Making Of America Unit 2: The West, 1839-60 Flashcards

Question

Uses of buffalo fat

Answer 1

Soap and cooking oil

Answer 2

Knives, arrow heads, shovels, scrapers, Winter sleds, saddle trees, war clubs, game dice

Answer 3

Buckets, cups, dishes, cooking pots

Answer 4

Glue, rattles

Answer 5

headdresses, saddle pad filler, pillow, ropes, halters

Answer 6

Ornaments for weapons

Answer 7

Best part of the meat

Answer 8

Altar at religious ceremonies

Answer 9

Hide preparation

Answer 10

Cups, spoons, ladles, headdresses

Answer 11

Desire for a better life - early explorers and traders spread word of good farming prospects (California and Oregon) Advertisements reinforce idea Pre-emption act, 1841 - US govt - in Oregon a farmer who had built a house and cleared trees had the first opportunity to buy surrounding land Manifest destiny - 1845 - journalists and politicians in East said it was God's plan for white Americans to settle the continent and convert Indians Routes and trails - by 1840 mountain men and explorers mapped the routes for settlers to make the 2000 mile journey more safely Economic problems - West seemed a better option because of bank collapses, savings lost, wage levels decreased, farming produce prices collapsed

Answer 12

All converged at St Joseph's, St Louis and Independence Stationed here for safety and got into groups You would want people of different skill sets, eg foragers, Mothers, carpenters Met with wagons and food

Answer 13

2000 miles on foot (usually 18 miles were done a day) Took 8 months Followed the Platte river as it provided flat ground to walk on, grazing land for animals Flowed East so there could be no boats Journey goes across Great Plains

Answer 14

Wanted to reach Independent Rock by July 4th Risk of weather if not (so would typically) Had to begin journey in the Spring

Answer 15

Here is where you would decide to go North or South (California or Oregon)

Answer 16

Govt passed Homestead Act 1 million Sod houses

Answer 17

First transcontinental railway 1.6 million people headed West Could make the journey in under a week

Answer 18

Wheels breaking on a wagon while holding people up - need to bring enough to survive however People brought bacon, dehydrated vegetables, coffee and salt When animals get tired, people throw furniture away Extreme weather, severe hailstorms Heat could cause heat stroke Dehydration Torrential rain - if river swells, people could drown Stampeding animals Thunderstorms (throughout all seasons) Native Americans Accidents with firearms Spread of disease was the biggest killer - 6% died (20,000) Cholera was biggest concern, but mumps and chicken pox too

Answer 19

Henry Sager began move to Oregon in May 1844 along with a group of 323 other emigrants Brought pregnant wife Naomi and six other children High rainfall turned ground to mud As they forded the Platte River (after 4 July), Henry lost control of oxen and wagon overturned August - Catherine jumped from a moving wagon and was dragged under the wheel, breaking her leg Fort Laramie - disease spread Henry died Naomi later died Whitman Mission: October - Sager children reached Christian mission of Whitman couple, adopted them 1847 - measles swept through Cayuse camps, killing many Indians and they blamed the Whitmans for deaths (they had come to Oregon in 1836 to convert them) Three Cayuses arrived at the Whitman home and hacked Marcus, shot Narcissa Set the Mission alight and killed thirteen people Only Catherine and three other Sager children survived Catherine married a minister and settled in Oregon Experience was not typical - people were more likely to shoot themselves with their own gun than be attacked by an Indian

Answer 20

87 people set off Snowstorms hit them in the Sierras and only 46 survived Relied on cannablism

Answer 21

A major fort where treaties were signed with Americans along the trails NA would let settlers pass with no trouble

Answer 22

Founded by Joseph Smith Claimed God had shown him a secret book written on gold plates 1830 he published the Book of Mormon - claimed this was a translation of gold plates Believed they had to rebuild church in America

Answer 23

1830s- attracted a large number of followers due to belief in shared ownership of land and property poor Americans = chance for a better life unpopular with those who disagreed with the vision of shared land ownership opposition to slavery = slave holders don't like them aggressive in trying to convert people to mormonism - practised polygamy to increase numbers more rapidly Mormon leader Brigham Young had 55 wives in his lifetime

Answer 24

faced with hostility 1838 - settled in Nauvoo, Illinois 1846 - JS is murdered by a mob Brigham Young wants to build God's Kingdom further Westward left town as it was destroyed by fire and cannon by anti-Mormon mobs moved onto Plains and headed West Travelled on foot, pulling their worldly goods in heavy hand carts

Answer 25

after nearly 1300 miles - arrived at Salt Lake City lay between Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains 1847 - Mormons founded Salt Lake City 1852 - over 10,000 there

Answer 26

BY decided nobody would have the right to own land Church would decide how much each family gets according to their needs Easy for him to have orders followed as people saw him as the most direct link to what God wanted

Answer 27

difficult to grow food in such a dry place clear that irrigated farmland would be crucial BY ordered the digging of irrigation channels bringing water from distant mountain streams to farmland ensured everyone had a fair share of water

Answer 28

magnificent scale through the city itself flows an unfailing stream of pure, sweet water

Answer 29

1848 - US govt seized area around Salt Lake City which brought Mormons back into the USA BY applied for Utah to become a state but govt did not allow added as a territory in 1850 and BY was made it's first governor worry over rapid spread of Mormons between 1850 and 1860, and plans for settlement

Answer 30

1857 - govt decided to send troops to Utah to force Young to bring it in line with US laws (e.g. no polygamy) Conflict never actually occurred September 1857 - Mormons led by John D Lee massacred some settlers they believed to be US army spies scandal forced BY to step down as governor of Utah without need of army Utah was then made to follow the rest of the laws of the USA

Answer 31

Gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, California Territory Rivers were full of gold - geologically had been pushed up James Marshall was building a saw mine for Sutter's - tested land and it was gold 'Boys, by god I believe I have found a gold mine!'

Answer 32

Mexico sold California to the USA

Answer 33

President James K Polk confirmed that the reports of gold coming from newly-conquered territory were true encouraged people to move because: wants enough people for a state provides wealth for America wants to be able to control the land

Answer 34

over 50,000 Americans headed to California to strike it rich Called the forty niners some came by sea from the East Coast miners would come and set up camp where there was gold - once dried up, they would leave October 1849 - California applied to become a state

Answer 35

1850 - San Francisco grew to be a city of 34,000 people and a busy trading port 1850-51 - huge numbers of Chinese and migrants went to find their own riches in California

Answer 36

Not many people made it big in Sierra Nevada Merchants became the wealthiest by selling pick axes, shovels, tents had to work to be able to eat used slave labour from China Levi Strauss made a fortune selling hard-wearing denim jeans helped pay for first transcontinental railroad in 1809 average take home for a miner in 1848 massively decreased because less was available, less gold and lots of miners people got gangrene used hydraulic mining - uses high pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment - rich companies get money can be dangerous - can cause collapses in the ground Nancy Gooch (former slave)- becomes a washerwoman for the miners and uses earnings to buy her freedom caused biggest migration flux fighting off rattle snakes, disease, starvation

Answer 37

Snow's letters - showcases consequences: crime rates were exceptionally high many murders most left as poor as they came prostitution - women moved too dance halls - dance with a girl for a dime 1849 - rivers 'awash' with gold in Sierra - deposited in gravel beds miners worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day - bad ventilation, 1200 feet deepest so would go down in vertical shafts (you could drown) promised $1000 a day which was very unlikely mining settlement - police were limited, Bodie Mutts - baseball, saloons, gambling even though it was a crime, limited law enforcements so lots of murders and shootings Bodie was renowned for gunfights and bad men sheriffs were not effective large mining companies are taking over towns appeared in unforgiving landscapes across the desert (boom in the late 1870s) 30 mines in Bodie, and houses, banks and a brass band

Answer 38

The Miners who travelled West cut right through Plains Indians' hunting grounds govt forced to sign Fort Laramie treaty in 1851, promising not to disrupt Plains hunting or settle on the Plains California encouraged the killing of NA if it assisted business, leading to 80% of California's NA being killed in 20 years

Answer 39

California became a free state threw delicate balance of slave and free states into a crisis also led to demands to connect the country up fully with a railroad

Answer 40

California 'digger' Indians were pushed off land to make way for miners Law was brought in which allowed Indians to be sold into slave labour

Answer 41

1850 - California passed a law which meant that all non-US miners had to pay a $20 tax forced thousands of immigrants to leave

Answer 42

San Francisco grew to have 56,000 people by 1860 and was the fifteenth largest city in the country Mining led to environmental destruction, clogging rivers with silt and putting harmful chemicals into the water supply

Answer 43

only the rich could afford so companies who made them made a lot of money knocks rock from landscape using high water pressure to break sediment for extracting gold turned to industrial scale no safety procedures 1852 - Crushing mill was a large machine which crushed rock

Answer 44

1858 - new gold strike was made at Pike's Peak in Kansas Territory (modern day Colorado). This land was occupied by the Cheyenne Indians (a powerful Plains Indian tribe) Huge number of people came - over 100,000 by 1859 (spurred on by 1857 regression) New mining towns like Denver needed food. This led to thousands more people settling in the Eastern half of Kansas Territory and establishing farms (railway helped people move from East to St Joseph's - merchants still making lots of money) x2 people came to Pike's Peak than California Settlement of Kansas proved that the Plains were not just a desert land, and soon more settlers came flooding onto new lands Town boosters encouraged people to come - deliberately lied about the ease of the route to encourage people to come to their towns and settle Settlement of Kansas and Colorado broke treaties the USA had signed with Indian tribes in the 1850s - farmers made a good living by selling food Tribes like the Cheyenne and Kiowa began to fight back against white settlers on the Plains - they were forced to travel further in the Summer and tensions increased when they returned in the Winter, central Plains were becoming states (1861 = Kansas becomes a state) Treaties signed in 1851 and 1853 established safe routes, but white people now wanted to settle on the Plains too September 1859 - Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders met the US authorities at Fort Laramie, 'Our old people and little children are hungry...our sufferings are increasing every Winter... we wish to live' Five days later - Kiowa rode into a shop and spat blood in the shop keepers face (had to abandon vision of West and allow white to take over, sign of conflict to come) By 1860 - war between NA Plains Tribes and the US govt seemed inevitable

Making Of America Unit 2: The West, 1839-60 Flashcards

(70 cards)