Williams HIS 101 Western Expansion

9.19.22

Western Expansion and Progressivism

1887-1920

Responses ❖ W.E.B Dubois! ❖ Attended Fisk University from

1885-1888! ❖ Studied in Berlin! ❖ 1st black Harvard Ph.D. The Suppression

of the African Slave Trade in America! ❖ Countered Washington’s gradualist

approach by demanding Civil Rights, Higher/Academic Education, and an assault on racial inequality - Souls of Black Folk !

❖ Later helped to found the Niagara Civil Rights Movement and NAACP

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/dubois/aa_dubois_subj_e.html

Responses ❖ Ida B. Wells !

❖ 1890s: the use of lynching to maintain white supremacy and local control!

❖ Involved black and white, but 80% of southern lynchings were directed against African Americans!

❖ Ida B. Wells - Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases!

❖ Organized black women, joined DuBois in Niagara Movement, signer for creation of NAACP

https://www.lib.utk.edu/tndp/2015/03/03/ida-b-wells-beyond/

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.09855

Western Cities

Denver, Colorado 1898

• The pull of the West • From Gold to Industrial

Expansion • American economic /

settlement expansion

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.09570

Unknown author / Public domain

Unknown author / Public domain

Made by User:Golbez. / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

Western Expansion ❖ Homestead Act (1862): Adult citizen

received 160 acres of public western lands with fee and 5-year term

❖ Land Grant College Act (1862): States could sell public lands, with proceeds helping establish Agricultural Colleges and Universities

❖ Gold Rush: Mining Operations ❖ Railroad Development ❖ Exodusters: African American settlers

moving from the South to Kansas. The New American Frontier

Dawes Act - 1887 ❖ Western Expansion / Clashes with Native America

❖ Federal Government could now take Indian Tribal lands

❖ Ended the Indian Treaties and Reservation System

❖ Granted land to individual Native Americans: severed traditions of communal and tribal affiliation, forced notions of private property and farming that were foreign to Native Americans

❖ Granted individual Native Americans rights as US Citizens, if they accepted “civilized life.”

❖ Outcome: Assimilation

Assimilation and Response ❖ Native American Boarding

Schools

❖ Attempts to rid Native Americans of their traditional cultures

❖ Some reformers sought to ‘save’ Native Americans from their perceived inferior ways

❖ Goal: to make them more ‘American’ by destroying their home culture: “kill the Indian, save the Man”

http://genocide.leadr.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2014/12/Tom-Torlino.jpg

Responses to Assimilation

Ghost Dance ❖ Background: Native Populations

decimated by War with U.S., assimilation, and forced removal

❖ Wovoka (Paiute leader) developed a new ritual that rejected white dominance

❖ Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) - US Cavalry sent in to stop Ghost Dance, killed 146 Native American men, women, and children

American Expansionism ❖ Alfred T. Mahan The Influence of Sea Power upon History

(1890)

❖ Explained British Empire dominance and their Navy

❖ Argued for expanded American Navy and Ports to protect American trade with foreign countries

❖ After America’s western frontier ‘closed', Mahan’s theory became reality and America looked for new frontiers

Imperialism ❖ Spanish-American War - 1898

❖ Context: Cuban revolt against Spanish colonial rule

❖ USS Maine destroyed in Havana Harbor - 270 Americans died

❖ War between America and Spain ensued (first instance of American soldiers fighting outside Western Hemisphere)

❖ Theodore Roosevelt engaged in battle with his Rough Riders Cavalry, gaining fame

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.28705

Imperialism ❖ Results of the Spanish-American War

❖ The US acquired the Philippines (“to uplift and civilize”), Puerto Rico, and Guam as territories

❖ Platt Amendment (Cuban Constitution) - US could intervene militarily; Navy Station in Cuba - Guantanamo Bay

❖ The US acquired Hawaii - American Sugar Planters revolted and overthrew Hawaiian Queen

❖ America now tasted foreign power and influence, and many argued for a spreading of American values and ‘civilization’ under the banner of “white man’s burden.’