The single largest cattle ranch in the entire West was owned by American John W. Iliff, "cattle king of the Plains", operating in Colorado and Wyoming. [408], Journalist Samuel Lubell saw similarities between the frontier's Americanization of immigrants that Turner described and the social climbing by later immigrants in large cities as they moved to wealthier neighborhoods. Why were settlers attracted to the Tennessee territory How did the North Carolina regulators show their diagust for the government Why were early settlers upset with upset with the result of the 1771 survey conducted by Doneslon and Cameron How were community issues decided by the count under the Articles of the Watuga Association Elite Eastern writers and artists of the late 19th century promoted and celebrated western lore. The postal service helped to integrate already established areas with the frontier, creating a spirit of nationalism and providing a necessary infrastructure. "[227], Scholars have compared the emergence of democracy in America with other countries, regarding the frontier experience. [263] After a decade or so the mining towns attracted respectable women who ran boarding houses, organized church societies, worked as laundresses and seamstresses and strove for independent status. [85], The local Baptists set up small independent churchesBaptists abjured centralized authority; each local church was founded on the principle of independence of the local congregation. Robert L. Munkres read 66 diaries of parties traveling the Oregon Trail between 1834 and 1860 to estimate the actual dangers they faced from Native attacks in Nebraska and Wyoming. Astor's "Fort Astoria" (later Fort George), at the mouth of the Columbia River, became the first permanent white settlement in that area, although it was not profitable for Astor. [171] The settlers were customers of the railroads, shipping their crops and cattle out, and bringing in manufactured products. For example, many Finns went to Minnesota and Michigan, Swedes and Norwegians to Minnesota and the Dakotas, Irish to railroad centers along the transcontinental lines, Volga Germans to North Dakota, and German Jews to Portland, Oregon. [393] The "Code of the West" was an unwritten, socially agreed upon set of informal laws shaping the cowboy culture of the Old West. The actual migrants looked beyond fears of the unknown. The U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894) provided an estimate of deaths: The "Indian" wars under the government of the United States have been more than 40 in number. On the other hand, bishops of the well-organized, centralized Methodists assigned circuit riders to specific areas for several years at a time, then moved them to fresh territory. [156], As part of public policy, the government would award public land to certain groups such as veterans, through the use of "land script". He set up the American Fur Company in an attempt to break the hold that the Hudson's Bay Company monopoly had over the region. [219] Dealing with nomadic tribes complicated the reservation strategy and decentralized tribal power made treaty making difficult among the Plains Indians. [392] The phenomenon is "the Imagined West". It later became Utah Territory. The Buffalo Soldiers were soldiers in the all-black 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments, and 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments of the U.S. Army. [134] The Pony Express ended in just 18 months because it could not compete with the telegraph. Law enforcement emphasized maintaining stability more than armed combat, focusing on drunkenness, disarming cowboys who violated gun-control edicts and dealing with flagrant breaches of gambling and prostitution ordinances.[274]. [277], Tombstone, Arizona, was a turbulent mining town that flourished longer than most, from 1877 to 1929. The Confederacy then sets its sight to gain control of the New Mexico Territory. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), Westward Expansion and the Compromise of 1850, https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/westward-expansion. pp. The "West" was the recently settled area near that boundary. It is a new grafted product of American individualism, American idealism, American intolerance. [351], And for transportation, they would either float the logs down a river (a profession known as log driving), or use a high-wheel loader to lift the massive logs that were strapped together using rope. On the . They had white officers and served in numerous western forts. 3. The archetypical Old West period is often cited by historians to have occurred between the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and the 1890 U.S. The American frontiersmen relied on individual effort, in the context of very large quantities of unsettled land with weak external enemies. Events such as the Black Hills Gold Rush in the Dakota Territory following the Black Hills Expedition. But pro-slavery advocates fought back with pro-slavery settlers from Missouri. The first group of white settlers moved into the Watauga or Sycamore Shoals area (now Elizabethton in Carter County) around 1768. Chinese women immigrated to work in the laundries, inns, and saloons of mining camps. The best cattle would be selected, roped, and branded, and most male cattle were castrated. Managing the new territories and dealing with the slavery issue caused intense controversy, particularly over the Wilmot Proviso, which would have outlawed slavery in the new territories. [334] The earliest cowboys in Texas learned their trade, adapted their clothing, and took their jargon from the Mexican vaqueros or "buckaroos", the heirs of Spanish cattlemen from the middle-south of Spain. It facilitated expansion into the West by creating an inexpensive, fast, convenient communication system. [53] Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase of 1803 doubled the size of the nation at the cost of $15million, or about $0.04 per acre ($293million in 2022 dollars, less than 42 cents per acre). Few artisans settled on the frontier except for those who practiced a trade to supplement their primary occupation of farming. In addition to his role as civil governor, a territorial governor was also a militia commander, a local superintendent of Native affairs, and the state liaison with federal agencies. [195] The war started when tension arose between the local Natives and the flooding pioneer trains encroaching through their lands, which resulted in competition for food and resources. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise had attempted to resolve this question: It had admitted Missouri to the union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, preserving the fragile balance in Congress. Despite this sectional conflict, Americans kept on migrating West in the years after the Missouri Compromise was adopted. Thirty-four years later, the Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed the settlers in new territories the right to decide whether to allow slavery or outlaw it. The wealth from silver, more than from gold, fueled the maturation of San Francisco in the 1860s and helped the rise of some of its wealthiest families, such as that of George Hearst. More important, it had stipulated that in the future, slavery would be prohibited north of the southern boundary of Missouri (the 3630 parallel) in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase. [9][10] A period known as "The Western Civil War of Incorporation" lasted from the 1850s to 1919. [344] Or the Pike's Peak Gold Rush in the Nebraska Territory. [260] Prostitution was a growth industry attracting sex workers from around the globe, pulled in by the money, despite the harsh and dangerous working conditions and low prestige. In addition to direct subsidies, the federal government maintained military posts, provided safety from Native attacks, bankrolled treaty obligations, conducted surveys and land sales, built roads, staffed land offices, made harbor improvements, and subsidized overland mail delivery. Pioneers housed themselves in a rough lean-to or at most a one-room log cabin. In the aftermath, Virgil Earp was maimed in an ambush, and Morgan Earp was assassinated while playing billiards. A witness wrote, "The horsemen had the best of it from the start. The tribes hostile to the government continued to pursue their traditional brand of fighting and, therefore, were unable to have any permanent success against the Army. that highlights the enduring conflict between cowboys and farmers. Conflict with the Native Americans arose out of political issues, namely who would rule. The end of the bison herds opened up millions of acres for cattle ranching. The conflict was fought in 18631865 while the American Civil War was still ongoing. It began in an organized fashion in the West in the 1880s, when several Western cities followed up on touring Wild West shows and organized celebrations that included rodeo activities. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. [83][84] Most frontiersmen showed little commitment to religion until traveling evangelists began to appear and to produce "revivals". [100], Mexico refused to recognize the independence of Texas in 1836, but the U.S. and European powers did so. It was later lengthened to reach the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville. [223] Natives also preyed upon stagecoaches travelling in the frontier for its horses and valuables.[224]. Farming the plains was indeed more difficult than back east. He theorized it was a process of development: "This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westwardfurnish[es] the forces dominating American character. According to Laura Hurwitz and Shawn Borque's " Settler Colonialism Primer ," "This . The postal service likewise assisted the Army in expanding control over the vast western territories. [115] Camps spread out north and south of the American River and eastward into the Sierras. westward movement, the populating by Europeans of the land within the continental boundaries of the mainland United States, a process that began shortly after the first colonial settlements were established along the Atlantic coast. "Primitive Encounters: Film and Tourism in the North American West". [311], In the center were the conservationists, led by Theodore Roosevelt and his coalition of outdoorsmen, sportsmen, bird watchers, and scientists. The financial stories were often complex. In 18631864, Carson used a scorched earth policy in the Navajo Campaign, burning Navajo fields and homes, and capturing or killing their livestock. 3.Early snows could block passes through mountains. A typical drive would take three to four months and contained two miles (3km) of cattle six abreast. The Western movies provided the most famous examples, as in the numerous films of John Ford. Richard W. Etulain, "Clio's Disciples on the Rio Grande: Western History at the University of New Mexico", admission of Arizona Territory as a state, American pioneers to the Northwest Territory, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War, 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, History of Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Category:Gunslingers of the American Old West, Category:Outlaws of the American Old West, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", "The Census of 1890 and the Closing of the Frontier", "The American West, 18651900 | Rise of Industrial America, 18761900 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress", "Following the Frontier Line, 1790 to 1890", https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/issue/view/1011, "The Historiography of the Second Great Awakening and the Problem of Historical Causation, 19452005", "Setting the record straight on the 'Hawn's' Mill Massacre", Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, "PBS: Role of Nitro Glycerin in the Transcontinental Railroad", "The Doolittle Report on the State of Indians in U.S. Reservations, 1867", "Empire Ranch Foundation: History of the Empire Ranch", "Meeker Massacre forced Utes from most of Colorado, but the attack was a backlash", "Deadly confrontation in Utah took place shortly before GJ incorporated", "Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1890", Important Moments in Japanese American History:Before, During, and After World War II Mass Incarceration. ", Weber, David J. [178], In 1889, Washington opened 2,000,000 acres (8,100km2) of unoccupied lands in the Oklahoma territory. Despite huge profits being made, it fell into the hands of a few capitalists, displaced numerous miners, vast amounts of waste entered river systems, and did heavy ecological damage to the environment. This colony, named Maryland after the queen, was. In general, the frontiersmen battled the Natives with little help from the U.S. Army or the federal government.[49]. The Hollywood image of the gunslinger marching through town with two Colts on his hips is just thata Hollywood image, created for its dramatic effect. Gregory Nobles, "John James Audubon, the American "Hunter-Naturalist.". [269] Criminals found many opportunities to rob pioneer families of their possessions, while the few underfunded lawmen had great difficulty detecting, arresting, holding, and convicting wrongdoers. The settlers left behind suffered greatly from hunger and illnesses like typhoid and dysentery, caused from drinking contaminated water from the nearby swamp. [76] Artist George Catlin (17961872) painted accurate paintings of Native American culture. The survival of American freedom depended on it. The streets blazed with a reflection from saloons, and a glance within showed floors crowded with dancers, the gaily dressed women striving to hide with ribbons and paint the terrible lines which that grim artist, Dissipation, loves to draw upon such faces To the music of violins and the stamping of feet the dance went on, and we saw in the giddy maze old men who must have been pirouetting on the very edge of their graves.[276]. How did James K Polk expand the country? - Mystylit.com Then surveyors would create detailed maps marking the land into squares of six miles (10km) on each side, subdivided first into one square mile blocks, then into 160-acre (0.65km2) lots. Westward Expansion - Timeline, Events & Facts - HISTORY Stephen F. Austin became an "empresario", receiving contracts from the Mexican officials to bring in immigrants. It also encouraged "free trappers" to explore new regions on their own. Merrill D. Peterson, "Jefferson, the West, and the Enlightenment Vision". Between the Gold Rush and the Civil War, Americans in growing numbers filled the Mississippi River valley, Texas, the southwest territories, and the new states of Kansas and Nebraska. [117], The discovery of the Comstock Lode, containing vast amounts of silver, resulted in the Nevada boomtowns of Virginia City, Carson City, and Silver City. Section 107. The land policy of the new nation was conservative, paying special attention to the needs of the settled East. Mart A. Stewart, "If John Muir Had Been an Agrarian: American Environmental History West and South", Andrew C. Isenberg, "Environment and the Nineteenth-Century West; or, Process Encounters Place". Some 100,000 American Indians forcibly removed from what is now the eastern United States to what was called Indian Territory included members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes. The Natives emphasized bravery in combat while the Army put its emphasis not so much on individual combat as on building networks of forts, developing a logistics system, and using the telegraph and railroads to coordinate and concentrate its forces. The legislatures, on the other hand, spoke for the local citizens and they were given considerable leeway by the federal government to make local law. [110] As the war was ending, gold was discovered in the north, and the word soon spread worldwide. American caravans began delivering goods to the Mexican city Santa Fe along the Santa Fe Trail, over the 870-mile (1,400km) journey which took 48 days from Kansas City, Missouri (then known as Westport). [338] As open range ranching and the long drives gave way to fenced-in ranches in the 1880s, by the 1890s the glory days of the cowboy came to an end, and the myths about the "free-living" cowboy began to emerge. By 1810 Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky had been transformed from wilderness into a region of farms and towns. "[112] Over 250,000 miners found a total of more than $200million in gold in the five years of the California Gold Rush. The Jacksonian Democrats favored the squatters by promising rapid access to cheap land. By the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), the U.S. granted a large reservation to the Lakota, without military presence; it included the entire Black Hills. They solidified Earp's modern reputation as the Old West's deadliest gunman. [205], In June 1877, in the Nez Perce War the Nez Perce under Chief Joseph, unwilling to give up their traditional lands and move to a reservation, undertook a 1,200-mile (2,000km) fighting retreat from Oregon to near the CanadaUS border in Montana. [290] These committees would sometimes form mob rule for private vigilante groups, but usually were made up of responsible citizens who wanted only to maintain order. Like the mining towns in California and Nevada, cattle towns such as Abilene, Dodge City, and Ellsworth experienced a short period of boom and bust lasting about five years. Japanese were recruited to work on plantations in Hawaii, beginning in 1885. The state militia fought back and Lincoln sent in federal troops. Biographer Donald Worster says, "Saving the American soul from a total surrender to materialism was the cause for which he fought. [204] Captain Jack was a chief of the Native American Modoc tribe of California and Oregon, and was their leader during the Modoc War. [313], The third element, smallest at first but growing rapidly after 1870, were the environmentalists who honored nature for its own sake, and rejected the goal of maximizing human benefits. Why did Americans go to Oregon in the early 1800s? Plains Indian intertribal warfare bore no resemblance to the "modern" warfare practiced by the Americans along European lines, using its vast advantages in population and resources. [113][114] As thousands arrived, however, fewer and fewer miners struck their fortune, and most ended exhausted and broke. On April 22, over 100,000 settlers and cattlemen (known as "boomers")[179] lined up at the border, and when the army's guns and bugles giving the signal, began a mad dash to stake their claims in the Land Run of 1889. They petitioned to join the United States as a slave state. Boosterism succeeded in attracting adventurous American and European families to Nebraska, helping them purchase land grant parcels on good terms. Wilmots measure failed to pass, but it made explicit once again the sectional conflict that haunted the process of westward expansion. Access hundreds of hours of historical video, commercial free, with HISTORY Vault. During the same period, P. T. Barnum presented Native chiefs, dances, and other Wild West exhibits in his museums. The only cost was a modest filing fee. However, they rejected the American frontier model in favor of a European model that supported their political and security concerns. [231] In most of the South, there were very few cities of any size for miles around, and this pattern held for Texas as well, so railroads did not arrive until the 1880s. The battle for Kansas and Nebraska became a battle for the soul of the nation. (Those who labor in the earth, he wrote, are the chosen people of God.) In order to provide enough land to sustain this ideal population of virtuous yeomen, the United States would have to continue to expand. [203], Red Cloud's War was led by the Lakota chief Red Cloud against the military who were erecting forts along the Bozeman Trail. The goal of settler-colonization is the removal and erasure of Indigenous peoples in order to take the land for use by settlers in perpetuity. Settler society is a theoretical term in the early modern period and modern history that describes a common link between modern, predominantly European, attempts to permanently settle in other areas of the world.It is used to distinguish settler colonies from resource extraction colonies.The term came to wide use in the 1970s as part of the discourse on decolonization, particularly to describe .