Westward Migration
Westward Migration had been an American project for over a century. The march westward of Europeans/Euro-Americans began early on and continued throughout the 19th century. After the Civil War, this process expanded as many Americans fled the urban problems caused by industrialization and Gilded Age corruption.
This settlement was encouraged and subsidized by the federal government, who was eager to take advantage of the vast resources of the American west. Expanding industry created a huge demand for copper and other minerals while America's swelling population demanded more and more farmland to feed itself. The federal government provided affordable/free land to settlers and railroads to encourage this expansion.
Assignments
Assignment: Railroad DBQ
Assignment: Westward Expansion DBQ
Assignment: Chapter 14, Section 1
Project: Settling the American West
Project: Settling the American West Instagram Project
Westward Migration had been an American project for over a century. The march westward of Europeans/Euro-Americans began early on and continued throughout the 19th century. After the Civil War, this process expanded as many Americans fled the urban problems caused by industrialization and Gilded Age corruption.
This settlement was encouraged and subsidized by the federal government, who was eager to take advantage of the vast resources of the American west. Expanding industry created a huge demand for copper and other minerals while America's swelling population demanded more and more farmland to feed itself. The federal government provided affordable/free land to settlers and railroads to encourage this expansion.
Assignments
Assignment: Railroad DBQ
Assignment: Westward Expansion DBQ
Assignment: Chapter 14, Section 1
Project: Settling the American West
Project: Settling the American West Instagram Project
The Plains Indians
Of course, this westward movement collided with the native people already living in the American West. Plains Indians, soon found themselves facing the same pressures that Eastern Woodland Indians had endured for centuries: the push for land. As American settlers poured into the region, Indians responded in a number of ways to resist seeing their lands taken.
Some Indian groups attempted peaceful co-existence with American settlers, but often found their position very tenuous. Indians were usually denied the right to a fair trial or to bear witness against a white man, so it became quite common for them to be cheated of their property or subject to other forms of abuse.
Other Indian groups were rounded up and forced onto reservations created by the federal government to provide them with a homeland. However, these reservations were almost always put on marginal lands of little value. These reservations often became places of poverty, alcoholism, and despair due to the lack of opportunities and hope for a better existence.
Some Indian groups chose to fight. Bitter wars were fought between U.S. military forces and armed Indian warriors throughout the period. While there were some notable Indian victories, including the Battle of Little Big Horn, these wars invariably led to the defeat, murder, or forced resettlement of these tribes.
Assignments
Viewing Guide; We Shall Remain, ep. 4
Of course, this westward movement collided with the native people already living in the American West. Plains Indians, soon found themselves facing the same pressures that Eastern Woodland Indians had endured for centuries: the push for land. As American settlers poured into the region, Indians responded in a number of ways to resist seeing their lands taken.
Some Indian groups attempted peaceful co-existence with American settlers, but often found their position very tenuous. Indians were usually denied the right to a fair trial or to bear witness against a white man, so it became quite common for them to be cheated of their property or subject to other forms of abuse.
Other Indian groups were rounded up and forced onto reservations created by the federal government to provide them with a homeland. However, these reservations were almost always put on marginal lands of little value. These reservations often became places of poverty, alcoholism, and despair due to the lack of opportunities and hope for a better existence.
Some Indian groups chose to fight. Bitter wars were fought between U.S. military forces and armed Indian warriors throughout the period. While there were some notable Indian victories, including the Battle of Little Big Horn, these wars invariably led to the defeat, murder, or forced resettlement of these tribes.
Assignments
Viewing Guide; We Shall Remain, ep. 4
"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.
"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." --Preamble to the Populist Party Platform (1892)
The Populists
The Populists, or The People's Party, was a political revolt by American farmers in the South and the West against the Democratic and Republican Parties.
Assignments
Assignment: Chapter 14, Section 4
"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." --Preamble to the Populist Party Platform (1892)
The Populists
The Populists, or The People's Party, was a political revolt by American farmers in the South and the West against the Democratic and Republican Parties.
Assignments
Assignment: Chapter 14, Section 4
Assignment: The Men Who Built America, episode 7 Viewing Guide