The Transformation of the West

Territorial governors were political appointees and beholden to Washington so they usually governed with a light hand, allowing the legislatures to deal with the local issues. In addition to his role as civil governor, a territorial governor was also a militia commander, a local superintendent of Indian affairs, and the state liaison with federal agencies. The legislatures, on the other hand, spoke for the local citizens, and they were given considerable leeway by the federal government to make local law. These improvements to governance still left plenty of room for profiteering. As Mark Twain wrote in 1913 while working for his brother, the secretary of Nevada, "The government of my country snubs honest simplicity, but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two." Corrupt associations, or "Territorial rings," of local politicians and business owners buttressed with federal patronage, embezzled from Indian tribes and local citizens, especially in the Dakota and New Mexico territories.

In acquiring, preparing, and distributing public land to private ownership, the federal government generally followed the system set forth by the Land Ordinance of 1785. Federal exploration and scientific teams would undertake reconnaissance of the land and determine Native American habitation. Through treaty, land title would be ceded by the resident tribes. Then surveyors would create detailed maps marking the land into squares of six miles on each side, subdivided first into one-square-mile blocks, and then into 160-acre lots. Townships would be formed from the lots and sold at public auction. Unsold land could be purchased from the land office at a minimum price of $1.25 per acre.

As part of public policy, the government would award public land to certain groups such as veterans, through the use of "land scrip." The scrips could be traded in the financial market, often at below the $1.25 per acre minimum price set by law, which gave speculators, investors, and developers another way to acquire large tracts of land cheaply. Land policy became politicized by competing factions and interests, and the question of slavery on new lands was contentious. As a counter to land speculators, farmers formed "claims clubs" to enable them to buy larger tracts than the 160-acre allotments by trading among themselves at controlled prices.

In 1862, Congress passed three important bills that impacted the land system. The Homestead Act granted 160 acres to each settler (whether a citizen or noncitizen, and including squatters and women) who improved the land for five years, for no more than modest filing fees. The law was especially important in the settling of the Plains states, although many farmers purchased their land from railroads at low rates. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 provided for the land needed to build the Transcontinental Railroad. The land given to the railroads alternated with government-owned tracts saved for distribution to homesteaders.

The prairie and desert lands of what is today Mexico and the western United States were well suited to " open range " grazing. For example, American bison had been a mainstay of the diet for the Native Americans in the Great Plains for centuries. Likewise, cattle and sheep were simply turned loose in the spring after their young were born and allowed to roam with little supervision and no fences. They were then rounded up in the fall, with the mature animals driven to market and the breeding stock brought close to the ranch headquarters for greater protection in the winter. The use of livestock branding allowed the cattle owned by different ranchers to be identified and sorted. Ranching dominated western economic activity beginning with the settlement of Texas in the 1840s.

Along with ranchers came the need for agricultural crops to feed both humans and livestock. Hence, many farmers came West along with ranchers. Many operations were diversified, with both ranching and farming activities taking place. With the Homestead Act of 1862, more settlers came West to set up farms. This created some conflict because increasing numbers of farmers needed to fence off fields to prevent cattle and sheep from eating their crops. Barbed wire, invented in 1874, gradually made inroads in fencing off privately owned land, especially for homesteads. On the Great Plains, there was some reduction of land open to grazing.

The Johnson County War, also known as the "War on Powder River" and the "Wyoming Range War," was a series of range conflicts that took place in Johnson, Wyoming, between 1889 and 1893. The conflicts started when cattle companies ruthlessly persecuted supposed rustlers throughout the grazing lands of Wyoming. As tensions swelled between the large established ranchers and the smaller settlers in the state, violence finally culminated in Powder River Country, when the former hired armed gunmen to invade the county and wipe out the competition. When small-time farmers and ranchers, as well as the state lawmen, received word of the gunmen's initial incursion in the territory, they formed a posse of 200 men to fight back the gunmen, which led to a grueling standoff. The war ended when the U.S. Cavalry, on the orders of President Benjamin Harrison, relieved the two forces.

One of the most well-known range wars of the American frontier, the Johnson County War has since become a highly mythologized and symbolic story of the Wild West, and over the years, variations of the storyline have come to include some of its most famous historical figures. Its themes and elements of class warfare have served as a classical basis for numerous popular novels, films, and television shows of the Western genre.

During the early years of settlement, farm women played an integral role in assuring family survival by working outdoors with the men. After a generation or so, women increasingly left the fields, thus redefining their roles within the family. New conveniences such as sewing and washing machines encouraged women to concentrate on domestic roles. The scientific housekeeping movement was promoted across the land by the media and by government extension agents, as well as through county fairs which featured achievements in home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm papers, and home economics courses in the schools.

Although the eastern image of farm life on the prairies emphasizes the isolation of the lonely farmer, in reality, rural folk created a rich social life for themselves. They often sponsored activities that combined work, food, and entertainment such as barn raisings, corn huskings, quilting bees, Grange meetings, and church and school functions. Women organized shared meals and potluck events, as well as extended visits between families.

The series of conflicts in the western United States between Native Americans, American settlers, and the U.S. Army are generally known as the "American Indian Wars." Many of the most well-known of these conflicts occurred during and after the Civil War, until the closing of the frontier in about 1890. However, regions of the West that were settled before the Civil War, such as Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, California, and Washington, saw significant conflicts prior to 1860.

At least 310 battles were fought between settlers and Native Americans within Arizona's boundaries, the most of any state. Also, when determining how many deaths resulted from the wars in each of the American states, Arizona again ranked highest. At least 4,340 people were killed, including both settlers and Indians—more than twice as many as occurred in Texas, the second-highest-ranking state. The Apache caused most of the deaths in Arizona.

The Wounded Knee Massacre happened on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek (Lakota: Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála) on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. On the day before, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment, commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside, intercepted Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them five miles westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they made camp.

On the morning of December 29, the troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota. One version of events claims that during the process of disarming the Lakota, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle, claiming he had paid a lot for it. A scuffle over Black Coyote's rifle escalated and a shot was fired, which resulted in the 7th Cavalry opening fire indiscriminately from all sides, killing men, women, and children, as well as some of their own fellow troops. The few Lakota warriors who still had weapons began shooting back at the attacking troops, who quickly suppressed the Lakota fire. The surviving Lakota fled, but the U.S. Calvary pursued and killed many who were unarmed.

By the time the massacre was over, at least 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux had been killed and 51 wounded (4 men and 47 women and children, some of whom died later); some estimates placed the number of dead at 300.

The Dawes Act was named for its sponsor, Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts. The stated objective of the Dawes Act was to stimulate assimilation of Indians into American society. Individual ownership of land was seen as an essential step. The act also provided that the government would purchase Indian land that was in "excess" of that needed for allotment and open it up for settlement by non-Indians.

The Dawes Commission, set up under an Indian Office appropriation bill in 1893, was created not to administer the Dawes Act, but to attempt to get the Five Civilized Tribes, which were excluded under the Dawes Act, to agree to an allotment plan. This commission registered the members of the Five Civilized Tribes. The Curtis Act of 1908 completed the process of destroying tribal governments by abolishing tribal jurisdiction of Indian land.

After decades of seeing the disarray these acts caused, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration supported passage in 1934 of the Indian Reorganization Act. It ended allotment and created a "New Deal" for Indians, including renewing their rights to reorganize and form their own governments.

For the next century, the expansion of the nation into these areas, as well as the subsequently acquired Louisiana Purchase, Oregon Country, and Mexican Cession, attracted hundreds of thousands of settlers. The question of whether the Kansas frontier would become "slave" or "free" was a spark of the American Civil War. In general before 1860, Northern Democrats promoted easy land ownership and Whigs and Southern Democrats resisted. The Southerners resisted Homestead Acts because they supported the growth of a free farmer population that might oppose slavery.

When the Republican Party came to power in 1860, it promoted a free land policy—notably the Homestead Act of 1862—coupled with railroad land grants that opened cheap (but not free) lands for settlers. In 1890, the frontier line had broken up (census maps defined the frontier line as a line beyond which the population was less than two persons per square mile).

The frontier's impact on popular culture was enormous, as evidenced by dime novels, Wild West shows, and, after 1910, Western movies set on the frontier. The American frontier was generally the most western edge of settlements and typically more free-spirited in nature than the East because of its lack of social and political institutions. The idea that the frontier provided the core defining quality of the United States was elaborated on by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner, who built his 1893 "Frontier Thesis" around this notion.

The End of the Frontier

When the 11th U.S. census was taken in 1890, the superintendent announced that there was no longer a clear line of advancing settlement, and hence no longer a frontier in the continental United States. Turner used the statistic to announce the end of the era in which the frontier process shaped the American character.

Fresh farmland was increasingly hard to find after 1890, although the railroads advertised some in eastern Montana. Historian Karel Bicha explains that nearly 600,000 American farmers sought cheap land by moving to the prairie frontier of the Canadian West from 1897 to 1914. However, about two-thirds of them grew disillusioned with Canada and returned to the United States. The admission of Oklahoma as a state in 1907 (upon the combination of the Oklahoma Territory and the last remaining Indian Territory), and the admission of Arizona and New Mexico territories as states in 1912, did not end the frontier. These areas contained plenty of unoccupied land, as did the territory of Alaska. Nevertheless, the ethos and storyline of the "American frontier" had passed.

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