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I. Westward Expansion

The success of the Erie stimulated a boom in canal building. Among Teaching Idea the most important were the Champlain Canal, connecting Lake Champlain and Create an overhead of Instructional the Hudson River, the Chesapeake Canal, the Ohio Canal (which was never com- Master 30a, Important Physical pleted but was meant to connect Pittsburgh and the to the Potomac Features of the . Have stu- River and the Atlantic ), and the Miami and Erie in Ohio, which dents state one fact they have learned connected to the Ohio River at Cincinnati. Canal building continued about each feature shown. For exam- for many until canals were gradually replaced by railroads. ple, “James River: The first permanent English colony in was founded along the James River.” The Appalachian Mountains are the oldest mountain chain in North America The purpose is to help students cre- and stretch from to central . They are about 1,800 miles ate mental maps of events and the (2,897 km) long and range from 120 to 375 miles (193 to 604 km) wide. The physical settings in which they highest peak is in North Carolina, named for Maria Mitchell, a occurred or which contributed to their 19th-century astronomer. It rises 6,684 feet (2,037 m) above level. The happening. Provide an example, such Appalachians are divided into various ranges, such as the White Mountains in as how the flatness of the Great and New Hampshire; the Alleghenies in , Maryland, and made open-range ranching possible Virginia; the Blue Ridge Mountains in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, until farmers began to fence in their Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia; and the Great Smokies in acreage. North Carolina and . Major rivers that flow through the mountains are Return to this map and this the Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac, and Tennessee. The mountains connection-building activity are rich in iron and coal deposits, but proved a barrier to westward movement in throughout the study of this section. the colonial era until Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Trail, also known as the Wilderness Road, through the Cumberland Gap in 1775. Further north, settlers traveled down the Ohio River on keelboats to get through the mountains.

Name Date and Important Physical Features of The Rocky Mountains extend for more than 3,000 miles from to New the United States Study the map. Then use it to answer the questions on Master 30b. . The highest point in North America is Mount McKinley in Alaska. It rises

r e iv er R v e i c R n C e 20,320 feet (6,194 m) above sea level. The major ranges of the Rocky Mountains o r lu rior H m upe w b S u ia R ke a M La L d . s i t o O s S s La n o k e R u M o C n H ri i r ta v i is a u n e s r O R g e is i o ak S r K i s h n L v i ErieErie p c N S e p i I r i CanalCanal are the Southern, Central, and Northern Rockies in the , n Y M a Continental R rie A

k i e E T e v k e ke R Divide a i r a N

ver L L U O M M

O Great River N U Pikes io A the in Alaska, and the . The Rocky Mountains h I r Peak O H e N iv Plains C R A o T rad L Colo A A P r e P I v i A R were more formidable barriers to travel than the Appalachians because the

N i p p i S ATLANTIC

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s OCEAN

PACIFIC s i OCEAN M Rockies are in general more than twice as tall as the Appalachians. The major pass

R io G N ra n Gulf of d e Mexico W E through the Rockies for travelers in the nineteenth century was in Bering PACIFIC Sea OCEAN S 0 125 250 miles 0 250 500 miles 0 100 200 miles 0 125 250 kilometers 0 250 500 kilometers 0 100 200 kilometers . The Trail took this route. Of major topographical interest is the Continental Divide that runs north and south through the mountains. Rivers to the east of this long, high crest flow to

e Knowledge Foundation the east toward the or Atlantic , and rivers to the west of the divide

Purpose: To read a map featuring rivers, mountains, and other important physical features of the United States flow toward the Pacific on the west. Lewis and Clark, whom students should have Copyright ©Cor Master 30a Grade 5: History & Geography studied in earlier grades and will study again this , crossed the Continental Use Instructional Masters 30a–30b. Divide in 1805 as part of their voyage of discovery. The Great Plains stretch south to north from Mexico into roughly along the 98th parallel. The plains are a plateau, or high flat land, that slopes downward from the Rockies. The plains vary in width from 300–700 miles (483–1,127 km) and cover all or part of the following states: , Wyoming, , , North and , , , , and . The area experiences hot summers and cold . Rainfall is typically only 242 Grade 5 Handbook about 20 inches a year, but some parts may also have heavy . Natural CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:55 PM Page 243

vegetation is typically short grasses; however, the rich soil in some areas makes the a major grain producer. Before the Civil War, the Great Plains were set- tled by whites who moved there in larger numbers after the war.

Early Exploration of the West Teaching Idea Students may enjoy learning more Daniel Boone, Cumberland Gap, Wilderness Trail about Daniel Boone and some of his Daniel Boone was born in Pennsylvania in 1734. As a boy he hunted animals, adventures. In addition to Boone’s first with a spear and later with a gun. He became a crack shot and is said to have autobiography, many biographies shot his first bear at age 12. Boone took part in the French and Indian War in 1755. are available. For many of his adult years, Boone was a “long hunter.” He would hunt alone in the woods, hundreds of miles from white civilization, for months at a time. One of his hunting trips lasted 18 months. In 1769, Boone and some others passed through the Cumberland Gap in the Teaching Idea Appalachian Mountains into Kentucky. They found a land filled with buffalo, Students may enjoy listening to , and wild turkeys, as well as meadows perfect for farming. Boone was sepa- poems about key figures involved in rated from his party and spent the of 1769–70 in a cave. westward expansion. A number of In 1775, Boone began working for the Transylvania Company, which wanted poems are included in Stephen and to establish a colony called Transylvania in the areas of Virginia and Rosemary Benet’s Book of North Carolina. The scheme collapsed, but not before Boone had blazed the (see More Resources). Poetic profiles Wilderness Road in 1775. This wagon road, which was often nothing more than in the book include “Lewis and a wide place in the forest, ran from Virginia through the Cumberland Gap and Clark,” “Zachary Taylor,” “Daniel into the Ohio River . Boone,” “Sam ,” “Westward The Appalachian Mountains had long been a natural barrier to westbound Wagons,” “Clipper Ships and travel, but the Wilderness Road allowed settlers to travel through the mountains Captains,” “Jesse James,” and “P. T. more easily. Settlers moved along it into what would become the states of Barnum.” Kentucky and Tennessee. The road was a main route west in the southeastern states until the National Road was completed in 1837. The Wilderness Road, which eventually became part of U.S. Highway 25, is still around today. After blazing the Wilderness Road, Daniel Boone continued to hunt and explore. During the Revolutionary War he was taken prisoner by the Shawnee. He so impressed his captors with his great skills as a hunter and woodsman that he was accepted as a member of a Native American family. Eventually, however, Boone returned to his original family. After several more years in sparsely settled Kentucky, Boone went west to in a canoe. When someone asked him why he was leaving Kentucky, Boone allegedly replied: “Too crowded.” He lived in Missouri for the rest of his life, dying in 1820 at the age of 85. Boone published his memoirs, The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone, in 1784. In them he describes his explorations and his many encounters with Native Americans. After his death, Boone was romanticized and marketed as an American hero, a man who lived close to nature, fought Native Americans, and helped “win the West.” His genuine adventures have been supplemented and embellished with numerous additional stories. 47 Lewis and Clark In 1800, France, under Napoleon Bonaparte, had acquired the Territory from Spain. Napoleon was interested in rebuilding France’s holdings in North America. In 1802, Americans were banned from using the port of New History and Geography: American 243 CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:55 PM Page 248

I. Westward Expansion

Teaching Idea and the ’49ers Students may enjoy hearing excerpts In January 1848, John Sutter hired James Marshall to build a sawmill on the from letters and autobiographies of American River, which ran through Sutter’s property near Sacramento, . people who participated in the gold As he worked, Marshall noticed in the riverbed shiny flakes that looked golden in rush of 1849. One well-known set of the light. When he examined them more closely, he saw they were gold. Though documents is a series of letters by the two men tried to hide Marshall’s discovery, word got out and the rush to find William Swain written to his wife gold was soon on. 52 Sabrina Swain and his brother George Californians took to the rivers and streams looking for gold. Much of it was Swain. Another interesting document is easily found in streams and riverbeds by panning. Miners literally used pans with the memoirs of Luzena Stanley Wilson. small holes poked through their bottoms. They let the water flow through the Excerpts from both the Swain and the holes, and the heavy gold sank to the bottom of the pans. Wilson materials can be found online. (See More Resources.) By the following summer, 100,000 people arrived in California—not just from the east coast of the United States but from and much of the Pacific Basin, especially China, as well. Most came overland by and wagon train, but many came by boat. Some sailed around Cape Horn at the tip of South Cross-curricular America and up the coast, while others sailed to , trekked overland, and Teaching Idea took a ship again from the west coast of . Have students do research on the The ’49ers, as the miners were called, were an enterprising group of men and California gold rush or another factor women. Most miners were young men who expected to make their fortune and that influenced westward expansion. then return home. Some family men brought their wives and children along, Suggest that they use online and print expecting to stay. Single women, hoping to find gold or to earn money cooking resources. Their final products could or doing laundry for the miners, traveled to California as well. Some free blacks take the form of written or oral reports came, as well as some southerners who brought their slaves to mine for them. with accompanying artwork illustrating Even though few miners found a substantial amount of gold, many stayed for the something learned from the research. and the rich farmland. Have students submit a bibliography (formal or informal) of the material they Native American Resistance consulted to create their project and From the beginning, the new United States’ dealings with Native Americans written report. resulted in a string of conflicts, misunderstandings, epidemics, skirmishes, wars, broken treaties, and unfulfilled promises. At first, the federal government recog- nized Native Americans as sovereign nations and negotiated treaties with them for their land. Sometimes these treaties were freely negotiated, and other times Teaching Idea they were the result of wars. The Treaty of Greenville (1795) is an example of a Tell students that many sports teams’ treaty that was forced on the Native Americans as a result of war. The treaty, by names are based on historical events. which the native peoples of the Old Northwest (Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Find out the names of professional Michigan) gave up most of their lands, was an outcome of the Battle of Fallen sports teams and see how many relate Timbers (1794). The Treaty deprived Natives of claims to roughly two-thirds of to history of the area (e.g., the San the land of modern-day Ohio. Federal troops under General Anthony Wayne Francisco ’49ers’ name comes from the defeated a force of Shawnee, Miami, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwa, Fox, and Sauk gold rush of ’49). near what is today Toledo, Ohio. Later, the would break the back of Native resistance in the rest of the region. As more settlers pushed the frontier back by moving west and south from the original thirteen states, they came in contact with more Native Americans. Many European Americans considered the Native Americans uncivilized, and saw them as obstacles standing in the way of settlers’ ambitions. The settlers continued to push the Native Americans westward. Sometimes the army tried to prevent set- tlers from encroaching on Native American lands, but at other times the army 248 Grade 5 Handbook CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:55 PM Page 254

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The war lasted from May 1846 to September 1848. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), which ended the war, Mexico ceded to the United States all or part of what became the following states: California, , , Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and . General Zachary Taylor was known to his soldiers as “Old Rough and Ready.” He was a soldier for forty years, fighting in the War of 1812, subduing Native Americans in the Midwest, and defeating the Seminole in the Second Seminole War in . He became a national hero after his defeat of General Santa Anna in the Mexican-American War. Taylor was nominated as the Whig candidate for President in 1848 and won. Although it was his success that added large tracts of land to the United States, he opposed the expansion of slavery into any territory seeking admission to state- hood. He died after only sixteen months in office. Opposition to the War Opposition to the war was strong among some Americans. Southerners and Westerners felt they would benefit from a larger United States and supported the war. Many Northerners, on the other hand, opposed the war on moral grounds; they opposed the addition of more slave states to the Union. One of those who was against the war was Henry David Thoreau. In his “Essay on the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau asked whether a man had the right to disobey a law or government he felt was wrong. He concluded that there was such a right: Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his con- science to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obliga- tion which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. Thoreau went on to explain his opposition to a government more concerned, in his eyes, with conquest than justice. 54 The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing govern- ment as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consent- ed to this measure. Thoreau had actually declined to pay his taxes, and spent one night in prison. Was he ashamed of this? On the contrary, Thoreau wrote: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is . . . a prison.” Thoreau’s opposition did little to affect the war, though his ideas about civil disobedience would influence the thinking of others, including Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., who chose nonviolent resistance, such as going to jail, rather than cooperation with unjust laws. B. Westward Expansion After the Civil War Homestead Act of 1862 Settlement of the Great Plains—the land between the Mississippi and the Rockies—did not take place to any great degree until after the Civil War. During 254 Grade 5 Handbook the War, Congress passed the Homestead Act in 1862, which encouraged people CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:55 PM Page 255

to settle in the Plains. The government announced it would give 160 acres of land to any citizen or immigrant who was willing to farm it for five years. Land could also be bought for $1.25 an acre after six months of living on it. Before this law was passed, people had either bypassed the Great Plains in favor of the fertile Northwest or were lured to California by the get-rich-quick tales of the gold rush. But the Homestead Act changed that. In the next 40 years, the U.S. government gave away 80 million acres of land under the act. In the late 1800s, largely because of the Homestead Act, many thousands of , as well as many freed slaves (known as Exodusters) and European immigrants, relocated to the Great Plains. These settlers established farms and on the plains. Because trees were scarce on the Great Plains, many settlers built “ houses” by cutting and piling up blocks of grass and turf. Farmers battled with great swarms of grasshoppers and other insects that devoured their crops. They raised windmills to bring water up from below the ’s surface, and they used a new invention called “barbed wire” to help fence in their livestock. Life on the Great Plains was hard. Some parts of the plains were fertile and received enough water for successful farming, but other parts suffered occasional , which made farming impossible and led to blinding dust storms. When these droughts struck, they drove farmers out of business. “Go West, young man!”—Horace Greeley Horace Greeley was the founder and editor of the New York Tribune, an influ- ential newspaper during the mid-1800s. In 1851, he wrote an article advising young men how to make their fortune. He said the following: If you have no family or friends to aid you . . . turn your face to the great West and there build up your home and fortune. In time, this advice was boiled down to “Go West, young man!” Thousands of young men and women did just that. Cross-curricular Railroads Teaching Idea Many teachers like to teach railroad Railroads had several advantages over roads, rivers, and canals. Railroads songs while students are studying the were dependable, cheap, and convenient. The first railroads were built in British history of the railroad. Download coal mines, but in 1831, the Mohawk and Hudson line was inaugurated between units from the Core Knowledge Albany and Schenectady, New York. In 1853, when the Baltimore and Ohio Foundation’s website on railroad Railroad reached Wheeling, West Virginia, it achieved what the had songs, and have your class teach done years earlier—it crossed the Appalachians to join east and west. A rail net- them to younger students. For exam- work spread quickly across the Northeast and the in the . ple, teachers following the Sequence The 1850s were the great railroad-building years in the Southeast. teach “I’ve Been Working on the By 1861, some 300,000 miles of railroad track had been laid down in the Railroad” and “John Henry” to Grade United States. The Midwest was the focus of much of this track laying, making it 2 students and “She’ll Be Comin’ easier for people to travel there from the East. As a result, land in the Midwest ’Round the Mountain” to Grade 1 stu- became more expensive as more and more settlers arrived. The fast, cheap trans- dents. (These songs can also be portation the railroads provided allowed for goods, such as wheat and corn, to be reviewed in this grade.) After teach- easily shipped to the Northeast for sale. Manufactured items, such as farm tools ing the songs, fifth graders can share from the Northeast, could, in turn, be shipped to consumers in the Midwest. Over a few interesting facts about rail- time, larger, faster, and more powerful engines pulling heavier cars required roads with the younger students. tracks made from stronger iron, and eventually steel rails. Coal powered the

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steam engines, and iron and steel were used in the construction of railroads, Teaching Idea bridges, and engines. The demands of the emerging railroad business were an Create an overhead and copies for each enormous stimulus for such industries after the Civil War. student of Instructional Master 33, Drives and Railroads. Have stu- The Transcontinental Railroad dents locate and name each railroad on Construction of the transcontinental railroad began in 1862. The route ran the map. They should identify the states from Nebraska to California. The Union Pacific built west from Nebraska, and the through which each runs. It may be Central Pacific built east from California. Irish immigrants did much of the work helpful to have students label the states on the eastern section, which consisted of largely flat and gently rolling plains on their maps first and then identify the until it reached the Rocky Mountains. Chinese immigrants did most of the labor various routes. on the western portion, and it was rugged, dangerous work that took them over and through mountains and across gorges and . The federal government paid the two companies for each mile of track laid, Name Date with higher payments for work in the mountains. The two competing railroads Cattle Drives and Railroads Study the map. Then use it to answer the questions below. continued building east and west until they met in 1869 at Promontory Point,

CANADA Utah. The completion of the railroad was marked by a final golden spike being Territory Montana Territory R Dakota O driven into the ground. By the 1890s, four more transcontinental railroads had Oregon Wisconsin IdahoIdaho C Territory TerritoryTerritory K

Y WyomingWyoming PromontoryPromontory TerritoryTerritory been built joining East and West across more northern and southern routes. ailroa PointPoint cific R d Pa M ral Nebraska nt ChicagoChicago e O Union P C acific Ra SacramentoSacramento ilroad U OmahaOmaha Ind. Virginia City OgallalaOgallala IllinoisIllinois N These railroads made it easier than ever before to move across the . UtahUtah San Nevada T Francisco TerritoryTerritory ColoradoColorado Missouri A TerritoryTerritory KansasKansas I Abilene SedaliaSedalia California CityCity N Ky. KansasKansas

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N San Antonio By 1860, Texas longhorns—cattle—numbered 3 to 4 million on the open Cattle trails W E Railroads MEXICO S Gulf of Transcontinental Railroad 0 150 300 miles Mexico 0 150 300 kilometers range in Texas. Open range means that the land was unfenced. Much of the Plains

1. Which Midwestern city and Pacific coast city were linked by the combined Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads? was owned by the federal government and no one lived on or worked it. Most of Omaha and San Francisco

2. How many cattle trails are shown on the map, and in what place did they all begin? the cattle were descended from cattle brought to Mexico by the Spanish. Mexico, three; San Antonio e Knowledge Foundation at one time, had included Texas. The longhorns on the Plains were unbranded,

Purpose: To read and interpret a U.S. map featuring cattle drive and railroad routes Copyright ©Cor Master 33 Grade 5: History & Geography which meant that no one owned them. Seeing a potential business in these mav- ericks, as they were called, Americans in Texas began to round them up and drive Use Instructional Master 33. them to market. Mexican , the Spanish word for cowboys, taught the Americans how to rope, brand, and drive cattle. Many words associated with ranching are Spanish in origin, such as lariat (a rope to tie a horse), chaps (leather leggings worn over pants to protect the legs), and lasso (a long rope with a slid- Teaching Idea ing noose, used to catch or cattle). Use the overhead you created from Open-range cattle ranching had begun on the Texas Plains in the 1840s and Instructional Master 33, Cattle Drives 1850s and by the end of the Civil War had moved up through the northern Plains. and Railroads. Have students identify Initially, ranchers in Texas had driven their herds to New Orleans for sale. After the railroads that served each cattle the Civil War, however, with the coming of railroads linking the Plains with the trail. Midwest, ranchers began to drive their herds to railheads in Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. From there, the cattle were shipped to meat-packing factories in , and then sent to the growing cities of the Northeast. Cross-curricular Depending on where the cattle drive started and where it was to end, cow- boys could be on the trail for as long as two months. It is estimated that some Teaching Idea 30,000 cowboys, several thousand of whom were African American, drove cattle Collaborate with the music teacher to north over the Sedalia, Chisholm, Western, and Goodnight-Loving trails. teach the students “Git Along Little A rancher would hire eight or ten cowboys to herd his 2,000 or 3,000 head Dogies” while you are teaching about of cattle to market. There was always a trail boss and a cook and helper who rode cattle drives. in the chuck wagon. The cowboys had specific jobs. Two would ride point—out

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in front of the herd. Two would ride drag—at the back to round up and urge lag- ging cattle to keep up with the herd. Two would ride swing (left side of the herd), and two would ride flank (right side). Their jobs were to move the herd along and to keep it from veering off course. The worst thing that could happen on a cattle drive was a stampede. When a stampede occurred, the herd took off at a run. Cattle herds were nervous and any- thing could set them off—a gunshot, a bolt of lightning, a clap of thunder, or a loud yell. That’s one reason cowboys sometimes sang—music soothed the cattle. To stop a stampede, several cowboys would work their horses to force the cattle to run in a wide circle. As more and more cattle were added to the circle, the sheer size of the herd forced it to slow its pace. By 1890, not only had the frontier closed, but open-range ranching had ended as well. The federal government had encouraged the opening of the Plains to farmers with the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862. Farmers and sheep ranchers built fences and dammed streams and rivers, blocking the free access of cattle to grazing land and water. Under these new conditions, cattle could no longer survive in large numbers on the open range. In the future, cattlemen would raise cattle on fenced-in properties called ranches. The “Wild West” From the 1850s through the 1880s, the West was—in different places and at Teaching Idea different times—lawless, brutal, and deadly. Many of the early settlers in the West were unmarried men, and some western towns were hotbeds for drinking, gam- Students may enjoy listening to you bling, brawling, and prostitution. But as more people came, especially men with read “The Spelling Bee at Angels” by families, law and order soon followed. Mining camps run by vigilante committees Bret Harte. This comical poem tells of became respectable towns and, eventually, cities. As the open range disappeared, a spelling bee, which ends so did the long-haul cattle drive and the freewheeling life of the cowboy. with a shoot-out. The poem is avail- able on the Internet. (See More But the Wild West has lived on in dime novels and the Wild West Shows of Resources.) the nineteenth century, and in movies, radio, and television shows in the twenti- eth century. The sheer brutality of life on the Plains became romanticized over the years. It began with newspapermen sending stories about the exploits of and the James Gang to their eastern papers. Curious Easterners flocked to see ’s Wild West, featuring Annie Oakley shooting her rifle from the back of a horse and Native Americans dressed in buckskin chanting war songs. Some of the people in these shows have entered into the popular imagination and become part of cultural literacy. Outlaws Teaching Idea Billy the Kid (William H. Bonney) Students may enjoy listening to bal- lads and songs about the West, such • cattle rustler and murderer in New Mexico as the ballad “Jesse James.” Lyrics • caught, tried, and sentenced to hang, but escaped, killing two guards can be found online or in Songs of • killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett the Great American West by Irwin Jesse James Silber. (See More Resources.) • with his brother Frank, led an outlaw gang known as the James Gang • bank and train robber, murderer • Arkansas, Texas, Colorado • killed by one of his own gang for the reward History and Geography: American 257 CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:55 PM Page 258

I. Westward Expansion

Wild West Show Entertainers Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody) • former professional buffalo hunter, Pony Express rider, and Union scout during the Civil War • His Wild West Show featured Native Americans such as , as well as trick riders and sharpshooters like Annie Oakley. • His show started in 1883 and toured the United States and Europe for decades. The show featured a stage-coach robbery and lots of gunfights. Audiences of up to 20,000 attended. Even Queen Victoria of England saw Annie Oakley the show. Teaching Idea Annie Oakley • Born Phoebe Ann Oakley Moses, she learned to shoot at age 9. Students may enjoy looking at posters from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows. • At age 15 she entered a shooting contest against well-known marksman These posters are available online. Frank E. Butler. Annie won the match and later married Butler. • Known as “Little Sure Shot” for her height and her skill with a gun, she could hit a dime tossed in the air from 90 feet away and shoot five or six Teaching Idea bullets through a playing card tossed in the air before it hit the ground. You may wish to check out a number of • sharpshooter with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show from 1885 to 1902 interesting websites on the buffalo sol- • The musical Annie Get Your Gun, with music by Irving Berlin, including diers. (See More Resources.) the famous songs “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Anything You Can Do,” was loosely based on the life of Annie Oakley. 55 Teaching Idea Students may be interested to know that, Buffalo Soldiers in addition to the buffalo soldiers, who During the Civil War, African-American units were formed within the Union came west to fight, some African Army. (See next section.) After the Civil War, the author- Americans moved west to farm. Many ized the creation of six regiments of African-American soldiers. The 24th and were motivated by the terror waged 25th Infantries and the 9th and 10th Cavalries were sent west to fight in the against former slaves by the Ku Klux Klan Plains Wars (See Section III, “Native Americans: Cultures and Conflicts,” pp. and other groups. These settlers were 297–313). The Native Americans, whom they fought, may have named these known as Exodusters, after the biblical African Americans “buffalo soldiers” out of respect for their courage. Fourteen story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. buffalo soldiers won the Congressional Medal of Honor. The black units were dis- banded in 1952, and the soldiers integrated into the rest of the army after the fed- eral government banned segregation in the armed forces. Teaching Idea Ask students if they or anyone they “Seward’s Folly” know has ever bought anything that In 1867, Czar Alexander of Russia was looking to raise money and offered to they thought was foolish. Relate their sell Alaska to the United States. While Native Americans had lived on the land for personal experience to what William thousands of years, the Russians were the first Europeans to the area and had Seward experienced when purchasing established a settlement there in 1784. Secretary of State William Seward imme- Alaska. Conduct research to see what diately agreed to the purchase price of $7.2 million, or about 2 cents an acre. Most the average price of an acre in Alaska Americans considered it a waste of money and jeeringly referred to it as “Seward’s is today. Looking back, was it really a Folly” and “Seward’s Ice Box.” However, when gold was found in 1880, the deal waste of money? no longer seemed so foolish. The gold soon ran out, but many miners stayed to earn a living by fishing, farming in the southern part of the territory, or timbering in the dense forests. Today Alaska is still sparsely populated but is the home of important oil reserves. 258 Grade 5 Handbook CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:55 PM Page 259

1890: The Closing of the Frontier Teaching Idea In 1890, the U.S. Census declared the frontier closed. The frontier had ceased Have students choose either to draw to exist as a clearly defined line between settled and unsettled areas. Only pock- a cartoon depicting “Seward’s Folly” ets of frontier remained. The continental United States was either divided into or write an editorial describing the states or organized as territories on their way to statehood. Between 1864 and “folly” of Seward’s agreement to buy 1912, thirteen states were admitted to the Union, making the contiguous United Alaska. You may need to help stu- States complete. A process that had begun with the founding of St. Augustine in dents define folly in order for them to 1565 had ended. understand what critics of the land Many historians have argued that the frontier experience had transformed deal meant. Europeans into Americans and defined what it meant to be an American. You might also point out that the president and the Senate had to agree to the purchase. Seward could not authorize the use of $7.2 million of the Review country’s money without the Senate’s approval. Below are some ideas for ongoing assessment and review activities. These are not meant to constitute a comprehensive list. Teachers may also refer to the Pearson Learning/Core Knowledge History & Geography series for additional infor- mation and teaching ideas. • This section provides an opportunity for students to complete short research The Big Idea reports on Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, , Tecumseh, or other impor- in Review tant figures during early exploration of the West. Using the Language Arts sec- Throughout the 1800s, tion, provide the class with topics for short reports to write in formal style. Each Americans moved west, day of a week, provide a mini-lesson on different aspects of report writing, such settling lands previously as correct paragraph form or bibliographies. Share these reports when completed. occupied by Native • So many events and people are named in this section that a good way to Americans. review the information is to have students do one of the following: Have students create crossword puzzles with at least 12 clues about people and events from this section, and then exchange them with each other. Check for accuracy. Play “Who/What Am I?” Have teams of two create five identifications. Then pair teams together and have them take turns asking their identification questions. • Have students write up interviews with prominent people from this section. Divide students into pairs and have them research important events from a per- son’s life. Then, have them write up questions on index cards to ask that histori- cal figure. Have the pairs take turns conducting their interview in front of the class, with one person playing the role of the interviewer and the other the role of the prominent person. After the interview, discuss if the information present- ed is accurate and make corrections accordingly. • In order to have a balanced and well-rounded understanding of this period, students should be able to understand how events looked from the perspective of white Americans and also from the perspective of Native Americans. Have students write a paper from a point of view not their own. What would it be like to have the settlers come onto their land if they were Native American? Have stu- dents practice using examples from history to support their point of view. Share these papers aloud.

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