14. Development of the West, in the Late Nineteenth Century
Expansion and development of western railroads
• The first railroads were built in 1851
• The Pacific Railway Act set the standard and the tone of railroad “trunk line” development:
- Federal land grants to railroads
- Payment of subsidies to railroads
- Union Pacific and the Central Pacific worked together and met at Promontory Point, Utah
• Expansion was entwined with corruption
- Crédit Mobilier of America of 1862: A scandal that involved the western railroads
• Due to this scandal, railroad companies and manufacturing steel began to increase
• As mining declined a source of wealth for the people, the employment in railroad grew
- Most of the people finding employment in railroad were the Chinese
Competitors for the West: miners, ranchers, homesteaders and American Indians
• Homestead Act – Encouraged land to the Americans so long as they improve the land value.
• Miners were called the 49ers during the California Gold Rush
- After California, other states began to have strikes
• The Indians who fought in the post Civil War time were the Indians who lived in the Plains
Government policy toward American Indians
• Decline of Mission Society - Indians were treated like slaves in the missions, but the Mexican government reduced the Church’s power, resulting to the decline of mission society.
• During the post Civil War era, the government issued the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868
- It was an agreement with the U.S and the American Indians which guaranteed Lakota to own Black Hills
Gender, race, and ethnicity in the far West
• Women wanted equality in the west
- This made the western states to give women the right to vote
• Women residing in the west had more freedom than the women in the east
• Irish-Americans helped build the transcontinental railroad
• Due to...