HI 112, Spring 2011 Tona Hangen Worcester State University War for the West, 1865-1914 Boom and Bust in the West 31 Jan 2011

Reservations (excepting those in Indian Territory and New York) to be surveyed and split into 160 acre homesteads for heads of households Surplus lands could be purchased by federal authorities if tribal leaders negotiated and ratified their sale. Allotted lands could be taxed and/or sold in 25 years. Those who received allotment would become American citizens. Widely opposed by Indian leaders, but some supported it Main effect – removed millions of acres from Indian hands Curtis Act (1898) Set timetable for dissolving tribal governments, thus ending the government’s obligation to them Dawes Act (1887-1934)

Three Lakota boys at Carlisle Indian School, Pennsylvania Colonel Pratt: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” The Ongoing Struggle: Assimilation v. Separateness

Golden, Colorado 1873 Mining: Boom Towns Gold & Mineral Rushes 1848-49 California 1858 Pikes Peak in Colorado 1859 Comstock Lode in Nevada 1870s Black Hills, South Dakota 1897 Yukon, Alaska

Mining Town Cycle Towns Banks Claim Offices Saloons Stables Boarding Houses Prostitution Strike Discovery (Gold, Silver, Copper, Oil, Nickel…) Rush Individual prospectors Hoping to get rich quick Stable town govt Families Schools & churches Corporate Mining Wage workers Immigrants, Ethnic diversity Labor conflict Unionization Environmental costs BUST Ghost Town

Violence & labor unrest among immigrant wage workers in the West: Coal miners, Ludlow Colorado, ca. 1914, see “Ludlow Massacre”

Ghost Town: Bodie, California

Joining the transcontinental RR, Promontory Point (Utah) 1869

Cowboys and Ranchers: Replacing natural & seasonal systems with artificial ones timed to markets, investors and corporations

Chicago stockyards in 1911 : Factory animal “disassembly” plants

Daniel Freeman’s 1867 log cabin, Beatrice, Nebraska First man to file a Homestead Act Claim

Ad for RR Land (10 years credit @ 6%)

“Sodbusters” in a Sod House, Loup County, Nebraska

20th Century West: managing rapid growth in fragile environments Page, AZ: Glen Canyon Dam (built in 1930s) forming Lake Powell

The “Mother Road” for 20th-Century westward migration

Western boom & bust cycles continue: Rancho Cucamonga, CA in December 2008