The old west

1. The Old
West

2. The Frontier

4. Population Changes in
the West, 1850 to 1900

5. Groups of
the West

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

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

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

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

10. Gold Panning

11. Sluicing

13. Prospecting

17. 21st Century Mining

18. 21st Century Mining

19. Mining Centers: 1900

20. Railroad Construction

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

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

25. Black
“Exoduster”
Homesteaders

26. The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great Plains

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

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

30. 1871-1875:
11,000,000
bison
slaughtered!

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

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

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

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

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

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

37. Geronimo, Apache Chief: Hopeless Cause

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

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

40. Arapahoe “Ghost Dance”, 1890

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

42. Oklahoma
Land Rush of
1889

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

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

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

48. The
Cattle
Trails

53. Group: Farmers

54. 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

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

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

57. A Pioneer’s Sod House, SD

58. Barbed Wire
Joseph Glidden

59. The Range Wars
Sheep
Herders
Cattle
Ranchers

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

61. National Parks

62. Conservation Movement
John Muir
With President
Theodore Roosevelt

63. Sierra Club
Founded in 1892