Among many of the effects of the new wave of Anglo American settlements
in the West
was a transformation of the region's economy. The new American settlers
tied the West firmly to a growing industrial economy of the East.
Mining, logging, ranching,
commercial farming, and many other economic activities relied on the East
for their markets and for their capital. Some of the most powerful economic
institutions in the West were great
Eastern corporations that controlled the mines, and the ranch's
and the farms. One of the first economic booms in the West occurred in the area
mining. Starting in 1849 with the California Gold Rush
thousands of settlers moved into the mineral rich mountains
where they hoped to make quick fortunes. However, the life of the
individual prospector was relatively brief. There would be news of a gold or
silver strike in an area
and this will start a huge stampede of settlers causing towns to literally grow
up overnight.
Individual prospectors would move in
and they would claim their area and they would exploit the first shallow deposits
by hand
with their picks and their shovels and their pans, but after these surface
deposits
dwindled, this is when the corporations moved in.
Mining was an expensive operation that required lots of capital
and technological resources in order to exploit the claims.
The first great mineral strikes other than the gold,
the California Gold Rush occurred just before the Civil War the most
valuable
vein of silver known as the Comstock Lode was discovered in Nevada
in 1859. Now
although gold and silver discoveries pretty much generated the most popular
excitement, in the long run it was other natural resources that proved to be more
important in the area of mining.
Resources like copper and lead and tin,
quartz, zinc all of these proved to be more profitable in the long
run.
The thousands of people who flocked into the mining towns in search of quick wealth
and who failed at it often remained as wage laborers
in the corporate mines after the boom period.
Working conditions in these mines were generally terrible, with workers facing
excessive heat and very poor ventilation. There were frequent
explosions, cave-ins, and fires as well as accidents with heavy machinery.
Mining as a result became one of the most dangerous and demanding working
environments in the United States. Another important element
of changing economy in the West was cattle ranching. The open range that is
the vast grass,
the vast grasslands of the public domain provided a huge area on the Great Plains
area where cattlemen
could graze their herds free of charge and unrestricted by the boundaries of
private farms.
The Western cattle industry had its roots with Mexico.
Long before citizens of the United States came to the Southwest
Mexican ranchers had developed techniques and equipment
that cattleman and Cowboys at the Great Plains would later adopt.
Things like branding, roundups,
and roping. They also used gear such as lariats,
saddles, leather chaps, and spurs. Now,
Texas also had the largest herds of cattle in the country
they were called Texas Longhorns and these animals were descended from
imported Spanish stock and had been allowed to run wild
throughout the frontier. Also from Texas came the small muscular horses
called Mustangs
or Broncos that were very well suited to the requirements
ranching. At the end of the Civil War nearly five million cattle roamed the
Texas range.
Some ranchers began driving the herds to north to the railroad lines in Missouri.
Markets began to grow up all along the rail lines,
and between 1867 and 1871,
it's estimated that nearly 1.5 million head of cattle
were driven up the very famous Chisholm Trail
to Abilene, Kansas. Cattlemen
developed many trails and other markets opened for the West.
However, farmers from the East began building fences around their land claims
and they blocked off some of the trails and it broke up a lot of the open range.
As a result a series of range wars between farmers and ranchers
erupted as a result.
The profits in the cattle business tempted many eastern businessmen as well
as Europeans to invest in this highly
lucrative industry. However it faced a setback because there were two severe
winters
that occurred between 1885 and 1887
and in between those two winters was a searing summer
that scorched the plains. This caused a shortage of grassland.
So as a result of this this bad weather hundreds of thousands of cattle died
when the streams and the grass began to dry up.
And the open range industry never really recovered
and as a result the long drive disappeared forever.
Railroads began to displace the trail as the route to
market for livestock.
So the established ranches with fenced in grazing land and
and stocks of hay for the winter survived and they grew and they prospered.
The first great wave of new settlers to the west after the Civil War was made
much easier with the railroad. In particular,
completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, as we just mentioned in 1869,
and then the construction of many subsidiary lines encouraged settlement.
Additionally, the lure of land encouraged settlement.
In 1862 Congress passed something called the Homestead Act
and this permitted settlers to buy plots of 160 acres of land
for a relatively small fee. The only catch was they had occupy it for five years and
to make improvements on the land
and then land was theirs. So it was a great lure
for people in the East to come West and with the promise that this this
attainable land. Yet under the most favorable conditions though, farming on
the plains presented
some very special problems. Farmers were faced with things like
blizzards, and tornadoes, and grasshoppers,
hailstorms, drought, prairie fires, disease,
this is just a few of the catastrophes that could befall even the best
farmer on the Great Plains.
While the Homestead Act provided access to cheap land
the homes there still needed money for a house, a team of farm animals,
a well for water access, they needed money for fencing,
and money to plant their seed for their crops.
Now on the Great Plains, because wood was so scarce,
families built homes made of prairie sod
called sod houses and they used dried manure for heating and cooking.
Now for women on the frontier simple daily tasks like obtaining water and
fuel
meant back breaking labor. They may have to walk some ways to
to be able to gather the water they needed
to complete their chores.
And life on the plains also was one of loneliness and monotony.
Particularly since land was dispersed in 160 acre plots
this meant that your your closest neighbor was still at least
a mile and a half away. So it took some inner resolve to be able to
to live on the Great Plains. Now
during the 1880s with land values rising
new farmers to the Midwest had no problem with obtaining any kind of extensive or
easy credit. But in the last part of the decade
farmers faced drought, coupled with falling crop prices.
As a result, tens of thousands of farmers could not pay their debts, they
couldn't pay their mortgages and they were forced to abandon their farms.
By the late 19th century, the sturdy independent farmer of
popular myth was being replaced by the commercial farmer.
Commercial farmers were not self sufficient and they made no effort to
become so.
Instead they specialized in cash crops,
which they sold in national and world markets.
They didn't make their own household supplies nor did they grow their own
food.
But they bought it instead at the the local town stores.
This kind of farming when it was successful raised the farmers
living standards, but it also made them dependent on bankers, and interest rates,
railroads, and freight rates, national and world markets -
including supply and demand.
And unlike the capitalists of the industrial order,
commercial farmers couldn't regulate their their production nor could they
influence
the prices of what they sold.
American commercial farmers were constantly opening
new lands and they were producing much more than the domestic market
could absorb, so they were forced to rely on the world market
to absorb some of the surplus. But because the
the international market was so unpredictable, it put them at great risk
and we're gonna see this much more in a future lecture.
Now, let's take a closer look at the Native American tribes living in the
West
and the impact of Anglo-American migration
on these tribes.