The Incorporation of America by Alan Trachtenberg discusses historical trends and events that led to the rise of America as an industrialized nation. The expansion of the West led to booming corporations that helped grow particular industries. Due to the industrial expansion it led to a growth in a variety of industries and the country itself. The Incorporation of America is an argument that the rise of corporatization in the Gilded Age restructured the idea of American culture. The Railroad industry extended to the West as the factory system developed within cities. However, the conception of the “West” did not appear until the late 19th century. The West was viewed as the land of opportunity. The West began railroad development, mining, and cattle ranching. Cities such as Denver, San Fransisco, and Salt Lake City flourished.
During the expansion of the West there was confrontation between the Whites and Native Americans. The white men believed that the removal of Native Americans was crucial to develop the America they imagined. To “Americanize” the Native Americans they were placed in a form of “concentration camps”. In these camps their hair was cut, not allowed to wear traditional dress, and they were not allowed to call one another by their Native names. They were given new English names instead. The goal was to surprise Indian culture and assimilate Indian children into mainstream American culture. From the Whites standpoint The Dawes Act of 1887 offered Native
Transformation of the West Introduction The American West was vastly transformed during the “Gilded Age”. As railroads traversed the nation, crime became a major problem, and the rise of industry prompted a response by environmentalists. As far-reaching as the transformation of Western civilization since the Renaissance had been, I don’t think that anyone around 1800 could have predicted the even more profound changes that would occur in the nineteenth century.
From 1865 to 1900 agriculture was at war, shifting from small, individual farms to larger commercialized farms because of the devaluing of currency, competition from corporate farms with more land and better technology, and government policies that proved detrimental to those clinging to old ways of life. To escape debt and seek profit in new lands, many farmers started working westward but so did corporations looking to expand. Because of westward expansion, companies like the union pacific railroad company built railroads that connected lands all across the U.S. and earned 10 miles of land in either direction of the railroad. This land put the railroad in control of many western lands and in control of the prices of land, travel and resource transportation.
"An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe," by Benjamin Madley is a significant piece in explaining Native American history. It helps shed a light on a dark chapter in American history that has been often overlooked by many. Madley's book provides a detailed account of the systematic extermination of the Native American population in California from the 1840s through the 1870s. By delving into the factors that fueled this genocide, such as greed for land and resources, white supremacist ideology, and state-sanctioned violence, Benjamin Madley examines the disturbing atrocities committed against Indigenous communities. His research draws from a wide range of sources, including archival materials and primary
The railroad system was a huge factor in in developing the west. It took away the need of steamboats and was much cheaper and safer than traveling on water. The railroad changed the way of transportation, products and animals were shipped from the west to the east coast, and it allowed the United States to expand the west at a much faster rate. In the years between 1855 and 1871 the Federal government operated a land grant system that gave companies millions of acres of land in the uninhabited west.
What changes occurred in the Western United States during the late 1800s? In the late 1800s, the U.S. expanded to the western part of the country which brought on tremendous change through migration and development. Before the time period which became known as the Western Expansion, the majority of the American people lived east of the Great Plains. When California became a state the country was expanded to the the Pacific coast but the land in the Midwest was still an undeveloped area.
The West was a blank slate: a new land with uncharted areas with unfamiliar scenery, animals, and inhabitants, as well as different weather patterns. The West was an entire new place to view. It could be settled about in so many different avenues. It was up to the individuals in the East and South to move west and make it a place of success. Additionally, a whole new way of thinking was born into the region.
The Western Indian Wars was a conflict between “the Western tribes and the U. S troops ended with the 1886 surrender of Apache leader Geronimo in Arizona and the 1890 overthrow of the Sioux at Wounded Knee in South Dakota (“America’s Wars”, 2004).” Throughout the history of the United States, American Indians were treated poorly. Ever since the white men crossed the Atlantic Ocean 200 years ago till the mid 1900’s the poor treatment and killing of Indians never ceased. U.S polices passed between the Revolutionary war and the mid 1900’s hurt American Indians and put them at an extreme disadvantage. There were series of wars, before the western Indian wars in the United States.
No other transformation was more measurable in the west was the Assault on Indian way of life caught by miners and settlers who grasped their homes and federal Government extortion, (Doc C) by the 1890s Native Americans reservations had been the aftereffect on Most Indians, natives effortlessly combated to preserve their assets. Bison and buffalo had been their Linked article commonly utilizing it for food, clothing and trade. Promptly of the millions of
By the 1860’s more than half of the American population was located west of the Appalachian Mountains. This area was known as the Far West or as many nineteenth century Americans called it, “The Great West.” This migration of people was caused by the West’s connection to political, transportation, and financial progress. All three of these aspects were extremely important in American migration to the Great West and they helped shape the structure for America as it is today. The Political need for new classes caused by industrialism and abolition of slavery, the opening of jobs and new business involving financial situations and the boost of transportation that would expand almost everything.
During Western Expansion in the United States, it affected many different groups of people. Motivated by the idea of Manifest Destiny, the belief that the expansion of the US through the American continents was justified and bound to happen, they all moved west in the hope of riches and other opportunities. However, these groups, especially the Native Americans, American workers, and immigrants, instead faced many challenges that contradicted the founding ideals of the US: liberty, equality, rights, democracy, and opportunity. To begin with, the Native Americans had their liberty, equality, rights, and opportunities taken away. As the Americans moved westward, they overtook the Native Americans’ land and forced them out “to confine most western tribes to reservations” (Indian Wars Shatter Tribal Cultures).
During the late 19th and earlier 20th centuries, many of the Native Americans suddenly had to start changing their way of life in order to live amongst the Anglo-Americans. They were given ultimatums in which if they did not comply with the newly imposed organizations of political, economic, legal, and social institutions, Native Americans had to suffer the consequences. For several centuries, many tribes have passed and those who survived were the ones who did the “tragic, but necessary” actions abide by these organizations and assimilated their way into survival. The Allotment Period was meant to terminate all Native Americans; however, it proved to not only the Anglo-Americans that Native Americans are in fact capable of assimilation, but
Native Americans flourished in North America, but over time white settlers came and started invading their territory. Native Americans were constantly being thrown and pushed off their land. Sorrowfully this continued as the Americans looked for new opportunities and land in the West. When the whites came to the west, it changed the Native American’s lives forever. The Native Americans had to adapt to the whites, which was difficult for them.
Just like its European counterpart, American imperialism took a huge toll on the inhabitants in the West. Thousands of Native Americans that were violently displaced, as a result of Manifest Destiny and were often forced to relocate elsewhere. Those that stayed were dehumanized and found themselves at the bottom of the power dynamic. Greenberg describes the effects of dehumanization of the Native people by also means of gender“ by feminizing Native Americans, white Americans could prove themselves to be the legitimate possessors of American
The similarities between the east and west didn’t stop there, with the introduction of the railroad the west became a booming place for business. A lot of smart business men saw this potential and jumped on it just as they had building huge manufacturing plants on the east coast they bought up land to create mega ranches that eventually put a lot of the smaller farms out of
The author, Seybert provide an article informing the reader about Native American slaves’ and the series of events that occurred after the arrival of the Europeans. Before the Europeans arrived, some of the Native tribal groups would capture the Indian slaves and use them for small-scale labor and ritual sacrifice. Indian slaves were treated as if they were part of the Native American tribe. For example, The Creek treated both tribal members and slave children as if they were full members (Seybert, 1). Most importantly the Native Americans did not buy and sell the Indian captives, and if they did it was usually for peace gesture or an exchange of a member.