Western Expansion and Native Americans

Open Ended

What is one thing you notice about “Indian lands” in 1865?

Open Ended

What is one thing you notice about “Indian lands” in 1890?

Open Ended

Using the two maps, what is one claim that you can make about Native American lands between 1865 and 1890? Use evidence from the map to support your answer.

Multiple Choice

Checking for Understanding: Name of law that gave 160 acres of federal land in the West to any U.S. citizen who claimed it

• Homestead Act

• Pacific Railway Act

• Atlantic Railway Act

• Land Act

Multiple Choice

Checking for Understanding: law that gave money and land to railroads in the West

• Homestead Act

• Pacific Railway Act

• Atlantic Railway Act

• Land Act

​It took over 250 years for colonial settlers to turn half of North America from forest to farm. Settling the second half took only 30 years, from 1870 to 1900. Federal land policy and the completion of transcontinental railroad lines made this quick settlement possible.

 

From 1850 to 1871, the federal government made huge land grants to the railroads—170 million acres, worth half a billion dollars—for laying track in the West. These grants were created by the Pacific Railway Acts. In one grant, both the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific received 10 square miles of public land for every mile of track laid in a state and 20 square miles of land for every mile of track laid in a territory.

​Secondary Source

Multiple Choice

What did the Pacific Railway Acts do for Railroad Companies?

• Penalized companies for destroying forests

• Gave land grants for laying down track in the West

• Fined companies who built on Native American land

• Made companies pay the federal government for building tracks in the West

In the 1860s, the two companies began a race to lay track. The Central Pacific moved eastward from Sacramento, and the Union Pacific moved westward from Omaha. Civil War veterans, Irish and Chinese immigrants, African Americans, and Mexican Americans did most of the difficult labor. In late 1868, workers for the Union Pacific cut their way through the solid rock of the mountains, laying up to eight miles of track a day. Both companies had reached Utah by the spring of 1869. Fifteen years later, the country boasted five transcontinental railroads that could cross the North American continent.

​Secondary Source

Another powerful attraction of the West was the land itself. In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act, offering 160 acres of land free to any citizen or intended citizen who was head of the household. From 1862 to 1900, up to 600,000 families took advantage of the government’s offer. Several thousand settlers were exodusters—African Americans who moved from the post-Reconstruction South to Kansas.

​Secondary Source

Despite the massive response by homesteaders, or settlers on this free land, private speculators and railroad and state government agents sometimes used the law for their own gain. Only about 10 percent of the land was actually settled by the families for whom it was intended. In addition, not all plots of land were of equal value. Eventually, the government strengthened the Homestead Act and passed more legislation to encourage more United States settlers. Much of this “free land” was land provided to Native Americans by the United States government thirty years earlier. 

 

​Secondary Source

Open Ended

The information in supports which of the following claims:

 

a) The Homestead Act benefited small families who moved out west

b) The Homestead Act benefited private companies and government agents in the west

Explain your answer. "The Homestead Act benefited . . . (by/because)

Multiple Choice

During the period from 1865 to 1900, the rapid growth of cities in the western part of the United States resulted mainly from

• A. better roads

• B. a greater number of canals

• C. the invention of the telegraph and telephone

• D. the growth of railroads

Multiple Choice

Both the Homestead Act (1862) and the Pacific Railway Act (1862) were efforts by the federal government to

• A. provide land to minority groups

• B. resolve conflicts with Native American Indians

• C. encourage settlement west of the Mississippi River

• D. support settlement of former plantation lands