Unit 5 The Railroad and the Native Americans

Unit 5: The Railroad and the Native Americans NOTES (4. 1)

Route to the Pacific • Before Civil War – North and South wanted to expand railroad routes to Pacific • They were divided over starting point • North – Chicago • South – New Orleans

Transcontinental Railroad • Transcontinental – across the continent; a railroad that would link the east with the west

Route to the Pacific • During Civil War – With Southern Democrats out of congress President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act – • Provided a route for the railroad • The railroad paid for by giving land to rail companies • Built by two companies; Union Pacific and Central Pacific

Growth Along the Rails • Labor needed – Civil War veterans, Irish immigrants, Chinese immigrants, and African Americans • Towns grew up around the rails as they were built

Removal of Native Americans: Making room for white settlers • Trail of Tears: resulted in removal of eastern Native American tribes to Indian territory in Oklahoma – With construction of R. R. , gov. followed policy of moving native peoples off of their traditional lands to smaller reservations – Some Native resistance led to Indian wars

Homestead Act of 1862 • Homestead Act – granted western settlers farmland to settle for free as long as they created homes there • Up to 160 acres • Had to live there for 5 years to receive title • American population of the western plains grew rapidly

• Railroad companies sold the lands given to them by the government to settlers • Railroads provided access: – for farmers and ranchers to markets in the east – connected industries to the natural resources of the west

Policies toward Native Americans • Some criticism regarding treatment of natives led to new policy to assimilate Native Americans – Assimilation: act of becoming part of American society, taking on its cultural practices

• Dawes Severalty Act: tribal lands divided into farming parcels and given to individual families • This act did not match Indian culture’s communal aspects of sharing land so there was resistance • Result: natives lost the land to whites • Some native children were taken and sent to boarding schools to teach them American customs

Impact on Native Americans • Herds of roaming buffalo could damage tracks – rail companies encouraged killing of buffalo • Plains Native Americans depended on the buffalo for food, shelter, clothing, and tools • Native Americans could no longer sustain themselves without the buffalo