1865- 1890 Social, regional and ethnic divisions: divisions within and between North, South and West; position of African Americans and Natives. Flashcards
What was the social position of African Americans post reconstruction?
Reconstruction also failed to guarantee African Americans civil rights. African Americans were treated as second-class citizens by most white Americans in the South. In the late nineteenth century every state introduced segregation including the Jim Crow’ laws. Black and white Americans had separate schools, drinking fountains and public toilets, were allocated different areas of restaurants and public transport vehicles. In theory this meant separate but equal’. In reality the laws discriminated against African Americans whose facilities, schools, etc., were invariably inferior to those of their white counterparts.
However, there was some progress. The fact that there were black institutions, similar to those of the white Americans, meant that there were opportunities for African Americans to lead and manage. A small but increasing number of African American men became doctors, lawyers and teachers. Separate schools were inferior but they were better than no schools at all. Moreover, some African Americans favoured reconstruction, no desire to mix socially.
What was the Klu Klux Klan
Many African Americans faced intimidation and violence from white racists in the South, especially the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The Klan was set up in 1866 and became active in several states, intimidating African Americans into not voting through beatings and lynchings. Its terrorist activities reached a peak in the years 1869-71. Blacks who held public office, black schools and churches were particular targets. Even when Klan suspects were arrested, witnesses were frightened to testify against them and, if there was a Klansman on the jury, it proved impossible to convict them.
How did Manifest Destiny influence westward expansion?
This was a belief held by many Americans that God had chosen them to populate the lands from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean.
The Manifest Destiny was also clearly a racial doctrine of white supremacy that granted no Native American or non-white claims to any permanent possession of the lands on the North American continent and justified white American
expropriation of Native American lands.
How did federal territories encourage westward expansion?
During the Civil War the federal government was determined to secure control of the lands west of the Mississippi. This was done by the creation of federal territories governed by officials appointed by the federal government in Washington and by populating these vast open spaces with settlers. As territories they became subject to the laws of the USA. When the population reached 60,000 the inhabitants could apply to become a state, which gave them the right to some degree of self-determination. They had their own elected state assembly and were given authority to make their own laws.
How did railroads impact westward expansion?
The government was also keen to encourage railroad expansion to the West, realising this would lead to even more migration to the area. In 1862, Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act authorising two companies to build a transcontinental railroad. Significantly, the Native Americans were not consulted even though the railroad would run through their lands. The Central Pacific was to build eastwards from Sacramento, California, while the Union Pacific would build westwards from Omaha, Nebraska. Eventually the two lines met at the newly arranged site of Promontory, Utah, in May
How did the second gold rush encourage westward expansion?
This began in the Black Hills of Dakota in the mid 1870s. There had been rumours about gold in this area since the Civil Wa.
In 1875 large deposits were found in Deadwood Gulch and thousands of gold-seekers flocked to the new town of Deadwood.
The main problem was that the US government had recognised the Black Hills as belonging to the Native American tribe, the Sioux, by the Treaty of Laramie of 1868. Once again, these rights were ignored.
How did Native Americans live?
The largest population of Native Americans occupied the vast area of the USA known as the Great Plains. The tribes were almost entirely nomadic and roamed the Plains freely, following the huge herds of buffalo that provided them with everything they needed to survive. The buffalo determined their litestyle, living conditions, laws, government and religious beliets.
How did westward expansion impact Native Americans?
Initially, the US government was content to leave the Native Americans to live freely on the areas of the country that white Americans did not want Before the Civil War, this was the vast area in the centre of the USA known as the Great Plains, However, from the 1860s it became government policy to attract settlers to populate these vast open spaces in the West. As white settlers pushed westwards beyond the natural frontier of the Appalachian Mountains, the Native Americans were gradually removed from their traditional lands.
By the early 1860s several tribes, but most notably the Sioux and Cheyenne, were hostile to the increasing encroachments of white settlers on the Plains and also the presence of the army on their lands. The army was stationed in the Plains to offer protection to wagon trains and settlers in areas where the Native Americans were known to be hostile.
What was the Great Sioux War, 1876?
In 1876, the Great Sioux War broke out after the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of Dakota and gold prospectors and settlers poured into Native American territory. At first, the US government had tried to keep the prospectors out, but there were too many of them. The government then tried to do a deal with the Native Americans, offering $6 million, but this also failed. The government believed that the Native Americans were being unreasonable and hardened their attitude, demanding that all Native Americans should go to their reservations. Any who did not respond by 31 January 1876 would be treated as hostile. Many either did not hear about this threat or chose to ignore it.
Ultimately, due to popular and political pressure by the white American majority, the decision was taken to remove the Native Americans from the Black Hills. After some setbacks, including the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a large and well-equipped US army wiped out the Native Americans.
What was the Reservation policy?
The Native Americans presented a real problem to the US government. Their independent existence gave them a degree of self-determination which was deemed unacceptable. In addition, a significant number were hostile and dangerous. Therefore the government turned to its reservation policy in order to bring an end to their traditional nomadic lifestyle.
This policy entailed locating Native Americans on government-controlled reservations. These would enable the government to ‘Americanise’ the Native Americans, who were considered to be savages. Separated from their dependence on hunting the buffalo, their tribal way of life would be destroyed.
This would be achieved by a process of education, by conversion to Christianity and by training Native Americans to become farmers.
Reservation life was extremely harsh. The ideal to transform Native Americans into farmers was not realised as much of the land allocated to reservations proved impossible to cultivate. Dependent on the food supplied by the government, the people starved. Worse still, the total dependence on white Americans for food, clothing and shelter proved very humiliating. Moreover, some Native American agents on the reservations were corrupt and used government resources for their own ends.
What were the pull factors for immigration?
Prospective immigrants saw advertisements in guidebooks, pamphlets and newspapers. There was one series of advertisements that described the advantages of life in America such as the economic opportunity as well as political equality and religious tolerance.
What were the push factors for immigration?
It was political, economic and religious discontent in Europe that stirred immigrants to leave. Throughout the nineteenth century, industrial and agricultural revolutions transformed European society. The additional pressure of increasing population provided the impetus for emigration. More German immigrants arrived than any other ethnic group in all but three years from 1854 to 1894. Agricultural depression as well as industrial depression were strong push factors for immigrants from Britain, Norway and Sweden.
The impulse for migration from Russia was as much political and religious as it was economic. The greatest exodus was of Russian Jews fleeing new persecution. The assassination of Alexander Il in 1881 set off anti-Semitic riots in the south and west. The number of Jewish immigrants to America rose from 5,000 in 1880 to 90,000 in 1900.
Why was there so much immigration to the USA between 1877-90?
Prior to the Gilded Age, the time commonly referred to as the old immigration saw the first real boom of new arrivals to the United States. During the Gilded Age, approximately 10 million immigrants came to the United States in what is known as the new immigration. Some of them were prosperous farmers who had the cash to buy land and tools in the Plains states especially. Many were poor peasants looking for the American Dream in unskilled manual labour in mills, mines and factories. Few immigrants went to the poverty-stricken South Of the 10 million who crossed the Atlantic between 1860 and 1890.
What is nativism and how was it formed in the later nineteenth century?
Indeed, immigration during these years increasingly divided US society.
A great gulf was opening between a predominantly native plutocracy and a predominantly foreign working class. The USA was becoming two nations separated by language and religion, residence and occupation. Not only was the new tide of immigration depressing wages but also the closure of the frontier and settlement of available land in the West, sealed off the traditional escape route for discontented easterners. Thus, Americans began to lose confidence in the process of immigration and integration. The outcome was ‘nativism.
Nativist agitation was the work of three groups: unions that regarded unskilled immigrants as a threat to organised labour; social reformers who believed the influx of immigrants exacerbated the problems of the cities; and Protestant conservatives who dreaded the supposed threat to Nordic supremacy.
Skilled workers had most to fear from immigration. After skilled Belgian and British glass workers were brought under contract to work for lower wages. In 1885, a bill was passed by Congress which put a ban on foreign contract labour although this did not extend to skilled workers needed for new industries.
To what extent did African Americans make progress in the years 1877-90?
After the end of Reconstruction in 1877 the civil rights that had been granted to African Americans were vulnerable to a growing racist tide of opinion that was at its most intense and virulent in the South but which also had an impact on the growing number living in the North. Poverty was still the norm for the majority of African Americans and the development of institutionalised segregation in the South ensured that civil rights were reduced rather than increased in this period. However, a minority of African Americans did make economic progress.
