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1. What effects did the Civil War have on the economy and social system of the South

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Towns had been gutted, plantations burned, fields neglected, bridges and railroads destroyed. Southerners stripped of their slaves and the capital they had invested in the now-worthless Confederate bonds and currency and had almost no personal property. A lot of white males died. Southerners began to praise Lee, Jackson and Davis as almost religious figures.

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2. What special problems did the freedmen face immediately after the war?What efforts were made to help them

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A lot of them had nowhere to go. Almost none of them owned any land or property and the only possessions they had were the clothes they wore. They differed with each other on freedom. Some wanted a redistribution of land because they worked on the land before, not the master. All of them wanted to get away from white control so they created their own black communities. The federal government kept troops in the South after the war to preserve order and protect the freedmen. The Freedmen's Bureau distributed food to millions of former slaves. It established schools staffed by missionaries and teachers who had been sent to the South y the Freemen's Aid Societies. It made efforts to settle blacks on lands of their own. The Bureau initially only had one year to operate which was not enough time.

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3. What political implications did the readmission of the Southern states pose for the political parties, especially the Republicans

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The previous Republican victories were because of the division in the Democratic party and later the removal of the South from Congress. Both parties' leaders believed that readmitting the South would reunite the Democrats and weaken the Republicans and it would also put the nationalistic economic legislation passed in jeopardy.

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4. What were the differences among the conservative, radical, and moderate factions of the Republican Party during Reconstruction

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Conservatives insisted that the South accept the abolition of slavery, but nothing else. Radicals urged that the civil and military leaders of the Confederacy be punished, that large numbers of Southern whites be disenfranchised, that legal rights to former slaves be protected and that the property of wealthy white Southerners who had aided the Confederacy to be confiscated and distributed among the freedmen. Moderates rejected the punitive goals of the Radicals but supported the extracting at least some concession form the South on African American rights.

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5. What were the objectives and provisions of Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction?How did the Radical Republicans respond to it

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Lincoln favored the Moderates and Conservatives. He believed that a lenient Reconstruction policy would encourage Southern unionists and other former Whigs to join the Republican Party and would thus prevent the readmission of the South from strengthening the Democrats. More immediately, the Southern unionists could become the nucleus of new, loyal state governments in the South. His 10% Plan was that other than high officials of the Confederacy those that accepted the elimination of slavery and loyalty to the government, would be cared for. Whenever 10% of the number of voters in 1860 took the oath in any state, those loyal voters could set up a state government. Lincoln also wanted to extend suffrage to African Americans who were educated, owned property, and had served in the Union army. Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee reestablished loyal governments. The radicals were astonished and persuaded Congress to deny seats to representatives from the 3 reconstructed states and refused to count the electoral vote of those states in the election of 1864. They then passed the Wade-Davis Bill (See Wade-Davis Bill).

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6. Describe Andrew Johnson's approach to Reconstruction. How did his political background and his personality shape it

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Johnson was an intemperate and tactless man, filled with resentments and insecurities. He was also openly hostile to the freed slaves and unwilling to support any plans that guaranteed them civil equality of enfranchisement. Like Lincoln, he offered amnesty to those Southerners who would take an oath of allegiance. Johnson's plan was mainly like the Wade-Davis Bill. Although he helped white southerners to return to their land, he did little in support of the former slaves. Although the freedmen had been given their liberty, holding on to it proved difficult and many freedmen who returned to work for white planters found themselves almost like slaves again and Johnson offered no help. Radical Republicans vowed not to recognize the Johnson governments.

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7. Freedmen's Bureau

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It distributed food to millions of former slaves. It established schools staffed by missionaries and teachers who had been sent to the South y the Freemen's Aid Societies. It made efforts to settle blacks on lands of their own.

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8. John Wilkes Booth

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On the night of April 14, 1865, he killed Lincoln. Booth was a member of a distinguished family of actors and a zealous advocate of the Southern cause. He came up behind him in the presidential box and from the rear, shot Lincoln in the head. Lincoln then died the next day.

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9. Andrew Johnson

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He was the vice president to Lincoln and then the president when Lincoln died. Johnson was an intemperate and tactless man, filled with resentments and insecurities. He was also openly hostile to the freed slaves and unwilling to support any plans that guaranteed them civil equality of enfranchisement.

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10. Charles Sumner

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From Massachusetts and was one of the leaders of the radicals next to Thaddeus Stevens.

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11. 13th Amendment

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Abolished slavery everywhere in the United States. Created in December 1865.

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12. Radical Republicans

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Radicals urged that the civil and military leaders of the Confederacy be punished, that large numbers of Southern whites be disenfranchised, that legal rights to former slaves be protected and that the property of wealthy white Southerners who had aided the Confederacy to be confiscated and distributed among the freedmen. Some radicals favored granting suffrage to the former slaves. Other hesitated, since few Northern states permitted blacks to vote.

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13. Thaddeus Stevens

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From Pennsylvania and was one of the leaders of the radicals next to Charles Sumner.

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14. Wade-Davis Bill

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It authorized the president to appoint a provisional governor for each conquered state. When a majority of the white males of the state pledged their allegiance to the Union, the governor could summon a state constitutional convention, whose delegates were to be elected by those who would swear that they had never taken up arms against the United States. The new state constitution would have to abolish slavery, disenfranchise Confederate civil and military leaders and repudiate debts accumulated by the state governments during the war. After a state had met these conditions, Congress would readmit it to the Union. It passed in Congress, but Lincoln vetoed it and decided that he would have to meet some demands of the radicals.

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1. Describe the Black Codes and the congressional reaction to them. How did President Johnson respond to Congress

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The Codes gave whites substantial control over former slaves. The codes authorized local officials to apprehend unemployed African Americans, fine them for vagrancy and hire them out to private employers to satisfy the fine. Some codes forbade slaves to own or lease farms or to take any jobs other than as plantation workers or domestic servants. Congress had two bills: one to extend the life of the Freedmen's Bureau and the first Civil Rights Acts, which declared African Americans to be citizens of the United States. Johnson vetoed both bills, but Congress overrode him on each.

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2. What were the key provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment?What happened to it in 1866

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It declared what a citizen of the United States was: everyone born in the United States and everyone naturalized was automatically a citizen and had full rights in both state and national governments. There could be no other requirements for citizenship. The amendment also penalized states that denied suffrage to any adult male inhabitants. It also prohibited former members of Congress or other former federal officials who had aided the Confederacy from holding any state or federal office unless two-thirds of Congress voted to pardon them. In the elections of 1866, the Senate became 42 Republicans to 11 Democrats; in the House, 143 Republicans to 49 Democrats and most Republicans were radicals and the South was hardly represented in Congress.

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3. Explain the basic provisions of the congressional plan of Reconstruction of 1867 and tell how it was implemented. What were the implications of waiting so long after the war to get a comprehensive plan in place

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Tennessee was readmitted. Congress divided the Lincoln-Johnson governments into 5 military districts. A military commander governed each district and had orders to register qualified voters (all adult lack males and those white males who had not participated in the rebellion. Once registered, voters would elect conventions to prepare new state constitutions which had to include provisions for black suffrage. Once the constitutions were ratified, they could elect state governments. Congress had to approve a state's constitution and the state legislature had to ratify the 14th amendment. Once that happened, and once enough states ratified the amendment to make it part of the Constitution, then the former Confederate states could be restored to the Union. Congress later added the requirement of ratifying the 15th amendment which forbade the states and the federal government to deny suffrage to any citizen on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

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4. What measures did the Radical Republicans take to keep President Johnson and the Supreme Court from interfering with their plans?What ultimately happened to Johnson's influence

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They passed the Tenure of Office Act which forbade the president to remove civil officials, without the consent of the Senate. This was to protect Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who was cooperating with the Radicals. The Command of the Army Act, prohibited the president from issuing military orders except through the commanding general of the army, who could not be relieved or assigned elsewhere without the consent of the Senate. After Ex parte Milligan, Radicals in Congress proposed several bills that would require 2/3 f the justices to support any decision overruling a law of Congress, would deny the Court jurisdiction in Reconstruction cases, would reduce its membership to three and would even abolish it. The Court did not accept jurisdiction in any cases involving Reconstruction for the next 2 years even though the bills were never passed. At this point Johnson had long since ceased to be a serious obstacle to the passage of Radical legislation, but he was impeached and tried anyway, but was not removed from office.

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5. Black Codes

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The Codes gave whites substantial control over former slaves. The codes authorized local officials to apprehend unemployed African Americans, fine them for vagrancy and hire them out to private employers to satisfy the fine. Some codes forbade slaves to own or lease farms or to take any jobs other than as plantation workers or domestic servants.

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6. 14th Amendment

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It declared what a citizen of the United States was: everyone born in the United States and everyone naturalized was automatically a citizen and had full rights in both state and national governments. There could be no other requirements for citizenship. The amendment also penalized states that denied suffrage to any adult male inhabitants. It also prohibited former members of Congress or other former federal officials who had aided the Confederacy from holding any state or federal office unless two-thirds of Congress voted to pardon them.

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7. 15th Amendment

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Forbade the states and the federal government to deny suffrage to any citizen on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

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8. Reconstruction Bills

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Tennessee was readmitted. Congress divided the Lincoln-Johnson governments into 5 military districts. A military commander governed each district and had orders to register qualified voters (all adult lack males and those white males who had not participated in the rebellion. Once registered, voters would elect conventions to prepare new state constitutions which had to include provisions for black suffrage. Once the constitutions were ratified, they could elect state governments. Congress had to approve a state's constitution and the state legislature had to ratify the 14th amendment. Once that happened, and once enough states ratified the amendment to make it part of the Constitution, then the former Confederate states could be restored to the Union. Congress later added the requirement of ratifying the 15th amendment.

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1. What three groups constituted the Republican Party in the South during Reconstruction

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Scalawags, Carpetbaggers and Freedmen.

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2. How do the facts of political life in the Reconstruction states compare to the oft-stated white charges of corruption, black domination, and misrule

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The South claimed there was negro rule, when there really was no such thing. No black man was ever elected governor of a Southern state and African Americans never controlled any of the state legislatures. In the South, the percentage of black officeholders was far lower than the percentage of blacks in the population. There was corruption when officeholders in many states enriched themselves through graft and other illicit activities and state debt soared. The corruption in the South, however, was hardly unique to Reconstruction and it was as rampant in the Northern states because of a rapid economic expansion of government services.

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3. What changes in Southern education began to emerge during Reconstruction?Who pushed for these changes

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Education was becoming reformed and better, mainly from outside groups-from the Freedmen's Bureau, from Northern private philanthropic organizations, form many Northern women, black and white, who traveled the South to teach in freedmen's schools and form black Southerners themselves. There were large networks of schools for former slaves. And improved schooling efforts were launched in the 1870s. By 1876, more than half of all the white children and about 40% if all black children were attending schools in the South. There were also prominent black colleges starting to appear. However, there was already segregation in the schools because efforts to integrate schools were a dismal failure.

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4. What changes in land ownership occurred in the South after the Civil War?What pattern of land occupancy characterized most blacks in the postwar South

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The Freedmen's Bureau tried to increase landownerships for blacks, but came nowhere near their goals. They did oversee the redistribution of substantial amounts of land to freedmen in a few areas. By 1865, the Bureau had settled nearly 10,000 black families on their own land. By the end of that year, the experiment started to collapse. Southern plantation owners were returning and demanding their land back and Johnson was supporting them. Among whites in the south there as a decline in landownership from 80% to 67% and for blacks it went from almost 0% to 20%. A lot of blacks and a growing amount of whites had no land and these people worked for others in one form or another. Many African American agricultural laborers simply worked for wages. Most, however, became tenants of white landowners-working their own plots of land and paying their landlords either a fixed rent or a share of their crop.

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5. How did the typical agricultural credit systems in the postwar South affect farmers—especially poor ones

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Few traditional institutions of credit in the South (mainly banks) returned after the war. A new system of credit emerged centered around local country stores, owned by planters or independent merchants. Blacks and whites, landowners and tenants-all depended on these stores for such necessities as food, clothing, seed and farm implements. And since farmers did not have the same steady cash flow as other works, customers usually had to rely on credit from these merchants in order to purchase what they needed. Most local stores had no competition, so they were able to set interest rates as high as 50% or 60%. Farmers had to give their merchants a claim on their crops as collateral for the loans. Farmers who suffered a few bad years in a row could become trapped in a cycle of debt which they could never escape. Bad effects: some former slaves who had acquired land lost it and some whites did as well; southern farmers became almost wholly dependent on cotton because only such marketable commodities seemed to offer any possibility of escape from debt.

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6. What economic advances did the freedmen make?How did the economic status of blacks compare with that of the average white Southerner

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The per capita income of Southern blacks rose 46% between 1857 and 1879 and the per capita income of Southern whites declined 35%. While the black share of profits was increasing, the total profits of Southern agriculture were declining. While African Americans were earning greater return on each hour of labor than they had under slavery, they were working fewer hours.

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7. How did freedom affect black family life

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Former slaves rushed to have marriages and black families resisted living in the former slave's quarters and moved instead to small cabins scattered widely across the countryside. In black families, women ceased working in the fields and instead many women restricted themselves to tasks like cooking, cleaning, gardening, sewing, raising children and attending to the needs of their husbands. Some black husbands refused to allow their wives to work as servants in white's homes, when they needed to in order to make money.

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8. Scalawags

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Many were former Whigs who had never felt comfortable in the Democratic party. Others were farmers who lived in remote areas where there had been little or no slavery and who hoped the Republican program of internal improvements would help end their economic isolation. They all believed that the Republican Party would serve their economic interests better than the Democrats.

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9. Forty Acres and a Mule

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It was the promise by the Freedmen's Bureau. Their goal was to get as many blacks as possible land, but because white southerners demanded their land back, they did not get many families land.

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10. Carpetbaggers

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White men in the North that came down to the South for various reasons. Some wanted to become Republican leaders in the South, and many of them were looking at the South as a new frontier, more promising than the West.

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11. Crop-Lien System

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A new system of credit emerged centered around local country stores, owned by planters or independent merchants. Blacks and whites, landowners and tenants-all depended on these stores for such necessities as food, clothing, seed and farm implements. And since farmers did not have the same steady cash flow as other works, customers usually had to rely on credit from these merchants in order to purchase what they needed.

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12. Hiram Revels

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Between 1869 and 1901, 20 African Americans served in the U.S. House of Representatives and two served in the Senate (Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce).

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13. Segregation/Segregated Schools

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During the education reform in the South, segregation was already taking place and when schools tried to be integrated, white students just wouldn't attend. Also black families wanted to be away from the white ones and segregated themselves in their own communities.

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14. Sharecropping

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Most blacks and a growing majority of whites did not own their own land during Reconstruction. These people worked for others in one form of another. Many African American agricultural laborers simply worked for wages. Most, however, became tenants of white landowners-working their own plots of land and paying their landlords either a fixed rent or a share of their crop.

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1. How did Ulysses S. Grant's political accomplishments compare with his military ability

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Grant had no political experience and his performance was clumsy and ineffectual from the start. His Secretary of State was the only good member of his cabinet because most were ill equipped for their tasks.

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2. What episodes led to the Liberal Republican break over "Grantism" and later to the second-term scandals

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Some Republicans suspected that there was also corruption in the Grant administration itself. They thought this because he used the spoils system even more blatantly than most of its predecessors; alienated the many Northerners who were growing disillusioned with Radical Reconstruction policies, which the president continued to support. By the end of his first term the Liberal Republicans opposed his administration. The scandals in his second term had to do with the Credit Mobilier construction company which had helped build the Union Pacific Railroad. The heads of the company had used their positions as Union Pacific stockholders to steer large fraudulent contracts to their construction company, thus bilking the Union Pacific of millions. To prevent investigations, the directors had given their stock to key members of Congress. Congress then launched an investigation later which revealed that some highly placed Republicans had accepted some of the stock. Also Grant's third Treasury had discovered that some of his officials had a group of distillers cheating the government out of taxes by filing false reports. Also, the Secretary of War had accepted bribes to retain an Indian-post trader in office.

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3. People in what financial condition were most likely to favor expansion of the currency supply with greenbacks?What sparked interest in greenbacks

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Debtors pressured the government to redeem federal war bonds with greenbacks which would increase the amount of money in circulation. They wanted the money to expand and that couldn't happen when the gold-based money supply could not expand easily.

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4. Horace Greeley

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The Liberal Republicans and Democrats shared a candidate in the election of 1872. He was the veteran editor and publisher of the New York Tribune. Grant won with 286 electoral votes to 66.

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5. Whisky Ring

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Benjamin H. Bristow, Grant's third Treasury secretary, discovered that some of his officials and a group of distillers operating as a "whiskey ring" were cheating the government out of taxes by filing false reports.

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6. William Seward

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An ardent expansionist, he acted with as much daring as the demands of Reconstruction politics and the Republican hatred of President Johnson would permit. Seward accepted a Russian offer to sell Alaska to the United Staes for $7.2 million despite criticism from many Americans who considered Alaska a frozen wasteland and derided it as "Seward's Folly." In 1867, Seward also engineered the American annexation of the tiny Midway Island, west of Hawaii.

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7. Panic of 1873

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It began with the failure of a leading investment banking firm, Jay Cooke and Company, which had invested too heavily in postwar railroad building.

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8. Hamilton Fish

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He was Grant's Secretary of State and he served for 8 years with great distinction, most members of the cabinet were ill equipped for their tasks. His first major challenge was resolving the long-standing controversy with England over the American claims that he British government had violated neutrality laws during the Civil War by permitting English shipyards to build ships for the Confederacy. America demanded that England payed for the damage these vessels had caused. In 1871, Fish forged an agreement which provided for international arbitration and in which Britain expressed regret for the "escape" of the Alabama from England.

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1. What tactics did white Southern Democrats use to restrict or control black suffrage

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They used intimidation and violence to undermine the Reconstruction regimes. Secret societies- the KKK, the knights of the White Camellia and others-used terrorism to frighten or physically bar backs from voting or otherwise exercising citizenship.

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2. Why did Northern Republicans begin to take less interest in Reconstruction and the cause of the freedmen after about 1870

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As early as the 15th amendment, some northern reformers convinced themselves that their long campaign on behalf of black people was now over-that with the vote, African Americans ought to be able to take care of themselves. The Panic of 1873 lowered support for Reconstruction. "Social Darwinism" was created and it further weakened commitment to the Reconstruction program. State and local governments also found themselves short on funds and rushed to cut back on social services which meant the end of almost all services to the former slaves in the South.

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3. Why was the presidential election of 1876 disputed?How was the controversy resolved by the "Compromise of 1877"

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It was Hayes vs. Tilden. It was disputed because Tilden was winning, but then disputed returns from Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida and Oregon, whose total electoral vote was 20, threw the election in doubt. Tilden was one short of the majority, but Hayes could still win if he got all 20. Since the Constitution had no way to determine the validity of dispute returns, it went to Congress (Republicans in the Senate and Democrats in the House) and it was divided there as to whether the Senate or House should take care of it. The Compromise of 1877, if Hayes got elected: The troops in the South would been withdrawn, the appointment of at least one Southerner to the Hayes cabinet, control of federal patronage in their areas, generous internal improvements, and federal aid for the Texas and Pacific Railroad.

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4. What was President Rutherford B. Hayes's objective in the South?Did he succeed

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He wanted to withdraw federal troops and let white Democrats take over the state governments. He wanted to build up a new Republican organization in the South drawn from Whiggish conservative white groups and committed to some modest acceptance of African American rights. But all such efforts failed.

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5. Compare white and black expectations for Reconstruction with the actual results. Why were most black hopes dashed?What black gains were actually made

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Reconstruction was largely a failure because in those years, the United States abandoned its first serious effort to resolve the nation's oldest and deepest social problem-race. It didn't achieve as much because of the people who directed it, as well attempts to produce solutions ran up against conservative obstacles so deeply embedded in the nation's life that they could not be dislodged. The African Americans did get 2 amendments that would mainly help them in the future.

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6. Compromise of 1877

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If Hayes got elected: The troops in the South would been withdrawn, the appointment of at least one Southerner to the Hayes cabinet, control of federal patronage in their areas, generous internal improvements, and federal aid for the Texas and Pacific Railroad.

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7. Enforcement Acts

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Also known as the Ku Klux Klan Acts. The Acts prohibited the states from discriminating against voters on the basis of race and gave the federal government power to supersede the state courts and prosecute violations of the law. It was the first time the federal government had ever claimed the power to prosecute crimes by individuals under federal law.

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8. Ku Klux Klan

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They used terrorism to frighten or physical bar blacks from voting or otherwise exercising citizenship. It was led by former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Its leaders devised rituals, costumes, secret languages and other airs of mystery to create a bond among its members and make the organization seem even more terrifying to those it was attempting to intimidate. The Klan's "midnight rides"-bands of men clad in white sheets and masks, their horses covered with white robes and with hooves muffled-created terror in black communities throughout the South.

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1. What were the typical socioeconomic and political characteristics of the "Redeemers" (Bourbons)

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There were a few places where the older planter elite retained much of its former power and continued largely to dominate the state for decades. In most areas, however, the Redeemers were merchants, industrialists, railroad developers and financiers. Some were former planters, some were northern immigrants, some were ambitious, upwardly mobile white southern from the region's lower social tiers.

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2. How did the policies of the "Redeemer" governments compare with those of the Reconstruction-era administrations

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The Redeemer regimes were even more awash in waste and fraud. All new Democratic regimes lowered taxes, reduced spending and drastically diminished state services-including many of the most important accomplishments of Reconstruction. One state after another reduced support for public school systems.

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3. In what particular products was industrialization in the South most advanced?What factors attracted industrial capital to the region after the war

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Industry found its way into the South through leaders that saw the promise in it and some Northern entrepreneurs came down to start industry, mainly because of the abundance of water power, the ready supply of cheap labor, the low taxes and the accommodating conservative governments. There were major advancements in textile manufacturing, tobacco-processing industry, iron and steel industry and railroad development.

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4. Describe the composition of the industrial work force in the South. What was life in a mill town like

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A high percentage of factory workers were women because the war destroyed the male populous. Factories also hired entire families, many of whom were moving into towns from failed farms. Workdays were often 12 hours and wages were at much lower than the northern wages, almost ½. Managers of the factories rigorously suppressed attempts at protest or union organization. Company stores sold goods to worker at inflated prices and issued credit at exorbitant rates. These conditions, at the time, created a strong sense of community and solidarity among workers. In textile industries, there were no opportunities for blacks and in tobacco, iron and lumber factories, if they employed them, they would do the most menial and lowest-paid positions. Also some workers were basically free because they were convicted criminals.

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5. Describe the typical pattern of Southern agriculture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What problems confronted most farmers?What groups were most notably affected

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The region was still largely agrarian and still relied on a few cash crops. During Reconstruction 1/3 or more of the framers in the South were tenants; by 1900, the figure rose to 70%. The crop-lien system was the main reason why and it was because farmers borrowed money against their future crops and often fell deeper and deeper into debt. Blacks and most whites had no money and had to pay their landlords in their annual crop (sharecropping). They would be provided with land, a crude house, a few tools, seed and sometimes a mule and by the end of the year, they would have almost nothing to sell on their own.

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6. Describe the rise of the black middle-class

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Although inferior to the white middle-class, it was still an elevation in society. They were slaves or their offspring who managed to acquire property, build small businesses or enter professions. Most middle-class blacks were doctors, lawyers, nurses or teachers serving African American communities. Education was the vital to the future of their people and with the help of northern missionary societies, they expanded the network of black colleges and institutes.

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7. What was Booker T. Washington's prescription for black advancement as expressed in the "Atlanta Compromise" and elsewhere

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His message was cautious and hopeful. African Americans should attend schools, learn skills and establish a solid footing in agriculture and the trades. Industrial, not classical, education should be their goal. They should refine their speech, improve their dress and adopt habits of thrift and personal cleanliness (be like the white middle class). He said that if African Americans were ever to win the rights and privileges of citizenship, they must first show that they were "prepared for the exercise of these privileges." He implicitly said that African Americans would not challenge the system of segregation.

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8. How did the civil right cases of 1883 and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) substantially negate the effect of the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

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In the civil rights cases of 1883, the Court ruled that the 14th amendment prohibited state governments from discriminating against people because of race, but did not restrict private organizations or individuals from doing so. Making railroads, hotels, theaters and workplaces able to legally practice segregation. In Plessy V. Ferguson, it was ruled that separate accommodations did not deprive blacks of equal rights if the accommodations were equal. Meaning that segregation existed because it was "equal."

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9. What strategies and legal devices did the Southern states use to evade the spirit of the Fifteenth Amendment?What motivated the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century crackdown on black voting

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During the 1890s, franchise restrictions became more rigid. During those years, some small white famers began to demand complete black disenfranchisement-because of racial prejudice and because they objected to the black vote being used against them by the conservative planters. At the same time, many members of the conservative elite began to fear the poor whites might unite politically with poor African Americans to challenge them. Two main things were used to control or eliminate black voting. One was the poll tax or some form of property qualifications (which meant almost no blacks could vote) and the other was the "literacy" or "understanding" test, which required voters to demonstrate the ability ro read and interpret the Constitution. Literacy tests were hard for even the educate and literate blacks and were much easier for whites, but still affected the poor whites. Also the grandfather laws permitted men who could not meet the literacy and property qualifications to be enfranchised if their ancestors had voted before Reconstruction began, thus eliminating blacks.

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10. Describe the pervasive nature of "Jim Crow" laws. How was the system enforced, formally and informally

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Laws restricted the franchise and segregating schools were only part of it. Blacks and whites could not ride in the same railroad cars, sit in the same waiting rooms, use the same washrooms, east in the same restaurants, or sit in the same theaters. Blacks had no access to many public parks, beaches, and picnic areas; they could not be patients in many hospitals. Blacks were also victims of frequent lynching. Jim Crow laws served as a means for white to retain control of social relations between the races in the newly growing cities and towns of the South where traditional patterns of deference and subjugation were more difficult to reserve than in the countryside.

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11. Explain the historic debate over Reconstruction and show how the various interpretations were reflections of the time in which they were written

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(See Reconstruction Activity Student Copy)

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12. Redeemers

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They were the hierarchy in the South that replaced the planter aristocracy. In most areas the Redeemers were merchants, industrialists, railroad developers and financiers. Some were former planters, some were northern immigrants, some were ambitious, upwardly mobile white southern from the region's lower social tiers.

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13. Uncle Remus

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Few southern advocated a literal return to the old ways, but most whites eagerly embraced romantic talk of the "Lost Cause." And they warmly responded to the local-color fiction of such writers as Joel Chandler Harris whose folktales portrayed the slave society of the antebellum years as a harmonious world marked by engaging dialect and close emotional bonds between the races.

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14. Booker T. Washington

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The chief spokesman for this commitment to education, and for a time the major spokesman for African Americans in the South (and beyond), founder and president of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He was born into slavery and became educated and urged other blacks to follow the same road to self-improvement. He also had a famous speech in Georgia known as the Atlanta Compromise.

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15. Ida Wells

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A committed black journalist. Launched an international anti-lynching movement with a series of impassioned articles after the lynching of three of her friends in Memphis, her home. The movement gradually gathered strength in the first years of the 20th century attracting substantial support from whites (mainly women) in the North and the South. Its goal was a federal anti-lynching law, which would allow the national government to do what state and local governments in the South were generally unwilling to do: punish those responsible for lynchings.

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16. Atlanta Compromise

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A speech by Booker T. Washington. He said that if African Americans were ever to win the rights and privileges of citizenship, they must first show that they were "prepared for the exercise of these privileges." He implicitly said that African Americans would not challenge the system of segregation.

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17. Jim Crow Laws

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Laws restricted the franchise and segregating schools were only part of it. Blacks and whites could not ride in the same railroad cars, sit in the same waiting rooms, use the same washrooms, east in the same restaurants, or sit in the same theaters. Blacks had no access to many public parks, beaches, and picnic areas; they could not be patients in many hospitals. Blacks were also victims of frequent lynching.

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18. New South

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The South became more industrialized, the Redeemers took control of the South and blacks were subject to violence, anger and oppression. It was the name for the time after Reconstruction.

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19. Plessy vs. Ferguson

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It was the court case that decided that separate accommodations did not deprive blacks of equal rights if the accommodations were equal. Meaning that segregation existed because it was "equal."

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20. Lynching

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Lynching blacks in white mobs was very common. The most celebrated occurred in towns and cities where large, well-organized mobs seized black prisoners from the jails and hanged them in great public rituals. However, most were less visible or predictable, where lynching was preformed by small vigilante mobs, often composed of friends or relatives of the victim of a crime. There were great efforts against lynching by both blacks and whites after it started to pick up.

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1. Compare and contrast the Pacific Coast Indians with the Pueblos of the Southwest

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The Pueblos lived largely as farmers and had established permanent settlements in the Southwest even before the arrival of Spanish settlers. They grew corn; build towns and cities of adobe houses; they practiced elaborate forms of irrigation; and they participated in trade and commerce. The Pueblos and the Spanish had an elaborate hierarchy. The Pueblos were subordinate, but still largely free.

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2. What traits did the Plains tribes share, and what was the economic basis of the way of life for most Plains tribes

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Their cultures were based on close and extended family networks and on an intimate relationship with nature. Tribes were generally divided in bands of 500 men and women. Each band had its own governing council, but the community had a decision-making process in which most members participated. Tasks were divided by gender. Women: raised children, cooked, gathered roots and berries, prepared hides and created artwork. Men were hunters and traders and supervised the religious and military life of the band. Most plains Indians believed in a religion centered around nature. Their life revolved around buffalo and because of that permanent settlements were rare. The flesh was their source of food, its skin supplied clothing, shoes, tepees, blankets, robes and utensils. Buffalo chips were fuel; buffalo bones became knives and arrow tips; buffalo tendons formed the strings of bows.

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3. What was the effect of disease on the western Indians

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They were tragically vulnerable to eastern infectious disease. Smallpox epidemics decimated the Pawnees in Nebraska and many of the California tribes.

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4. What were the key challenges and disadvantages that the Plains Indians had in their conflicts with white settlers

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One weakness was the inability of the various tribes to unite against white aggression. They were sometimes able to draw together a coalition large enough to counter white power. They were also frequently distracted from their battles with whites by conflicts among the tribes themselves. Also some of the Indians helped the white settlers. Disease also was a great weakness.

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5. Describe the process by which the United States asserted control over New Mexico. What role did Mexican immigrants play in the region

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General Stephen Kearny tried to establish a territorial government that excluded the established Mexican ruling class. He ignored most of the Hispanics when his ruling class was devised. It remained under military rule for 3 years until 1850 when a government was set up. In the 1870s the government was dominated by local Anglo businesspeople and politicians with money and they created a mutually profitable government. They gained 2 million acres of land that the original Mexican residents owned. There were a lot more Mexican immigrants once America got rid of the Navajo, Apache and other tribes. Mexicans were usually not around the English and that is why they survived, but in the late 1880s, Mexican peasants in an area of what is now Nevada successfully fended off the encroachment of English-speaking cattle ranchers. Also with the advancement of the territory came more Mexican immigrants in search of work. But they were coming to a society in which they were from the beginning subordinate to Anglo-Americans, which meant that the Mexicans had the lowest-paying and least stable jobs.

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6. Describe the culture that flourished in California prior to the influx of Anglos after 1849?What was the impact of this influx on the californios?How was the pattern in Texas similar

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California was a missionary society which became later dominated by a Mexican aristocracy. For them, the arrive of the Anglo-American arrival was disastrous. Their numbers were so vast that the Hispanic residents had little power to resist the onslaught. In the central and northern parts of the state, where the most Anglo-Americans were, the californios experienced a series of defeats. American prospectors organized to exclude them, sometimes violently, from the mines during the gold rush. Many californios also lost their lands, from corrupt business deals or through seizure. In the south of California, some Mexican landowners managed to hang on for a time because the booming Anglo communities in the north of the state created a large market for cattle. But, a combination of reckless expansion, growing indebtedness and a severe drought in the 1860s devastated the Mexican ranching culture. The Hispanic aristocracy in California ceased to exist and the Mexicans and Mexican Americans became part of the lower end of the state's working class. It was very similar to California as it was in Texas.

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7. In what occupations did most Chinese immigrants work from the 1860s to 1890s?What was Chinese community life like in the cities, especially San Francisco

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Almost all first came as free laborers. They worked in the mines during the gold rush. They then worked on the transcontinental railroad. Some then became farmers in California and some managed to acquire land of their own and establish themselves as modestly successful truck farmers. However, most Chinese immigrants flocked to cities. There were Chinatowns that revolved around powerful organizations that functioned as something like benevolent societies to address common social and financial issues and filled many of the roles that political machines often served in immigrant communities in eastern cities. There were also "tongs" which were secret societies. Some of them were violent criminal organizations, involved in the opium trade and prostitution. Few people were aware of their existence outside of the Chinese, unless there was a tong war. The Chinese usually were common laborers, servants and unskilled factory hands. Some established their own small businesses, especially laundries. There was also a lot of prostitution, which was reduced when the female Chinese population neared the male one.

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8. What led to the increasing Anglo-European hostility toward the Chinese in California?What were the social and public policy results of this hostility

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The opinion turned hostile quickly because the Chinese were so industrious and successful that some white Americans began considering them rivals or even threats. In 1852, the California legislature began trying to exclude the Chinese from gold mining by enacting a "foreign miners" tax. A series of other laws in the 1850s were designed to discourage Chinese emigration to the territory. There were also Anti-coolie clubs which hated the Chinese and some would attack Chinese workers in the streets and some were suspected of burning factories with Chinese workers in them. Congress then passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese emigration to the United State for 10 years and barred Chinese already in the country from becoming naturalized citizens. Congress renewed the law for another 10 years in 1892 and made it permanent in 1902. It reduced the Chinese population by 40%.

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9. What were the reasons for the late nineteenth century boom on migration to the West from the eastern United States and Europe

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Now the immigrants came in millions. Most of the new settlers were from the established Anglo-American societies of the eastern United States, but substantial numbers (more than 2 million) were foreign-born immigrants from Europe. Settlers were attracted by gold and silver deposits, by the sod of the plains and the meadowlands of the mountains, which were suitable for farming or ranching.

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10. Describe the Homestead Act and related federal government laws to assist settlers in obtaining western land. Why was 160 acres not adequate

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The Homestead Act would give people 160 acres of land for free. They had to inhabit it for 5 years and then pay a small fee and it would be theirs. It was designed to encourage settlement by giving people a free farm, people who might otherwise have no prospects. 160 acres was too small for the grazing and grain farming of much of the Great Plains. Although more than 400,000 homesteaders stayed on Homestead Act claims long enough to gain title to their land, a much large number abandoned the region before the end of the required 5 years. Congress increased the homestead allotments. The Timber Culture Act permitted homesteaders to receive grants of 160 additional acres if they planted 40 acres of trees on them. The Desert Land Act provided that claimants could buy 640 acres at $1.25 an acre provided they irrigated part of their holdings within 3 years. The Timber and Stone Act authorized sales at $2.50 an acre.

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11. Explain the rapid political progression from territory to state in most of the West.Why did Utah lag?What territories of the "lower 48" lacked statehood as of the turn of the century

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After Kansas, the remaining territories of Washington, New Mexico, Utah and Nebraska were divided into smaller units that would be easier to organize: Nevada, Colorado, Dakota, Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Statehood soon followed. Congress denied Utah statehood until its Mormon leaders convinced the government in 1896 that polygamy had been abandoned. Arizona and New Mexico were excluded because their scanty white populations remained minorities in the territories, because their politics were predominantly Democratic in a Republican era and because they were unwilling to accept admission as a single state. Oklahoma was opened to white settlement and granted territory status in 1889-1890.

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12. Denis Kearney

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Created the Workingmen's Party of California. He was an Irish immigrant. The party gained significant political power in the state largely on the basis of its hostility to the Chinese.

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13. Buffalo

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The flesh was the Indian's source of food, its skin supplied clothing, shoes, tepees, blankets, robes and utensils. Buffalo chops were fuel; buffalo bones became knives and arrow tips; buffalo tendons formed the strings of bows.

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14. Californios

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What the Hispanic residents of the state of California were known as.

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15. Chinatowns

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Much of the Chinese community lived in San Francisco. The communities revolved around powerful organizations-usually formed by people form a single clan or community in China-that functioned as something like benevolent societies to address common social and financial issues and filled many of the roles that political machines often served in immigrant communities in eastern cities. They were often led by prominent merchants.

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16. Chinese Exclusion Act

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Congress then passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese emigration to the United State for 10 years and barred Chinese already in the country from becoming naturalized citizens. Congress renewed the law for another 10 years in 1892 and made it permanent in 1902. It reduced the Chinese population by 40%.

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17. Coolies

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Many Chinese moved to Hawaii, Australia, South and Central American, South Africa and even the Caribbean. Some that moved to the Caribbean were Coolies, indentured servants whose condition was close to slavery.

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18. Genizaros

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Indians without tribes. They had voluntarily left their own tribe and they were at the bottom of the Spanish hierarchy.

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19. Homestead Act

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The Homestead Act would give people 160 acres of land for free. They had to inhabit it for 5 years and then pay a small fee and it would be theirs. It was designed to encourage settlement by giving people a free farm, people who might otherwise have no prospects.

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20. Mestizos

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People of mixed race. Almost every group in the Southwest-not just Spanish and Indians, but several categories of mulattoes and mestizos as well-had a clear place in an elaborate social Spanish hierarchy.

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21. Decline of the Missions

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California was a heavy missionary society, but the Mexican government began to reduce the power of the church and this caused the missionary society to largely collapse, despite strenuous resistance from the missionaries themselves. In its place emerged a secular Mexican aristocracy, which controlled a chain of large estates in the fertile lands west of the Sierra Nevada.

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22. Mulatto

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People of mixed race. Almost every group in the Southwest-not just Spanish and Indians, but several categories of mulattoes and mestizos as well-had a clear place in an elaborate social Spanish hierarchy.

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23. Transcontinental Railroad

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The western part of the railroad was built by almost entirely Chinese because the Central Pacific liked them because they worked hard, made few demands and accepted low wages. The conditions when working on the railroads were arduous and dangerous. The company made few concessions to the difficult conditions and provided its workers with little protection from the elements. In the winter, many Chinese tunneled into snowbanks at night to create warm sleeping areas for themselves. The tunnels frequently collapsed, suffocating those inside.

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24. Western Tribes

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The Serrano, Chumash, Pomo, Maidu, Yurok and Chinook had lived on the Pacific coast before the arrival of Spanish settlers. The Pueblos were also a tribe. The more dangerous tribes were the Apaches, Navajos and Comanches of the region.

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25. Plains Indians

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Their cultures were based on close and extended family networks and on an intimate relationship with nature. Tribes were generally divided in bands of 500 men and women. Each band had its own governing council, but the community had a decision-making process in which most members participated. Tasks were divided by gender. Women: raised children, cooked, gathered roots and berries, prepared hides and created artwork. Men were hunters and traders and supervised the religious and military life of the band. Most plains Indians believed in a religion centered around nature. Their life revolved around buffalo and because of that permanent settlements were rare. Basically all men were warriors in their society as well.

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26. Taos Indian Rebellion

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In 1847, Taos Indians rebelled; they killed the new governor of New Mexico and other Anglo-American officials before being subdued by U.S. Army forces.

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27. Pueblos

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The Pueblos lived largely as farmers and had established permanent settlements in the Southwest even before the arrival of Spanish settlers. They grew corn; build towns and cities of adobe houses; they practiced elaborate forms of irrigation; and they participated in trade and commerce. The Pueblos and the Spanish had an elaborate hierarchy. The Pueblos were subordinate, but still largely free.

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28. Polygamy

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The mainly Mormon practice of a man having more than one wife at a time. Utah's leaders had to abandon this in order to become a state.

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1. Describe the composition and structure of the labor force in the West. How was it shaped by racial prejudice

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There was a labor shortage of the region and because of this, there were higher wages. But working conditions were often arduous and job security was almost nonexistent. Once a railroad was built, a crop harvested, a herd sent to the market, a mine played out, hundreds and even thousands of workers could find themselves suddenly unemployed. Competition from the Chinese also forced some Anglo-American workers out. The region had the highest percentage of single adults and lots of people were mobile because they owned no land. English-speaking whites worked alongside African Americans and immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. They also worked with Chinese, Filipinos, Mexicans and Indians. But white workers occupied the upper tiers of employment: management and skilled labor. The lower tiers were everyone else that did arduous work and were unskilled. Employers argued that Chinese, Mexicans and Filipinos were genetically or culturally suited to manual labor. Whites also embraced this idea because it gave them the most mobility.

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2. What were the principal gold and silver boom areas from 1858 to 1874?What other mineral extraction became economically important

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There was gold found in the Pike's Peak district of what would soon be the territory of Colorado. It died almost as rapidly as it developed. Some corporations then discovered silver near Leadville and gained more wealth. While the Colorado rush was happening, gold had been found in the Washoe district, but most valuable ore in the great Comstock Lode and other veins was silver. When the first surface deposits ran out, California and eastern capitalists bought the claims of the pioneer prospectors and began to use the more difficult process of quarts mining, which enabled them to retrieve silver from deeper veins. The next important discoveries were in the Black Hills of southwestern Dakota Territory. Prospectors swarmed into the area until surface resources faded and corporations took over. The great Anaconda copper mine launched by William Clark in 1881 marked the beginning of an industry that would remain important to Montana for many decades. In other areas, mining operations had significant success with lead, tin, quartz and zinc.

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3. Describe the typical pattern of development and decline in the mining regions. What was life like for men and women in the mining camps and towns

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The mining boom attracted some bad people as well, operating as individuals or gangs. When the situation became intolerable in a community, those members interested in order began enforcing their own laws through used earlier in California. In every community, men greatly outnumbered women. Those women who did gravitate to the new communities often came with their husbands, and their activities were generally confined to the same kinds of domestic tasks that eastern women performed. Single women did choose to work for wages at times, as cooks, laundresses and tavernkeepers. There was also a market for prostitution. The people that flocked to the mining towns in search of quick wealth and failed to find it often remained as wage laborers in corporate mines after the boom period. Working conditions were awful for almost everyone. It was one of the most dangerous jobs in America for a long time.

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4. Describe the origins, purposes, and practices of the "long drive" and the "open range" cattle industry.What ended this brief but colorful boom?What was the long-run nature of the cattle business

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The open range-the vast grasslands of the public domain-provided a huge area on the Great Plains where cattle raisers could graze their herds free of charge and unrestricted by the boundaries of private farms. At the end of the Civil War, around 5 million cattle roamed the Texas rangers. Early in 1866, some Texas cattle ranchers began driving their combined hers (as many as 260,000 cattle) north to Sedalia, Missouri. Traveling through rough country and beset by outlaws, Indians and property-conscious farmers, the caravan suffered heavy losses. Only a fraction of the animals arrived in Sedalia. But the drive proved that cattle could be driven to distant markets and pastured along the trail. The earliest of the long drivers established the first, tentative link between the isolated cattle breeders of the south and west Texas and the booming urban markets of the East. The Chisholm Trail was a popular trial used to drive the cattle, but the ranges on the trail became unsuitable for the long drive so new trails were created. The long drive began with the calf roundup. The cattlemen rounded up the stock from the open range, herds containing the stock of many different owners, with only their brands to distinguish them from one another. The combined herds, usually numbering from 2,000 to 5,000 head, moved out. Cowboys accompanied them. However, the cattle business quickly became corporate and it resulted in a frenzied, speculative expansion that made ranges overstocked. There was not enough grass to support the crowding herds or to sustain the long drives. Then after nature commanded two severe winters, in 1885-1886 and 1886-1887, with a searing summer between them, that stung and scorched the plains. Hundreds of thousands of cattle died, streams and grass dried up, princely ranches and costly investments disappeared in a season.

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5. Chisolm Trail

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Between 1867 and 1871, cattlemen drove nearly 1.5 million head up the trail to Abilene, Kansas-a town that, when filled with rampaging cowboys at the end of a drive, rivaled the mining town in rowdiness. But by the mid-1870s, agricultural development in western Kansas was eating away at the open range land at the same time that the supply of animals was increasing.

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6. Long Drive

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The earliest of the long drivers established the first, tentative link between the isolated cattle breeders of the south and west Texas and the booming urban markets of the East. The long drive began with the calf roundup. The cattlemen rounded up the stock from the open range, herds containing the stock of many different owners, with only their brands to distinguish them from one another. The combined herds, usually numbering from 2,000 to 5,000 head, moved out. Cowboys accompanied them.

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7. Mining

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There was gold found in the Pike's Peak district of what would soon be the territory of Colorado. It died almost as rapidly as it developed. Some corporations then discovered silver near Leadville and gained more wealth. While the Colorado rush was happening, gold had been found in the Washoe district, but most valuable ore in the great Comstock Lode and other veins was silver. When the first surface deposits ran out, California and eastern capitalists bought the claims of the pioneer prospectors and began to use the more difficult process of quarts mining, which enabled them to retrieve silver from deeper veins. The next important discoveries were in the Black Hills of southwestern Dakota Territory. Prospectors swarmed into the area until surface resources faded and corporations took over. The great Anaconda copper mine launched by William Clark in 1881 marked the beginning of an industry that would remain important to Montana for many decades. In other areas, mining operations had significant success with lead, tin, quartz and zinc.

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8. Vigilante

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The boom brought a lot of bad people to the mining region as well. They operated as individuals or as gangs. When the situation became intolerable in a community, those members interested in order began enforcing their own laws through vigilante committees, an unofficial system of social control used earlier in California. Vigilantes were unconstrained by the legal system. Some of them continued to operate as private "law" enforcers after the creation of regular governments.

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9. Range Wars

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Farmers from the East threw fences around their claims, blocking trails and breaking up the open range. A series of range wars-between sheepmen and cattlemen, between ranchers and farmers-erupted out of the tensions between these competing groups, resulting in significant loss of life and extensive property damage.

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1. How did the Wild West shows of Buffalo Bill Cody and others shape the popular image of the American West

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They all portrayed the West as a place of adventure and romance. They never focused on the actual West, but rather a myth and fantasized version of it. They portrayed versions of the modern rodeo sometimes. They also showed mock Indian attacks by real Indians on stagecoaches and wagon trains. They portrayed the West as a place of hope, progress, success and democracy as well as freedom and literally "free land."

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2. What did Frederick Jackson Turner conclude about the importance of the western frontier?How influential, according to the "Debating the Past" selection, was his thesis?How did the "new western historians" and others challenge the Turner view

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He said that the settlement of the West by white people as the central story of American history. His thesis shaped American history for a generation and it shaped western American history for even longer. In the 1st half of the 20th century, virtually everyone who wrote about the West echoed at least part of Turner's argument. Henry Nash Smith examined many of the same heroic images of the West that Turner and his disciples also looked at. He treated those images as myths. Earl Pomeroy challenged Turner's notion of the West as a place of individuals, innovation and democratic renewal, claiming that "conservatism, inheritance, and continuity bulked at least as large." New western historians rejected the concept of frontier and emphasized, instead, the elaborate and highly developed civilizations that already existed in the region. They said that white, english0speaking Americans, did not so much settle the West as conquer it, through their conquest was never complete. Recent historians describe the West as a less triumphant place in which bravery and success coexist with oppression, greed and failure; in which decaying ghost towns, bleak Indian reservations, impoverished barrios, and ecologically devastated landscapes are as characteristic of wester development as great ranches, rich farms, and prosperous cities. New western scholars contented that western individualism is a self-serving myth.

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3. Cowboy

answer

The cowboy was a low-paid worker, but he was portrayed as a powerful and enduring figure of myth. Americans did not think about the dismal aspects of the cowboy's life. Instead they romanticized his freedom form traditional social constraints, his affinity with nature, even is supposed propensity for violence.

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4. Frederick Jackson Turner

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He believed that the settlement of the West by white people was the central story of American history. The process of westward expansion transformed a desolate and savage land into a modern civilization. It also continually renewed American ideas of democracy and individualism. It shaped not just the West but the nation as a whole. The thesis shaped American history for a generation and it shaped western American history for even longer. He saw the West as a place of heroism, triumph and, above all, progress, dominated by the feasts of brave white men. He also saw the 19th century West as a place where rugged individualism flourished and replenished American democracy.

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5. Frederic Remington

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He was a painter and sculptor that also captured the romance of the West and its image as an alternative to the settled civilization of the East. He portrayed the cowboy as a natural aristocrat, much like Wister's Virginian, living in a natural world in which all the normal supporting structures of "civilization" were missing.

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6. Mark Twain

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He was one of the great American writers of the 19th century and gave voice to this romantic vision of the frontier. In Roughing It, he wrote of the Far West and of his own experience as a newspaper reporter in Nevada during the mining boom. His greatest works were novels that dealt with life on an earlier frontier. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he produced characters who repudiated the constraints of organized society and attempted to escape into a natural world.

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7. "Passing of the Frontier"

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In accepting the idea, many Americans were acknowledging the loss of one of their most cherished myths. As long as it had been possible for them to consider the West an empty, open land, it was possible to believe that there were constantly revitalizing opportunities in American life. Now there was a vague and ominous sense of opportunities foreclosed, of individuals losing their ability to control their own destinies.

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8. Rocky Mountain School

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Painters of the school (best known were Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran) celebrated the new West in grandiose canvases, some of which were taken on tours around eastern and Midwestern states and attracted enormous crowds. Such paintings emphasized the ruggedness and dramatic variety of the region, and reflected the same awe toward the land that earlier regional painters had displayed toward the Hudson River valley and other areas.

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9. Turner Thesis

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The settlement of the West by white people was the central story of American history. The process of westward expansion transformed a desolate and savage land into a modern civilization. It also continually renewed American ideas of democracy and individualism. It shaped not just the West but the nation as a whole. The thesis shaped American history for a generation and it shaped western American history for even longer.

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10. Theodore Roosevelt

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A man born and raised in the East, traveled to the Dakota Badlands in the mind-1880s to help himself recover from the sudden death of his young wife. He had long romanticized the West as a place of physical regeneration. He made his own fascination with the West a part of the nation's popular culture. In the 1890s, he published a four-volume history, The Winning of the West, with a romanticized account of the spread of white civilization into the frontier.

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1. Describe the concept of Indian sovereignty and how it gave way to the "concentration" policy. What additional element did the Indian Peace Commission add to the policy

answer

Traditionally, the policy of the federal government was to regard the tribes simultaneously as independent nations and a wards of the president, and to negotiate treaties with them that were solemnly ratified by the Senate. This limited concept of Indian sovereignty had been responsible for the government's attempt at erecting a permanent frontier between whites and Indians. Concentration was the idea of establishing one great enclave in which many tribes could live. In 1851, each tribe was assigned its own defined reservation, confirmed by separate treaties-treaties often illegitimately negotiated with unauthorized "representatives" chosen by whites, people known sarcastically as "treaty chiefs." This new concentration policy divided the tribes form one another and made them easier to control; it allowed the government to force tribes into scattered locations and to take the most desirable lands for white settlement. The Commission recommended replacing the current policy with a plan to move all the Plains Indians into 2 large reservations (Oklahoma and Dakotas).

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2. What happened to the great buffalo herds?How was the life of the Plains Indians affected

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Whites were killing the buffalo in the 1850s to provide food and supplies for the large bands of migrants traveling to the gold rush in California. After the Civil War, the white demand for buffalo hides became national. Gangs of professional hunters swarmed over the plains to shoot the huge animals. Railroads companies hired riflemen and arranged shooting expeditions to kill large numbers of buffalo because they were a nuisance on the railroad. Also there were ecological changes, the reduction and in some areas virtual disappearance, of the open plains. The killing off of the herds was destroying the Indians' source of food and supplies and their ability to resist the white advance.

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3. Describe the general pattern of Indian wars from the 1850s to the 1880s. Why were the Indians unable to build on their victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn

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There was almost incessant fighting between whites and Indians from the 1850s to the 1880s, as Indians struggled against the growing threats to their civilizations. Indian warriors, usually traveling in raiding parties for 30 or 40 men, attacked wagon trains, stagecoaches and isolated ranches, often in retaliation for earlier attacks. As the U.S. Army became more deeply involved in the fighting, the tribes began to focus more of their attacks on white soldiers. (See sand Creek Massacre.) When miners began to move into some of the lands in the Dakota Territory that were supposedly granted to Indians, new forces rose. In the battle of Little Bighorn, the ribald warriors surprised the white leader and 264 members of his regiment, surrounded them and killed every man. The chiefs had gathered as many as 2,500 warriors, one of the largest Indian armies ever assembled at one time in the United States. The Indians did not have the political organization or the supplies to keep their troops united. Soon the warriors drifted off in bands to elude pursuit or search for food, and the army eventually force them back to the Dakota reservations.

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4. What fundamental change in federal Indian policy was embodied in the Dawes Act?What were the results of this new policy

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The government stopped creating reservations in which the tribes would be isolated from white society. The Dawes Act provided for the gradual elimination of tribal ownership of land and the allotment of tracts to individual owners: 160 acers to the head of a family, 80 acres to a single adult of orphan, 40 acres to each dependent child. Adult owners were given United States citizenship, but unlike other citizens, they could not gain full title to their property for 25 years. The act applied to most western tribes. The Pueblo were excluded from its provisions. In applying the Dawes Act, the Bureau of Indian Affairs relentlessly promoted the idea of assimilation that lay behind it. Not only did they try to move Indian families onto their own plots of land; they also took some Indian children away from their families and sent them to boarding schools run by whites, where they believed the young people could be educated to abandon tribal ways. The bureau also moved to stop Indian religious rituals and encouraged the spread of Christianity and the creation of Christian churches on the reservations. White administration of the program was so corrupt and inept that ultimately the government simply abandoned it. Much of the reservation land was never distributed to individual owners. Congress tried to speed things up with the Burke Act, but Indians continued to resist forced assimilation.

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5. "Virgin Land"

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The whites imagined the west as a place awaiting civilization by white people and this caused them to make sure that the Indian tribes would not remain obstacles to the pread of white society.

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6. Buffalo - Destruction

answer

Whites were killing the buffalo in the 1850s to provide food and supplies for the large bands of migrants traveling to the gold rush in California. After the Civil War, the white demand for buffalo hides became national. Gangs if professional hunters swarmed over the plains to shoot the huge animals. Railroads companies hired riflemen and arranged shooting expeditions to kill large numbers of buffalo because they were a nuisance on the railroad. Also there were ecological changes, the reduction and in some areas virtual disappearance, of the open plains. The killing off of the herds was destroying the Indians' source of food and supplies and their ability to resist the white advance.

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7. Chief Joseph

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The leader of the Nez Perce; he urged his followers to flee form the American troops. They scattered in several directions and became part of a remarkable chase. Joseph moved with 200 men and 350 women, children and elders in an effort to reach Canada and take refuge with the Sioux there. They were finally caught just short of the Canadian boundary; some escaped and slipped across the border. He then surrendered on the condition that his band could return to the Nez Perce reservation in Idaho, but the government refused to honor his request.

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8. "Concentration" Policy

answer

Concentration was the idea of establishing one great enclave in which many tribes could live. In 1851, each tribe was assigned its own defined reservation, confirmed by separate treaties-treaties often illegitimately negotiated with unauthorized "representatives" chosen by whites, people known sarcastically as "treaty chiefs." This new concentration policy divided the tribes form one another and made them easier to control; it allowed the government to force tribes into scattered locations and to take the most desirable lands for white settlement.

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9. Dawes Severalty Act

answer

The government stopped creating reservations in which the tribes would be isolated from white society. The Dawes Act provided for the gradual elimination of tribal ownership of land and the allotment of tracts to individual owners: 160 acers to the head of a family, 80 acres to a single adult of orphan, 40 acres to each dependent child. Adult owners were given United States citizenship, but unlike other citizens, they could not gain full title to their property for 25 years. The act applied to most western tribes. The Pueblo were excluded from its provisions. In applying the Dawes Act, the Bureau of Indian Affairs relentlessly promoted the idea of assimilation that lay behind it.

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10. George A. Custer

answer

In 1868 Black Kettle and his Cheyennes, some of whom were not at war with the whites, were caught on the Washita River, near the Texas border by this general. White troops killed the chief and slaughtered his people. He was later the colonel of the 7th Cavalry. He was the white general at the battle of Little Bighorn and was surprised by tribal warriors and killed. He was accused of rashness, but he encountered something that no white man would likely have predicated.

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11. Geronimo

answer

The last Indians to maintain organized resistance against the whites were the Chiricahua Apaches. When their leader Cochise died, his earlier agreement to peace in exchange for a reservation that included some of the tribe's traditional land was forfeit when Geronimo became leader because he was unwilling to bow to white pressures to assimilate and fought on for more than a decade establishing bases in the mountains of Arizona and Mexico and leading warriors in intermittent raids against white outposts. In 1886, he surrendered, an event that marked the end of formal warfare between Indians and whites.

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12. Ghost Dance Movement

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The prophet Wovoka revived religion for the Indians and it added a mass, emotional Ghost Dance, which inspired ecstatic visions. Among these visions were images of a retreat of white people from the plains a restoration of the great buffalo herds. White agents on the Sioux reservation watched the dances in bewilderment and fear; some believed they might be the preliminary to hostilities.

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13. Little Bighorn

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When miners began to move into some of the lands in the Dakota Territory that were supposedly granted to Indians, new forces rose. In the battle of Little Bighorn, the ribald warriors surprised the white leader and 264 members of his regiment, surrounded them and killed every man. The chiefs had gathered as many as 2,500 warriors, one of the largest Indian armies ever assembled at one time in the United States. The Indians did not have the political organization or the supplies to keep their troops united. Soon the warriors drifted off in bands to elude pursuit or search for food, and the army eventually force them back to the Dakota reservations.

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14. Sand Creek Massacre

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Bands of Indians attacked stagecoach lines and settlements in an effort to regain lost territory and the whites called up a large territorial militia in response. The governor urged all friendly Indians to congregate at army posts for protection before the army began its campaign. One band under Chief Black Kettle, camped near Fort Lyon on Sand Creek. Some members of the party were warriors, but Black Kettle believed he was under official protection and exhibited no hostile intention. However, Colonel J. M. Chivington, apparently encouraged by the army commander of the district, led a volunteer militia force to the unsuspecting camp and massacred 133 people. Black Kettle escape the massacre and 4 years later was killed.

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15. Wounded Knee

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On December 29, 1890, the 7th Cavalry tried to round up a group of about 350 cold and starving Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Fighting broke out in which about 40 white soldiers and more than 300 of the Indians, including women and children, died. What precipitated the conflict is a matter of dispute; but the battle soon turned into a one-side massacre.

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1. How did the completion of the transcontinental railroad and other lines in the region affect the settlement after the war?How were the railroads financed

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Railroads were a major factor in westward expansion. The transcontinental railroad made it possible to access vast new quantities of land. State governments encouraged railroad development by offering financial aid, favorable loans and 50 million (+ governments initial 130 mill) acres of land. Although railroads were operated by private corporations, they were basically public projects. The railroad companies themselves spurred westward movement because they actively promoted settlement by making rates so low for the trip west, that almost anyone could afford it. The companies also sold much of their land at very low prices and provided liberal credit to prospective settlers.

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2. What problems not typical of the East did farmers encounter on the Great Plains?What methods and devices helped alleviate these problems?Why was there something of a reverse migration starting in the late 1880s

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Fencing was expensive, so barbed wire was invented. Some of the land was desert-like so irrigation was used and some farmers created wells that went very deep underground. When the climate started to get bad, farmers: created deep wells pumped by steel windmills, planted drought resistant crops and/or attempt to create a large network of irrigation. People started to migrate back to the east because the climate in the Plains became largely unsuitable for growing crops.

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3. How did domestic and worldwide market forces change the nature of American agriculture in this period

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The cash-crop commercial farmer started to take form as a farmer who specialized in cash crops and sold to worldwide markets. Farm output increased dramatically all over the world. Modern farm communication and transportation (telephone, telegraph, steam navigation, railroads) were creating new markets around the world for agricultural goods. Cotton farmers depended on export sales for 70% for their annual income. Wheat farmers depended on export sales for 30%-40% for their annual income. There was lots of overproduction of agricultural goods in the 1880s. By the 1890s 27% of the farms in the country were mortgaged-33% in 1910. In 1880, 25% of all farms had been operated by tenants-37% in 1910. (See Commercial Agriculture)

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4. What were the three main grievances of the late nineteenth century farmer?How were these complaints compounded by attitudinal factors

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Inequitable freight rates, high interest charges and an inadequate currency. These complaints had good reasons as to why they were suspected of being the problem with the farm goods, but the main problem was that the farmers did not understand how overproduction worked. They thought that the banks and interest companies were charging them more to make more money and that the manufacturers in the East were trying to keep the prices of manufactured goods high while keeping the price of farm goods low.

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5. Barbed Wire

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It was a challenge for farmers to protect their land from the herds of the open-range cattlemen. (Wood and stone fences were too expensive and were ineffective as barriers against cattle.) In 1873, Joseph H. Glidden and I. L. Ellwood, solved this problem by developing and marketing barbed wire, which became standard equipment in the plains and revolutionized fencing.

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6. Commercial Agriculture

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Were not self-sufficient because they specialized in cash crops (sold in national or world markets). They bought their household supplies and food from town or village stores. This kind of farming raised the farmer's living standards when it was successful. They were dependent on bankers and interest rates, railroads and freight rates, national and European markets, world supply and demand. They could not regulate their production or influence the prices of what they sold

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