Ch 8 Notes
American History
Mining-
- placer mining- on surface, picks/ shovels- small amounts
- quartz mining- dig deep, bigger deposits
- what/where?
o
o Colorado- gold/silver
o
o
Ranching- grazed on the open range (gov’t land)
- round up- meat needed during the Civil War
- railroads- ship cattle to eastern markets
- Long Drives- drive the cattle to railheads
- End of long drives- sheep moved into the range (fences)
§ Too many cattle= lower prices (only big ranchers survive)
§ Railroads came to them
§ Trip spread disease
§ Cattle lost weight
Sec 2
Settling the plains- Come out to farm/raise a family
- Homestead Act- $10 for 160 acres if live there for 5 years
- Problems- no wood
§ Sodhouses
§
o Winter- fierce blizzards
o Grass too thick- steel plow needed
- New machines- drill to sow wheat (grows better in the dry environment)
§ Reapers (combines)
- bad times
o foreign competition = lower prices
o drought ruined crops
o result- hard to pay off debt for new stuff bought
End of the
frontier-
- most of the country is settled
- railroads connect the whole country, make it feel smaller
Sec 3
Plains Indians- nomads, followed the buffalo herds
- settlers often broke treaties with Indians as they moved in
Dakota Sioux-
- attacked settlers in MN b/c would not loan them food
- given annuities based on land given up, but payments held up by the gov’t
Lakota Sioux-
- Chiefs= Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse
- Ambushed army unit- Fetterman’s Massacre
- Sand Creek Massacre- looking to negotiate peace
o Army attacks, many women and children slaughtered
Indian Peace Commission-
-Creates 2 reservations, ran by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
-conditions not good on reservations, starvation, poverty
Little Bighorn- Custer outnumbered but attacks Indians- he and his men are wiped out
-
in the
End of the Indian Wars-
-
- Gov’t- outlaws the ghost dance
- They do it anyway, gov’t comes into arrest Sitting Bull, resistance, SB and others killed
Assimilation- goal, try to make the Indians “American”
Dawes Act- land divided up on reservations for families to farm
- Indians not into farming so much of the land is sold
-
Reservations left in poverty