The WILD WEST APAH | Create WebQuest

Introduction

THE WILD WEST

Historical Question: How did the end of the Wild West spell the end to an era and multiple cultures?

Historical Question: How did new technology like the Transcontinental Railroad and barb wire close the frontier?

Historical Question: How "wild" was the Wid West and why did this "wildness" end?

Task

DIRECTIONS

Step 1: Analyze the historical questions of the Wild West as if they were Free Response Essay Questions.

Step 2: As you move through the WebQuest, analyze the videos, photographs, and primary documents.

Step 3: Continue to the PROCESS Page and learn about the Indian Wars of the West...

Step 4: Continue to the EVALUATON Page and learn about the changes that happened to the Wild West...

Step 5: Continue to the CONCLUSION Page and listen and read the primary documents...

Step 6: Continue to the TEACHER'S Page where you will find your final assignment of the WebQuest. Answer the cartoon question and create your own visual project of 2 of the 3 historical questions that you investigated...

Visual Project Examples = poster, cartoons, slideshows, collage

Process

Topics of the Wild West

Clearing the West = The End of an Era and a People

The Last Frontier

After the Civil War, Manifest Destiny had nearly been completed. Prior to the Civil War, the area between California and the Mississippi River was known as the "Great American Desert". This became the target area of a new age of Westward Expansion. Previously, Western states had been dubbed "the Wild West" due to the lawlessness and law of the gun and violence in these regions.

Three major groups of pioneers would "conqueror and civilize" this area after the war; miners, cowboys, and farming homesteaders (families). Homesteads, ranches, steel rails of the railroads, and new towns crisscrossed this region within two decades and nine new states were carved out, ending the lawlessness of the West. With Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma being the last continental territories, the nation was becoming fully united. Eventually, the farmers and homesteaders won out and the Great Plains became the breadbasket of America.

Yet the Wild West wasn’t a vast expanse of nothing to some. Over 250,000 American Indians living on the Plains and many other states were unorganized politically. While these nomadic horse culture coexisting with the buffalo herds by 1900, the great buffalo herds had been wiped out and the American Indian tribes’ way of live and freedom with the herd. This last push west caused a cultural and human genocide by the American government and people.

Indian Wars

After the Civil War, many military officers and soldiers moved West. The federal government used these veteran troops to make a final push for Manifest Destiny. The Native Americans of the Plains and the West were directly affected by this final Westward push. Settlers were not only backed by local militias, but the federal government and its military might which even employed the "Buffalo Soldiers" (African American regiments).

By 1890, these Indian Wars for the West were over and entire culture had been condemned to reservations. The US Government claims that over 20 American Indian Wars in this 30 year period that cost over 20,000 settler and soldier deaths and over 60,000 Indian causalities. (At this point, the American Indian tribes had been decimated by disease and then the Indian Removal Acts of the 1830's and later the lack of resources and food in the West).

Texas-Indian Wars

After Texas Independence and the Mexican-American War, the US Government and Texas settlers attempted to clear the Lone Star State of American Indians.

In particular, the Commanches gave the US Government and Army difficulty in Texas. Although the US Government officially undertook a military expedition against the Commanches in 1846 (when Texas joined the United States), the Commanches did not surrender until 1875. These Commanche forces had been fighting Texas settlers and the Mexican government since 1830 and after 45 years of conflict, the Commanches were moved to reservations in Oklahoma.

Additionally, the United States moved Cherokee and Creek to Oklahoma after the Civil War. The Cherokees and Creeks of Texas and Arkansas (after Andrew Jackson's Trail of Tears) sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Southwest Indian Wars

The Publeo tribes of the Southwest had a history of resistance against Europeans dating back to the first Spanish Conquistodors and their creation of the Spansih mission at Santa Fe. These conflicts continued with Mexico and then with the United States after the Mexican-American War, Treaty of Guadalope-Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase. The Navajo and Apache conflicts are the most well-known.

The last major campaign in this region was by the US Army to capture the Apache warrior Geronimo. It took over 5,000 soldiers to make Geronimo's last band of 24 warriors, women, and children surrender in 1886. Geronimo was an enemy of Mexico, Texas, and eventually the United States as he resisted capture for nearly 30 years. He originially attacked the Mexican Army and Texas frontiersmen after they worked together to massacre and murder his mother, wife, and 3 kids.

Great Plain Wars

Although settlers had established themselves in California and the Oregon Trail, during and after the Civil War, the US Government was responsible for "governing" the area between the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. Many of these tribes lived nomadically and moved as hunters on horseback. These lighting quick raids proved to be effective against settelrs and the US Army. A major thorn in the US Government and Army's side was the Sioux Nation.

Even while the Civil War was waging, Union troops attempted to protect settlers causing many states' & territories' to use their militias. In 1864, Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado demonstrate the atristocies that occurred and the brutal nature of these conflicts. Many of these militias did not discern from warriors and women, children, and the elderly of the Cheyenne tribe.

A series of wars continued to wage in the Great Plains with the Sioux Nation and the US Army becoming bitter rivals. The most famous was the Great Sioux Wars of 1876-1877 in the Black Hills of the Dakotas. Led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, these Sioux troops attacked settlers looking for gold and the US Army. With the Battle of Little Big Horn, General George Armstrong Custer led his troops into an ambush and that was a tactical victory for the Sioux. However, the popularity of "Custer's Last Stand" caused for the US Army to gain more support and volunteers and eventually pushed the Sioux onto reservations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftff86JmD4k

The final straw for these Plain tribes was the destruction of the American bison (buffalo). Many hunters were funded by the US Government. This led to widespread starvation amongst the American Indians and their eventual surrender.

The end of resistance in the Great Plains occurred after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. When the Sioux tribe practiced the outlawed Ghost Dance (not a war dance) and US Army took this as an act of war. Soldiers ended up firing upon the Lakota Sioux causing for the death of over 300 American Indians mostly women, children, and elderly.

Northwest & Pacific Conflicts

As settlers spread from the Oregon Trail into Idaho, Wyoming and Montana there were several Indians wars especially in the 1870's. These conflicts became more hositle after the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 as many US Military Officers wanted to prevent other tribes from fighting and then escaping to Canada as many Crow and Sioux forces under Sitting Bull had.

The most famous of these was the Nez Perce War of 1877. Led by Chief Joseph the Nez Perce refused to moved onto a reservation and instead attempted to fight their way to the Candian Border. Fighting over 2,000 US soldiers and their Indian scouts, 800 Nez Perce including women and children fought their way over 1,000 miles until they were surrounded, defeated, and captured only 40 miles away from freedom in Canada. At this point, Chief Joseph gave his famous "I Will Fight No More Forever" Speech and the Nez Perce were relocated to Kansas (far different then their Rocky Mountain homeland).

Dawes Act of 1887

On reservations, American Indians were forced to give up their way of life as the U.S. Government wanted these people to become more “American” aka more white. This became known as Americanization/Assimilation which the U.S. would also practice on new immigrants. American Indians were expected to farm rather than hunt, convert to Christianity, speak/read/write in English rather than their own language, and dress like white settlers. Even though, the Cherokee and Creek Nation had actually done this, but were punished by the US Government twice (Trail of Tears and Reconstruction).

In order to speed up the assimilation process, the US Government passed the Dawes Act of 1887. This divided tribes in order to separate bands from each other and cut off cultural contact with the promise that American Indians could gain citizenship to the United States. If Indian Reservations could meet the assimiliation requirements, the land of these reservations would be expanded. However, the US Government often sold off this land to white settlers. Additionally, in these contained areas disease and poverty further reduced the Native American population. Unfortunately, severe reservation problems still exist today (poverty, disease, alcoholism, illiteracy).

Evaluation

Topics of the Wild West

Changes = Taming the Wild West

Outlaws, Cowboys, & Gun Fights

Since many states were just beginning to form and some were still territories, many of these areas were loosely governed. This caused for the law to commonly be taken into citizens' own hands. This became known as Frontier Justice and were often in the form of hangings and gun fights. In such forms of vigilante justice, there often no trials and slights of justice and infractions of the law were punished by public popular decision.

This led to the Wild West to be prone to violent eruptions of both lawful and unlawful actions. These boomtowns that emerged out of nowhere with miners striking it rich were also known as Sin Cities. Saloons, gambling, stealing, drinking, and prostitution were common and sometimes attracted the worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC6JIyUmpnw

Individuals that proved themselves as talented and quick shots became known as gunslingers and were idealized. However, town sheriffs and US Marshalls were ushered into the West to ensure order and justice. After the Civil War, many veteran officers moved West and became governors, marshalls, sheriffs, and law enforcement. Nonetheless, the gunslinger notion of the Wild West continued to romanticized (including today in Hollywood films).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHKaWM3hi4Y

Transcontinental Railroad

Using the following PBS Website investigate the Transcontinental Railroad, its creation, leaders, and workers... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/tcrr-i…

Cattle Frontier vs. Farming Frontier

As the Wild West blossomed after the Civil War, a major money maker was the cattle drive as Texas Longhorn cattle by the thousand were taken to market. This phenomenom started when Texas was cut off from the Confederacy during the Civil War and about 5 million cattle roamed free in the Lone Star State. After the war, the railroad had reached Kansas and cattle could be shipped to Chicago and the rest of the East if these cattle herds could reach Kansas. This changed America’s eating habits from pork to beef and this continues today.

The cowboy was the man for the job of these long cattle drives. Although, cowboys have become idealized in American culture, out on the trail was often dangerous, tedious, lonely and not as free as portrayed. Additionally, most cowboys were freed African American ranch hands and Mexicans. The Colt ’45 Pistol was the weapon of choice.

These cattle drives were destined to come to an end. Part of the reason why the cattle drives ended was due to ecological reasons as the cattle overgrazed the trails to the railroad and then the winter blizzard of 1885-86 killed 90% of the cattle from the severe cold and starvation along the worn-down paths. Also, many of these trials were in the land that railroad companies bought up. The final straw for the cattle drives was due to farming as the homesteaders began using barbed wire (invented by Joseph Glidden) causing the Wild West to be tamed by the 1890's.

Cattle hands weren't the only group that moved the West after the Civil War. Many families of farmers moved into the West as American Indians were cleared off of the best land. With the South being consumed by Reconstruction, the American Government saw the West as an outlet for settlers, immigrants, and displaced Southerners. Thus, the US Government essentially gave away free land in the West to families of farmers.

The Homestead Act of 1862 offered 160 acres of land for free for any family that would settle there for 5 years. While some families were unable to live on this acreage for the full 5 years many did despite competition for land with land speculators and the railroad companies. These settlers became known as “sodbusters” as they had to plow through the Plain's soil and also built their homes out of sod bricks. New industrial technology and inventions gained ground which included at first the new steal plow to cut through the Plains’ soil and later John Deere tractors.

Life for these family farmers was not easy. Families faced not only the weather and wind of the Plains, but backbreaking work, disease, and crop failurers. 2/3 of homesteaders failed to make a profit mostly due to severe weather, crop prices dropping, and the cost of new machinery continuing to increase. Winter blizzards, hot dry summers, wild fires, tornadoes, constant wind made growing crops difficult. Some would even be driven insane by the wind. Additionally, many farms were in unestablished areas and far away from others causing a very lonesome life away from towns.

Furthermore, women and children were expected to do many chores that were seen as the men's job before this Westward push. In order, accomplish many of these farm chores the size of families in the West grew (helping many areas to reach statehood with this increase of population). The roles of women and children in the West caused for the rights of women to increase and many Western states gave women the right to vote before women were allowed to nationally.

The Last Push

The Oklahoma Territory became the last target for homesteaders as it stood as the last area unsettled. Oklahoma, actually translates to "Red People" in Choctaw and was dubbed this area this name after the US Government moved the Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaws during the Trail of Tears. Although, this "unorganized territory" was supposed to be set aside for American Indians.

Nonetheless, the U.S. Government decided to open the borders in 1889. Some settlers jumped the gun, crossing the federal line, before the federal mandated race for farming lots became known as the Boomer Sooners. These illegal claims usually unfairly grabbed the best land before other settlers could. The next year, the U.S. Census Bureau declared the frontier officially closed.

At this point, Frederick Jackson Turner wrote his famous essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” that discussed how the Western Frontier was the push that the American people needed to become great and theorized on how the American public would become after this great challenge had ended. (We will see with the rest of our Turn-of-the-Century Unit).

Farming Political Revolt = The Grange and Populism

With the ending of the frontier and economic changes of the West, a new political party emerged in the West. This was founded on the political principle of populism which appeals to the interests of the common man (generally by comparing and contrasting the lives of the haves and have nots and this socio-economic inequality and living standards). This first became powerful underneath Oliver Kelley of the Patrons of Husbandry. The farmers of the Patrons of Husbandry or the Grange pushed for farmers to be protected from expanding big businesses and Industrialization.

Thus, the Populist Party or the People's Party was founded on economic problems on the West as miners caused inflation in the West and the railroad companies extorted money and land (even from the federal government). Poor farmers in the Mid-West joined together and political waves in the 1880's and 1890's. Leaders of the Populist Party were anti-elist and were hostile to banks, expansion of cities, and the gold standard. More support towards the party and its leaders was the Panic of 1893 which caused many Americans to want to move away from comparing the dollar to the value of gold and instead change it to silver.

While the Populist Party's support for William Jenning Bryan did not help Bryan become president (actually lost all four elections that he attempted to become president), the Populist Party did have an impact on several political themes. A major result was the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act so that farmers could transport their goods back east without having to pay multiple fees to each state nor to the railroad companies. Also, the Populist Party supported women voting rights and Prohibition with Frances Willard being a leader of the Populist Party as well. This political push to protect the common man would transform into the Progressive Politicans (still debated by historians).

Conclusion

Primary Documents = Wlliam Jenning Bryan's Cross of Gold Speech and the Populist Party Platform of 1892

Wlliam Jenning Bryan's Cross of Gold Speech

Populist Party Platform (1892)

The People's party, more commonly known as the Populist party, was organized in St. Louis in 1892 to represent the common folk—especially farmers—against the entrenched interests of railroads, bankers, processers, corporations, and the politicians in league with such interests. At its first national convention in Omaha in July 1892, the party nominated James K. Weaver for president and ratified the so-called Omaha Platform, drafted by Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota.

Assembled upon the 116th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the People's Party of America, in their first national convention, invoking upon their action the blessing of Almighty God, put forth in the name and on behalf of the people of this country, the following preamble and declaration of principles:

Preamble

The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench.1

The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are badly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires. The national power to create money is appropriated to enrich bond-holders; a vast public debt payable in legal-tender currency has been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the burdens of the people.

Silver, which has been accepted as coin since the dawn of history, has been demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold by decreasing the value of all forms of property as well as human labor, and the supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers, bankrupt enterprise, and enslave industry. A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world. If not met and overthrown at once it forebodes terrible social convulsions, the destruction of civilization, or the establishment of an absolute despotism.

We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influences dominating both these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform. They have agreed together to ignore, in the coming campaign, ever issue but one. They propose to drown the outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, the demonetization of silver and the oppressions of the usurers may all be lost sight of. They propose to sacrifice our homes, lives, and children on the altar of mammon; to destroy the multitude in order to secure corruption funds from the millionaires.

Assembled on the anniversary of the birthday of the nation, and filled with the spirit of the grand general and chief who established our independence, we seek to restore the government of the Republic to the hands of the ''plain people,'' with which class it originated. We assert our purposes to be identical with the purposes of the National Constitution; to form a more perfect union and establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. . . .

Our country finds itself confronted by conditions for which there is not precedent in the history of the world; our annual agricultural productions amount to billions of dollars in value, which must, within a few weeks or months, be exchanged for billions of dollars' worth of commodities consumed in their production; the existing currency supply is wholly inadequate to make this exchange; the results are falling prices, the formation of combines and rings, the impoverishment of the producing class. We pledge ourselves that if given power we will labor to correct these evils by wise and reasonable legislation, in accordance with the terms of our platform. We believe that the power of government—in other words, of the people—should be expanded (as in the case of the postal service) as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teaching of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall eventually cease in the land. . . .

Platform

We declare, therefore—

First.—That the union of the labor forces of the United States this day consummated shall be permanent and perpetual; may its spirit enter into all hearts for the salvation of the republic and the uplifting of mankind.

Second.—Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. ''If any will not work, neither shall he eat.'' The interests of rural and civil labor are the same; their enemies are identical.

Third.—We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must own the railroads; and should the government enter upon the work of owning and managing all railroads, we should favor an amendment to the constitution by which all persons engaged in the government service shall be placed under a civil-service regulation of the most rigid character, so as to prevent the increase of the power of the national administration by the use of such additional government employees.

FINANCE.—We demand a national currency, safe, sound, and flexible issued by the general government only, a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations; a just, equitable, and efficient means of distribution direct to the people, at a tax not to exceed 2 per cent, per annum, to be provided as set forth in the sub-treasury plan of the Farmers' Alliance, or a better system; also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public improvements.

We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1.
We demand that the amount of circulating medium2 be speedily increased to not less than $50 per capita.
We demand a graduated income tax.
We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible in the hands of the people, and hence we demand that all State and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government, economically and honestly administered. We demand that postal savings banks be established by the government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange.

TRANSPORTATION.—Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people. The telegraph and telephone, like the post-office system, being a necessity for the transmission of news, should be owned and operated by the government in the interest of the people.

LAND.—The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people, and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All land now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only.

Expressions of Sentiments

Your Committee on Platform and Resolutions beg leave unanimously to report the following: Whereas, Other questions have been presented for our consideration, we hereby submit the following, not as a part of the Platform of the People's Party, but as resolutions expressive of the sentiment of this Convention.

RESOLVED, That we demand a free ballot and a fair count in all elections and pledge ourselves to secure it to every legal voter without Federal Intervention, through the adoption by the States of the unperverted Australian or secret ballot system.
RESOLVED, That the revenue derived from a graduated income tax should be applied to the reduction of the burden of taxation now levied upon the domestic industries of this country.
RESOLVED, That we pledge our support to fair and liberal pensions to ex-Union soldiers and sailors.
RESOLVED, That we condemn the fallacy of protecting American labor under the present system, which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the world and crowds out our wage-earners; and we denounce the present ineffective laws against contract labor, and demand the further restriction of undesirable emigration.
RESOLVED, That we cordially sympathize with the efforts of organized workingmen to shorten the hours of labor, and demand a rigid enforcement of the existing eight-hour law on Government work, and ask that a penalty clause be added to the said law.
RESOLVED, That we regard the maintenance of a large standing army of mercenaries, known as the Pinkerton system, as a menace to our liberties, and we demand its abolition. . . .
RESOLVED, That we commend to the favorable consideration of the people and the reform press the legislative system known as the initiative and referendum.
RESOLVED, That we favor a constitutional provision limiting the office of President and Vice-President to one term, and providing for the election of Senators of the United States by a direct vote of the people.
RESOLVED, That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corporation for any purpose.
RESOLVED, That this convention sympathizes with the Knights of Labor and their righteous contest with the tyrannical combine of clothing manufacturers of Rochester, and declare it to be a duty of all who hate tyranny and oppression to refuse to purchase the goods made by the said manufacturers, or to patronize any merchants who sell such goods.

1. A valuable white fur adorning the robes of some judges.
2. Currency and/or coin.

[From ''People's Party Platform,'' Omaha Morning World-Herald , 5 July 1892.]

Credits

Teacher Page

Analysis

Answer the question on the following cartoon and then create a visual project on 2 of the 3 historical questions that you investigated...

Visual Projects = posters, cartoons, slideshows, collage

Question = What does this politcal cartoon (below) illustrate about the Populist Party and its fight against big businesses?

Historical Question: How did the end of the Wild West spell the end to an era and multiple cultures?

Historical Question: How did new technology like the Transcontinental Railroad and barb wire close the frontier?

Historical Question: How "wild" was the Wid West and why did this "wildness" end?

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q16OZkgSXfM align:left]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFa1-kciCb4 align:right]