A. CONSTRUCTION
1. The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869.
2. Five transcontinental railroads were constructed during the nineteenth century.
3. Irish and Chinese workers played key roles in the construction of the transcontinental railroads.
B. CONSEQUENCES FOR THE GREAT PLAINS
1. The railroads played a key role in the near-extinction of the buffalo herds. This dealt a devastating blow to the culture of the Plains Indians.
2. The railroads brought a tidal wave of troops, farmers, miners, and cattlemen to the Great Plains.
3. As the settlers built farms, range-fed cattle rapidly replaced the now decimated buffalo herds.
A. KEY CAUSES
1. The virtual extermination of the buffalo doomed the Plains Indians' nomadic way of life.
2. The Plains Indians were ravaged by diseases.
3. The transcontinental railroads transformed the economy of the entire region.
B. PUBLICATION OF CENTURY OF DISHONOR, 1881
1. The book was written by Helen Hunt Jackson.
2. It aroused public awareness of the federal government's long record of betraying and cheating Native Americans.
C. THE DAWES ACT OF 1887
1. Goals
• Inspired in part by Century of Dishonor, the Dawes Act was a misguided attempt to reform the government's Native American policy.
• The legislation's goal was to assimilate Native Americans into the mainstream of American life by dissolving tribes as legal entities and eliminating tribal ownership of land.
2. Consequences
• The Dawes Act ignored the inherent reliance of traditional Indian culture on tribally owned land.
• By 1900, Indians had lost 50 percent of the 156 million acres they had held just two decades earlier.
• The forced-assimilation doctrine of the Dawes Act remained the cornerstone of the government's official Indian policy for nearly half a century.
• The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 partially reversed the individualistic approach of the Dawes Act by restoring the tribal basis of Indian life.
D. THE GHOST DANCE
1. The dance was a sacred ritual expressing a vision that the buffalo would return and White civilization would vanish.
2. The army attempted to destroy it at the so-called Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890, fearing that the ceremony would cause an uprising.
3. As many as 200 Indian men, women, and children were killed at the Battle of Wounded Knee.
A. A WATERSHED REPORT
1. In 1890, the superintendent of the census reported that for the first time in American history a frontier line no longer existed.
2. The "closing" of the frontier inspired Frederick Jackson Turner to write one of the most influential essays in American history—"The Significance of the Frontier in American History."
B. AN INFLUENTIAL THESIS
1. Turner argued that the existence of cheap, unsettled land had played a key role in making American society more democratic.
2. The frontier helped shape a distinctive American spirit of democracy and egalitarianism.
3. The frontier acted as a safety valve that enabled Eastern factory workers and immigrants to escape bad economic conditions and find new opportunities.
4. The frontier played a key role in stimulating American nationalism and individualism.
5. Because of the frontier, America did not have a hereditary landed aristocracy.
TEST TIP
What first comes to your mind when you think of the Old West? Most Americans probably think of Custer's Last Stand, Chief Sitting Bull, cattle drives, and gun duels between lawmen and outlaws. As you might guess, APUSH test writers have a very different set of priorities. Although it is unlikely that your exam will have questions about Custer and Sitting Bull, there is a high probability that you will have to identify Helen Hunt Jackson's book Century of Dishonor and Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis.