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Introduction

Assess the validity of this statement:

The closing of the frontier was because of the great influx of migrants to the west.

Documents

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Document A

Source: Eyewitness account by the Lakota Chief Red Horse, of the Battle of Little Bighorn, 1876

Five springs ago I, with many Sioux Indians, took down and packed up our tipis and moved from Cheyenne river to the Rosebud river, where we camped a few days; then took down and packed up our lodges and moved to the Little Bighorn river and pitched our lodges with the large camp of Sioux.... A Sioux man came and said that a different party of Soldiers had all the women and children prisoners. Like a whirlwind the word went around, and the Sioux all heard it and left the soldiers on the hill and went quickly to save the women and children.... The banks of the Little Bighorn river were high, and the Sioux killed many of the soldiers while crossing. The soldiers on the hill dug up the ground [i.e., made earth works], and the soldiers and Sioux fought at long range, sometimes the Sioux charging close up. The fight continued at long range until a Sioux man saw the walking soldiers coming. When the walking soldiers came near the Sioux became afraid and ran away.

Document B

Source: account of a young pioneer woman in Kansas, 1870's

When the spring freshets [rising waters] came, the sheep were on the wrong side of the river, and it was my mother who manned one of the three wagons that went back and forth across the rising waters until the last sheep was safely on the home side. She has told me of the terror that possessed her during those hours, with the water coming up steadily to the wagon bed. To this day, there is a superstitious dread of water in the heart of every one of our family.

Nightfall, blanketing the prairie in a dense, boundless blackness, brought an even keener sense of solitude to the pioneer home. The profound silence was broken only by the occasional chirr of a cricket or the gentle swish of the tall prairie grass--or by the call of the wild. For it was during the black nights that the howl of the coyote and the wolf spread terror throughout every frontier homestead. Often roaming the plains in packs, these rapacious animals would attack without provocation or mercy.

When Mr. Johnson [a neighbor] arrived home and found his wife dead [from illness] and his house badly torn down by wolves he fainted away....After the funeral he sold out and moved away.

Document C

Source: testimony of Benjamin Singleton before the Senate Select Committee investigating the "Negro Exodus from the Southern States," April 17, 1880

Q. Yes; What was the cause of your going out, and in the first place how did you happen to go there, or to send these people there [the frontier]?

A. Well, my people, for the want of land we needed land for our children and their disadvantages that caused my heart to grieve and sorrow; pity for my race, sir, that was coming down, instead of going up that caused me to go to work for them. I sent out there perhaps in '66 perhaps so; or in '65, any way my memory don't recollect which; and they brought back tolerable favorable reports; then I jacked up three or four hundred, and went into Southern Kansas, and found it was a good country, and I though Southern Kansas was congenial to our nature, sir; and I formed a colony there, and bought about a thousand acres of ground the colony did my people.

Document D

Source: Declaration of the Conservation Conference, May 15, 1908

We the Governors of the States and Territories of the United States of America, in Conference assembled, do hereby declare the conviction that the great prosperity of our country rests upon the abundant resources of the land chosen by our forefathers for their homes and where they laid the foundation of this great Nation.

We agree, in the light of facts brought to our knowledge and from information received from sources which we can not doubt, that this material basis is threatened with exhaustion.

We commend the wise forethought of the President in sounding the note of warning as to the waste and exhaustion of the natural resources of the country, and signify our high appreciation of his action in calling this Conference to consider the same and to seek remedies therefore through cooperation of the Nation and the States.

Document E

Document F

Document G

Document H

Source: Chronicle of America

Ten years after the end of the Civil War and six years after the completion of the first intercontinental rail line, the railroad industry continues to transform the nation. Some 40,000 miles of track have been laid since war's end, more than doubling the previous total. Snaking through mountains and over plains, the rails unite the country, bringing Easterners west, Westerners east and opening markets for products made hundreds miles away.

These are some ideas that one might include in their answer if they were supporting the statement:
One might consider including the facts about the conflicts with the Indians because of land disputes. The telephone allowed people to talk over long distances, since there was no estrangement from ones family members people paid less heed to the large distances between each other. Transportation decreased the time in which is was possible to arrive at the west. The railroad also made the west much more accessible due to low costs and quicker speed. New farming techniques were being established to farm the infertile lands, which directly caused more movement to the west in search of farming lands.




And these are some ideas that one might include in their answer if they were against the statement:
The desolate lands caused people to feel isolated from civilization, which made the frontier disagreeable. It was difficult to succeed in the first years of life in the west, and this discouraged many people. Random Indian raids and attacks on commuters from the east to the west also discouraged travel. Even with the telephone the distance from loved ones was unbearable. The cost of the journey still very great and many used their life savings to reach the west. Their were also many tribulations to the journey due to disease and lack of nutrition.

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Homesteaders

Homesteaders were farmers who followed the cattle ranchers onto the Great Plains. The greatest surge of homesteading pioneers arrived to the West after the 1862 passage of the Homestead Act. This act encouraged farmers to move West by giving 160 acres of free land to any family head or adult who promised to live on the claim and improve if for five years; or families could pay $1.25 per acre after six months of residence. As the most pivotal factor in beginning the Westward movement to the Pacificm, the Homestead Act generated a tremendous surge in the Western pioneer population. Despite the initial enthusiasm, however, eager homesteaders were soon disappointed to find that the homestead land was not as fertile as the land held by railroads and speculators. Thus, many pioneers paid for the land rather than take up the five year claims.

Buffalo Soldiers

Buffalo soldiers was the term for black soldiers who fought Indians on the Great Plains. Divided into four segregated army regiments: 9th Cavalry, 10th Cavalry, 24th Infantry, and 25th Infantry, the buffalo soldiers participated in 200 battles and engagements between 1870 and 1890. Fourteen of the troops won the Medal of Honor.

Ghost Dance

In 1879, Wovoka, a Paiute shaman, started a religious revival that promised peace, reunion with the dead, eternal life, and a world without whites. The Ghost Dance beliefs spread throughout the Indian tribes of the Great Plains. Sioux Indians, predicting a war with the whites, also added to the religion their own elements of apocalyptic, militant, and anti-white teachings. Numerous attempts were made by the federal government to suppress the religion--leading to Sitting Bull's death on December 15, 1890 and ultimately, to the Wounded Knee massacre.

Oklahoman Land Rush

Congress, after voting to allow land claims by white settlers on the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma (3,000 square miles), set noon of April 22, 1889 as the opening day for staking claims. Since claims were registered in order of filing, a stampede of 50,000 hopeful homesteaders had staked out the best land by nightfall. The land rush eliminated the last sizable tract of land suitable for non-irrigated farming. Although smaller rushes were held until 1905, April 22, 1889 is traditionally viewed as the day marking the end of the frontier.

Frontier Towns/ Boom Towns

Frontier towns sprang up rapidly throughout the Wild West. Some towns, such as Wichita, Kansas, started as cattle transport cities, while others, such as Butte, Montana, originated as shipping centers for ore. Even others, such as Tombstone, Arizona, developed speedily around mining areas. Transportation hubs grew and prospered as depots and exchange stations for many pioneers. However, mining towns often became ghost towns after the mines and ores had been worked or the metal prices dropped. Frontier towns, often known for their boisterous violence and shady morals gave rise to western legends such as Wyatt Earp, and also contributed significantly to the image of a "Wild West."

Life was harsh in the boom towns and miners often slept outdoors or built crude dugouts and shacks. House furnishings were at bare minimum and were often homemade. Shacks were papered with newspapers to keep out the cold and comforts were rudimentary. Once a town became fairly permanent, however, board sidewalks were built besides the dirt streets and poles and stakes were erected as hitching posts.

The Cattle Boom

The era of the Great Plains' cattle kingdom accompanied the building of the railroads. Ranching first started in southern Texas where farmers raised longhorn cattle from Mexico. Cattle were branded to show the ownership of the ranchers and were guarded by cowboys as they roamed the range. The period of the trail drive started with the ranchers' realization that they could sell cattle in the East if they could obtain access to railroads. Soon, ranchers began to herd the cattle to cattle towns in Kansas. A favorite rout led along the Chisolm Trail, which ran from southern Texas to Abilene, Kansas. The open range did not last long, however. By 1885, overstocking and the harsh winters of 1886-7 had killed thousands of cattle and ruined many ranchers. In a series of range wars, ranchers tried to keep out permanent settlers, but the effort proved futile. The open range disappeared and the cattle boom ended. In the aftermath, remaining ranchers employed new methods such as herding a different breed of cattle, fencing in ranches rather than using public domain, and feeding the cattle during winter.

The Battle of Wounded Knee

On December 29, 1890, 500 troops of the 7th Cavalry and 1st Artillery, with orders to end the Ghost Dance religion, disarmed 450 Teton Sioux Indians in South Dakota. As disarming proceeded, firing ensued after an Indian shot a soldier. The US losses amounted to 25 killed and 38 wounded while 150 Sioux were killed and 50 wounded. Often considered a massacre by the whites, this battle marked the last major battle fought by the Indians.

People's Party & the Omaha Platform

In February 1892, the People's or Populist party was established. Mainly centered around Western politics and fueled by agricultural motives, the Populist party nominated James B. Weaver, a Union veteran from Iowa as their presidential candidate, and James G. Field, a Confederate veteran for vice presidential candidate. The Omaha platform, drawn from the National Alliance's Ocala Platform of 1890, demanded more means of direct democracy, such as direct election of Senators, direct primaries, initiative, referendum, and the secret ballot. In addition, the Populist party supported a graduated income tax, a 8 hour workday, and immigration restriction. The free and unlimited silver coinage at the ratio of 16 to 1 was also advocated by the Populist party. Instead of government regulation, the Populists sought governmental control of railroads, telephones, and telegraphs. The Populist goal was to widen the nature of political debate by promoting a vision of the government's role with respect to the farmer's problems. Running against Republican Benjamin Harrison and Democrat Grover Cleveland, Weaver won 1 million popular votes and secured only 22 electoral votes.

Theodore Roosevelt's conservationist interests

Roosevelt, coming into the presidency in 1901, concluded that commercial interests were abusing nature for profits, as was seen in the lumbermen of Michigan. Consequently, Roosevelt called a conservation conference in 1908. With the assistance of Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt initiated a conservation program using government land to build dams and municipal water supplies. Yosemite National Park was also designated as a result of Roosevelt's program. The ultimate goal was to preserve the wilderness of the western landscape.

The Frontier Influence

The frontier was more than just a line on the United States map. The experience and challenge it provided to the American people shaped American institutions and ideas. First of all, the Wild western frontier experience promoted democracy. The frontier, bringing a wide range of people into its governmental system, allowed class and social lines to blur. In addition, the development of American characteristics were encouraged in the west. Frontiersmen, depending solely on homemade necessities, learned to become resourceful, creative, self-reliant, and inventive. The frontiers also offered a wealth of opportunities for success to those who worked hard enough. Consequently, optimism about the future, self-confidence, and concern with material wealth evolved as characteristics of the pioneers.

Topic Related Questions

- A gold rush occurred in 1875 in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

- They migrated West with the hope of less rigid class distinctions and a better opportunity where people were given an equal opportunity.

Buffalo Bill Cody advertised through his Wild West Show enticing settlers to come west and take up land under the Cody Canal. There was a sense of excitement and urgency felt by the people moving west. They realized that the Western lands were nearly all settled and if they wanted to be a part of this epic drama they must relocate soon.

One of the most unusual stagecoach robbers in American history was an old man known in the annals of the West as Black Bart. He used many aliases, including Charles E. Bolton and Charles E. Boles, the latter, most probably his true name. Bart, in addition to being an expert lone bandit who robbed more than two dozen stages in California in 1877-78, he was a jokester whose laughing nature endeared him even to his victims.

Mike Cassidy led a small band of robbers and rustlers but, after having shot a Wyoming rancher, he disappeared. Butch Cassidy took over the gang. The gang's hideout was at Robber's Roost, located in the southwest corner of Utah, a rough, mountainous area which was difficult to find. In early 1887, Cassidy met Bill and Tom McCarty , hard-riding outlaws who headed up their own gang which included Matt Warner (real name Willard Christiansen), Tom O'Day, Silver Tip (Bill Wall), Maxwell, and Indian Ed Newcomb.

Henry McCarty's place and date of birth remain conjectural. He may have been bron in New York City, perhaps on the lower East Side of Manhattan near the present-day Brooklyn Bridge, sometime in 1859.
Details of his early life are sketchy. He and his older brother, Joe, moved with their mother Catherine, to Indianapolis in 1865, where she apparently met the younger man who eventually became the boys' stepfather. The four moved to Wichita in 1870, then possibly to Denver, then to Santa Fe, where the couple was married in 1873.
Soon the William H. Antrim family moved to Silver City where they build a modest cabin on Main Street.
Bright and literate, Henry loved books and music. After Catherine died of tuberculosis in September 1874, the family disintegrated. Placed in foster homes, Henry worked in a butcher shop, then in a hotel, where he washed dishes and waited on tables. Eventually, he ran afoul of the law. Arrested for a second petty theft in September, 1875, and jailed, Henry shimmied up the chimney and ran off to southeast Arizona.
He returned to New Mexico in September, 1877, an itinerant ranch hand-turned-horse thief drawn to rifles and pistols, who had killed a blacksmith and fled. Henry sported an alias "Kid" Antrim.

A U.S. congressman, three-time DEMOCRATIC presidential nominee, and secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan was a major force in American politics for three decades. Bryan was born on Mar. 19, 1860, in Salem, Ill. He attended college, studied law, and entered legal practice in Illinois before moving to Lincoln, Nebr., in 1887. Elected to CONGRESS in 1890 and reelected in 1892, he argued for inflationary policies, including free silver, and fought a losing battle against repeal (1893) of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.
Failing in a bid for a U.S. SENATE seat in 1894, Bryan became editor of the Omaha World-Herald. He was out of public office in 1895 and 1896, but he reached a wide audience as a speaker at political gatherings and Chautauqua meetings. By 1896 his party was bitterly divided between gold Democrats, led by Grover CLEVELAND, and free-silver advocates. The silverites controlled the party's 1896 convention, and Bryan, confirming his position as free silver's champion through his dramatic "Cross of Gold" speech, was nominated for president. He conducted an active campaign and received many more votes in losing than Cleveland had in winning in 1892.
When nominated for PRESIDENT again in 1900, Bryan insisted on a platform endorsing free silver but emphasized imperialism as a more important issue. He attacked the administration of incumbent William MCKINLEY for having fought the Spanish-American War (1898) and acquiring the Philippines. Bryan's anti-imperialist credentials were not unblemished, however. He had volunteered for military service and had urged, albeit on tactical grounds, passage of the treaty annexing the Philippines. Defeated by a larger margin in 1900 than in 1896, Bryan nevertheless retained his hold on rank-and-file Democrats through frequent speaking engagements and distribution of the Commoner, a weekly newspaper he edited and published from 1901 to 1913. In 1908 he won the Democratic presidential nomination for a third time but again lost the election.
In 1912, Woodrow WILSON, whom Bryan had supported at the Democratic convention, won the PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION and named Bryan secretary of state. Bryan supported Wilson's Mexican intervention (1914), but, preferring peaceful diplomacy, he persuaded 30 nations to sign treaties that committed them to arbitration of international disputes. When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, Bryan advocated strict neutrality, including restrictions against American travel on belligerent vessels and the prohibition of loans to Britain and France. These views increasingly placed him at odds with the administration, and he resigned his post in June 1915, during the Lusitania crisis.
Bryan was a political evangelist. Often ahead of his time as a spokesman for liberal causes, he was also closely identified with traditionalism, particularly with fundamentalist Christianity. In 1924 he drafted legislation to prevent the teaching of Darwinist evolutionary theory in Florida's public schools, and in 1925 he served as a prosecution lawyer in the Scopes Trial, a Tennessee case involving a similar law. Taking the stand in defense of the Bible's authority, Bryan was subjected to a devastating cross-examination by the defense attorney, Clarence Darrow. Bryan won the case, but he died less than a week later, on July 26, 1925.

The Earp family's English and Scottish descendants immigrated to America in the early 1700's. Like the Scholte band 150 years later, the Earps came to America for religious freedom.
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp, named for his father's neighbor and commanding officer in theMexican War, was born in Monmouth, Illinois, on March 19, 1848. When Wyatt was two years old, his father Nicholas moved the family to Pella, Iowa. While living in Pella, Nicholas held the office of U.S. Provost Marshal of Marion County.
Wyatt Earp, the famous gun-slinging western marshal, grew up as an ordinary Pella boy, spending most of his spare time working on his father's farm.
Nicholas Earp's experience as a captain in the Mexican War earned him the responsibility of training troops for the Union Army. Wyatt's three older brothers enlisted in the Union Army while Wyatt stayed home and tended the farm. Finally, at the tender age of fifteen, the lure of the Civil War overwhelmed Wyatt. He ran away from home and enlisted in the army. As luck would have it, the first person Wyatt encountered among the army ranks was his father, who promptly sent him home, back to the cornfield.
In 1864 Nicholas' hitch in the army ran out. Although Nicholas was against succession, he disagreed with freeing the slaves. The elder Earp organized a wagon train of forty families with similar ideas against emancipation, and headed to California.
Before the Earps started westward, Nicholas gave Wyatt his first firearm. It was a clumsy weapon--but it proved to be a valuable tool for a wagon train on the move. Wyatt kept the party well supplied with fresh game. Dangers encountered on this trip changed Wyatt from a boy to a man.
Wyatt grew into a handsome, rugged, hard-working man. He was six feet and one quarter inch tall, slender, with powerful flair. Though people knew him to be quiet, good natured and dependable, anyone questioning Wyatt's capability could later testify to his physical prowess.
In 1870, Wyatt worked his way to LaMar, Missouri, where he fell in love and married Urilla Sutherland. Wyatt Earp's father conducted the wedding ceremony, although, Nicholas Earp was not a Justice of the Peace. Their time together as husband and wife was short. Tragedy struck Wyatt's life, his beloved bride died within the first year. Heartbroken and tired of waiting tables in his father-in-law's inn and serving as Constable of Lamar, Wyatt set out for the West. He did not remarry for nearly 40 years.
The following year found Wyatt in trouble and in a Cherokee Nation jail--accused of stealing horses. However, Wyatt paid his bail and fled before his case came to trial. Later, Earp continued working as a lawman. Carrying the badges of Policeman, Deputy Sheriff and Deputy U.S. Marshal, Wyatt kept law and order in many western towns. Moonlighting jobs as a Faro and Monte card dealer and player supplemented the lawman's income.
How did an accused outlaw become a sheriff? Anyone able to handle a gun in the frontier, was a valuable asset for the law. Besides gun handling skill, Wyatt's personality traits--absolute confidence in himself, strength, proficiency and courage made him an ideal candidate for sheriff.
Above all, Wyatt Earp had a well-grounded faith in his own talents.
In 1879, Wyatt and his two brothers, (known as the Fighting Earps), arrived in Tombstone, Arizona. Two years later, the Earps and Doc Holliday fought the historic gun fight at the O.K. Corral. The shoot out left three dead and three wounded. Only Wyatt escaped unharmed.
During the early days of President McKinley's administration, The government asked Earp to become United States Marshal of Arizona, a position he declined. At the age of 60 he married his second wife, Josephine Marcus. Josie and Wyatt headed to Alaska to investigate the Gold Rush.
In spite of Wyatt's colorful and eventful life, he lived to the ripe old age of 80. He spent his last years in Los Angeles and died on January 13, 1929. Wyatt Earp had no children and was buried in the Marcus family plot in a small Jewish cemetery in Colma, California.

Black Elk was a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, the largest division of the Sioux who, occupied land in the great plains including, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota. He was born in 1863, after his people had forced onto smaller and smaller areas of land. At the age of nine, he had a vision (an experience common to Lakota boys) that he would become a holy leader for the tribe which he revealed his vision at the age of seventeen to the older members of the tribe. The living traditions of the Oglala Lakotas have undergone many new developments as a result of the ever changing position of the Native American with resepct to the development of the United States. Black Elk lived very productively under these changes and helped his people to become adapted and maintain a spiritual identity despite the oppressive circumstances.

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telegraph. This allowed people in the west to communicate with their loved ones in the east, which made it easier for for people to bare leaving the people they knew behind.

Mark Twain was a traveling lecturer and satirized the guilded age in numerous stories and books. He is one of the greatest of all US humorists and one of the finest authors of the 19th century. His book Huckleberry Finn, is considered by critics to be the best American novel ever.

After graduating last in his class at Westpoint Custer entered the US cavalry. By the age of twenty three he had risen from lieutenant to brigadier general. He reverted to Captain at the end of the Civil War. As lieutenant colonel of the seventh cavalry he fought the Red River War, and perished in the battle of Little Big Horn.