1.
Dawes Severalty Act (1887): It says that Indians are no longer a legal entity, and dissolved the tribes (no longer Indians, Americans). Got rid of Indian culture. Whites eager to seize reservation land. Revoked in the 1930s
2.
Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883: Civil service jobs filled by competitive examination.
3.
The Gilded Age (later 1800s): Motives for Westward Expansion: After the war People wanted to go west for economic opportunities. Movement was possible because of the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the 1870s (1862- Pacific Railroad Bill enabled building of transcontinental, free land policy- the gov. sells the best land to the railroads). The Homestead Act of 1862: men and unmarried women over 21 file for 160 acres of land, and must improve the land. This hurt the Indians and New Mexico sheep herders.
4.
The Gilded Age: Atlanta Exposition Speech of 1895: Booker T. Washington emerges as an accommodationist
5.
The Gilded Age: Interstate Commerce Act of 1887: Law designed to supervise railroad activities and regulate unfair practices
6.
The Gilded Age: Plessy vs. Ferguson: (1890s) Plessy was 1/8th black and wanted to test Jim Crowe's laws. Supreme Court says "separate but equal"- was law until 1954
7.
The Gilded Age: Race Relations in the South: Sharecropping: rents land to ex-slaves and the owners are paid off with crops (share croppers were almost always in debt because they had to supply the tools- not much better than slavery). Jim Crowe's laws of segregation where tested in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. Increase lynchings of blacks. Ida B. Wells launches an anti-lynching campaign and wrote in her newspaper Free Speech (she was popular in Britain). Late 1870s Exodus became popular among Blacks.
8.
The Gilded Age: Settling the Indian Question: After war, the federal gov. wants to put Indians of reservations, but some Indians fight against this (called the Indian Wars). Big part of the Indian wars was the Sand Creek Massacre (killed over 100 Indians). Policy of Concentration: no longer were Indians to be pushed westward, but put on reservations. Treaty of Traverse de Sioux in 1851: Sioux herded on to reservations after loosing the Indian Wars. In 1883, when Buffalo become nearly extinct, Indians realize their way of life is destroyed, and submit to reservations. Ghost Dance: 1890, religious movement that spread to the Sioux by Sitting Bull (see wounded knee)
9.
The Gilded Age: The Battle of Little Big Horn: June 5th, 1876. George Custer wants to capture Sioux Indian chief. Indians win and kill many Americans. Sioux warriors were led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
10.
The Gilded Age: The New South: Term coined by Henry Grady, to describe South post reconstruction (1877). Middle Class Southerners wanted to be like the North, but gov. still run by white democrats until the 1960s. Industrialization of textile factories and tobacco industry (started by James Buchanan Duke). Still primarily agrarian. Ex-slaves still in the south, many disenfranchised through poll tax, literary taxes, and the grandfather clause.
11.
The Gilded Age: Wounded Knee: Caused by the Ghost Dance, it offered a different type of resistance to whites. White army fired on a Sioux encampment at wounded knee killing many Indian civilians. This event symbolized the end of 19th century Indian Plains culture. Last armed conflict between Indians and Americans
