Full Answer
What was the first settlement in the Great Plains?
European Settlement of the Great Plains. The main settlement of the Great Plains occurred after the 1840 migrations to Oregon and the 1849 Gold Rush to California. Environmental historian William Cronon has interpreted the history of the Great Plains in terms of narrative.
How did settlers secure land on the Great Plains?
Settlers soon had other options for securing Plains land. Following the 1862 Morrill Act, which allocated public lands to the states for the purpose of supporting agricultural colleges, settlers could purchase scrip, which then could be used to buy land at $1.25 an acre.
Why did farmers leave the Great Plains in the 1930s?
Settlement came in years of good rains, so the Great Plains were overpopulated in the first rush. A heavy emigration followed the twin blows of drought and economic depression in the 1930s. Many grain farmers left because their farms were too small and more vulnerable to drought than the cattle ranches.
How did overgrazing affect the Great Plains?
The overgrazed Plains were depleted of the perennial grasses that had supported one steer on every two acres and were seeded with less nutritious annuals that supported one steer per 5 to 10 acres. As perennials declined, wind and water erosion increased and topsoils were lost. Donald Worster calls the results an ecological disaster.
What increased settlement in the Great Plains?
European immigrants flooded onto the Great Plains, seeking political or religious freedom, or simply to escape poverty in their own country. Younger sons from the eastern seaboard - where the population was growing and land was becoming more expensive - went because it was a chance to own their own land.
What caused rapid settlement in the Great Plains?
The completion of the railroads to the West following the Civil War opened up vast areas of the region to settlement and economic development.
Which of the following was the main reason for the rapid settlement of the Great Plains during 1800?
Which of the following was the MAIN reason for the RAPID settlement of the GREAT PLAINS during the late 1800s? Congress passed a law allowing people to claims public land and CONVERT it to PRIVATE PROPERTY through HOMESTEADING.
What factor caused the greatest increase in settlement of the Great Plains after the Civil War?
Encouraged by the Homestead Act of 1862 which gave willing farmers land on the Great Plains, and new technologies which allowed people to live in more challenging environments, farmers and immigrants flocked to the Great Plains during the decades after the Civil War.
What were two reasons the United States encouraged settlement of the Great Plains?
One was to speed up the settlement of the United States as it was continuing to grow in people and was gaining land westward. Another was the need for food as the population in the large cities of the eastern seaboard was growing at a fast pace. They looked west into the Great Plains to seek land to grow crops.
Who settled on the Great Plains quizlet?
Terms in this set (6) 1a) What groups settled in the Great Plains? African Americans and Scandinavians from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.
What encouraged settlers to move west to Great Plains?
The Homestead Act encouraged settlers to move to the Great Plains. Life was hard, but settlers discovered that they could grow wheat using new technologies. By 1890 the land had been settled and farmed, and there was no longer a true frontier in the United States.
What were the 5 reasons for westward expansion?
What were 5 reasons for westward expansion?free land railroad gold and silver adventure and opportunity cattleWhat were some challenges the cowboys faced on the long drive?Violent storms, wind, rain, moving rivers, stampedes, rustlers, hot sun, discrimination, and 15 hours on the saddle38 more rows
What were the two causes of a rise in settlement in the West?
Gold rush and mining opportunities (silver in Nevada) The opportunity to work in the cattle industry; to be a “cowboy” Faster travel to the West by railroad; availability of supplies due to the railroad. The opportunity to own land cheaply under the Homestead Act.
Who settled the Great Plains?
The Great Plains were sparsely populated until about 1600. Spanish colonists from Mexico had begun occupying the southern plains in the 16th century and had brought with them horses and cattle. The introduction of the horse subsequently gave rise to a flourishing Plains Indian culture.
When was the Great Plains settled?
The Great Plains were sparsely populated until about 1600. Spanish colonists from Mexico had begun occupying the southern plains in the 16th century and had brought with them horses and cattle. The introduction of the horse subsequently gave rise to a flourishing Plains Indian culture.
What encouraged settlers to move west to Great Plains?
The Homestead Act encouraged settlers to move to the Great Plains. Life was hard, but settlers discovered that they could grow wheat using new technologies. By 1890 the land had been settled and farmed, and there was no longer a true frontier in the United States.
What was the main reason for westward expansion in the late 1800s?
Westward expansion, the 19th-century movement of settlers into the American West, began with the Louisiana Purchase and was fueled by the Gold Rush, the Oregon Trail and a belief in "manifest destiny."
How did the geography and climate of the Great Plains influence migration and settlement patterns?
The vast, open space of the Great Plains was attractive to settlers but the climate made it difficult to settle there. Settlers had to adapt to the land in new ways. Because the Great Plains were comprised of dry grasslands, trees only grew along rivers and streams. This meant that settlers had little access to timber.
Answer
Remember the Homestead Act? This was the act that was controversial prior to the Civil War. It had difficulty getting passed because the government was concerned about new states being founded and tipping the balance of free states and slave states. Eventually Lincoln got this law passed. Americans were given acres of land to settle.
New questions in History
Which US president was strongly associated with the spoils system? A.George Washington B.John Quincy Adams C.Andrew Jackson D. Thomas Jefferson
What was the failure of the Great Plains?
The rate of failure in both the Canadian and U.S. Great Plains points to the overextension of farming that the liberal land laws had encouraged . The gap between the number of land entries and the number of patents issued was glaring: in the Dominion Lands, for example, only 40 percent of homestead entries culminated in a title, and an unknown portion of those that did quickly passed into the hands of speculators. The end of the Dominion policy came in 1930, with the completion of transfer of remaining lands and resources to the provincial governments. In the United States the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 withdrew from homesteading virtually all the remaining desirable land, though the 1862, 1909, and 1916 acts, which had drawn so many settlers to the Plains, were not repealed.
How was land acquired before the Homestead Act?
Before the Homestead Act of 1862, the main type of sale was through preemption, which was codified in the Preemption Act of 1841. By the terms of the act, an adult could settle on the public domain and secure title to 160 acres by improving the land and paying $1.25 an acre within twelve months. Preemption and the much-abused military bounty land warrants, which were designed to provide soldiers with homes but were transferable and could therefore be amassed in bulk by speculators, were the principal methods of acquiring land in areas of eastern Nebraska and Kansas settled before 1862.
What were the problems with the land transfer system?
The problem with these land-transfer systems, at least as far as the Great Plains was concerned, was that the basic 160-acre settlement unit was devised for a humid environment, not for a subhumid environment where agriculture was a more extensive–and more precarious–enterprise. There was also the problem of speculation, which held land out of actual settlement; many of the land laws were easily manipulated for such a purpose and some seemed to be actually designed for it.
How did the United States alienate land?
The United States' system had its origins in the Land Ordinance of 1785 which, after subsequent modifications, established an orderly procedure for the alienation of public lands: acquire the lands through cessions from Native Americans; survey them into townships of thirty-six one-square-mile sections, each containing quarter sections of 160 acres; reserve sections 16 and 36 for future sales to support schools (such lands are still being sold off for this purpose); and sell the remaining land to settlers through public auction or through regional public land offices. The exception to this general land alienation system in the Great Plains was Texas, which kept title to its own public lands when it entered the Union. There, the land was sold as a source of revenue and disposed of in land grants for various social purposes. Texas did, however, adopt the same survey system.
What was the Dominion Lands Act of 1872?
In the Canadian Plains, the Dominion Lands Act of 1872, which followed the Canadian government's acquisition of Rupert's Land from the Hudson' s Bay Company, was modeled on the American land survey and free homestead system. The same 640-acre section and thirty-six-section township survey was adopted, and so the rectangular grid came to dominate the entire Great Plains, with profound and inestimable effects on ways of living ever since. A similar free homestead system was inaugurated, but with a "proving-up" time of only three years. Also, as in the United States, two sections (11 and 29) were designated school lands in each township, and following its 1881 charter the Canadian Pacific Railway was given the oddnumbered sections in a land grant extending twenty-four miles on either side of the tracks across the Prairies. "Indemnity selection" allowed the Canadian Pacific to go outside the forty-eight-mile strip if there was not sufficient good land within it. Significant differences from the United States' system were evident in the provision of 160 acres of lands, or $160 in scrip, for Métis, who had preceded the survey, and the reservation of lands–section 8 and three-quarters of section 26 in each township, amounting to more than seven million acres in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta –for the Hudson's Bay Company as compensation for the relinquishment of Rupert's Land. The Canadian government, determined to attract immigrants to the Prairies, also made block settlement grants to ethnic groups such as Russian Mennonites and Icelanders, a practice that was not endorsed in the U.S. Great Plains.
Why did grain farmers leave the Great Plains?
Many grain farmers left because their farms were too small and more vulnerable to drought than the cattle ranches.
Who settled the prairies?
The Prairie Provinces were settled by British, German Russians (many of them Mennonites ), Ukrainians, and Scandinavians. Buffalo Hunt, Chase, painting by George Catlin, 1844. Many of the immigrants were religious, thrifty, hardworking people who developed a strong attachment to the land.
What are the crops grown in the Great Plains?
Thus, the Great Plains have remained basically an agricultural area producing wheat, cotton, corn (maize), sorghum, and hay and raising cattle and sheep.
What did the Spanish bring to the Plains?
Spanish colonists from Mexico had begun occupying the southern plains in the 16th century and had brought with them horses and cattle. The introduction of the horse subsequently gave rise to a flourishing Plains Indian culture. In the mid-19th century, settlers from the eastern United States began to supplant the Indians, ...
When did cattle replace buffalo?
Indians on horseback exploited the buffalo herds for some two and a half centuries; but in the 1870s cattle replaced the buffalo, and cowboys replaced the Indians. In the 1880s and ’90s farmers began to crowd the ranchers, and wheat began to replace cattle. Settlement came in years of good rains, so the Great Plains were overpopulated in ...
Which states have potash?
The Great Plains states also produce much mineral wealth, with Texas leading the nation in mineral production and four other plains states (Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Kansas) ranking high.
Which states have the largest coal reserves?
Four of the plains states have the largest coal reserves in the nation (Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana, and Colorado) but, except for Wyoming, rank low in actual production. Texas leads the United States in production of petroleum and natural gas, and several other plains states are substantial producers.
Who sold most of their tribal lands directly to railroad companies?
d. Native Americans sold most of their tribal lands directly to railroad companies.
Why did the Spanish American War lead to the United States becoming a world power?
At the end of the war, America had gained world power status because of its acquisition of territories across the globe. This is extremely similar to how Europe operated.
Why was the Homestead Act so controversial?
It had difficulty getting passed because the government was concerned about new states being founded and tipping the balance of free states and slave states. Eventually Lincoln got this law passed. Americans were given acres of land to settle. The land was tough to farm and several new farming machines, such as a mechanical reaper and seeder were established to till the soil. Living out west was tough as people lived in grass huts (remember the letter the farmer sent to his wife trying to boast about how good things were when the really weren't and the advertisement the government put out trying to entice people to settle west)
