History, Chapter 14

Terms in this set (38)

Push-pull factors

events and conditions that either force(push) people to move elsewhere or strongly attract(pull) them to do so. The push factors were overpopulation in the East, the things on the East coast were expensive like farmland, ethnic and religious repression, businessmen that failed in the East sought a second chance in the West, it was a safe place for outlaws on the run, and the Civil war displaced many people and businesses with the destruction. The pull factors were the Pacific Railway act which gave land grants to railroad companies. The Morrill Land Grant Act which gave the government land and when they sold the land the money went to building colleges. The Homestead Act which gave settlers 160 acres of land for a small fee. Also private property which gave documentation for people's land.

Pacific Railway Act

granted every alternate section of public land to the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of the railroad. The railroads received more than 175 million acres of public land. The railroad expansion provided new avenues of migrations into the American interior. The railroads sold portions of their land at a handsome fee.

Morrill Land Grant Act

gave state governments millions of acres of western lands, which the state governments could then sell to raise money for the creation of "land grant" colleges specializing in agriculture and mechanical arts. The states sold their land to bankers and land speculators.

for a small fee settlers could have 160 acres of land if they met certain conditions: They were at least 21 years old or the heads of families. They were American citizens or immigrants filing for citizenship. They built a house of certain minimum size(usually 12 feet by 14 feet) on their claims and lived in it at least six months a year. Finally, they had to farm the land for five years in a row before claiming ownership. This act created more than 372,000 farms and by 1900, settlers had filed 600,000 claims for more than 80 million acres.

In 1879, Benjamin"Pap" Singleton lead groups of southern blacks on a mass "Exodus", a trek inspired by a biblical account of the Israelite's flight from Egypt to a prophesied homeland. 50,000 or more exodusters, African Americans, migrated West.

the vast grassland between the Mississippi river and the Rocky Mountains. It is where the eastern settlers affected the lives of the Native Americans.

people who travel from place to place, usually following available food sources, instead of living in one location. Many Indians became nomads to follow the buffalo herds, with horses, across the plains.

federal lands set aside for the Native Americans. The government wanted to restrict the nomadic movement of the Native American so the government negotiated treaties. Most treaties restricted the Native Americans to the reservations.

Battle of Little Bighorn

In 1865, the government decided to build a road through prime Sioux hunting ground. The Sioux launched a two-year plan to block the project, Sioux warriors slaughtered more than 80 soldiers under Captain W. J.Fetterman near Fort Phil Kearny. The war ended with the Treaty of Fetterman, under which the United States abandoned the Bozeman Trail and created a large Sioux reservation in what is now half of South Dakota. There was a rumor that Lieutenant George A. Custer was sent to investigate. The rumor was that the Sioux reservation had gold. Custer reported that the hills cradled gold "from the grassroots down". The government offered to buy back the land when they heard of the gold. One chief entered negotiations but Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse left the reservation. In 1876, Custer was sent to the reservation to round up the Indians. He moved his cavalry toward the Little Bighorn River, where he met nearly 2,000 Sioux warriors. Custer split his forces and the Sioux fell on their prey. The Sioux wiped out Custer and his more than 200 soldiers within the hour. The army flooded the area with troops and forced most of the Sioux back to their reservation. Crazy Horse was killed after surrendering in 1877. Sitting Bull and some other Sioux escaped to Canada, but starvation force them to surrender and return to a reservation four years later.

a ritual in which people joined hands and whirled in a circle. A Ghost Dance started the Massacre at Wounded Knee.

Massacre at Wounded Knee

The Teton Sioux, who still struggled to adjust to reservation life, practiced the ghost dance with great urgency, encouraged by Sitting Bull. In 1890, word had spread that the Indians were becoming restless. The agent at the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota said that the Indians were dancing in the snow and were wild and crazy and that the agent needed protection. The army sent Custer's old unit. Indian police officers tried to arrest Sitting Bull but he hesitated. The officers then shot and killed him. Some 120 men and 230 women and children surrendered and were rounded up at a creek called Wounded Knee. When they were being disarmed, someone fired a shot. The soldiers opened fire and killed more than 200 Sioux. The massacre was the last major episode of violence in the Indian wars.

Sand Creek Massacre

After some Cheyenne raids on wagon trains and settlements. The Colorado's governor took advantage of a peace campaign led by the Cheyenne. After promised protection, Black Kettle and other chiefs followed orders to camp at Sand Creek. In 1864, Colonel John Chivington and his force of 700 men descended upon the encamped. While Black Kettle tried to mount an American flag and a white flag of surrender, Chivington's men slaughtered between 150 and 500 people, largely women and children. The year after, Cheyenne agreed to move to reservation.

the process by which one society becomes a part of another, more dominant, society by adopting its culture. The United States took the Indian children and integrated them into white society.

divided reservations land into individual plots. Each Native American family headed by a man received a ploy, usually 160 acres. The landholders were granted U.S citizenship and were subject to local, state, and federal laws. Indian sympathizers believed that the land allocations would make families self-supporting and create pride of ownership. Much of the reservation land wasn't suitable for farming. Some Native Americans had no interest or experience in agriculture. Some sold their land to speculators or were swindled out of it. Between 1887 and 1932, some two thirds of the reservation land, 138 million acres, was in the hand of the whites.

Took part in the Land Race legally. The Land Race was on April 22, 1889. Tens of thousands of homesteaders lines up at the territory's borders. By sundown, these settlers, had staked claims on almost 2 million acres.

People who sneaked past the government officials earlier to mark their claims, had taken some of the best land.

was the chief for the Nez Perce. When the other tribes were moving onto reservations, Chief Joseph's father had not moved his tribe. When Joseph's father died, Joseph had promised to him that he would not sell their scenic, fruitful homeland in the Northwest. The government had offered to buy their land but Joseph refused. Chief Joseph stayed on his land and fought Howard's army. His tribe had fought a couple of battles before their allies, the Crows, left them. Chief Joseph surrendered with the promise form the government that the tribe could back to their land in the spring. The tribe was not allowed to go back to their land, they were exiled to Indian Territory(Oklahoma).

George Armstrong Custer

fought in the Civil War. When the war was over , he was sent to battle the Indians. In 1874, he was sent into the Sioux land to discover if the rumor, that the hills were filled with gold, were true. He said they were and tried to take their land away. He gathered his army and went to the Little Bighorn River, where he met nearly 2,000 Sioux warriors. The Sioux had wiped out Custer and his more than 200 soldiers within an hour. The Battle Of Little Bighorn is also known as "Custer's Last Stand"

Miners shoveled loose dirt into boxes and then ran water over the dirt to separate it from gold or silver particles.The method could be used by individuals, small groups of men, or even families. People came overnight when there were rumors that a town had gold in it. Huge drills replaced pickaxes. When dynamite arrived, many miners just blasted through the hillsides. Mining had become the realm of big business.

The men were up at 3:30 am and in the saddle by 4. As the cattle moved along the trail two experienced cowboys rode in the front of the herd, guiding the animals along the route. Other men rode beside the herd to keep the cattle all together, and still others rode in the dust at the rear, pushing the stragglers along. A cowboy could spend up to 18 hours in the saddle a day. A cowboy's greatest nightmare was a stampede. The leading cause of cowboy death was being dragged by a horse. Diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, fevers, and infections also took many lives. Nor least of the hardships on the trail was loneliness, with only fellow men as company for months on end. In cattle country, men outnumbered women 10 to 1. In the West, men outnumbered women about 2.5 to 1 in 1870.

those who farmed claims under the Homestead Act. Building a home was very difficult, most people built either a dugout or a soddie. Once the house was up, the farmers had to sodbuster, plowing the fields for planting. It was heartbreaking when floods, prairie fires, dust storms, or drought ruined their year's work. Also the bugs destroyed many of the crops. Bugs like; grasshoppers, locusts and boll weevils. Also the falling crop prices created rising farm debt. The father was in charge of manual labor on the farm. The women took care of the children, cooking, and cleaning. The children collected firewood and food.

sod home. It was a structure with the walls and roof made from blocks of sod, strips of grass with the thick roots and earth attached. It was easy to build because the house only cost about 10 dollars to build.

water conservation techniques. They included planting crops that do not require a great deal of water, keeping the fields free of weeds, and digging deep furrows so water could reach the plant roots. It allowed cultivation of arid land by using drought-resistant crops and various techniques to minimize evaporation.

Bonanza Farming

operations controlled by large businesses. They were managed by professionals and raised massive quantities of single cash crops.

Turner claimed that the frontier had played a key role in forming the American character. Frontier life had created Americans who were socially mobile bent on individual self-improvement and committed to democracy. It emphasized the effects of individual effort but played down the effects of federal subsidies and business investments on development and on Native Americans.

exaggerated or oversimplified descriptions of reality. The biggest stereotype in the 1870s was the amazing life of the cowboy and the life of men in the West. While the myths of the Old West are more dramatic than the reality, the era produced many of the nation's most cherished images of itself.

the amount of money in the national economy. If the government increased the money supply, the value of every dollar drop, inflation. The value of money is directly linked to the money supply.

a drop in the prices on goods. People who lend money are helped by deflation because the money they receive in payment of a loan is worth more than the money they lent out.

Monetary Policy

the federal government's plan for the makeup and quantity of the nation's money supply. It emerged as a major political issue. Supporters of deflation wanted a "tight money' policy of less currency in circulation. Supporters of inflation pushed for an increase in the money supply.

Bimetallic Standard

The currency consisted of gold or silver coins or United States treasury notes that could be traded in for gold or silver. in 1873, supporters of a "tight money" policy had won and Congress replaced the nation's bimetallic standard and put the nation on a gold standard.

the unlimited coining of silver dollars to increase the money supply. The silverites, mostly silver-mining interests and western farmers, called for free silver.

Bland-Allison Act

Required the federal government to purchase and coin more silver, increasing the money supply and causing inflation. The Act was vetoed by President Rutherford and Congress overrode his veto. The act only had a limited effect because the Treasury Department refused to buy more than the minimum amount of silver required under the act. THe Treasury also refused to circulate the silver dollars that the law required it to limit. But for the silverites, it was a step in the right direction.

Sherman Silver Purchase Act

It didn't authorize the free and unlimited coinage of silver that the silverites wanted, it increased the amount of silver the government was required to purchase every month. It required the Treasury to buy the silver with note that could be redeemed for either silver or gold. the plan backfired., as people turned in their silver Treasury notes, the government's gold reserves depleted.

Also called the Patrons of Husbandry, Oliver H. Kelley was disturbed by the farmers' isolation. It soon began helping farmers form cooperatives, through which they bought goods in large quantities at lower prices. It also pressured state legislators to regulate businesses on which farmers depended. Eventually, farmers formed other political parties.

Interstate Commerce Act

It regulated the prices that railroads charged to move freight between states, requiring the rates to be set in proportion to the distance traveled. It also made it illegal to give special rate to some customers. It did not control the monopolistic railroad practices that angered farmers, it established the principle that Congress could regulate the railroad, a significant expansion of federal authority. It was meant to curb the power of trusts and monopolies but during its first decade, enforcement was lax.

The Alliance founded the People's Party, a new national party that demanded radical changes in federal economic and social policies. They built their platform around that issues of;1. An increased circulation of money, 2. The unlimited minting of silver, 3. A progressive income tax, in which the percentage of taxes owed increases with a rise in income. This tax would place a greater financial burden on wealthy industrialists and a lesser one on farmers, and 4. Government ownership of communications and transportation systems. The Populists also endorsed an eight-hour work day. The Democratic Party took over many of the Populists ideas and so did the Progressives.

Cross of Gold Speech

Is one of the most famous speeches in American history. Using images from the Bible, William Jennings Bryan stood with head bowed and arms outstretched and cried out at the climax of his speech, "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!". After that speech he was nominated for President by both the Democrats and the Populists. He traveled all over the country making speeches, but he lost the election to McKinley.

William Jennings Bryan

was a former silverite congressman from Nebraska and a powerful speaker. After his speech, Cross of Gold Speech, the Democrat and the Populists nominated him for president. He traveled all over the country making speeches at every stop. Bryan lost the election to McKinley. Factory workers feared that free silver might cause inflation, which would eat away the buying power of their wages.

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