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Crash Course 24 - Westward Expansion

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material that corresponds to Chapter 16 (Period 6)

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hi I'm John Green this is Crash Course US history and today we leave behind the world of industry and corporations to talk about the Wild Wild West spoiler alert have died of dysentery in the Wild Wild West in American mythology is the home of cowboys and Gunslingers and houses of ill repute and freedom from pesky government interference but in fact it was probably not as wild as we've been told spin Honey Boo Boo we are literally in the myth making business symbol for the Hollywood Western the myth of the frontier probably found its best expression in Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 lecture the you can sub the frontier in American history in democracy and economic Mobility for 18th and 19th century Americans the Western frontier represented the opportunity to start over and possibly to strike it rich by dint of one's own individual effort you can back when the West was like Ohio man who lit out for the uncorrupted on occupied territories seek their Fortune but in reality most western settlers went not as individuals but as members of a family or as part of an immigrant group and they weren't feeling up unoccupied space Rebecca's most of that territory was home to American Indians and migrants from Europe the West was settled by Chinese people and buy Mexican migrant labourers and former slaves Plus they were plenty of Mexicans living there already who became Americans with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the whole West is a place of rugged individualism in Independence turns out to be an simplification I mean the Federal Government after all had to pass the law that spurred homesteading then had to clear out American Indians already living there and had to sponsor the real roads that allowed the West to grow in the first place in the Government Bond for Henry David Thoreau what's the state park the government lower didn't create the desire to settle the west but they did make it possible for people who wanted to live out west to do so for two reasons first without railroads there would be no way to bring stops or other Goods to Market I mean I guess you could dig a canal across Kansas but if you've ever been to Kansas that is not a tantalizing proposition is Dave brought the goods that people needed such as tools for planting and sewing shoes for wearing books for putting on your shelf and pretending to have read railroads allowed settlers to connected with the modernity that was becoming the Hallmark of the industrialized world in the 19th century last week that the federal government played a key role in financing the Transcontinental Railroad into the actor often to their financial detriment away to the federal government supported the railroads and Western settlement and investment in general with by Leading military Expeditions against American Indians rounding them up on ever smaller reservations and destroying their culture let's go to the Native Americans off their land white people wanted need to set down railroad tracks and then for farming but eventually it was also exploited from minerals like gold and iron other stuff that makes me work I mean would you really want a territory the Badlands unless it had valuable minerals Western settlement of the Oregon Trail time did not result in huge conflicts with Native Americans stop increasingly bloody conflicts that lasted pretty much until 1890 before the end of the war between the states Queen American Indians and whites General Philip Sheridan set out to destroy the Indians way of life burning Villages and killing their horses and especially the Buffalo that was faces of the Plains tribes existence there were about thirty million buffalo in the US in 1800 by 1886 the Smithsonian Institute had difficulty finding 25 good specimens in addition to violent resistance some Indians turn to a spiritual movement to try to preserve their traditional way of life around believe that if they gathered together to dance and engage in religious rituals eventually the white man would disappear in the Buffalo would return and give them the Indians traditional customs in the combined force of Sioux and Cheyenne Warriors completely destroyed George Custer's force of 250 Calvary men at Little Bighorn in 1876 and Geronimo took years to subdue Southwest Western Native Americans were all defeated by 1890 and the majority were moved to reservations just like the Will Smith movie this is about to get even more pretty mountains and Western Landscapes and stuff while I deliver this next bit the US government ended the treaty system that had since the American Revolution treated Native Americans as if they were Nations and then with the Dawes Act of 1887 the land set hi for the Indians were allowed into individual families rather than to tribe Indians Who quote adopted the habits of civilized life which in this case men becoming small-scale into ballistic Jeffersonian Farmers would be granted citizenship and there were supposed to be some protections to prevent their land from falling out of Native American possession but these protections were not particular protect can much of the Indian land was purchased either by white settlers or by speculators after the passage of the Dawes Act Indian of the 138 million acres of land in there voice time for the mystery document the rules here are simple I guess the author the mystery document and then you get to see me get shocked when I'm wrong right I have seen the great father Chief the next great Chief the commissioner Chief the law Chief and many other law cheats and they all say they are my friends that I shall have justice but won't all their mouths talk right I do not understand why nothing is done for my people I have heard talk and talk but nothing is done words do not pay for my dead people they do not pay for my country now overrun by white men they do not protect my father's grave good words will not what's my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves I am tired of talking it comes to nothing it makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and all the open promises I mean I could be almost any American Indian leaders in 10 seconds I don't get punished and start Sitting Bull Crazy Horse Geronimo Chief Bigfoot to cook Chief Oshkosh Chief Joseph and now let us move from tragedy to tragedy Kinderland enforcing Indians onto reservations the Bureau of Indian Affairs instituted a policy that amounted to cultural genocide Carlisle Pennsylvania where Indian children were forcefully removed from their families to be civilized this meant teaching them English taking away their clothes their names and their family connection Z idea put succinctly was the quote kill the Indian save the man 18 century like something similar was happening in South Africa and Chile and even to First Peoples in Canada so good Canada although the slower pace of Western settlement meant that there was much Bloodshed so. Another point to Canada American boarding school policy was at least it was short-lived compared with Australian Aboriginal children from Stanley's in placing them with white Foster families which lasted until the 1970s we need to cheer this episode up with how is in smoking solitary in the saddle alone in his emphysema truly that is the actual with the men and women but mostly men who stood apart from the just realizing country is the last of Jefferson's rugged individuals once again we have the railroad to thing for image of the cowboy like those massive cattle drive have millions of cows across open range Texas they ended it sounds like Abilene in Wichita and Dodge City because that's where the railheads were boys would have just driven their cattle in Endless circles and without industrial meat processing there wouldn't have been a market for all that beef and it was a lot of beef I'm actually talking about the mid-1880s the days of open-range ranching we're coming to an end as ranchers begin to enclose more and more land and set up their businesses close YouTube you guessed it Railroad Station fly in the face of the mythical Jeffersonian Yeoman farmer ideal agricultural work was a family affair many women bore huge burdens on Western Farms as can be seen in this excerpt from a farm woman in Arizona get up turn out my chicken call a pail of water make a fire put potatoes to cook brush and sweep half inch of dust off floor feed three litters of chickens than mix biscuits get breakfast milk the Sun work in the house and this morning had to go 1/2 Mile after Kathy's production of Wheat and corn for National and even International markets rather than trying to eke out subsistence found themselves in Australia and Argentina and this International competition pushed prices more in the Great Plains were remarkably productive agriculturally wouldn't be nearly as good for producing crops without massive irrigation project for planes culture comes from a massive underground wake the Ogallala Aquifer don't worry by the way the aquifer is fed by Magic and permanent H2O Factory in the core of the earth than you can learn about in hang show crash horse chemistry what's going dry my God this is a depressing episode anyway large capital investment solidated agricultural Enterprises that start to look more like agribusiness than Family Farms ocean and chemical fertilizers some of them or not by families but my big corporations like the Southern Pacific Railroad and they were work by migrant Farm laborers from China to Philippines can Mexico has Henry George a Critic of late 19th century corporate capitalism wrote California is not a country of farms but of plantations and Estates play it's really easy to get caught up in the excitement of industrial capitalism with its robber barons and new technologies and fancy cities OB because it's the one in which we live good for chickens 1260 probably 12 because eggs do come in dozens some massive agricultural Surplus contemporary Farms create in the efficient Transportation Network that get that request to me quickly makes everything else possible from YouTube to Chevy Volt no matter who you are you benefit from the products that result from that massive Surplus why we're watching YouTube right now husband redid change a lot in late 19th century America as we came to embrace the market-driven ethos that we either celebrate or try these days in the wild west ends up looking a lot more like industrial capitalism then like a Larry McMurtry novel turn the buys to increase productivity in which shaved by an increasingly International economic system they were separated by the most important event in American history the Civil War I know that ain't the mythologizing you'll find in Tombstone but it is true thanks for watching I'll see you next week is produced and directed by Stan Miller our script supervisor is Meredith Danko the associate producer of the show is Danica Johnson the show is written by my high school history teacher Raul Meyer rosianna halse Rojas myself and our Graphics team is Todd Cafe every week There's new caption for the Liberty if you'd like to suggest one you can do sew-in comments when you can also ask questions about to do that with historians plane crash

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Crash Course 24 - Westward Expansion

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