Lecture 1 – The Aftermath of the Civil War and the American West

Brief Overview of the Events Leading to Reconstruction

• The previous map depicts the states that seceded from the Union in the months following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
• The states in red made up the Confederate States of America, which aimed to create a nation distinct from the United States, elected its own President, and generated a separate government.
• The states in light blue were slave states that decided to stay within in the US, finding it too risky to leave despite the turning tides against slavery that were developing.
• The dark blue states make up the free states that banned slavery between the American Revolution and the early 19th century.

The Aftermath of War

• Reconstruction – the time in which the United States would reunify and rebuild the American South.
• Reconstruction occurs in two phases:
  
  • Presidential Reconstruction
    • devised by Abraham Lincoln before his assassination
    • largely controversial because people believed it to be too lenient on the South after their secession and treason
    • required 10% of all eligible voters before the Civil War to take a loyalty oath to the US and to agree to the new 13th amendment, which ended slavery
  • Radical (or Congressional) Reconstruction
    • a more radical, or modernly progressive stage of Reconstruction
    • was driven by radical congressional members who were a part of the Republican party
    • led to military occupation of the South between 1868 and 1877
    • led to the creation of the 14th and 15th amendments
    • created the Freedman’s Bureau
    • The South (made up mostly of white Democrats) highly despised this plan
• By 1870, the United States decided to readmit all state that had seceded from the Union.
• States were still under military control of the United States to make sure that southern states were complying with the end of slavery

Reconstruction Amendments

• 13th Amendment – ended slavery
• 14th Amendment  – originally pushed through by radical members of Congress to provide citizenship status to the black population, including due process rights; prevents blocking citizenship on the basis of race, ethnicity, and color of skin
• 15th Amendment – grants the right to vote in the form of universal manhood suffrage
• both the 14th and 15th amendments are enforced the the federal government and protect the interests of the freed slaves and free black population during Reconstruction

Emancipation

• Hope in the Former Slave Quarters
• While not all slaves are not immediately freed by their masters when the Civil War ends, by the beginning of radical Reconstruction the federal government does enforce the 13th amendment.
• Leads to the reuniting of family members that had been separated during the era of slavery
• Leads to the government recognition of former slave marriages that had not been recognized beforehand
• We see the creation of black institutions, including newspapers, schools, and political community action groups
• And, with the enforcement of the 14th and 15th amendments, black men register to vote and run for office
• Some of these gains are short-lived and threatened
• Some of these gains are short-lived and threatened Leads to the reuniting of family members that had been separated during the era of slaveryLeads to the government recognition of former slave marriages that had not been recognized beforehand.  We see the creation of black institutions, including newspapers, schools, and political community action groupsAnd, with the enforcement of the 14th and 15th amendments, black men register to vote and run for office

Creation of Freedman’s Bureau

• A post-Civil War agency to provide federal assistance in an early form of social welfare to war refugees, including whites and black, was created during Reconstruction.
  • provided many services including transportation, health care, food, and money
  • built medical care facilities and new schools for former slaves and their children
  • provided legal assistance to make sure black men and women received fair trials
  • also functioned as an employment agency (and this is where it is often criticized by modern historians)

Sharecropping

• Former slaves and whites that had been displaced during the war were encouraged by agencies like the Freedman’s Bureau to sign contracts with wealthy white landowers
• Sharecroppers would receive a plot of land, seed, use of tools, and perhaps even a home
• In exchange, the sharecroppers would have to provide a set amount of crop to the landowner
• Usually, the amount was unreasonable and the debts would rolll over each year
• This would bind sharecroppers to the white landowners land, creating a nearly permanent hierarchy

Rising Violence in the South

• With the end of slavery and the early chaos of Reconstruction, racial violence would increase.
• This is highlighted by the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, a group that labelled itself as a vigilante group but was trying to maintain the racial balance and hierarchy that existed before the Civil War by intimidating black men, women and children, and those that tried to protect black rights
• led to extreme violence and intimidation that once Reconstruction ended was a major cause of the loss of black civil rights

The End of Reconstruction

• The period would come to a close by 1877, with all southern state readmitted back into the Union fully and with federal oversight of the south decreasing, including the military withdrawal of the Union army.
• Though three Reconstruction amendments were passed, only the 13th had a lasting legacy in the South, with the final end to slavery – momentous turning point in US history.
• However, Reconstruction failed to ended exploitative agricultural labor
• Rising violence and intimidation would lead to the erosion of black civil rights throughout the United States that would last until the Civil Rights Movements of the 1950s and 1960s
• Increased tension between whites and blacks in the South would continue during the period known as the New South
• Development of racialized politics and legislation
• The continued dominance of agriculture in the South, predominantly cotton production remained
• While racism was pervasive in region of the US, the tensions between black and white remained extremely high in the New South

• Stereotypical racist depiction of an African American in the 19^th century perpetuated racist ideas about perceived black inferiority

The White Man’s Burden

• A major imperialistic concept from the West that was used to justify colonization and racism during the late 19th century
• Suggests that white people have the obligation to rule over and encourage non-white people to adopt Western ways
• Can visibly observe these attitudes in the New South and later on in various imperial actions of the United States and Europe (we will be examining this later so be ready to think comparatively about how this concept is employed regionally and across time)

Southern Agriculture

• Though industry did grow in the late 19^th century South, agriculture remained important

The American West

• At the end of the 19^th c. America appears to be similar to two distinct nations under one common government
  • advanced industrial society in the East production
  • frontier country in the West

US Government and Western Expansion

• The impact of western expansion on Indian societies
• The West as an “internal empire” and the development of new technologies and new industries
• The creation of new communities and the displacement of old communities
• The creation of the American West 

Popular Image of the American West

• A moral mission to spread American culture and government

The Myth of the American West

• Dreams of gold and silver
• Much available land
• Many disappointed when they actually settled west to find that life was not as easy as described
• Resulted in increased tensions between white settlers and Native Americans in the plains and coastal regions

Wagon Trails

• In the mid-1800s thousands of emigrants from the eastern US traveled across the Great Plains to the Pacific on trails across the nation
• Many traveled in groups of covered wagons pulled by large animals such as oxen

Railroads

• Construction of tracks soar in the late 19^th century
• 1880s – 40,000 miles of track is laid west of the Mississippi River
• Encourages settlement and commerce west
• Big business supports movements
• Makes it easier to access the west

Ranching in the West

• Cattle raising grows in the Great Plains regions of the United States
• Cattle towns capture nation’s imagination of the “wild West”
• In reality, most cowboys were African American and Hispanic farmhands

Community and Conflict on the Range

• Combination of prostitution, gambling, and drinking discouraged formation of stable communities in the West Very violent!

Buffalo Bill and the Mythic West

• Though there was little reality, America imagines the west as a romantic, mythic place
• Starts a legend that to this day lasts in the cowboys and Indians of modern film and TV

Frederick Jackson Turner and the Closing of the Frontier

• The Frontier Thesis: Frederick Jackson Turner argued that the United States was distinct from Europe as there was always the possibility of seeking land west
• The further the west people moved, the more American was the community, as the act of moving west conferred strength and individuality, which characterized the American identity.

Native American Relations

• By 1880, many Native American tribes forcibly removed to reservations
• Few had adapted to white culture, or assimilated
• Mostly due to white settlers forcing them out of lands

The Dawes Severalty Act, 1887

• Divided communal land of the Native Americans and gave them the right to petition to become US citizens if they accepted the land allotments of 160 acres (of usually inferior land)

Reservation “Solution”

• Few whites questioned the necessity of Native Americans off of desirable land
• Policy to move the Native Americans to generally two extensive, yet less desirable areas:
  • Southwestern Quarter of the Dakotas
  • Present day Oklahoma
• This marked an overall attempt to undermine tribal culture and rule.

Example of Undermining Tribal Culture and Native Resistance: The Ghost Dance

• After Dawes, the Sioux attempted to rebel by performing this dance
• Dance based on a belief in sudden divine judgment, where all Indian peoples who had ever lived would return to the world while all whites would disappear
• Feared by the US government for obvious reasons
• The US Seventh Cavalry pursued those that practiced this dance

Wounded Knee Massacre: Violence Erupts

• Tragic event that followed the US government’s coercion of many tribes to sign away land rights
• Placed on reservations, where they lost their way of life and as a result, there was unrest on the reservations which led to US force
• A response to Native American resistance

Native American endurance

• Most enduring tribes lived on land rejected by white settlers
• Many northwestern tribes remained isolated as well
• In Canada and Mexico, native populations suffered less and retained more authority

The Far West

• Growth of mining culture
• Place of cultural contest between white settlers, Chinese immigrants, and Mexican migrants
• Included the Pacific states, including California, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, etc.

Growing Diversity in the West

• The Gold Rush, available land, and developing mining and trade industries would draw people from Asia, Latin America, freed former slave, and immigrants across the continental United States
• Would lead to tension in the West, racial discrimination and segregation similar to the tensions we observed in the New South

Golden California

• Life in CA in the late 19^th c. contained all that the modern world had to offer
• California Culture: wanted their own cultural tradition
• Land of sunshine and commercialism
• Agriculture, especially fruit farming
• Beauty of the outdoors touted as inherently Californian