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USHC 4.1
Summarize the
impact that government policy and the construction of the transcontinental
railroads had on the development of the national market and on the culture of Native American
peoples:
Government policy:
Transcontinental railroad:
National market:
Native Americans:
During and after the Civil War, the United States entered a period of rapid economic growth
and westward expansion fostered by government policies. This growth created a national
market but also threatened the cultural survival of the Native Americans of the West.
The Civil War marked an important turning point in the development of a national system of
transportation.
Railroad construction prior to the Civil War had impacted the growing tension between the regions as
Northerners and Southerners vied for routes to the Pacific Ocean. The Kansas-Nebraska Act had
been passed in order to provide a route west for the railroad. The absence of Southern Democrats
from Congress during the war allowed Republicans to pass laws that reflected their understanding of
the broader role of the national government. The authorization of subsidies in the form of land grants
[The Pacific Railway Act] promoted the building of transcontinental railroads because it provided
both a route and land to sell to raise capital for the building of the tracks. The passage of a law
granting western farm land to settlers for free as long as they created a home there [Homestead Act]
also promoted the growth of the west and of the national economy. The transcontinental railroad
fostered the development of a national market by linking all parts of the country. The railroad
provided access for farmers and ranchers to markets in the east as well as access for emerging
industries to the natural resources of the west.
The building of railroads profoundly impacted Native Americans in the West. Because the roaming
buffalo posed a threat to the integrity of railroad tracks on the plains, the railroad encouraged the
killing of the bison. Plains Indians, largely dependent on the buffalo, could no
longer sustain themselves. White settlers were attracted to the west by the availability of free land
with access to markets via the railroad. Just as the Trail of Tears had resulted in the removal of
eastern Native American tribes to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma (USHC 2.1), a similar policy of
moving native peoples off of their traditional lands to reservations to make way for white settlers was
followed for western tribes. Native peoples were forced to agree to treaties that moved them onto
smaller reservations where they were taken advantage of by corrupt agents of the U.S. government.
Some Native Americans resisted but were relentlessly pursued in a series of Indian Wars by the
United States cavalry. Others acquiesced only to be driven from the reservations because of the
discovery of some precious mineral in the lands they had been granted. Criticisms of the United
States policy of breaking treaties with the Native Americans resulted in a change of policy. The new
policy attempted to foster Native American assimilation into American society [Dawes Severalty
Act]. Tribal lands were divided into farming parcels and given to individual families. This
arrangement did not match the cultural habits of native peoples who believed in tribal ownership of
lands and who did not know how to be farmers. As a result, many Native Americans lost the land to
whites. In an additional attempt to promote assimilation, Native American children were taken from
their families and sent to boarding schools in the east where they were taught English and how to
dress and act like white Americans, thus losing their cultural heritage.
Native Americans’ attempts to revive their traditions, such as the Ghost Dance, were viewed as
a threat by the United States army and resulted in a massacre at Wounded Knee, South
Dakota. Native Americans were left in poverty and cultural decline, without a voice in
America’s democracy.