Today we continued with chapter 5-8 presentations. Our assigned blog this week is to pick something outside of our section. For example, I cannot do any topic that 5.1 covers.
Settlers Push Westward -
The settlers culture and Native Americans views were very different. Native Americans didn't believe that the land should be owned, but the settlers thought the land should be owned.
Silver and Gold -
Mining camps and tiny frontier towns had filthy, ramshackle houses. Women tried to work as miners, laundresses, and freight haulers. Virginia City, Nevada, and Helena, Montana, originated as mining camps of Native American land.
Bloody Battles Continues -
Red River War was between Kiowa and Comanche harassed each other for six years. Workers were told to go to the Black Hills.
Government Supports Assimilation -
People were trying to "Americanize" the Native Americans. General Sheridan claimed that the hunters were destroying the plain Indians food, shelter, fuel, and clothes, by killing the buffalo.
Battle of Wounded Knee -
December 28, 1890. It was the last battle between the Native Americans and US Soldiers.
Cattle Becomes Big Business -
The Native Americans were forced onto smaller reservations when the buffalo disappeared, but the horses and cattle flourished.
Cowboys and Vaqueros -
The American settlers never had never managed large herds on the open range, but they learned how to be cowboys from the Mexican Vaqueros. Cowboys weren't a huge demand until the railroads reached the Great Plains.
Beef Demand -
Due to the growing cities after the Civil War, beef was in high demand.
Settlers Move West to Farm/Railroads Open in the West -
The railroad gave land grants to people to build railroads. The first five transcontinental Railroads were from Sacramento to Omaha, Kansas to Los Angeles, New Orleans to Los Angeles, Chicago to Seattle, and St. Paul to Seattle.
Homestead Act -
Allowed people to file for land in the West. Only 10% of the people were Homesteaders, and the other 90% went to the Railroads and government people.
Settlers Meet the Challenges of the Plains -
The frontier settlers face droughts, floods, fires, blizzards, locust plagues, and occasional raids by outlaws and Native Americans.
Dugouts and Soddies -
Most settlers built their homes out of dirt. Trees were scarce. There were fireproof, and offered littler air or light. The sod houses were small. When it rained, it would leak rain.
Women -
Women would work alongside the men in the West. You worked in the fields, plowed, harvested, sheared sheep, carded wool, canned fruits and vegetables, were skilled doctors, and built schools and churches.
Technical Inventions for Farmers -
Steel plow, barbed wire, etc.
Economic Distress -
Greenbacks were paper money that couldn't be traded for hard money. Hard money is money that is printed in yellow ink and can be traded with gold. They took greenbacks out of circulation after the Civil War. When greenbacks were taken out, it raised the value of the money that was still in circulation. During the 1870s, the farmers wanted the government to issue more money. The Bland-Allison Act of 1878 required the government to by and coin $2 to $4 million worth of silver each month. Farmers had to pay high prices to transport grain. Railroads made agreements with middlemen allowing railroads to control grain storage. Farmers would mortgage their farms for credit to get seed and supplies. Suppliers would charge high rates of interest. In 1867, Oliver Hudson Kelley started the Patrons of Husbandry (the Grange). The original purpose was to provide a social outlet and an educational forum to isolated farm families. They spent most of their time fighting railroads. Farmers gave rise to other organizations. They sent lecturers from town to town to educate people about lower interest rates on loans, and the government control of the banks and railroads. The membership of the Farmer's Alliance grew to more than 4 million. Most people were in the South and West. Some alliance members promoted cooperation between black and white alliances.
Populist Party -
The Populist or people's part was founded in 1892. The Populist part was held in convention in Omaha, NE on July 2, 1892. The members consisted of poor cotton farmers or the South and poor wheat farmers of the North. Their goal was to help the farmers not to be so weighed down with debt and to give them a bigger voice in government. They wanted to form a party that was under the control of common people and not just the government officials and wealthy men. They wanted to fight against the rapid deflation of crop prices. They wanted to elect senators by popular vote. They only wanted a single term to be served by the president and the vice president. The Populist party wanted the ballots to be kept a secret to avoid a voting fraud. They wanted more money put into circulation and a graduated income tax. They wanted more restrictions on immigration and a short work day, 8 hours. The reason for that was because the people usually worked 10-14 hours a day. The Gold Bug and Silverites chart is in the textbook.
The Election -
The Populist candidate ended with the election with 10% of the popular vote. The Populist part was successful in electing some government officials in the West. That includes 3 governors, 1,500 state legislators, and 5 senators. In the election of 1896 the Populist part faced a difficult decision of whether or not they should elect their own candidate. They decided to join with the Democrats and support their candidate, William Jennings Bryan. However, they didn't want to give up their own recognition as a party, and they disliked the Democratic vice presidential candidate. They solved both issues by electing their own VP candidate, Thomas Watson.
The Fall of the Populist Party -
The Republican candidate, McKinley, won the presidential election that year. Only beating out Bryan by a half million votes. With the Populist part losing the presidential election again, they collapsed.
Class dismissed.
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