CHAPTER 26

The Great West And The

Agricultural Revolution, 1865–1890
1. Conquest of the Plains Indians (pp. 590–600)
a. The intrusion of whites onto the Great Plains decimated native populations through disease and set tribes against
each other in competition for ever-dwindling resources. The government tried to pacify the Indians by signing treaties
with them—treating them as “sovereign” nations and forcing them onto reservations in exchange for material
benefits. But these treaties assumed that Indians had basically European values. List the two basic white
misunderstandings of Indian society and beliefs cited by the authors.
(1) Native Americans, living in scattered bands, usually recognized no authority outside
their immediate family, or perhaps a family elder.

(2) The nomadic culture of the Plains Indians was utterly alien to the concept to living out
one’s life in the confinement of a defined territory.

b. The treaties were violated on both sides, resulting in continuous warfare from the 1860s to the 1880s. For each of
these tribes, list their geographic location, one prominent leader, and any other notes you think are interesting:
(1) Sioux: N. Dakota; Sitting Bull; “Great Sioux reservation” and gold discovery

(2) Nez Percé: NE Oregon; Chief Joseph; 700 Indians trekking across the Continental Divide for
three months and 1700 miles; 40% percent died from disease at Kansas reservation

(3) Apache: Arizona and New Mexico; Geronimo; Apaches became successful farmers in
Oklahoma

c. The authors attribute the “taming” of the Indians to the increased contact caused by the transcontinental railroad, to
the spread of European diseases, and to the virtual extermination of the buffalo, of which there were approximately
15 million in 1865. Humanitarians wanted to treat the Indians kindly and help to “civilize” them, while the hard-
liners wanted to keep squeezing and punishing them. “Humanitarians” pushed for passage of the Dawes Severality
Act of 1887. This act tried to integrate Indians into American culture. What were the provisions and results of this
Act? *** What is your view of the “integration” effort? If not by integration, how was the Indian to survive in a world
dominated by whites?
(1) Provisions: dissolved many tribes as legal entities, wiped out tribal ownership of land, set
up individual Indian family heads with 160 free acres, Indian boarding schools, field
matrons

(2) Results: Indians lost 50% of the 156 million acres they had held 20 years earlier; Indian
population decreases

(3) Your view: I believe that the integration effort is derogatory. It is erasing and eliminating
one’s true and god-given identity. If the Americans were to “integrate” them into civilization,
at least create a mix of their old and foreign identity and the American identity.

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 2. Western Economy (pp. 600–604) Mineral wealth, including the Comstock Lode silver deposits in Nevada, played
a major part in the western economy, as did cattle and farming. The railroads, particularly using new refrigerated cars,
allowed cattle to reach the new meat-packing centers like Chicago and then be transported east. But the railroad
brought out a wave of farmers and the Homestead Act of 1862 gave them free land to cultivate. (Remember the
Jeffersonian idea that the country would be a better, more stable place if most people were small farmers?). But what
worked in the East was less successful in the West because land roughly west of the 100th meridian was too dry to
farm. When huge numbers of people abandoned their farms in the 1880s, the government again came to the rescue in
the form of giant dams and irrigation projects to facilitate agriculture. *** How would you respond to a westerner
who argued that the government should stay out of peoples’ lives and should leave the people free to go about their
business without interference?
I would reason with them to get them to believe that without a government to facilitate the
duties of the country, it would fall to chaos and mass destruction. The reason for a
government is for order and people must abide by that order if they want to survive. If
people were to govern themselves, at some point, they will fall into a dead-end and have no
choice but to fall into bedlam.

3. The Frontier Analyzed (pp. 604–608) With the 1889 land rush into previously Indian territory in Oklahoma and
results of the census of 1890, it appeared to many that “a frontier line is no longer discernible.” In 1893, historian
Frederick Jackson Turner delivered his famous thesis that the pioneer experience (about to come to an end, he said)
was the primary shaper of a distinctively American culture and set of values. Summarize the three arguments cited by
the authors about the significance of the frontier in American history:
(1) a “safety valve”: theory-during hard times, the unemployed moved west and prospered
with the occupancy of farming; reality- few city dwellers moved west during depressions,
without knowledge of farming and with low finances

(2) a cultural meeting place: Native American cultures are battling and struggling against
colonization and other world powers. Anglo culture collides with the Hispanic culture.
Asians settle in the West near the Pacific, closer to their homelands.

(3) dominant role of government: Places that challenge human desires continue to mold social
and political life. The government plays in a big role on the development of the American
economy and society (i.e., with its landholdings, subsidies to the railroads, and its massive
irrigation projects).

4. Farmers and Populist Sentiment (pp. 608–614)

a. By mechanizing and specializing, farmers greatly increased their output in the late 1800s, but the high cost of doing
so caused them to fall deeply into debt and they became more susceptible to the world price fluctuations of the few
crops they were producing. Explain what the authors mean by the section heading entitled “Deflation Dooms the
Debtor” on p. 609.
Because crops in other countries prospered, the price of American crops would fall and the
farmers would face ruin. The West fell into a one-crop economy, which meant that profit
came from that one crop whether it was corn or wheat (it’s not good to depend on one thing).
Low prices put farmers in debt because they didn’t have enough currency to pay off that
debt, since low prices means low profit. As long-term effect, many farms fell into mortgages
and many farmers either became landless or subjects to the burgeoning American industrial
feudalist system.

© Copyright Houghton Mifflin Company Student Reading Questions for Kennedy, The American Pageant, Twelfth Edition
 b. Notorious individualists, farmers (still representing 50 percent of the population) were being victimized by the
railroads and by various middlemen, but they were slow to act collectively. However, in 1867 a rural grouping called
the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry (still active today) was formed, followed by the
Greenback Labor party in the 1870s. This was succeeded in the 1880s by the cooperative Farmers’ Alliance,
which evolved into the grassroots People’s Party of the 1890s (better known as the Populist Party). List the four
main elements of the Populist Party platform cited on page 613:

(1) nationalizing the railroads, (3) creating a new federal

telephones, and telegraph “subtreasury”
(4) wanted the free and unlimited
(2) instituting a graduated income tax coinage of silver

5. 1893 Depression (pp. 614–615) The economic crash of the early 1890s added industrial workers to the embittered
farmers. Jacob S. Coxey led a protest march of the unemployed in 1894. That same year, Eugene V. Debs led a
crippling strike in Chicago against the Pullman Palace Car Company, a strike put down by federal troops on the
orders of President Cleveland.
6. Watershed Election of 1896 (pp. 615–621) With the potential for class conflict (workers and farmers vs. the
business class), the 1896 election loomed large. The Republicans nominated William McKinley, whose campaign
was managed and financed by the ruthless Marcus Alonzo Hanna. The Democrats went for the thunderous 36-year-
old “Boy Orator” from the state of Nebraska, William Jennings Bryan, whose fiery “Cross of Gold” speech
(calling for inflation through the unlimited coinage of silver) won over the convention. This left the Populists with a
fateful choice. Even though the Democrats supported only one of their objectives (“free silver”), they decided to join
with the Democrats in supporting Bryan in order to improve their chances of winning. When Bryan eventually lost to
McKinley, the Populists had lost their identity for good and never recovered. On
p. 619, the authors call the election of 1896 the “most significant political turning point” in over 30 years. Why?
*** Can you draw any conclusions from this story?
The election of 1896 showed the battle between rural and urban interests in the American
society. William Jennings Bryan supported the rural interests (those of the indebted farmers
and those arguing against the gold standard). William McKinley’s success signified America’s
transformation into an urban nation. Overall this election is important because it shows that,
at the turn of the 19th century, America is becoming an urbanized country, probably
foreshadowing its rise of status as the world’s crowned nation.

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© Copyright Houghton Mifflin Company Student Reading Questions for Kennedy, The American Pageant, Twelfth Edition
 VARYING VIEWPOINTS
The Turner Thesis

1. In the first paragraph of this essay, Turner’s thesis (first expounded at the 1893 Great Colombian Exhibition) is
summarized. What role did Turner ascribe to the frontier in shaping the unique American culture?
Turner wrote that the frontier shaped the America there is today. Each region of the nation
and its attributes form a prosperous, determined, and diversified nation. Westward
movement helped shaped the national character of America, brought the West to civilization
and made them part of the American dream, and transformed Europeans into strong-minded,
flourishing, and independent Americans.

2. Turner wrote in a “eurocentric” period in which the superiority and ever-onward advancement of the “Anglo-Saxon”
races was assumed. *** How does Turner’s thesis reflect this underlying assumption?
Turner claims that the westward advancement of the Anglo-Saxons reflects the shaping of a
distinctive American national character and concept of civilization (for example, the “taming”
and “plowing” of the West from other seemingly inferior cultures). He even goes over by
saying that there is a boundary between the West and the East, dividing civilization from
savagery.

3. We currently live in an age in which “multiculturalism” and “diversity” are held in high regard. How do the
theories of the “New Western historians” about the unique nature of the West (described in the second half of
this essay) reflect these underlying multicultural assumptions?
These New Western historians rather see this boundary between the West and East as a
division of two different cultures, the American culture to the East and the foreign cultures to
the West. They state that Western cultures and identities did not fade after this boundary
“was no longer recognizable in 1890.” They argue that these cultures and identities are as
meaningful as those of the East. They also emphasize the ethnic and racial confrontation,
topography, climate, and the roles of the government and big business as the factors that
have molded the modern West.

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 CHAPTER 26 TERM SHEET
The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution
Pages 590–600
Great Sioux reservation: Indians confined into Dakota Territory

Indian Territory (Oklahoma): herded many tribes of Indians into smaller confines

“Buffalo Soldiers”: African Americans that made up a fifth of the US Army

Sand Creek massacre (1864): Colonel J.M. Chivington’s militia massacred 400 Indians for no reason

Fetterman massacre (1866): Sioux war party killed Fetterman’s 81 soldiers and civilians

Sioux/Sitting Bull: caused/inspired the Sioux to go to war

Custer’s “Last Stand” (1874): set out to suppress Indians after Sioux attack who were searching for gold; his cavalry was
slaughtered; was forced to surrender and was sent to Kansas

Nez Percé/Chef Joseph (1877) : led the Nez Perce during the hostilities between the tribe and the US army in 1877; his
speech “I Will Fight No More Forever” mourned the young Indian men killed in fighting

Apache/Geronimo : tribes of Arizona and New Mexico ; led the Apache ; hates the Whites

“Buffalo Bill” Cody: actually William; sinewy and killed over 4000 animals in 18 months

Helen Hunt Jackson (Ramona, 1884): a muckracker whose book exposed the unjust manner in which the US government
had treated the Indians; protested the Dawes Severalty Act

Battle of Wounded Knee (1890): about 200 Indian men/women; killed 29 invading soldiers

Dawes Severality Act (1887): dissolved many tribes as legal entities, wiped out tribal ownership of land,
set up individual Indian family heads with 160 free acres

Carlisle Indian School (1879): govt. funded school in Pennsylvania

Indian Reorganization Act (1934): Dawes Act was basis of govt’s Indian policy until this replaced it

Pages 600–604
Pike’s Peak Gold Rush (1858): Rushed to the Rockies to find silver and gold

Comstock Lode (1859): abundant loads of gold and silver were discovered here

“Long Drives” (1866-88): TX cowboys driving herds of cattle over unfenced plains until they reached railroad terminal
ownership of land

Homestead Act (1862): provided free land in the West to anyone willing to settle there and develop it; encouraged
westward migration

“Sodbusters”: built homes from sod they dug up

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100th meridian: poor, marginal lands; separated two climatologically regions

John Wesley Powell: explorer of the Colorado River’s Grand Canyon and director of US Geological Survey

Joseph F. Glidden: perfected barbed wire (built fences)

Pages 604–608
Oklahoma “sooners” (1889): people illegally entered Oklahoma and when district open, thousands came

Yellowstone (1872) and Yosemite (1890): both national parks govt. set aside land for

Frederick Jackson Turner (1893): wrote about the significance of the frontier in American History

Pages 608–614
“cash” crops: farmers concentrated on wheat and corn to make a profit

Montgomery Ward (1872): sent out its first catalogue (was a single sheet)

Deflation: price of products unprotected; money value went down

National Grange (1867): led by Oliver H. Kelley to enhance lives of isolated farmers socially educational etc…

Greenback Labor Party (1878): combined appeal of earlier greenbackers w/ programs improving labor

Farmers Alliances (late 1880s): break grip of railroads/manufacturers through cooperative buying and selling

People’s Party (Populists, early 1890s): nationalized railroads/ telephones/ etc.; income tax, Kansas pythoness, and new
subtreasury

Coin’s Financial School (1894): popular pamphlet; free coinage of silver

Ignatius Donnelley and Mary Lease: was elected 3 times to Congress; queen of populists

James B. Weaver: racial divisions; hobbled populists in South

Pages 614–615
Panic of 1893: strenghtened Populists’ stance that farmers were mistreated by economic and political systems

Coxey’s Army (1894): set out to Washington with demand that government relieves unemployment

J. P. Morgan (1895): J.P. Morgan & Co. rechristened the firm (banking houses)

Pullman strike (1894): when Pullman cut wages (company) Debs was imprisoned for not ceasing strike

Eugene V. Debs: helped organize American Railway Union

Gov. John Altgeld: 20th governor; rejected calls in 1894 to break up Pullman strike

A. G. Richard Olney: was secretary of state under Grover Cleveland; Pullman strike: he instructed attorneys to secure
federal courts during courts

Pages 615–621
William McKinley: Republican candidate for election of 1896

Mark Hanna: led Republican presidential campaign (aid business)

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William Jennings Bryan: Democratic candidate; platform demanded inflation through unlimited coinage

“Cross of Gold” speech: speech given by Democratic William McKinley which won over convention

“Gold Bugs”: speech given by William J. Bryan; lost to McKinley

Dingley Tariff Bill (1897): proposed new high tariff rates to generate enough revenue to cover annual treasury deficits

Gold Standard Act (1900): provided that paper and currency be redeemed freely in gold

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