WSP09523 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

grasses, the cattlemen's technological innovations were meager. Settlement along the western edge of the basin was started by the miners. However, their frontier depended on the exploitation of rare pockets of mineral wealth, and advanced in less ord~rly fashion than that of the fur traders or cattlemen. In 1858, on the present site of Denver, gold was discovered where Cherry Creek enters the South Platte River. Shouting "Pike's Peak or Bust," people swarmed into the region and spread out into the Rocky Mountains where they literally threw together a scattering of rakish mining camps. The miner was definitely a distinct frontier type - ready to rush wherever opportunity beckoned. Like the fur traders and early cattlemen, he skimmed off the visible wealth and moved on, leaving the rich land to settlement by others. During the 1850's, settlers began to occupy what is now eastern Kansas and Nebraska, thus leading to the eventual confinement of the Plains Indians. Settlers and immigrants as well as professional hunters and sportsmen took a heavy toll of buffalo and other wildlife on which the nomadic tribes depended for food. The Indians offered increasing resistance as the vital supply of game declined. To bring an end to the conflict with Indians, the Government, in 1868, at Fort Laramie, Wyo., induced about one-half of the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes to sign a treaty. By its terms, they were given the western half of present South Dakota for a permanent reservation, with hunting rights extending to the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. The United States Government agreed "to protect the. . . Indian nations against the commission of all depredations by people of the United States . . ." Similar treaties had been signed with Southern Plains tribes at Medicine Lodge, Kans. in 1867. In less than 6 years after the trcaty was signed, Lt. Col. George A. Custer led the 7th U. S. Cavalry Regiment on an official reconnaissance expedition into the Black Hills, the heart of the Indian reservation. Prospectors who accompanied Custer found gold in the Hills. When the news spread, hordes of gold seekers invaded the region. The Indians saw that their treaty rights meant nothing to these men. They watched the unsuccessful efforts of the Government to halt the stream of miners coming into the Indian lands. Further, they saw that even when the Army evicted hundreds of miners, thousands more came to fill their places. The Indians became more and more hostile and, in anticipation of an outbreak, the Indian Commissioner issued an ultimatum to the Indians in December 1875 20 ordering them to return to their reservations before January 31, 1876. Weather conditions prevented the peaceful Indians from complying with these orders, and the more hostile group made no attempt to obey. The Secretary of the Interior, administering Indian affairs, then called upon the War Department to enforce the orde r. The climax came on two hot days in June 1876 in the valley of the Little Bighorn River in Mo~tana. In the Battle of the Little Bighorn, 261 soldiers and attached personnel of the United States Army lost their lives. The Indians won this battle, but lost the war against the white man who gradually stopped their nomadic way of life. Confinement of the Indians left the rich land open to settlement by the pioneer farmer. Unlike his pre- decessors who were concerned primarily with exploita- tion of the visible resources, the farmer viewed the forest and grasslands as a resource to be developed and made productive. He realized that the early meager yields did not indicate the true potential of the rich prairie soil, and he gambled that more intensive methods of cultiva- tion would produce bountiful crops. A principal initial obstacle to easy cultivation was the tough prairie sod, made up of the matted root systems of the grasses. To the eastern eye, the stretches of treeless grasslands looked like a plowman's paradise, but that view oversimplified the facts of cultivation prob- lems. Lightweight plows which had been quite adequate for the soils of New England or the wooded country of the east broke in the tough, resistant prairie sod. In time, special sodbreaking plows were developed to handle the prairie work. Many pioneer farmers were motivated by a restless- ness and a search for an easier and independent way of life. A certain segment was constantly moving with the advancing frontier, never finding its dreamed-of Utopia. Others were sturdy and industrious and, once settled, were determined to make a success in their new environment. All hoped to transform the western wilds into replicas of the eastern or foreign communities from which they came. The end of the Civil War in 1865 released thousands of men to seek a livelihood in a country disrupted by 4 years of upheaval. Many took advantage of the public lands offered by the Homestead Act. A homestead, added to the other opportunities held forth by a democratic nation, lured many Europeans to seek new homes in America. Thus, they and their descendants were to take an active part in the political life of the country which they helped develop.