Document Analysis Worksheet - Ecology of the West

THE NEW SOUTH

By 1877, after the withdrawal of the last federal troops, white, conservative Democrats reclaimed

political power in the South. These "Redeemers," as they called themselves, dismantled just

about every facet of the Radical Republican Era, and for nearly a century the Republican party

virtually disappeared south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Industrialization became a crusade. Southerners felt their dearth of factories had been the

primary reason they lost the Civil War. Thanks to low wages, some leasing" of convict

labor, abundant natural resources and water power, low taxes, improved railroads, and a healthy

dose of northern capital, southern industry began to get off the ground. However, despite their

best efforts, the South rarely exceeded 10% of the nation's total industrial output.

As far as the freedmen were concerned, most blacks ended up as sharecroppers, planting on

the white landowners' soil while surrendering 35-50% of the crop back to the "boss."

Frequently, sharecroppers fell into an economic bondage, mortgaging future crops to deal with

current emergencies. To make matters worse, the price of cotton fell drastically in the late 19th

century, bringing great damage to black and white farmers alike.

The black social position was no better than the economic predicament. Since most white

southerners did not accept the blacks as equals, it was not long before white supremists began to

develop Jim Crow Laws and practices which established a de facto second-class citizenship for

the ex-slaves. Although the 14th Amendment forbade governments from discriminating against

blacks, private organizations and individuals had no such limitations. Segregation became

rampant in the South as railroad cars, theaters, hotels, hospitals, restrooms, cemeteries, and

libraries routinely set aside designated areas "FOR WHITES ONLY." In many areas, integrated

checker-playing was outlawed. The three words "separate but equal" from the Supreme Court

Case, PLESSY vs. FERGUSON (1896), further mocked the 14th Amendment. "Legislation is

powerless to eradicate racial instincts . . . . If one race be inferior to the other socially, the

Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane. Three years later (1899),

the Supreme Court held that separate schools for white children were valid even if no

comparable schools were provided for blacks.

Because some blacks protested or refused to remain "in their place," white violence reached

epidemic proportions in the 1890's, averaging 187 lynchings/year.

Meanwhile, in the political arena, blacks learned that the 15th Amendment prohibitions against

voting discrimination on account of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" did not

protect them from intimidation, complicated ballot boxes, poll taxes, and literacy tests. Poll

taxes, for example, required that each voter pay a tax in advance of casting his ballot. Some

communities required the tax to be paid 6-8 months before the election and that the receipt be

produced. It was assumed that even the blacks that could afford the tax would not be up to these

"red tape" requirements. In other cases, white supremacist voter registrars arbitrarily changed the

amount of the tax from several cents for white voters to several dollars for black voters. YOU

CAN WELL IMAGINE THE LITERACY TEST QUALIFICATIONS FREQUENTLY

DIFFERED WITH WHITES GETTING TO DEMONSTRATE LITERACY FROM THE

LITTLE RED READER, WHILE BLACKS MIGHT HAVE TO READ SOMETHING FROM

CHAUCER.

Since some poor or illiterate whites sometimes fell to poll taxes and literacy tests, certain

communities devised the Grandfather Laws which stated that if one's grandfather was eligible to

vote, then tests and taxes would be waived. Blacks challenged all of these provisions in the

courts, but since "on their face" the poll tax and literacy provisions did not discriminate against

blacks, the only help the freedmen received from the courts was the voiding of the grandfather

laws after a few years. Black voting in the South virtually ceased. For example, in Louisiana as

late as 1896--130,000 blacks registered to vote. By 1904, after the poll tax went into effect, only

1300 registered.

Two black leaders emerged to try and extract the race from this seemingly hopeless predicament.

Booker T. Washington, born into slavery, a self-made man, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute

in Alabama--felt that education was vital to the future of the race, but it should be vocational

education, not classical. Blacks should not waste their time preparing for jobs that would never

exist (in their lifetime). Instead, they must learn a trade, accumulate property, refine their speech,

dress, and personal hygiene. In short, they must adopt the standards of the white middle class.

"The trouble with the Negro is that he is all the time trying to get recognition, whereas what he

should do is to get something to recognize." "There is little racial prejudice in the American

dollar." Rather than protest about the part of town they were not allowed to live in, blacks should

spend more time improving the part of town that they did live in, according to Washington. He

called his program Realistic Accommodation, and it was quite acceptable to whites as well as

greatly followed by blacks.

Opposing Washington was W.E.B. DuBois, born into a well-off black family and the first black

PhD from Harvard. DuBois offered a program geared more toward protest and agitation. He

complained that Washington "practically accepted the "inferiority" of blacks by encouraging

manual labor. DuBois did not stress the uplifting of all blacks from oppression as much as he

pushed for the "talented tenth" of the black race to gain immediate positions of full equality in

order to become a trained elite which would later work for the advancement of the race as a

whole. The most exceptional blacks must gain immediate integration and educational

opportunities. The elite must fight for civil rights, not wait for them to be granted as a reward for

patience. DuBois helped establish the NAACP and edited that group's newspaper, THE CRISIS,

for twenty years.

One of DuBois' favorite concepts was the idea of "brokering" the black vote to the highest

political bidder--not just blindly continuing to support the Republicans (party of Lincoln) who

had done little to further black prospects for years. Hopefully, by playing one party against the

other, the blacks could trade political support for favorable legislation. Unfortunately, thanks to

widespread disfranchisement and the inability of voting blacks to unify, this plan bore little fruit.

With black having so few votes, why should either party include civil rights legislation that

might cost them thousands of white supremacist votes?

Until his death in 1915, Booker T. Washington held the upper hand in this power struggle. By

using his influence within the black press, his "spies" planted within the DuBois organization,

and the many dollars raised from sympathetic WHITES, Washington discredited his opponent

and convinced many blacks that the slow and gradual approach to civil rights was best.

THE FINAL WEST

Because of the scarcity of wood, lack of rainfall, extremes of heat and cold, steep mountains, and

hostile Indians, the Great Plains region of the United States was the last major area to be settled.

By the end of the Civil War, however, cheap and fertile land, gold and silver discoveries, and

wild cattle and abundant pastures combined to attract thousands of settlers. The completion of

the Transcontinental Railroad made the journey west considerably easier for those who could

afford the fare.

GOLD AND SILVER

After gold and silver strikes became known, eager settlers came from the United States East

and from around the world. Major discoveries occurred in California, Colorado, and

Nevada. An equal number of settlers came West not to prospect, but to provide goods and

services for those that did. Although one prospector, John W. Mackay, became the richest man in

the world earning $25 / minute in his mine, for most prospectors "Pike's Peak or Bust" became

"Pike's Peak and Busted." Initially, "amateur" miners could pan for gold or dig surface gold out

with picks. After a short time, however, the process became so expensive that only large

corporations could continue the excavation. By the 1890's, the mining bonanza for precious

metal was over, and the focus changed to less exotic minerals like oil, copper, and lead.

Precious minerals added billions to the U.S. economy, much of this wealth finding its way into

industrial investment. The mineral strikes also hastened population of the West, and contributed

to a cultural (much exaggerated) legacy of the "Wild West" - gunfights, posses, desperados,

gamblers, etc.

OPEN-RANGE CATTLE DRIVES

After the Civil War, Confederate veterans returning to Texas found 5 million longhorn steers

grazing wild and unowned. These steers sold for $3-4 apiece in Texas, but they would bring as

much as $40 a head further North. Someone got the idea to drive the cattle north for the bigger

profit. The steers furnished their own transportation and grazed for free on the open, unsettled

plains, actually gaining weight along the way.

Most of the techniques to manage and identify the cattle were borrowed from Mexico-- branding,

the roundup, roping, chaps, large hats. Not generally known was the fact that about 1/4 of all the

cowboys were black; about 1/4 were Mexican. HOW MANY BLACK OR MEXICAN

COWBOYS WERE EVER PORTRAYED ON TV OR IN THE MOVIES? The life of a cowboy

has popularly been portrayed as romantic and exciting, but it was really a tiresome, grimy, lonely

occupation--manual labor. Often, one became a cowboy because he was unsuitable for any other

occupation. Two to five thousand steer had to be moved at least 10 miles/day for 1$/day salary

plus keep.

Cowboys complained most frequently of dust--produced by 10,000 hooves--as thick as fur on

their eyebrows and mustaches. They could spit it out of the throat and mouth but they could

never get the filth out of their lungs, and respiratory diseases shortened the lifespan of many a

trailherder. Another major problem was lack of sleep. Cowboys worked all day and then stood

guard duty half the night. Many learned to rub tobacco juice in their eyes to stay awake. It

burned like fire but definitely impeded falling asleep in the saddle.

The main cattle throughways actually suffered less violence than popularly portrayed. It is true

that racial violence, brawling, drug abuse, and robberies abounded. However, there were never

more than 5 homicides in ANY town PER YEAR. Famous gunslingers like Doc Holiday and Bat

Masterson killed three or fewer, and some well-known law-officers like Wyatt Earp spent most

of their days performing mundane tasks like scooping horse dung out of the streets. SO WHEN

WYATT WROTE HOME TO HIS MOTHER THAT HE HADCLEANED UP THE TOWN, HE

WAS NOT LYING.

After 20 glorious years, several factors combined to bring about the demise of the cattle drive:

1. Competition from sheepherders whose herds ate the grass down to the roots, denying later

cattle from grazing along the same trail.

2. Better quality beef bred by stationary ranchers (corn fed, rather than range fed).

3. Overcrowding. Success stories brought too many cattlemen into the market. Too much beef

brought prices down in the North to about the same dollar figure as in Texas.

4. Real and imagined "Texas Fever" disease from ticks killed cattle and caused northern

quarantines of Texas beef.

5. Cheap, barbed-wire fencing clearly defined farms and served to force cattle to take wider and

wider detours to find grazing land as more of the range became settled.

6. The final blow was the severe winters of 1885-1887 with hot dry summers in between. Grass

became scorched; rivers dried up; thousands of cattle (90%) died from the extreme cold of winter

or from dehydration of summer.

The open-range industry never recovered, but the established cattle ranches with fenced-in

grazing land and stocks of hay for winter feed survived and grew even more prosperous than

ever.

THE AGRICULTURAL FRONTIER

TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD--The Homestead and other Acts provided free or cheap

land for settlers who would actually live on and improve the land, and the completion of the

Transcontinental Railroad provided the means for many farmers to reach the Plains area. The US

government was so anxious to develop its rail system it was willing to give away 128 million

acres of public land to help the RR's finance their operations. This land was often supplemented

by state governments who kicked in an extra 50 million acres to attract additional rail

development to their areas.

With blacks and Irish laying tracks from east to west and Chinese working from west to east, the

two lines finally connected in Utah in 1869. (Look at the picture on page 445. What appears to

be missing from this photo?) It was possible to travel coast-to-coast in 10 days, but irregularities

of schedule caused unnecessary delays. Many city train stations planned that the connecting train

would "unfortunately" leave before the first train arrived thereby forcing passengers to remain

overnight in a city (to spend money on lodging, food, drinks, newspaper, etc.). Eventually, an

ample number of settlers reached their destinations, but there was no guarantee that their new life

would be bountiful.

Since the Plains was nearly devoid of wood, many settlers lived in sod (dirt) houses; however,

wives complained that it was impossible to keep a dirt house clean. The thatched roof and mud

walls seeped water during rain--but the housing cost virtually nothing. The lack of wood caused

fencing problems until the invention of barbed wire made it possible to cheaply enclose one's

entire farm. Scarcity of water made good yields uncertain, and irrigation plans were not often

successful. Extremes of hot and cold, loneliness, difficult labor, grasshopper invasions (blocking

out the sky eating clothing, crops, wooden tool handles, tree bark, "everything but the

mortgage") also thwarted the frontier farmer. On one failed farm the following sign hung on the

door. "250 miles to the nearest post office; 100 miles to wood; 20 miles to water; 6 inches to hell.

God bless our home! Gone to live with wife's folks."

It took expensive machinery to get the most efficient yield from the soil and keep up with the

competition. Lacking ready cash, most farmers depended on credit. Because there were so few

banks in the West, credit was as high as 25% ("take it or leave it"). There was a high cost of

transportation, as well. In isolated farm communities that only one railroad line serviced, cost of

shipping was usually very high. Most farmers responded to these high costs by growing more.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? Overproduction. PRICES GO? Down. The more they grew, the less

profit they made. Plus, world competition increased every year.

The U.S. tight money policy ensured that crop prices would not go up because of inflation.

Farmers sold in the competitive world market, while having to buy manufactured goods in a

domestic market protected by tariffs that added as much as 60% to the purchase price. This was

difficult for farmers to understand, and so they came to blame things on a conspiracy of industry,

RR, and bankers. It was sometimes less of a loss to let crops rot in the field than to harvest and

ship them. Without adequate income, equipment and mortgage payments could not be made.

Many abandoned their farms or sold out to large commercial farming conglomerates, big enough

to weather these problems. The small farmers, long the backbone of the nation, came to be

pushed around by forces beyond their control. IN A LATER CHAPTER YOU WILL SEE THE

PROGRAM THE FARMERS DEVISE TO TRY AND IMPROVE THEIR SITUATION.

INDIAN REMOVAL

One additional problem faced by the frontier farmer as well as the miner and the cattleman was

Indian violence. By the 1860's only 300,000 Indians remained alive in the US, 2/3 of them living

on the Great Plains. Bear in mind that there were different tribes with vastly different sets of

value systems. The Sioux, mostly preferred to be left alone and live apart from the white man in

peace. On the other end of the scale were the blood-thirsty Comanche, who lived to harass those

too weak to defend themselves. It is safe to say that most of these tribes were nomadic and non-

agricultural, depending on buffalo for food, clothing, and shelter material. All parts of the animal

were used--meat, skins, bones, tendons (bow strings), horns & hooves boiled into glue. Daily life

revolved around the hunt as did ritual and worship. In a land nearly devoid of wood, buffalo

chips (dung) were used for fuel and building material. Also, one could, in an emergency, kill a

buffalo, slit it open, and crawl into its carcass to keep from freezing on cold desert nights. The

danger was the carcass freezing solid and NOT THAWING the next morning. ONE CAN ONLY

IMAGINE WHAT PASSERS- BYE THOUGHT WHEN THEY HAPPENED BY THIS SCENE

FOUR OR FIVE DAYS LATER.

Estimates say 75 million buffalo roamed the Plains in 1860's, as many as 4,000,000 buffalo in

one herd. One man waited 3 days for a herd to cross. The trail made by the herd was 18 miles

wide.

Some surveyors verified that a single herd once occupied 2 entire counties in north Texas.

Unfortunately, the animals were quite stupid--blindly following their leaders over the edges of

cliffs or onto thin ice. Sometimes the herds were so large, the front animals would consume all of

the grass or water, and the back part of herd would starve or dehydrate.

Initially, the land west of the Mississippi River was reserved for Indians. Treaties guaranteed

displaced tribes their lands for as "long as the grass grows and the rivers run," but when whites

developed a need for western lands, the official policy changed to "concentration"--definite

boundaries, or reservations, for each tribe.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM IN GIVING INDIANS A FIXED BOUNDARY?

1. Indians need to follow buffalo, which would not remain within the reservation confines.

2. Whites often provided the worst land for Indians' use, and when anything of value was

discovered, the Indians were relocated.

3. Although Indians were promised provisions from the federal government, crooked

government officials supplied inferior goods--moldy flour, spoiled beef, moth-eaten blankets.

4. When legitimate Indian chiefs refused to move to a reservation, Indian agents sometimes made

treaties with phony leaders, in return for liquor or money.

5. To most Indian braves, farming was women's work, and they would not participate in such a

culturally demeaning activity.

6. The move to assimilate the Indian into white culture did not work. The idea to "kill the Indian

to save the man" (take young Indians away from their tribes, indoctrinate them with traditional

"white" culture, teach them to farm and fix machinery) resulted in many youth unwanted by

either race. The fact that an Indian was raised "white" did not bring acceptance into mainstream

society, but it did guarantee that the reservation Indians would have no use for these cultural

"mongrels."

7. The Dawes Act abolished tribal ownership of land. The reservation land was divided among

each of the family heads, but individual incentive and competition were foreign to the Indians,

and they made poor capitalists.

It is small wonder that the Indians would leave the reservations from time to time, but this was

seen as a serious violation by the white settlers. Many whites considered Indians as inferior

beings--"game to be shot, or a vermin to be destroyed."

"The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Whites set out to make as many "good Indians" as

possible. There was a long series of battles from the 1860's to the 1880's, including occasional

Indian victories, as these Western Indians were much more formidable than those in the East, but

in the long term, technology (including 6-shooter, machine gun) and sheer numbers favored

white "civilization."

This is not to suggest that the Indians were totally helpless or totally without blame. While the

whites were preoccupied with killing each other during the Civil War, Western Indians rejected

earlier treaties, left the reservations, and attacked white settlers.

Comanches, especially, presented a stiff challenge. They were seen as arrogant bullies, barging

into homes, towns, or other Indians' villages and simply taking whatever they wanted. Killing the

enemy (taking scalps as trophies), stealing his horse, and humiliating his woman were highlights

of a Comanche's life. They were often exceptional mounted warriors and could get off 20 arrows

before a white settler could reload.

The typical successful raid would result in all white men being killed or tortured to death. White

women would be gang raped. Some would then be tortured and killed, other kidnapped. Young

girls were taken prisoner to be the playthings of the braves, but were frequently tortured by

Indian women (noses and ears burned off). Infants were too noisy and demanded too much of

their mother's attention. They were commonly killed on the spot--sometimes tossed repeatedly

into the air and being bounced on the ground; other times, grabbed by their ankles and splattered

against a rock. When there was time, some infants were tethered to a rope and drug behind a

horse through cactus. Kidnapping increased as the Indians came to realize that distraught white

families would pay everything they owned to get a loved one back.

It was difficult for white soldiers and settlers to remember that all Indians were not Comanches.

WELL-KNOWN BATTLES

The basic cavalry strategy was to make total war on the Indians--attack their families, their food

supply, and especially their horses.

Sand Creek - A few Indians had gone on the warpath, and the army was determined to eliminate

these cutthroats. So word was sent out for all peaceful Indians to come in near the fort for

protection while soldiers swept the countryside for the renegades. For some reason, the

commander ordered his troops to fire upon those Indians under his protection. 450 (mostly

women and children) were killed after trying to surrender by first raising the US flag and then a

white flag. Indian bodies were mutilated and scalps taken. The Commander said: "I want no

peace til the Indians suffer more." Such savagery fed upon itself, and the warfare became more

and more brutal.

Battle of Little Big Horn - After the Civil War, cuts were drastic in the military, and it became

common strategy for army officers to keep the Plains Indians stirred up to justify the existence of

the large western armies. Indian fighting also provided the opportunity to secure one's military

reputation. General George Custer felt that he was only one great victory away from the

Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1876. Speed was important, as the nominating

convention was only months away. With 650 soldiers in his command, Custer was merely in

charge of scouting for the main army. He was instructed by his commander: "Don't be greedy.

Wait for us." He even brought along some of his relatives and newspaper reporters to record his

heroic deeds.

Custer found the trail of some Indians who were heading to the Great Summer Council under

chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

There were about 7,000 warriors, 15,000 total at this council—the largest Indian army ever

assembled. Although warned by his own Indian scouts to wait for the main army, Custer boasted:

"You have never seen a real general in action." To keep from having to share the glory with the

two other principle officers in his command, Custer split his small force into three segments and

sent the other 2 out of the way. Custer "surrounded" the Indians with his 197 men. Within 30

minutes, his entire force was wiped out. This battle has been popularized as "Custer's Last

Stand."

Unfortunately for the Indians, they did not have the organizational strength or supplies needed to

maintain this large group. Shortly after Little Big Horn, they diversified and were systematically

destroyed or returned to the reservation. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were ultimately tricked

into leaving the reservation and were killed.

Wounded Knee - Years later, (1890) many Indians underwent a religious revival. Thousands

gathered at Wounded Knee to sing, do the Ghost Dance, and pray. Fearful of so many Indians in

one place, the army intervened to stop this non-violent demonstration. An Indian fired the first

shot which was returned by new machine guns, firing a shell a second, shredding animals,

people, and tepees. Indians tried to run, but a 2 mile trail was strewn with butchered bodies of

women and children. The division that participated in this encounter was the 7th Calvary

(Custer's old unit).

The final finish of Plains Indians was the extermination of the buffalo herds. Railroads hated the

buffalo (delays, damage, telegraph poles snapped), and hired professionals like "Buffalo Bill"

Cody who could kill 100/day resulting in 3 million killings/year. Pros could earn as much as

$6000/mo, which was 3 times the president's salary and 100 times what was considered a "good

wage." Train passengers, as well as church and school fundraisers, exploited the Eastern tastes

for buffalo hides and tongues. Even the Indians, themselves, contributed to the slaughter, selling

numerous hides to whites, once gaining permission to leave the reservation to joyfully participate

in a hunt. In 1886, only 600 were left in the entire nation. "I saw buffaloes lying dead on the

prairie so thick that one could hardly see the ground." "A man could walk 20 miles on their

carcasses." Around the turn of the century, states began to pass laws protecting the buffalo, but it

was too little, too late.

Therefore, deprived of the mainstay of Indian culture, even the most stubborn tribes realized the

"old ways" were lost. Many Indians turned to alcoholism, crime, or became wards of the state.

Once owners of the entire continent, the Indians had been squeezed, slaughtered, and relegated to

second-class status for many years.

"They made us many promises. They never kept but one. They promised to take our land and

they took it."

When Oklahoma, the last frontier, was settled in the late 19th century there no longer was a

frontier in the US. The passing of the frontier was bemoaned by historian Frederick Jackson

Turner, who claimed it had been the conquest of the frontier that had made America great.

Settlers living on the cutting edge of civilization were forced to improvise, think on their feet,

establish new precedents. According to Turner, frontier land had always served as a "safety

valve" to frustrated easterners. Without the important frontier, Turner worried that the United

States would lose that edge that had made her one of the greatest nations the world had ever

known.