❤❤❤ Abuse Of Power: The Amercian And French Revolution

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America's Founding, Ep. 3: Taxes \u0026 Abuse of Power

Thomas Paine 's Common Sense for the first time expressed the belief that America was not just an extension of Europe but a new land and a country of nearly unlimited potential and opportunity that had outgrown the British mother country. Those sentiments laid the intellectual foundations for the revolutionary concept of American exceptionalism and were closely tied to republicanism , the belief that sovereignty belonged to the people, not a hereditary ruling class. Religious freedom characterized the American Revolution in unique ways when most major nations had state religions. Republicanism, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison , created modern constitutional republicanism , which limits ecclesiastical powers. The historian Thomas Kidd argues, "With the onset of the revolutionary crisis, a significant conceptual shift convinced Americans across the theological spectrum that God was raising America for some particular purpose.

According to Tucker and Hendrickson , Jefferson believed America "was the bearer of a new diplomacy, founded on the confidence of a free and virtuous people, that would secure ends based on the natural and universal rights of man, by means that escaped war and its corruptions. Jefferson envisaged America becoming the world's great " Empire of Liberty ," the model for democracy and republicanism. He identified his nation as a beacon to the world, as he said when he departed the presidency in "Trusted with the destinies of this solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other areas of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence.

Marilyn B. Young argues that after the end of the Cold War in , neoconservative intellectuals and policymakers embraced the idea of an "American empire," a national mission to establish freedom and democracy in other nations, particularly poor ones. She argues that after the September 11, terrorist attacks, the George W. Bush administration reoriented foreign policy to an insistence on maintaining the supreme military and economic power of America, an attitude that harmonized with the new vision of American empire.

Young says the Iraq War — exemplified American exceptionalism. In , the conservative historians Larry Schweikart and Dave Dougherty argued that American exceptionalism be based on four pillars: 1 common law ; 2 virtue and morality located in Protestant Christianity; 3 free-market capitalism; and 4 the sanctity of private property. Vice President Dick Cheney sets out and argues the case for American exceptionalism and concludes: "we are, as Lincoln said, 'the last, best hope of earth. We have been essential to the preservation and progress of freedom, and those who lead us in the years ahead must remind us, as Roosevelt , Kennedy , and Reagan did, of the unique role we play.

Neither they nor we should ever forget that we are, in fact, exceptional. Proponents of American exceptionalism argue that the United States is exceptional in that it was founded on a set of republican ideals rather than on a common heritage, ethnicity, or ruling elite. In the formulation of President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address , America is a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Harry Williams argues that Lincoln believed:. In the United States man would create a society that would be the best and the happiest in the world. The United States was the supreme demonstration of democracy. However, the Union did not exist just to make men free in America. It had an even greater mission—to make them free everywhere. By the mere force of its example, America would bring democracy to an undemocratic world. American policies have been characterized since their inception by a system of federalism between the states and the federal government and checks and balances among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches , which were designed to prevent any faction, region, or government organ from becoming too powerful.

Some proponents of the theory of American exceptionalism argue that the system and the accompanying distrust of concentrated power prevent the United States from suffering a " tyranny of the majority ," preserve a free republican democracy, and allow citizens to live in a locality whose laws reflect those voters' values. A consequence of the political system is that laws can vary widely across the country.

Critics of American exceptionalism maintain that the system merely replaces the power of the federal majority over states with power by the states over local entities. On the balance, the American political system arguably allows for more local dominance but prevents more domestic dominance than a more unitary system would. The historian Eric Foner has explored the question of birthright citizenship , the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment that makes anyone born in the United States a full citizen. He argues that:. No European nation recognizes the principle. Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh has identified what he says is "the most important respect in which the United States has been genuinely exceptional, about international affairs, international law, and promotion of human rights: namely, in its outstanding global leadership and activism.

To this day, the United States remains the only superpower capable, and at times willing, to commit real resources and make real sacrifices to build, sustain, and drive an international system committed to international law, democracy, and the promotion of human rights. Experience teaches that when the United States leads on human rights, from Nuremberg to Kosovo, other countries follow. Peggy Noonan , an American political pundit, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "America is not exceptional because it has long attempted to be a force for good in the world, it tries to be a force for good because it is exceptional.

Former U. Department of State. Proponents of American exceptionalism often claim that many features of the "American spirit" were shaped by the frontier process. Following Frederick Jackson Turner 's Frontier Thesis , they argue that the American frontier allowed individualism to flourish as pioneers adopted democracy and equality and shed centuries-old European institutions such as royalty, standing armies, established churches, and a landed aristocracy that owned most of the land. Other nations had frontiers without them shaping them nearly as much as the American frontier did, usually because they were under the control of a strong national government.

South Africa, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and Australia had long frontiers, but they did not have "free land" and local control. Their edge did not shape their national psyches. In Australia, "mateship" and working together were valued more than individualism was in the United States. For most of its history, especially from the midth to the earlyth centuries, the United States has been known as the "land of opportunity" and in that sense prided and promoted itself on providing individuals with the opportunity to escape from the contexts of their class and family background.

However, social mobility in the US is lower than in some European Union countries if it is defined by income movements. American men born into the lowest income quintile are much more likely to stay there than similar people in the Nordic countries or the United Kingdom. Gregory Mankiw , however, state that the discrepancy has little to do with class rigidity; rather, it is a reflection of income disparity: "Moving up and down a short ladder is a lot easier than moving up and down a tall one. Regarding public welfare, Richard Rose asked in whether the evidence shows whether the U. The historian Michael Kammen argues that criticisms against the topic were raised in the s in the wake of the Vietnam War.

By the s, labor historians were emphasizing that the failure of a workers' party to emerge in the United States meant that America was not exceptionally favorable for workers. By the late s, other academic critics started mocking the extreme chauvinism displayed by the modern usage of exceptionalism. Finally, in the mids, colonial historians debated the uniqueness of the American experience in the context of British history.

The third idea of American exceptionalism, superiority, has been criticized with charges of moral defectiveness and the existence of double standards. In American Exceptionalism and Human Rights , the Canadian commentator Michael Ignatieff treats the idea negatively and identifies three main sub-types: "exemptionalism" supporting treaties as long as U. During the George W. Bush administration — , the term was somewhat abstracted from its historical context. The new use of the term has served to confuse the topic and muddy the waters since its unilateralist emphasis, and the actual orientation diverges somewhat from prior uses of the phrase.

A certain number of those who subscribe to "old-style" or "traditional American exceptionalism," the idea that America is a more nearly exceptional nation than are others and that it differs qualitatively from the rest of the world and has a unique role to play in world history, also agree that the United States is and ought to be entirely subject to and bound by public international law. Indeed, recent research shows that "there is some indication for American exceptionalism among the [U.

On September 12, , in the context of U. President Barack Obama's comment about American exceptionalism during his September 10, talk to the American people while he was considering military action on Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Obama: "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. Critics on the left such as Marilyn Young and Howard Zinn have argued that American history is so morally flawed because of slavery , civil rights , and social welfare issues that it cannot be an exemplar of virtue.

Donald E. Pease mocks American exceptionalism as a "state fantasy" and a "myth" in his book The New American Exceptionalism : [99] "Pease notes that state fantasies cannot altogether conceal the inconsistencies they mask, showing how such events as the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and the exposure of government incompetence after Hurricane Katrina opened fissures in the myth of exceptionalism. The American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr argued that the automatic assumption that America acts for the right will bring about moral corruption although Niebuhr supported America's Cold War policies. His position, " Christian realism ," advocated a liberal notion of responsibility that justified interference in other nations.

US historians like Thomas Bender "try and put an end to the recent revival of American exceptionalism, a defect he esteems to be inherited from the Cold War. Reichard and Ted Dickson argue "how the development of the United States has always depended on its transactions with other nations for commodities , cultural values and populations. It's going to take a generation or so to reclaim American exceptionalism. Though the United States has been remarkably democratic, politically stable, and free of war on its soil compared to most European countries, there have been major exceptions, most notably the American Civil War.

Even after the abolition of slavery, the federal government ignored the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause with respect to African-Americans during the Jim Crow era , and with respect to women's suffrage until the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in Though the Guarantee Clause gives Congress the responsibility to ensure a republican form of government in the states, successful white supremacist coups in local governments were tolerated in the Election riot of and Wilmington Insurrection of Many other coup attempts were successfully suppressed.

The United States military, diplomats, intelligence agencies, and foreign aid have been used to protect democratic regimes in many countries, including many Allies of World War II , First World democracies during the Cold War , and Israel. In its regime change activities , it has also brought democracy to many countries, sometimes by force. These include the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom which the U. The U. The United States has also sometimes supported the overthrow of democratically elected governments in pursuit of other objectives, typical economic and anti-communist. The United States reversed its previous support for a military junta and restored democracy to Haiti with Operation Uphold Democracy in One study found the United States had interfered with foreign elections 81 times, the most of any country.

Herbert London defined pre-emptive declinism as a postmodern belief "that the United States is not an exceptional nation and is not entitled by virtue of history to play a role on the world stage different from other nations". However, most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic. According to RealClearPolitics , declarations of America's declining power have been common in the English-language media. In , Flora Lewis said, "Talk of U. Citing America's dependence on foreign sources of energy and "crucial weaknesses" in the military, Tom Wicker concluded "that maintaining superpower status is becoming more difficult—nearly impossible—for the United States.

From his vantage point in Shanghai, the International Herald Tribune ' s Howard French worries about "the declining moral influence of the United States" over an emergent China. In his book, The Post-American World , Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria refers to a "Post-American world" that he says "is not about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else. In December , historian Peter Baldwin published a book arguing that despite widespread attempts to contrast the " American way of life " and the " European social model ," America and Europe are actually very similar in a number of social and economic indices.

Baldwin claimed that the black underclass accounts for many of the few areas in which a stark difference exists between the US and Europe, such as homicide and child poverty. In most cases in which the subject has been broached, the similarities between the conflicting parties outweigh the differences. However, he adds, America is made exceptional by the intensity with which those characteristics are concentrated there. Various commentators have claimed that the United States is different from wealthy countries in Europe in several ways:. Examining American exceptionalism as the most important author shaping America's political identity, it is clear that this attitude is a kind of soft power in the United States that emphasizes the priority of American interests over human rights issues under the slogan "America First.

Critics of American exceptionalism argue that it has led to some of the expansion that is seen during the 18th and 19th centuries in the Americas. Madsen also cited Frederick Douglass , a prominent black abolitionist before and during the American Civil War — , who argued that the idea of American exceptionalism was absurd because the inherent nature of slavery still existed at the time. Supporters of American exceptionalism may argue that it is the purpose of the United States to spread democracies to nations that are under tyrannical governments.

This can be seen in the contemporary invasion of Afghanistan [] and the invasion of Iraq. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Ideology holding the United States as unique among nations. This article is about the theory that America is qualitatively different from other nations. For the ideology that America has an exceptional mission in the world, see Americanism ideology. Further information: Economic mobility and Social mobility.

Main article: Americanism heresy. Re-framing the Transnational Turn in American Studies. University Press of New England. ISBN Seymour Martin Lipset. New York, N. August 24, Retrieved July 13, Democracy in America , part 2, p. Pease The New American Exceptionalism. U of Minnesota Press. The Atlantic, March 15, Retrieved September 13, Political Science Quarterly.

JSTOR Noble, Death of a Nation: American Culture and the end of exceptionalism , pp. Katz, eds. Communication Studies. S2CID Sovereignty", Stanford Law Review , May 1, , p. Skrabec Algora Publishing. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Communism in America: a history in documents , pp. Columbia University Press, Editors: Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. NYU Press, Globalizing American Studies. University of Chicago Press. II, Vol. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, , p. June 1, ISSN History News Network. Retrieved January 4, Miami Herald. Origins of American Social Science. American Quarterly. Los Angeles Times.

Retrieved March 11, The Washington Post. Retrieved November 8, Republican Party. Retrieved November 3, April 17, In the "Wagon Train of ", some to 1, emigrants headed for Oregon; missionary Marcus Whitman led the wagons on the last leg. In , the Barlow Road was completed around Mount Hood, providing a rough but passable wagon trail from the Missouri River to the Willamette Valley: about 2, miles 3, km. Some did so because they were discouraged and defeated.

Some returned with bags of gold and silver. Most were returning to pick up their families and move them all back west. These "gobacks" were a major source of information and excitement about the wonders and promises—and dangers and disappointments—of the far West. Not all emigrants made it to their destination. The dangers of the overland route were numerous: snakebites, wagon accidents, violence from other travelers, suicide, malnutrition, stampedes, Indian attacks, a variety of diseases dysentery , typhoid , and cholera were among the most common , exposure, avalanches, etc.

One particularly well-known example of the treacherous nature of the journey is the story of the ill-fated Donner Party , which became trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of — in which nearly half of the 90 people traveling with the group died from starvation and exposure, and some resorted to cannibalism to survive. There were also frequent attacks from bandits and highwaymen , such as the infamous Harpe brothers who patrolled the frontier routes and targeted migrant groups. In Missouri and Illinois, animosity between the Mormon settlers and locals grew, which would mirror those in other states such as Utah years later. Violence finally erupted on October 24, , when militias from both sides clashed and a mass killing of Mormons in Livingston County occurred 6 days later.

A hundred rural Mormon settlements sprang up in what Young called " Deseret ", which he ruled as a theocracy. It later became Utah Territory. Young's Salt Lake City settlement served as the hub of their network, which reached into neighboring territories as well. The communalism and advanced farming practices of the Mormons enabled them to succeed. Though the Mormons in Utah had supported U. Founded in , the Republican Party was openly hostile towards The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints LDS Church in Utah over the practice of polygamy, viewed by most of the American public as an affront to religious, cultural, and moral values of modern civilization.

Confrontations verged on open warfare in the late s as President Buchanan sent in troops. Although there were no military battles fought, and negotiations led to a stand down, violence still escalated and there were several casualties. During this time, Congress refused to admit Utah into the Union as a state and statehood would mean an end to direct federal control over the territory and the possible ascension of politicians chosen and controlled by the LDS Church into most if not all federal, state and local elected offices from the new state.

Finally, in , the church leadership announced polygamy was no longer a central tenet, thereafter a compromise. In , Utah was admitted as the 45th state with the Mormons dividing between Republicans and Democrats. The federal government provided subsidies for the development of mail and freight delivery, and by , Congress authorized road improvements and an overland mail service to California. The new commercial wagon trains service primarily hauled freight. In John Butterfield —69 established a stage service that went from Saint Louis to San Francisco in 24 days along a southern route. William Russell, hoping to get a government contract for more rapid mail delivery service, started the Pony Express in , cutting delivery time to ten days. He set up over stations about 15 miles 24 km apart.

In Congress passed the Land-Grant Telegraph Act which financed the construction of Western Union's transcontinental telegraph lines. Hiram Sibley , Western Union's head, negotiated exclusive agreements with railroads to run telegraph lines along their right-of-way. Eight years before the transcontinental railroad opened, the First Transcontinental Telegraph linked Omaha, Nebraska, to San Francisco on October 24, Constitutionally, Congress could not deal with slavery in the states but it did have jurisdiction in the western territories. California unanimously rejected slavery in and became a free state.

New Mexico allowed slavery, but it was rarely seen there. Kansas was off-limits to slavery by the Compromise of Free Soil elements feared that if slavery were allowed rich planters would buy up the best lands and work them with gangs of slaves, leaving little opportunity for free white men to own farms. Few Southern planters were interested in Kansas, but the idea that slavery was illegal there implied they had a second-class status that was intolerable to their sense of honor, and seemed to violate the principle of state's rights.

With the passage of the extremely controversial Kansas—Nebraska Act in , Congress left the decision up to the voters on the ground in Kansas. Across the North, a new major party was formed to fight slavery: the Republican Party , with numerous westerners in leadership positions, most notably Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. To influence the territorial decision, anti-slavery elements also called "Jayhawkers" or "Free-soilers" financed the migration of politically determined settlers. But pro-slavery advocates fought back with pro-slavery settlers from Missouri. The antislavery forces took over by , as Kansas became a free state. The episode demonstrated that a democratic compromise between North and South over slavery was impossible and served to hasten the Civil War.

Despite its large territory, the trans-Mississippi West had a small population and its wartime story has to a large extent been underplayed in the historiography of the American Civil War. The Confederacy engaged in several important campaigns in the West. However, Kansas, a major area of conflict building up to the war, was the scene of only one battle, at Mine Creek. But its proximity to Confederate lines enabled pro-Confederate guerrillas, such as Quantrill's Raiders , to attack Union strongholds and massacre the residents.

In Texas, citizens voted to join the Confederacy; anti-war Germans were hanged. Confederate Arizona was created by Arizona citizens who wanted protection against Apache raids after the United States Army units were moved out. The Confederacy then sets its sight to gain control of the New Mexico Territory. General Henry Hopkins Sibley was tasked for the campaign, and together with his New Mexico Army , marched right up the Rio Grande in an attempt to take the mineral wealth of Colorado as well as California.

The First Regiment of Volunteers discovered the rebels, and they immediately warned and joined the Yankees at Fort Union. The Battle of Glorieta Pass soon erupted, and the Union ended the Confederate campaign and the area west of Texas remained in Union hands. Missouri , a Union state where slavery was legal, became a battleground when the pro-secession governor, against the vote of the legislature, led troops to the federal arsenal at St.

Louis ; he was aided by Confederate forces from Arkansas and Louisiana. Louis and all of Missouri for the Union. The state was the scene of numerous raids and guerrilla warfare in the west. Army after established a series of military posts across the frontier, designed to stop warfare among Indian tribes or between Indians and settlers. Throughout the 19th century, Army officers typically built their careers in peacekeeper roles moving from fort to fort until retirement. Actual combat experience was uncommon for any one soldier. The most dramatic conflict was the Sioux war in Minnesota in when Dakota tribes systematically attacked German farms to drive out the settlers. The state militia fought back and Lincoln sent in federal troops. The federal government tried Indians for murder, and were convicted and sentenced to death.

Lincoln pardoned the majority, but 38 leaders were hanged. The decreased presence of Union troops in the West left behind untrained militias; hostile tribes used the opportunity to attack settlers. The militia struck back hard, most notably by attacking the winter quarters of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, filled with women and children, at the Sand Creek massacre in eastern Colorado in late Kit Carson and the U. Army in trapped the entire Navajo tribe in New Mexico, where they had been raiding settlers and put them on a reservation. The result by was millions of new farms in the Plains states, many operated by new immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia. With the war over and slavery abolished, the federal government focused on improving the governance of the territories.

It subdivided several territories, preparing them for statehood, following the precedents set by the Northwest Ordinance of It standardized procedures and the supervision of territorial governments, taking away some local powers, and imposing much "red tape", growing the federal bureaucracy significantly. Federal involvement in the territories was considerable. In addition to direct subsidies, the federal government maintained military posts, provided safety from Indian attacks, bankrolled treaty obligations, conducted surveys and land sales, built roads, staffed land offices, made harbor improvements, and subsidized overland mail delivery.

Territorial citizens came to both decry federal power and local corruption, and at the same time, lament that more federal dollars were not sent their way. Territorial governors were political appointees and beholden to Washington so they usually governed with a light hand, allowing the legislatures to deal with the local issues. In addition to his role as civil governor, a territorial governor was also a militia commander, a local superintendent of Indian affairs, and the state liaison with federal agencies.

The legislatures, on the other hand, spoke for the local citizens and they were given considerable leeway by the federal government to make local law. These improvements to governance still left plenty of room for profiteering. As Mark Twain wrote while working for his brother, the secretary of Nevada, "The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two. In acquiring, preparing, and distributing public land to private ownership, the federal government generally followed the system set forth by the Land Ordinance of Federal exploration and scientific teams would undertake reconnaissance of the land and determine Native American habitation.

Through treaties, the land titles would be ceded by the resident tribes. Then surveyors would create detailed maps marking the land into squares of six miles 10 km on each side, subdivided first into one square mile blocks, then into acre 0. Townships would be formed from the lots and sold at public auction. As part of public policy, the government would award public land to certain groups such as veterans, through the use of "land script". As a counter to land speculators, farmers formed "claims clubs" to enable them to buy larger tracts than the acre 0. In , Congress passed three important bills that transformed the land system.

The Homestead Act granted acres 0. The only cost was a modest filing fee. The law was especially important in the settling of the Plains states. Many took a free homestead and others purchased their land from railroads at low rates. The Pacific Railroad Act of provided for the land needed to build the transcontinental railroad. The land was given the railroads alternated with government-owned tracts saved for free distribution to homesteaders.

To be equitable, the federal government reduced each tract to 80 acres 32 ha because of its perceived higher value given its proximity to the rail line. Railroads had up to five years to sell or mortgage their land, after tracks were laid, after which unsold land could be purchased by anyone. Often railroads sold some of their government acquired land to homesteaders immediately to encourage settlement and the growth of markets the railroads would then be able to serve. Nebraska railroads in the s were strong boosters of lands along their routes. They sent agents to Germany and Scandinavia with package deals that included cheap transportation for the family as well as its furniture and farm tools, and they offered long-term credit at low rates.

Boosterism succeeded in attracting adventurous American and European families to Nebraska , helping them purchase land grant parcels on good terms. The selling price depended on such factors as soil quality, water, and distance from the railroad. The Morrill Act of provided land grants to states to begin colleges of agriculture and mechanical arts engineering. Black colleges became eligible for these land grants in The Act succeeded in its goals to open new universities and make farming more scientific and profitable. In the s government-sponsored surveys to chart the remaining unexplored regions of the West, and to plan possible routes for a transcontinental railroad.

Regionalism animated debates in Congress regarding the choice of a northern, central, or southern route. Engineering requirements for the rail route were an adequate supply of water and wood, and as nearly-level route as possible, given the weak locomotives of the era. In the s, proposals to build a transcontinental failed because of Congressional disputes over slavery. With the secession of the Confederate states in , the modernizers in the Republican party took over Congress and wanted a line to link to California. Private companies were to build and operate the line. Construction would be done by unskilled laborers who would live in temporary camps along the way.

Immigrants from China and Ireland did most of the construction work. Theodore Judah , the chief engineer of the Central Pacific surveyed the route from San Francisco east. Judah's tireless lobbying efforts in Washington were largely responsible for the passage of the Pacific Railroad Act , which authorized construction of both the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific which built west from Omaha. The line was completed in May Coast-to-coast passenger travel in 8 days now replaced wagon trains or sea voyages that took 6 to 10 months and cost much more.

The road was built with mortgages from New York, Boston, and London, backed by land grants. There were no federal cash subsidies, But there was a loan to the Central Pacific that was eventually repaid at six percent interest. The federal government offered land-grants in a checkerboard pattern. The railroad sold every-other square, with the government opening its half to homesteaders. Local and state governments also aided the financing.

Most of the manual laborers on the Central Pacific were new arrivals from China. He concludes that senior officials quickly realized the high degree of cleanliness and reliability of the Chinese. Ong explores whether or not the Chinese Railroad Workers were exploited by the railroad, with whites in better positions. He finds the railroad set different wage rates for whites and Chinese and used the latter in the more menial and dangerous jobs, such as the handling and the pouring of nitroglycerin.

Building the railroad required six main activities: surveying the route, blasting a right of way, building tunnels and bridges, clearing and laying the roadbed, laying the ties and rails, and maintaining and supplying the crews with food and tools. The work was highly physical, using horse-drawn plows and scrapers, and manual picks, axes, sledgehammers, and handcarts. A few steam-driven machines, such as shovels, were used. The rails were iron steel came a few years later and weighed lb kg.

For blasting, they used black powder. The Union Pacific construction crews, mostly Irish Americans, averaged about two miles 3 km of new track per day. Six transcontinental railroads were built in the Gilded Age plus two in Canada ; they opened up the West to farmers and ranchers. All but the Great Northern of James J. Hill relied on land grants. The financial stories were often complex. For example, the Northern Pacific received its major land grant in Financier Jay Cooke — was in charge until when he went bankrupt.

Federal courts, however, kept bankrupt railroads in operation. In Henry Villard — took over and finally completed the line to Seattle. But the line went bankrupt in the Panic of and Hill took it over. He then merged several lines with financing from J. Morgan , but President Theodore Roosevelt broke them up in In the first year of operation, —70, , passengers made the long trip. Settlers were encouraged with promotions to come West on free scouting trips to buy railroad land on easy terms spread over several years.

The railroads had "Immigration Bureaus" which advertised package low-cost deals including passage and land on easy terms for farmers in Germany and Scandinavia. The prairies, they were promised, did not mean backbreaking toil because "settling on the prairie which is ready for the plow is different from plunging into a region covered with timber". All manufacturers benefited from the lower costs of transportation and the much larger radius of business. White concludes with a mixed verdict. The transcontinentals did open up the West to settlement, brought in many thousands of high-tech, highly paid workers and managers, created thousands of towns and cities, oriented the nation onto an east-west axis, and proved highly valuable for the nation as a whole.

On the other hand, too many were built, and they were built too far ahead of actual demand. The result was a bubble that left heavy losses to investors and led to poor management practices. By contrast, as White notes, the lines in the Midwest and East supported by a very large population base, fostered farming, industry, and mining while generating steady profits and receiving few government benefits. The new railroads provided the opportunity for migrants to go out and take a look, with special family tickets, the cost of which could be applied to land purchases offered by the railroads.

Farming the plains was indeed more difficult than back east. Water management was more critical, lightning fires were more prevalent, the weather was more extreme, rainfall was less predictable. The fearful stayed home. The actual migrants looked beyond fears of the unknown. Their chief motivation to move west was to find a better economic life than the one they had. Farmers sought larger, cheaper, and more fertile land; merchants and tradesmen sought new customers and new leadership opportunities. Laborers wanted higher paying work and better conditions. As settlers moved west, they had to face challenges along the way, such as the lack of wood for housing, bad weather like blizzards and droughts, and fearsome tornadoes.

One of the greatest plagues that hit the homesteaders was the Locust Plague which devastated the Great Plains. Fearful that the British Army based in British North America would take Alaska then Russian America by right of conquest , Russia decided to get rid of the territory it held onto since Secretary of State William Seward negotiated with the Russians to acquire the tremendous landmass of Alaska, an area roughly one-fifth the size of the rest of the United States. On March 30, , the U. The transfer ceremony was completed in Sitka on October 18, , as Russian soldiers handed over the territory to the United States Army.

Critics at the time decried the purchase as "Seward's Folly", reasoning that there were no natural resources in the new territory and no one can be bothered to live in such a cold, icy climate. Although the development and settlement of Alaska grew slowly, the discovery of goldfields during the Klondike Gold Rush in , Nome Gold Rush in , and Fairbanks Gold Rush in brought thousands of miners into the territory, thus propelling Alaska's prosperity for decades to come.

Major oil discoveries in the late 20th century made the state rich. In , Washington opened 2,, acres 8, km 2 of unoccupied lands in the Oklahoma territory. On April 22, over , settlers and cattlemen known as "boomers" [] lined up at the border, and when the army's guns and bugles giving the signal, began a mad dash to stake their claims in the Land Run of A witness wrote, "The horsemen had the best of it from the start.

It was a fine race for a few minutes, but soon the riders began to spread out like a fan, and by the time they reached the horizon they were scattered about as far as the eye could see". In the same manner, millions of acres of additional land were opened up and settled in the following four years. Indian wars have occurred throughout the United States though the conflicts are generally separated into two categories; the Indian wars east of the Mississippi River and the Indian wars west of the Mississippi. Bureau of the Census provided an estimate of deaths:. The Indian wars under the government of the United States have been more than 40 in number. They have cost the lives of about 19, white men, women and children, including those killed in individual combats, and the lives of about 30, Indians.

The actual number of killed and wounded Indians must be very much higher than the given Fifty percent additional would be a safe estimate Historian Russell Thornton estimates that from to , the Indian population declined from , to as few as , The depopulation was principally caused by disease as well as warfare. Many tribes in Texas, such as the Karankawan , Akokisa , Bidui and others, were extinguished due to conflicts with Texan settlers. The expansion of migration into the Southeastern United States in the s to the s forced the federal government to deal with the "Indian question".

The Indians were under federal control but were independent of state governments. State legislatures and state judges had no authority on their lands, and the states demanded control. Politically the new Democratic Party of President Andrew Jackson demanded the removal of the Indians out of the southeastern states to new lands in the west, while the Whig Party and the Protestant churches were opposed to removal. The Jacksonian Democracy proved irresistible, as it won the presidential elections of , , and By the "Indian Removal policy" began, to implement the act of Congress signed by Andrew Jackson in Many historians have sharply attacked Jackson.

To motivate Natives reluctant to move, the federal government also promised rifles, blankets, tobacco, and cash. By the Cherokee, the last Indian nation in the South, had signed the removal treaty and relocated to Oklahoma. All the tribes were given new land in the " Indian Territory " which later became Oklahoma. Of the approximate 70, Indians removed, about 18, died from disease, starvation, and exposure on the route.

The impact of the removals was severe. The transplanted tribes had considerable difficulty adapting to their new surroundings and sometimes clashed with the tribes native to the area. The only way for an Indian to remain and avoid removal was to accept the federal offer of acres 2. However, many Natives who took the offer were defrauded by "ravenous speculators" who stole their claims and sold their land to whites.

In Mississippi alone, fraudulent claims reached 3,, acres 15, km 2. Of the five tribes, the Seminole offered the most resistance, hiding out in the Florida swamps and waging a war which cost the U. Indian warriors in the West, using their traditional style of limited, battle-oriented warfare, confronted the U. The Indians emphasized bravery in combat while the Army put its emphasis not so much on individual combat as on building networks of forts, developing a logistics system, and using the telegraph and railroads to coordinate and concentrate its forces. Plains Indian intertribal warfare bore no resemblance to the "modern" warfare practiced by the Americans along European lines, using its vast advantages in population and resources.

Many tribes avoided warfare and others supported the U. The tribes hostile to the government continued to pursue their traditional brand of fighting and, therefore, were unable to have any permanent success against the Army. Indian wars were fought throughout the western regions, with more conflicts in the states bordering Mexico than in the interior states. Arizona ranked highest, with known battles fought within the state's boundaries between Americans and the Natives. Arizona ranked highest in war deaths, with 4, killed, including soldiers, civilians, and Native Americans.

That was more than twice as many as occurred in Texas, the second-highest-ranking state. Most of the deaths in Arizona were caused by the Apache. Michno also says that fifty-one percent of the Indian war battles between and took place in Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico, as well as thirty-seven percent of the casualties in the county west of the Mississippi River. Indians included in this group attacked and harassed emigrant parties and miners crossing the Snake River Valley, which resulted in further retaliation of the white settlements and the intervention of the United States army.

The war resulted in a total of 1, men who have been killed, wounded, and captured from both sides. Unlike other Indian Wars, the Snake War has widely forgotten in United States history due to having only limited coverage of the war. The conflict was fought in — while the American Civil War was still ongoing. Caused by dissolution between the Natives and the white settlers in the region, the war was infamous for the atrocities done between the two parties. White militias destroyed Native villages and killed Indian women and children such as the bloody Sand Creek massacre , and the Indians also raided ranches, farms and killed white families such as the American Ranch massacre and Raid on Godfrey Ranch.

In —, Carson used a scorched earth policy in the Navajo Campaign , burning Navajo fields and homes, and capturing or killing their livestock. He was aided by other Indian tribes with long-standing enmity toward the Navajos, chiefly the Utes. The Apaches under his command conducted ambushes on US cavalries and forts, such as their attack on Cibecue Creek , while also raiding upon prominent farms and ranches, such as their infamous attack on the Empire Ranch that killed three cowboys.

During the Comanche Campaign , the Red River War was fought in —75 in response to the Comanche's dwindling food supply of buffalo, as well as the refusal of a few bands to be inducted in reservations. The war finally ended with a final confrontation between the Comanches and the U. Cavalry in Palo Duro Canyon. The last Comanche war chief, Quanah Parker , surrendered in June , which would finally end the wars fought by Texans and Indians. It was the most successful campaign against the U. By the Treaty of Fort Laramie , the U. With 53 Modoc warriors, Captain Jack held off 1, men of the U.

Army for 7 months. Captain Jack killed Edward Canby. In June , in the Nez Perce War the Nez Perce under Chief Joseph , unwilling to give up their traditional lands and move to a reservation, undertook a 1,mile 2, km fighting retreat from Oregon to near the Canada—US border in Montana. Numbering only warriors, the Nez Perce "battled some 2, American regulars and volunteers of different military units, together with their Indian auxiliaries of many tribes, in a total of eighteen engagements, including four major battles and at least four fiercely contested skirmishes. The conflict began after repeated violations of the Treaty of Fort Laramie once gold was discovered in the hills.

The end of the major Indian wars came at the Wounded Knee massacre on December 29, , where the 7th Cavalry attempted to disarm a Sioux man and precipitated an engagement in which about Sioux men, women, and children were killed. Only thirteen days before, Sitting Bull had been killed with his son Crow Foot in a gun battle with a group of Indian police that had been sent by the American government to arrest him. As the frontier moved westward, the establishment of U. They served as bases for troops at or near strategic areas, particularly for counteracting the Indian presence.

Fort Laramie and Fort Kearny helped protect immigrants crossing the Great Plains and a series of posts in California protected miners. Forts were constructed to launch attacks against the Sioux. As Indian reservations sprang up, the military set up forts to protect them. Forts also guarded the Union Pacific and other rail lines. Fort Omaha , Nebraska, was home to the Department of the Platte , and was responsible for outfitting most Western posts for more than 20 years after its founding in the late s. Fort Huachuca in Arizona was also originally a frontier post and is still in use by the United States Army. Settlers on their way overland to Oregon and California became targets of Indian threats.

Robert L. Munkres read 66 diaries of parties traveling the Oregon Trail between and to estimate the actual dangers they faced from Indian attacks in Nebraska and Wyoming. The vast majority of diarists reported no armed attacks at all. However many did report harassment by Indians who begged or demanded tolls, and stole horses and cattle. A second treaty secured safe passage along the Santa Fe Trail for wagon trains. In return, the tribes would receive, for ten years, annual compensation for damages caused by migrants. In the Far West settlers began to occupy land in Oregon and California before the federal government secured title from the native tribes, causing considerable friction.

In Utah, the Mormons also moved in before federal ownership was obtained. A new policy of establishing reservations came gradually into shape after the boundaries of the "Indian Territory" began to be ignored. In providing for Indian reservations, Congress and the Office of Indian Affairs hoped to de-tribalize Native Americans and prepare them for integration with the rest of American society, the "ultimate incorporation into the great body of our citizen population".

Influential pioneer towns included Omaha , Nebraska City , and St. American attitudes towards Indians during this period ranged from malevolence "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" to misdirected humanitarianism Indians live in "inferior" societies and by assimilation into white society they can be redeemed to somewhat realistic Native Americans and settlers could co-exist in separate but equal societies, dividing up the remaining western land.

Conflicts erupted in the s, resulting in various Indian wars. Such as in the case of Oliver Loving , they would sometimes attack cowboys and their cattle if ever caught crossing in the borders of their land. However, the relationship between cowboys and Native Americans were more mutual than they are portrayed, and the former would occasionally pay a fine of 10 cents per cow for the latter to allow them to travel through their land. After the Civil War, as the volunteer armies disbanded, the regular army cavalry regiments increased in number from six to ten, among them Custer's U. The black units, along with others both cavalry and infantry , collectively became known as the Buffalo Soldiers. According to Robert M. Utley :.

The frontier army was a conventional military force trying to control, by conventional military methods, a people that did not behave like conventional enemies and, indeed, quite often were not enemies at all. This is the most difficult of all military assignments, whether in Africa, Asia, or the American West. Westerners were proud of their leadership in the movement for democracy and equality, a major theme for Frederick Jackson Turner.

The new states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Ohio were more democratic than the parent states back East in terms of politics and society. By the West, especially California and Oregon, led the Progressive movement. Scholars have examined the social history of the west in search of the American character. The history of Kansas , argued historian Carl L. Becker a century ago, reflects American ideals.

He wrote: "The Kansas spirit is the American spirit double distilled. It is a new grafted product of American individualism, American idealism, American intolerance. Kansas is America in microcosm. Scholars have compared the emergence of democracy in America with other countries, regarding the frontier experience. The American frontiersmen relied on individual effort, in the context of very large quantities of unsettled land with weak external enemies. Israel by contrast, operated in a very small geographical zone, surrounded by more powerful neighbors. The Jewish pioneer was not building an individual or family enterprise, but was a conscious participant in nation-building, with a high priority on collective and cooperative planned settlements.

The Israeli pioneers brought in American experts on irrigation and agriculture to provide technical advice. However, they rejected the American frontier model in favor of a European model that supported their political and security concerns. The cities played an essential role in the development of the frontier, as transportation hubs, financial and communications centers, and providers of merchandise, services, and entertainment. They then shipped the cattle out and cattle drives became short-distance affairs. However, the passenger trains were often the targets of armed gangs. Denver's economy before had been rooted in mining; it then grew by expanding its role in railroads, wholesale trade, manufacturing, food processing, and servicing the growing agricultural and ranching hinterland.

Denver had always attracted miners, workers, whores, and travelers. Saloons and gambling dens sprung up overnight. The city fathers boasted of its fine theaters, and especially the Tabor Grand Opera House built in Denver gained regional notoriety with its range of bawdy houses, from the sumptuous quarters of renowned madams to the squalid "cribs" located a few blocks away.

Business was good; visitors spent lavishly, then left town. As long as madams conducted their business discreetly, and "crib girls" did not advertise their availability too crudely, authorities took their bribes and looked the other way. Occasional cleanups and crack downs satisfied the demands for reform. With its giant mountain of copper, Butte, Montana , was the largest, richest, and rowdiest mining camp on the frontier. It was an ethnic stronghold, with the Irish Catholics in control of politics and of the best jobs at the leading mining corporation Anaconda Copper. Ring argues that the library was originally a mechanism of social control, "an antidote to the miners' proclivity for drinking, whoring, and gambling".

It was also designed to promote middle-class values and to convince Easterners that Butte was a cultivated city. European immigrants often built communities of similar religious and ethnic backgrounds. African Americans moved West as soldiers, as well as cowboys, farmhands, saloon workers, cooks, and outlaws. The Buffalo Soldiers were soldiers in the all-black 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments, and 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments of the U.

They had white officers and served in numerous western forts. About 4, black people came to California in Gold Rush days. In , after the end of Reconstruction in the South, several thousand Freedmen moved from Southern states to Kansas. Known as the Exodusters , they were lured by the prospect of good, cheap Homestead Law land and better treatment. The all-black town of Nicodemus, Kansas , which was founded in , was an organized settlement that predates the Exodusters but is often associated with them. Chinese migrants, many of whom were impoverished peasants, provided the major part of the workforce for the building of the Central Pacific portion of the transcontinental railroad.

Most of them went home by when the railroad was finished. The Chinese were generally forced into self-sufficient "Chinatowns" in cities such as San Francisco , Portland , and Seattle. By the s, however, Chinatowns had become clean, safe and attractive tourist destinations. The first Japanese arrived in the U. Japanese were recruited to work on plantations in Hawaii, beginning in By the late 19th Century, more Japanese emigrated to Hawaii and the American mainland. The Issei, or first-generation Japanese immigrants, were not allowed to become U. This did not change until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of , known as the McCarran-Walter Act, which allowed Japanese immigrants to become naturalized U.

There were , Japanese Americans in the U. The great majority of Hispanics who had been living in the former territories of New Spain remained and became American citizens in The 10, or so Californios lived in southern California and after were overshadowed by the hundreds of thousands of arrivals from the east. Those in New Mexico dominated towns and villages that changed little until well into the 20th century. New arrivals from Mexico arrived, especially after the Revolution of terrorized thousands of villages all across Mexico.

Most refugees went to Texas or California, and soon poor barrios appeared in many border towns. Early on there was a criminal element as well. The California "Robin Hood", Joaquin Murieta , led a gang in the s which burned houses, killed miners, and robbed stagecoaches. On the Great Plains very few single men attempted to operate a farm or ranch; farmers clearly understood the need for a hard-working wife, and numerous children, to handle the many chores, including child-rearing, feeding, and clothing the family, managing the housework, and feeding the hired hands. After a generation or so, women increasingly left the fields, thus redefining their roles within the family.

New conveniences such as sewing and washing machines encouraged women to turn to domestic roles. The scientific housekeeping movement, promoted across the land by the media and government extension agents, as well as county fairs which featured achievements in home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm papers, and home economics courses in the schools all contributed to this trend. Although the eastern image of farm life on the prairies emphasizes the isolation of the lonely farmer and farm life, in reality, rural folk created a rich social life for themselves.

They often sponsored activities that combined work, food, and entertainment such as barn raisings , corn huskings, quilting bees, [] Grange meetings , [] church activities, and school functions. The womenfolk organized shared meals and potluck events, as well as extended visits between families. Childhood on the American frontier is contested territory. One group of scholars, following the lead of novelists Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder , argue the rural environment was beneficial to the child's upbringing. Historians Katherine Harris [] and Elliott West [] write that rural upbringing allowed children to break loose from urban hierarchies of age and gender, promoted family interdependence, and at the end produced children who were more self-reliant, mobile, adaptable, responsible, independent and more in touch with nature than their urban or eastern counterparts.

On the other hand, historians Elizabeth Hampsten [] and Lillian Schlissel [] offer a grim portrait of loneliness, privation, abuse, and demanding physical labor from an early age. Riney-Kehrberg takes a middle position. Entrepreneurs set up shops and businesses to cater to the miners. World-famous were the houses of prostitution found in every mining camp worldwide. Chinese women were frequently sold by their families and taken to the camps as prostitutes; they had to send their earnings back to the family in China. She nursed victims of an influenza epidemic; this gave her acceptance in the community and the support of the sheriff. The townspeople were shocked when she was murdered in ; they gave her a lavish funeral and speedily tried and hanged her assailant.

It was not uncommon for bordellos in Western towns to operate openly, without the stigma of East Coast cities. Gambling and prostitution were central to life in these western towns, and only later — as the female population increased, reformers moved in, and other civilizing influences arrived — did prostitution become less blatant and less common. Whenever a new settlement or mining camp started one of the first buildings or tents erected would be a gambling hall. As the population grew, gambling halls were typically the largest and most ornately decorated buildings in any town and often housed a bar, stage for entertainment, and hotel rooms for guests. These establishments were a driving force behind the local economy and many towns measured their prosperity by the number of gambling halls and professional gamblers they had.

Towns that were friendly to gambling were typically known to sports as "wide-awake" or "wide-open". The cowboys had been accumulating their wages and postponing their pleasures until they finally arrived in town with money to wager. Such an atmosphere also invited trouble and such towns also developed reputations as lawless and dangerous places. Historian Waddy W. Moore uses court records to show that on the sparsely settled Arkansas frontier lawlessness was common. He distinguished two types of crimes: unprofessional dueling , crimes of drunkenness, selling whiskey to the Indians, cutting trees on federal land and professional rustling , highway robbery , counterfeiting. Bandits, typically in groups of two or three, rarely attacked stagecoaches with a guard carrying a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun; it proved less risky to rob teamsters, people on foot, and solitary horsemen, [] while bank robberies themselves were harder to pull off due to the security of the establishment.

When criminals were convicted, the punishment was severe. Law enforcement emphasized maintaining stability more than armed combat, focusing on drunkenness, disarming cowboys who violated gun-control edicts and dealing with flagrant breaches of gambling and prostitution ordinances. Dykstra argues that the violent image of the cattle towns in film and fiction is largely a myth. The real Dodge City, he says, was the headquarters for the buffalo-hide trade of the Southern Plains and one of the West's principal cattle towns, a sale and shipping point for cattle arriving from Texas.

He states there is a "second Dodge City" that belongs to the popular imagination and thrives as a cultural metaphor for violence, chaos, and depravity. A contemporary eyewitness of Hays City, Kansas, paints a vivid image of this cattle town:. Hays City by lamplight was remarkably lively, but not very moral. The streets blazed with a reflection from saloons, and a glance within showed floors crowded with dancers, the gaily dressed women striving to hide with ribbons and paint the terrible lines which that grim artist, Dissipation, loves to draw upon such faces To the music of violins and the stamping of feet the dance went on, and we saw in the giddy maze old men who must have been pirouetting on the very edge of their graves.

It has been acknowledged that the popular portrayal of Dodge City in film and fiction carries a note of truth, however, as gun crime was rampant in the city before the establishment of a local government. Soon after the city's residents officially established their first municipal government, however, a law banning concealed firearms was enacted and crime was reduced soon afterward. Similar laws were passed in other frontier towns to reduce the rate of gun crime as well. Carrying of guns within the city limits of a frontier town was generally prohibited.

Laws barring people from carrying weapons were commonplace, from Dodge City to Tombstone. When Dodge City residents first formed their municipal government, one of the very first laws enacted was a ban on concealed carry. The ban was soon after expanded to open carry, too. The Hollywood image of the gunslinger marching through town with two Colts on his hips is just that — a Hollywood image, created for its dramatic effect. Tombstone, Arizona , was a turbulent mining town that flourished longer than most, from to In the newly arrived Earp brothers bought shares in the Vizina mine, water rights, and gambling concessions, but Virgil , Wyatt , and Morgan Earp obtained positions at different times as federal and local lawmen.

After more than a year of threats and feuding, they, along with Doc Holliday , killed three outlaws in the Gunfight at the O. Corral , the most famous gunfight of the Old West. In the aftermath, Virgil Earp was maimed in an ambush, and Morgan Earp was assassinated while playing billiards. Wyatt and others, including his brothers James Earp and Warren Earp , pursued those they believed responsible in an extra-legal vendetta and warrants were issued for their arrest in the murder of Frank Stilwell. The Cochise County Cowboys were one of the first organized crime syndicates in the United States, and their demise came at the hands of Wyatt Earp.

Western story tellers and film makers featured the gunfight in many Western productions. They solidified Earp's modern reputation as the Old West's deadliest gunman. Many were misfits and drifters who roamed the West avoiding the law. When outlaw gangs were near, towns would occasionally raise a posse to drive them out or capture them. Seeing that the need to combat the bandits was a growing business opportunity, Allan Pinkerton ordered his National Detective Agency, founded in , to open branches in the West, and they got into the business of pursuing and capturing outlaws.

Banditry was a major issue in California after , as thousands of young men detached from family or community moved into a land with few law enforcement mechanisms. To combat this, the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was established to give drumhead trials and death sentences to well-known offenders. As such, other earlier settlements created their private agencies to protect communities due to the lack of peace-keeping establishments. Similar vigilance committees also existed in Texas, and their main objective was to stamp out lawlessness and rid communities of desperadoes and rustlers.

Criminals caught by these vigilance committees were treated cruelly; often hung or shot without any form of trial. Civilians also took arms to defend themselves in the Old West, sometimes siding with lawmen Coffeyville Bank Robbery , or siding with outlaws Battle of Ingalls. In the Post-Civil War frontier, over whites, 34 blacks, and 75 others were victims of lynching. Historian Michael J. Pfeifer writes, "Contrary to the popular understanding, early territorial lynching did not flow from an absence or distance of law enforcement but rather from the social instability of early communities and their contest for property, status, and the definition of social order.

The names and exploits of Western gunslingers took a major role in American folklore, fiction and film. Their guns and costumes became children's toys for make-believe shootouts. Actual gunfights in the Old West were more episodic than being a common thing, but when gunfights did occur, the cause for each varied. Range wars were infamous armed conflicts that took place in the "open range" of the American frontier. The subject of these conflicts was the control of lands freely used for farming and cattle grazing which gave the conflict its name.

Feuds involving families and bloodlines also occurred much in the frontier. The end of the bison herds opened up millions of acres for cattle ranching. After the Civil War, Texas ranchers raised large herds of longhorn cattle. So once fattened, the ranchers and their cowboys drove the herds north along the Western, Chisholm, and Shawnee trails. The cattle were shipped to Chicago, St. Louis, and points east for slaughter and consumption in the fast-growing cities. The Chisholm Trail , laid out by cattleman Joseph McCoy along an old trail marked by Jesse Chisholm, was the major artery of cattle commerce, carrying over 1. The long drives were treacherous, especially crossing water such as the Brazos and the Red River and when they had to fend off Indians and rustlers looking to make off with their cattle.

A typical drive would take three to four months and contained two miles 3 km of cattle six abreast. By the s and s, cattle ranches expanded further north into new grazing grounds and replaced the bison herds in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Nebraska, and the Dakota territory, using the rails to ship to both coasts. Many of the largest ranches were owned by Scottish and English financiers. The single largest cattle ranch in the entire West was owned by American John W. Iliff, "cattle king of the Plains", operating in Colorado and Wyoming. Though less hardy and more disease-prone, these breeds produced better-tasting beef and matured faster.

The funding for the cattle industry came largely from British sources, as the European investors engaged in a speculative extravaganza—a "bubble". Graham concludes the mania was founded on genuine opportunity, as well as "exaggeration, gullibility, inadequate communications, dishonesty, and incompetence". A severe winter engulfed the plains toward the end of and well into , locking the prairie grass under ice and crusted snow which starving herds could not penetrate.

Those in New Mexico dominated towns and villages that changed Abuse Of Power: The Amercian And French Revolution until well into the 20th century. The Prosocial Behaviour In Children under his command conducted ambushes on Abuse Of Power: The Amercian And French Revolution cavalries and forts, Abuse Of Power: The Amercian And French Revolution as their attack on Cibecue Creekwhile polypropylene advantages and disadvantages raiding upon prominent farms and ranches, such as their infamous attack on the Empire Ranch that killed three cowboys. Leading theorist Frederick Jackson Turner went deeper, arguing that the frontier was the scene of a defining process of American civilization: "The frontier," he asserted, "promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American people.