Closing the Frontier Flashcards
The Homestead Act of 1862
Granted a quarter section of the public land free to any household head who lived on the land for at least five years and improved it.
The Morrill Act of 1862
Created colleges for the scientific study of soil, grain, and climate conditions.
Oklahoma Land Rush
- The conclusion of Worcester v. Georgia and the Indian Removal Act.
- Required five major native American nations known as the “Civilized Tribes” (Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks) to relocate to Oklahoma.
April 22nd, 1889 (Oklahoma Land Rush continued)
- Settlers poured into Oklahoma, known as “Sooners.”
- These settlers were homesteaders, land companies, and those dispossessed by warfare/economic hardship in the South.
- Natives were once again, forcibly removed from their land.
Curtis Act
- Abolished tribal jurisdiction over all Indian territory.
- Forced members of Indian nations to dismantle their governments and abandon their estates.
- Subjected them to federal law.
Grant’s Peace Policy
- Grant wanted to either relocate Natives to reservations or assimilate them to U.S. customs, traditions, and citizenship.
- Federal Government wanted to make schools and establish a new economy for Native Americans to “Americanize” them.
- Hired Quakers to government positions to help educate Native Americans.
Indian Territory & Reservation Policy
- Reservations were lands granted to Native American nations that would be ran by the tribal nation under the supervision of the Department of Indian Affairs rather than the state.
- They would receive funding from the Federal government, like a state would, however the funding throughout the 19th century was routinely insufficient which often led these tribal communities malnourished and ill-supplied.
Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862, 1864, & 1867
- Allowed for funding of America’s Transcontinental Railroad which was completed in 1869.
- Connected San Francisco, California, to Omaha, Kansas, and hooked-up with other railways back east.
- Allowed for goods and people to move faster throughout the country than ever before.
Farming Improvements
- Refrigerated rail cars
- John Deere’s Singing Plow (turned grass in the great plains into soil)
- The harvester
- The reaper
- Farms became more like factories
Impacts of mass farming
- Because farms acted like factories, a low-paying workforce was necessary.
- Chinese and migrant farmers were used.
- Animals like grizzle bears, wolves, and buffalo died off.
- More and more water was needed to supply farms (led to irrigation systems which would dry-up the nearby lakes/streams).
The Forrest Reserve Act of 1891
Gave the President the power to establish forest reserves to protect watersheds against the threats posed by lumbering, overgrazing, and forest fires.
The Sand Creek Massacre
- As the 1850s and 1860s progressed, more miners were moving into Colorado to search the Rocky Mountains for gold.
- In November of 1865, U.S. troops attacked a village of Native Americans consisting of Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes in Colorado.
- Violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851 (lands in Colorado were promised to both the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes)
Black Kettle
- Cheyenne chief who negotiated new deals with the U.S. Government from 1851-1864.
The Sioux Wars (1850s-60s)
- Sioux and Cheyenne forces led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, two Sioux chiefs, began attacks on forts from Utah all the way to Montana.
- Conflict between the Sioux people and U.S.
Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)
- Sioux and Cheyenne forces agree to leave the forts, and stop raiding U.S. forces/towns.
- U.S. troops would allow Sioux and Cheyenne forces to live peacefully throughout the area.
- These tribes were still forced off of the land as the Transcontinental Railroad brought more and more people westward.