1876 - 1895: The Fight for the Plains Flashcards
1879 Exoduster Movement
40,000 freed black slaves move from Kansas to Missouri for a new start
1880: there are now 4.5 billion cattle in the West - half of these are in the four states of _
Colorado, Nebraska, Montana and Dakota
What causes number of cattle to fall between 1886-1887
Great Die-Up: temperatures fall as low as -55 degrees and at least 15% of open range herds die
Why does the West become more civilized in the late 1870s and 80s
Towns develop further and people want their businesses and families to be secure
1878 Lincoln County War
A conflict between cattle baron John Chisum and and smaller ranchers. Billy the Kid’s friend Murphy is killed and Billy swears revenge. The gang hid across the country escaping justice until Pat Garratt tracked him down
1892 Johnson County War
Cattle barons try to kill and intimidate smaller ranchers and homesteaders in Johnson County
Why the cattle barons not brought to justice after the Johnson County War
They could afford the best lawyers and strung out the trail until the county ran out of money and they were acquitted
Wyatt Earp
A lawman in Tombstone, Arizona. Was rumored to have been involved in numerous stagecoach robberies and became an outlaw himself
1893 Oklahoma Gold Rush
The government give away Indian land to white settlers in Oklahoma. Over 2 million acres was given out.
How much land had the railroad companies sold by 1880
200 million acres
How was tension created between homesteaders and cattle barons between the 1870s and 80s
- Barons buy land homesteaders are living on
- Barons try to ruin sheep farmers by killing the sheep
- Barons buy land surrounding water supplies so that homesteaders and farmers couldn’t access water
