Indian Territory After the Civil War What Next? www.bluecerealeducation.com Antebellum I.T. (Indian Territory Before the Civil War) Postbellum I.T. (Indian Territory After the Civil War) 1
Post-Civil War Treaties Took away land in I.T. from 5CT Took away more land from the 5CT Post-Civil War Treaties Required the 5CT to give Full Citizenship to Freedmen Land, Education, Suffrage, etc. (How much of a change this was varied greatly) Post-Civil War Treaties Begins push towards Private Land Ownership (Why?) 2
Eventually I.T. Will Look Something Like Eventually I.T. Will Look Something Like Where Will These New Tribes Come From? 3
The Plains Amerindians Sioux (Lakota), Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Tonkawa, Crow, Pawnee, Arapaho, Nez Perce, Iowa, Kaw, Osage, Ponca, Wichita, and many others The Plains Amerindians Some were mostly nomadic, following the buffalo and only growing a few things from time to time 4
The Plains Amerindians Others were mostly settled, or agricultural, raising crops and going off to hunt buffalo from time to time. The Plains Amerindians Not all of them were peaceful, not all were violent, some cooperated with the white guys more easily than others. Even within tribes or families, not everyone did things the same way. People are complicated. Why Start Messing With The Plains Tribes? 5
Homesteaders and Sod Busters Homestead Act - 1862 Signed by President Lincoln Granted 160 acres of undeveloped land in the West to any family head or person over 21 years of age Pay a small fee, live on land for 5 years, and make improvements OWN IT After the Civil War, more & more Homesteaders came to the Great Plains 6
Homestead Cabin: Beatrice, Nebraska What do you notice about it? (1st homestead after the Homestead Act) Immigrants came to claim their part of the American Dream many responding to ads like this one placed in a Czech newspaper. Who placed these ads, and why? The Log Cabin As a symbol As a home and shelter As an anchor (Is that good or bad?) 7
Not Everybody Could Be All Fancy-Pants About It Besides, on the Great Plains, logs for cabins were not always available. Building materials were scarce - so people had to use what was available. 8
Without trees or stone to build with, homesteaders had to rely on the only available building material - prairie sod. The resulting structures soddies Sod was cut with special plows, or by hand with an axe or shovel. Roofs used timber if available. Otherwise, roofs were built up with twigs, branches, bushes and straw. Soddie People hung sheets from the ceiling to keep dirt from dropping into their food or an occasional snake from falling on to their bed. Roofs that became too wet sometimes collapsed. 9
For the stuff inside, mail order was often the only way to go on the frontier. Sod House North of Cleo Springs, Oklahoma 10
Weather could be severe on the Plains Blizzards could trap livestock and homesteaders under the snow. During the long winter of 1886, horses and cattle died when their breaths froze over the ends of their noses, suffocating them. But Nature has such a wonderful variety of ways in which to hurt you! 11
Summer temperatures could top 120 degrees. Droughts, rainstorms, floods, hail, tornadoes, grasshopper swarms pretty much anything could destroy your crops or wipe out your home and livelihood without anything you could do to stop it. Storm Shelter for Tornados Timmy? Even good conditions could present challenges. The land was flat and treeless and the sky seemed to go on forever. On a tall-grass prairie, the grass sometimes grew to be more than 6 feet tall... 12
Dugouts as the name suggests were homes dug out of an existing hillside, small cave, etc. They were at least partly rather sturdy, tended to stay cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter. Building a home and establishing a farm could be an immense challenge - but the free land, abundant wildlife, and richness of the soil was hard to resist. 13
Eventually a successful farm family might be able to build a frame house! Proud family posing beside their new frame house and their not-as-new soddie. Farmers commonly used ALL of the farm for crops - literally planting right up to the front door. 14
There was endless work on a prairie farm. Women worked along side their husbands as well as doing their jobs as mother and homemaker. Because wood was scarce, buffalo chips were gathered and burned for cooking and/or heating. Digging a Well / Hauling Water 15
Of Course, There Were GOOD TIMES As Well There was spinning 16
and Quilting & Gardening - And what s more fun than SCHOOL?!? It will eventually be the western states who first give women the vote BEFORE the 19 th Amendment. Why? 17
www.bluecerealeducation.com 18