneers who represented the best American values.
What was the real history of the West?
Dark and complicated. The army was used to drive the Indians, buffalo herds were slaughtered, boom-and-bust mining towns ripped out the West’s mineral resources. All this left behind derelict ghost towns and a scarred natural environment.
What divisions and rivalries took place in the new West?
Rivalries between:
- Small farmers and the banks
- Railroads and land companies
- Rival towns and rival businessmen.
What was the main overriding division?
Between the white settlers and the Native Americans.
What had happened by 1890?
The way of life of the Indian Nations had gone forever, with the open spaces fenced, tribal lands parcelled out to settlers, and Native Americans confined to small, uneconomic reservations.
What were the Native Americans made to be?
They were to be marginalised, made almost invisible, until the federal government under FDR tried to repair the damage in the ‘Indian New Deal’ of 1934.
What other group was marginalised by the rush to exploit the West?
The farmers who represented the ideal image of the pioneer settlers were pushed aside by ‘big agriculture’, ranching and mining, often struggling for economic survival and running into debt.
What was the driving force behind the organisations representing independent farmers?
Their desperate need for credit to buy seed, fertilisers and equipment.
When was the Granger movement first formed and what did it aim for? What was it hostile against? When did it Peak?
- To help farmers with loans, advice, and solidarity.
- Hostile against the railroad companies.
- Support peaked around 1880 and then fell back.
Where did the support for the Granger movement shift to?
The alliance movement that begin in Texas in the 1870s and spread across the Southern and Western states.
