1. Goal 4:
The Great West
and the Rise
of the Debtors
(1860s-1896)

2. 4.01 Compare and contrast
the different groups of
people who migrated to the
West and describe the
problems they experienced.

3. 4.02 Evaluate the impact
that settlement in the West
had upon different groups of
people and the environment.

4. 4.03 Describe the causes
and effects of the financial
difficulties that plagued the
American farmer and trace
the rise and decline of
Populism.

5. 4.04 Describe innovations in
agricultural technology and
business practices and assess
their impact on the West.

6. Comstock Lode Transcontinental Railroad
Promontory Point, UT Roles of Irish
… Chinese … African-Americans
Buffalo Soldiers Sand Creek Massacre
Chief Joseph Battle of Little Big Horn
Nez Perce Wounded Knee
Dawes Severalty Act Century of Dishonor
Oklahoma Land Rush Cattle Trails
Homestead Act Morrill Land Grant
Roles of women Sod houses
Windmill Steel Plow
Barbed Wire

7. Essential Questions
1. What national issues emerged in the
process of closing the western frontier?
2. Why does the West hold such an
important place in the American
imagination?
3. In what ways is the West romanticized in
American culture?

8. The Frontier

11. Population Changes in
the West, 1850 to 1900

12. Groups of
the West

13. 1. Miners
2. Railroad Companies
3. Cowboys & Ranchers
4. Native Americans
5. White farmers
6. Ethnic Minorities (Blacks,
Hispanics, & Asians)

14. Key Tensions
Native Buffalo Hunters
Americans Railroads
U. S. Gov.
Cattlemen Sheep Herders
Ranchers Farmers

15. Key Tensions
Ethnic Nativists
Minorities
Big Business
Environmentalists
Local Gov. Officials
Farmers
Buffalo Hunters
Lawlessness of “Civilizing” Forces
the Frontier
[The “Romance” of the West]

16. Group: Miners
Key Events • Key People
– 1848: a series of – ’49ers
“big strikes” in – Civil War Vets
CA, NV, CO – Young men
– Some families

17. Gold Panning

18. Sluicing

20. Prospecting

30. Mining Centers: 1900

31. Promontory, Utah
Group: Laborers/Workers
• Key Events
– 1869: 1st transcontinental railroad meets in
Promontory Pt., Utah

32. Promontory Point, UT
(May 10, 1869)

33. Railroad Construction

34. Group: Laborers/Workers
• Key People
– Irish: from East
– Chinese: from West
– African Americans

35. Group: Laborers/Workers
• Government Policies/Legislation
– Gov’t. gives land to railroad companies but doesn’t
regulate rates they charge or rail gauge/ width

39. Regional Population Distribution
by Race: 1900

40. Regional Population Distribution
by Race: 1900

41. Black
“Exoduster”
Homesteaders

42. Blacks Moving West

43. The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great Plains

44. The Buffalo Soldiers & the Indian Wars

45. The “Chinese Question”
 Exclusion Act (1882)
- Oriental Exclusion Act
- Chinese Exclusion Act

46. The Tong Wars: 1850s-1920s
Began in San Francisco in 1875.

47. African American & Chinese
Populations:
1880-1900

49. Group: Native Americans
• Key Events • Key People
– Chivington (aka Sand Creek) – Col Chivington
Massacre: 200+ Natives killed – Gen. Custer
– Custer’s Last Stand: 200 – Sitting Bull
Americans killed – Crazy Horse
– Battle of Wounded Knee: 300
Natives killed

51. Group: Native Americans
• Cultural
Characteristics
– Total reliance on buffalo
– White slaughter led to
starvation

53. 1871-1875:
11,000,000
bison
slaughtered!

54. Group: Native Americans
• Government Policies/ Legislation
– Reservation system
– Broken treaties
– Dawes Act- tried “Americanization”

55. Colorado
Gold Rush (1859)

56. Colonel John Chivington
Kill and scalp all, big and little!
Sandy Creek, CO Massacre
November 29, 1864

57. Capt. William J. Fetterman
80 soldiers massacred
December 21, 1866

58. Gold Found in
the Black Hills
of the Dakota
Territory!
1874

59. The Battle of Little Big Horn
1876
Gen. George
Armstrong
Custer
Chief Sitting Bull

60. Chief Joseph I will fight no
more forever!
Nez Percé tribal
retreat (1877)

61. Geronimo, Apache Chief: Hopeless Cause

62. Helen Hunt Jackson
A Century of Dishonor (1881)
Ramona (1884)

63. Dawes Severalty Act (1887):
Assimilation Policy
Carlisle Indian School, PA

64. Arapahoe “Ghost Dance”, 1890

65. Chief Big Foot’s Lifeless Body
Wounded Knee, SD, 1890

66. Mt. Rushmore: Black Hills, SD

67. Crazy Horse Monument:
Black Hills, SD
Lakota Chief

68. Korczak Ziolkowski, Sculptor
Crazy Horse Monument
His vision of the finished memorial.

69. Oklahoma
Land Rush of
1889

72. Group: Cowboys/Ranchers
• Key Events
– Corralling + Branding +
Long drive to railroads
– 1883- droughts
– 1887- blizzard
– 1880- barbed wire
ends the open range

73. Group: Cowboys/Ranchers
• Key People:
– Joseph McKoy: ran Abilene stockyard
– Buffalo Bill Hickok’s Wild West show
– Calamity Jane

74. Group: Cowboys/Ranchers
• Government Policies/Legislation
– The gov’t. gave land to railroad companies to sell so
they could raise money to build the railroads

75. Group: Cowboys/Ranchers
• Cultural
characteristics:
– Boots
– Spurs
– Chaps
– 6 shooters
– Good songs
– Loneliness

76. The
Cattle
Trails

82. The Bronc Buster
Frederick Remington

83. Black Cowboys

84. Colt .45 Revolver
God didn’t make men equal.
Colonel Colt did!

85. Legendary Gunslingers & Train Robbers
Jesse James
Billy the Kid

86. Dodge City Peace Commission, 1890

87. Group: Farmers

88. Group: Farmers
• Government Policies/ Legislation
– Homestead Act of 1862: 160 acres of free land
– Morrill Act: Est. farm colleges
– Hatch Act: Funds farm research
NCSU Freshman
class 1889

89. Group: Farmers
• Key People
– Families
– Women are key
– Keep house, educate kids, prepare food, make clothing

90. Group: Farmers
• Cultural characteristics
– Sod houses
– Dugouts
– Plows
– Windmills
– Reapers

91. Frontier Settlements: 1870-1890

92. Rain Follows the Plow!

93. Homesteads From Public Lands

94. 1887
Land
Promotion
Poster
for the
Dakota
Territories

95. What is the Message of this Picture?

96. The Reality: “My First House in Neb, 1880”

97. The Realty--A Pioneer’s Sod House, SD

99. A Pioneer’s Sod House, SD

101. Land Use: 1880s

102. New Agricultural
Technology
Steel Plow [“Sod Buster”]
“Prairie Fan”
Water Pump

103. Barbed Wire
Joseph Glidden

104. The Range Wars
Sheep Cattle
Herders Ranchers

105. The Traditional View of the West

106. William “Buffalo Bill”
Cody’s Wild West Show

107. “Buffalo Bill” Cody & Sitting Bull

108. Legendary Female Western Characters
Calamity Jane Annie Oakley

109. The Fall of the Cowboy
Frederick Remington

110. What were the
long-term effects
of westward
expansion?

111. Destruction of the Buffalo Herds
The near extinction of the buffalo.

112. Yellowstone National Park
First national park
established in 1872.

113. National Parks

114. Conservation Movement
John Muir
With President
Theodore Roosevelt

115. Sierra Club
Founded in 1892