In 1783 Britain recognised the American colonies as an independent nation. At first there were only 13 colonies only on the east coast of what is now the USA. However in the late 18th century and the early 19th century the population of the USA grew rapidly. Immigrants from Europe poured into the country including many from Germany. Meanwhile the USA expanded westward.
In 1803 American territory was greatly increased by the Louisiana purchase. France claimed a vast amount of land in central North America around the Missouri River and the Arkansas River. In 1803 Napoleon agreed to sell the lot for $15 million. Buying the French land meant there was now no bar to the USA spreading across the continent to the Pacific Ocean.
The Mexican War and the Pacific Coast
The USA also took territory from Mexico. The Mexican War was fought from 1846 to 1848. The war was ended by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848. Mexico ceded New Mexico and California to the USA.
The population of California boomed when a gold rush occurred. Gold was discovered at Sutters Mill on 24 January 1848. In the fall of 1848 newspapers in the East published the news that gold could be found in California and a gold rush began. By early 1849 large numbers of men set out for California hoping to make their fortune. By 1852 the population of California reached 250,000. The huge wave of migrants created a huge demand for industries products and the Californian economy prospered. California was admitted to the union as a state in 1850.
There was also a gold rush in Colorado in 1859. (Colorado became a state in 1876). Another gold rush occurred in the Black Hills of Dakota in 1874.
Meanwhile, in the 1840s and 1850s, many settlers traveled along the Oregon Trail. The trail was used by trappers from the early 19th century but the first wagon train traveled along it in 1842. It was followed by many others but railroads eventually made the trail obsolete. Oregon was admitted to the union as a state in 1859.
The Native Americans
Of course the American West was already inhabited. In parts of North America farming was not possible. So in California people lived by hunting and fishing and gathering seeds like acorns. In the Great Basin (stretching across Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming and Colorado) food was scarce so people hunted animals like rabbits and ducks. They collected nuts and berries.
In the Northwest food was more easily available. People did not farm but the sea and rivers had abundant fish. They lived in houses made of cedar planks. The people of the Northwest are also famous for their wooden memorials called totem poles, which told the stories of families. In the Northeast people held feasts at which the hosts gave away many gifts. That was called a potlatch.
On the Great Plains people lived by hunting bison. Before horses were introduced in the 1500s they hunted them by approaching disguised as wolves. Sometimes whole herds of bison were stampeded over a cliff.
The bison provided food. The meat was often dried in the sun or over a fire. Sometimes it was mixed with dried berries to make a food called pemmican. Bison skins provided clothes and they were also wrapped over a frame of wooden poles to make a tipi.
Nomadic tribes transported goods on a travois, a A shaped frame of spruce poles tied with rawhide. The travois was pulled by dogs of horses.
However this way of life was destroyed by an influx of immigrants. Westward expansion inevitably meant wars with the plains Indians. From the 1860s to the 1880s a series of wars were fought.
Eventually all the Indian Wars were won by the whites because of their superior technology. They also hunted the buffalo, the main food supply, almost to extinction. The plains tribes such as the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Sioux were all forced to move onto reservations.
Conditions on the reservations were appalling. Rations were inadequate and in some cases there was near starvation. Then in 1888 a Pauite Indian called Wovok claimed he was the messiah. He claimed that soon North America would be restored to the Natives and the plains would run black with buffalo again. His followers did the ghost dance. This new religious movement alarmed the white men. It ended with a massacre at Wounded Knee on 29 December 1890. Soldiers were sent to disarm a group of Indians but one man refused to surrender his gun. Somebody started shooting and the rest of the soldiers followed killing many Indians (possibly as many as 350). The massacre at Wounded Knee marked the end of the Indian Wars and the final triumph of the white man.
The year 1890 was significant for another reason. By then the frontier had disappeared as settlers moved across the continent.
Homesteaders
In the late 19th century the population of the USA grew very rapidly. In 1860 the population was 31 million. By 1900 it was almost 76 million. Immigrants from Europe poured into the USA hoping for a better life. Many people were lured by the Homesteader Act of 1862. Settlers were offered 160 acres of land free provided they agreed to till it for 5 years.
Farmers in the American West were helped by new technology. Cyrus McCormick invented a mechanical reaper in 1834. John Deere (1804-1886) invented the steel plough in 1838. In 1854 the first successful self-governing windmill (that changed direction automatically to face the wind) was made. In 1874 barbed wire was patented. Meanwhile in 1866 a man named Charles Goodnight (1836-1929) invented the chuck wagon.
Nevertheless life was hard for the homesteaders. Home, at least at first was often a single room cabin made of sods piled on top eachother to form walls and laid across a wooden frame to form a roof. Or cabins were made of logs with dried mud between the gaps to make them airtight. The roof wad made of wooden shingles. At first floors were of dirt but later of wood. Cooking was done of an iron stove and cabins were lit by oil lamps. However life gradually became more comfortable in the West.
There were also many cattle ranches in the American West. However life as a cowboy was just as hard as life as a farmer. The cowboys worked long hours for low pay and the work was dangerous. Cowboys wore chaps to protect their legs from brush and stetsons to protect their heads from sun and rain. They wore riding boots with spurs to control their horses.
At first cattle grazed freely on the open range (although later their movement was restricted by barbed wire fences). Every year cowboys rounded up cattle and took them on long trails to be shipped by rail to market. In Kansas cow towns grew up near cattle trails and railroads. These included Ellsworth, Abilene and Dodge City.
However a very bad winter in 1886-87 killed many cattle. Then the spread of barbed wire restricted the movement of cattle and the spread of the railroads made long cattle drives unnecessary.
Other towns sprung up in the West when precious metals were found. Among them was Tombstone, Arizona. It was founded in 1877 when a prospector named Ed Schiefflin discovered silver there. Tombstone is also infamous for being the location of the gunfight at the OK Corral on 26 October 1881.
However not all towns were successful. Some towns sprang up when precious metals were found but they were abandoned when the mines were exhausted. They then became ghost towns.
At first the main means of travelling on land in the West was the stagecoach. As their name suggests they travelled in stages of 10 to 20 miles. However the American railroad network grew rapidly in the late 19th century. In 1850 there were 9,000 miles of railways. By 1900 there were 190,000 miles. The first transcontinental railway was completed in 1869.
At first mail was carried by stagecoach or by the Pony Express. Express mail was carried by a horse and rider between way stations about 15 miles apart. The Pony Express could carry letters from Missouri to California in 10 days. However the Pony Express only lasted 18 months. It started on 3 April 1860 but in October 1861 a transcontinental telegraph line was established. The Pony Express could not compete.
Before the railroads were built river transport was also very important in the West. By the mid-19th century steam powered paddle wheelers carried iron and coal, grain and livestock on the rivers such as the Missouri. They also carried passengers. For those who could afford it there were very comfortable cabins and gambling in saloons on board.
Law and order was a problem in the West as it was everywhere else. Cattle rustling was common and as a result groups of vigilantes formed to deal with the problem.
Among infamous outlaws was Billy the Kid (1859-1891). He was born Henry McCarty but later called himself William Bonney. He was shot by Pat Garrett on 14 July 1881. Another notorious outlaw was Jesse james. His criminal career ended when he was shot from behind by Bob Ford. Belle Starr was a female outlaw. She was born Myra Belle Shirley in 1849. She was shot in the back in 1889.
In 1855 a Scot named Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884) formed the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to track down robbers.
Other famous characters of the American West include William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill (1846-1917). He got his nickname because he hunted buffalo for the Kansas Pacific Railroad in 1867-68. Buffalo meat was used to feed railroad crews. From 1883 Cody ran a Wild West show. It featured Annie Oakley (1860-1926). Her real name was Phoebe Ann Moses and she was known for her remarkable marksmanship.
Wild Bill Hickock was born in William Butler Hicock in 1837. He worked as a scout and later as a marshal. He was shot in the back in 1876.
John Holliday known as Doc Holliday was born in 1842. He was a dentist and in 1878 he moved to Dodge City, Kansas. With his friend Wyatt Earp he took part in the gunfight at the OK Corral. Holliday died of tuberculosis in 1887.
By the 1890s the American West had disappeared. The empty land had been settled and there was no longer a frontier. Railroads brought a more comfortable and civilised life. All resistance by the Native Americans had been crushed. Yet the Wild West became legendary. The writer Owen Wister (1860-1909) led the way in writing western novels. Later a man named Zane Grey (1872-1939) wrote stories about the West. When moving films were invented western films appeared. The star of many early westerns was Tom Mix (1880-1940). Meanwhile the artist Frederic Remington (1861-1909) made many paintings of the West. In the 1960s several western tv series were made
