Frederick Jackson Turner - "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"
Western Expansion v. The Native Americans > continual warfare from 1868-1890
1876-1877: War against the Sioux led by Sitting Bull >Custer's last stand at the Battle of Little Big Horn
1877: War against the Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph
War against the Apache led by Geronimo
Native Indians were ultimately defeated by the railroad , diseases , alcohol , and the extermination of the buffalo
Native Americans were then put on reservations (human zoos)
Helen Hunt Jackson's A Century of Dishonor (1881) chronicled the dismal history of Indian-White relations
1884 - U.S. government outlawed the Indian Sun (Ghost) Dance which led to the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890
Movement to reform Indian policy > Dawes Severalty Act which attempted to assimilate the Native Americans by wiping out tribal ownership of land and setting up individual Indian family heads with 160 free acres > decay of Indian culture
1924 - Full citizenship was granted to all Native Americans
1934 - Indian Reorganization Act tried to restore the Tribal Basis of Life
1858 - Gold discovered in Colorado
1859 - Comstock Lode (gold and silver) discovered in Nevada
*Mineral wealth taken from the Mining Frontier helped finance the Civil War
1862 - Homestead Act (160 acres for $30) promoted Frontier Settlement and the Family Farm (the Backbone of Democracy) but many failed because of the scarcity of water
New western states included Colorado (1876), North Dakota , South Dakota , Montana , Washington , Idaho , Wyoming & Utah
1889 - Oklahoma Territory opened up for settlement (Boomers v. Sooners) > statehood 1907
The Frontier as a "safety value" - theory more than reality
"The life we live, they dreamed of : The life they lived, we can only dream."
Grain farmers were plagued by overproduction was the Patrons of Husbandry (the Grange) founded in 1867 > the Granger Laws which regulated railroad rates (overturned by the Wabash Railroad Decision of 1886)
Mary Elizabeth Lease: Kansans should raise "less corn and more hell"