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THE LAST AMERICAN FRONTIER

Stories from American History


      *      *      *      *      *      *

[Illustration]

  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  NEW YORK. BOSTON. CHICAGO
  ATLANTA. SAN FRANCISCO

  MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
  LONDON. BOMBAY. CALCUTTA
  MELBOURNE

  THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
  TORONTO

      *      *      *      *      *      *


[Illustration]


THE LAST AMERICAN FRONTIER

by

FREDERIC LOGAN PAXSON

Junior Professor of American History in the University of Michigan

Illustrated







New York
The Macmillan Company
1910

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1910,
By the Macmillan Company.

Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1910.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




PREFACE


I have told here the story of the last frontier within the United
States, trying at once to preserve the picturesque atmosphere which
has given to the "Far West" a definite and well-understood meaning,
and to indicate those forces which have shaped the history of the
country beyond the Mississippi. In doing it I have had to rely largely
upon my own investigations among sources little used and relatively
inaccessible. The exact citations of authority, with which I might have
crowded my pages, would have been out of place in a book not primarily
intended for the use of scholars. But I hope, before many years, to
exploit in a larger and more elaborate form the mass of detailed
information upon which this sketch is based.

My greatest debts are to the owners of the originals from which the
illustrations for this book have been made; to Claude H. Van Tyne, who
has repeatedly aided me with his friendly criticism; and to my wife,
whose careful readings have saved me from many blunders in my text.

              FREDERIC L. PAXSON.

ANN ARBOR, August 7, 1909.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I
                                                              PAGE
  THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT                                          1


  CHAPTER II

  THE INDIAN FRONTIER                                           14


  CHAPTER III

  IOWA AND THE NEW NORTHWEST                                    33


  CHAPTER IV

  THE SANTA FE TRAIL                                            53


  CHAPTER V

  THE OREGON TRAIL                                              70


  CHAPTER VI

  OVERLAND WITH THE MORMONS                                     86


  CHAPTER VII

  CALIFORNIA AND THE FORTY-NINERS                              104


  CHAPTER VIII

  KANSAS AND THE INDIAN FRONTIER                               119


  CHAPTER IX

  "PIKE'S PEAK OR BUST!"                                       138


  CHAPTER X

  FROM ARIZONA TO MONTANA                                      156


  CHAPTER XI

  THE OVERLAND MAIL                                            174


  CHAPTER XII

  THE ENGINEERS' FRONTIER                                      192


  CHAPTER XIII

  THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD                                   211


  CHAPTER XIV

  THE PLAINS IN THE CIVIL WAR                                  225


  CHAPTER XV

  THE CHEYENNE WAR                                             243


  CHAPTER XVI

  THE SIOUX WAR                                                264


  CHAPTER XVII

  THE PEACE COMMISSION AND THE OPEN WAY                        284


  CHAPTER XVIII

  BLACK KETTLE'S LAST RAID                                     304


  CHAPTER XIX

  THE FIRST OF THE RAILWAYS                                    324


  CHAPTER XX

  THE NEW INDIAN POLICY                                        340


  CHAPTER XXI

  THE LAST STAND: CHIEF JOSEPH AND SITTING BULL                358


  CHAPTER XXII

  LETTING IN THE POPULATION                                    372


  CHAPTER XXIII

  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE                                         387




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER                              _Frontispiece_

                                                              PAGE
  MAP: INDIAN COUNTRY AND AGRICULTURAL FRONTIER, 1840-1841      22

  CHIEF KEOKUK                                        _facing_  30

  IOWA SOD PLOW. (From a Cut belonging to the Historical
  Department of Iowa.)                                          46

  MAP: OVERLAND TRAILS                                          57

  FORT LARAMIE, 1842                                  _facing_  78

  MAP: THE WEST IN 1849                                        120

  MAP: THE WEST IN 1854                                        140

  "HO FOR THE YELLOW STONE"                          _facing_  144

  THE MINING CAMP                                        "     158

  FORT SNELLING                                          "     204

  RED CLOUD AND PROFESSOR MARSH                          "     274

  MAP: THE WEST IN 1863                                        300

  POSITION OF RENO ON THE LITTLE BIG HORN            _facing_  360

  MAP: THE PACIFIC RAILROADS, 1884                             380




THE LAST AMERICAN FRONTIER




CHAPTER I

THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT


The story of the United States is that of a series of frontiers which
the hand of man has reclaimed from nature and the savage, and which
courage and foresight have gradually transformed from desert waste to
virile commonwealth. It is the story of one long struggle, fought over
different lands and by different generations, yet ever repeating the
conditions and episodes of the last period in the next. The winning of
the first frontier established in America its first white settlements.
Later struggles added the frontiers of the Alleghanies and the Ohio,
of the Mississippi and the Missouri. The winning of the last frontier
completed the conquest of the continent.

The greatest of American problems has been the problem of the West.
For four centuries after the discovery there existed here vast areas
of fertile lands which beckoned to the colonist and invited him to
migration. On the boundary between the settlements and the wilderness
stretched an indefinite line that advanced westward from year to year.
Hardy pioneers were ever to be found ahead of it, blazing the trails
and clearing in the valleys. The advance line of the farmsteads was
never far behind it. And out of this shifting frontier between man and
nature have come the problems that have occupied and directed American
governments since their beginning, as well as the men who have solved
them. The portion of the population residing in the frontier has
always been insignificant in number, yet it has well-nigh controlled
the nation. The dominant problems in politics and morals, in economic
development and social organization, have in most instances originated
near the frontier or been precipitated by some shifting of the frontier
interest.

The controlling influence of the frontier in shaping American problems
has been possible because of the construction of civilized governments
in a new area, unhampered by institutions of the past or conservative
prejudices of the present. Each commonwealth has built from the
foundation. An institution, to exist, has had to justify itself again
and again. No force of tradition has kept the outlawed fact alive. The
settled lands behind have in each generation been forced to remodel
their older selves upon the newer growths beyond.

Individuals as well as problems have emerged from the line of the
frontier as it has advanced across a continent. In the conflict with
the wilderness, birth, education, wealth, and social standing have
counted for little in comparison with strength, vigor, and aggressive
courage. The life there has always been hard, killing off the weaklings
or driving them back to the settlements, and leaving as a result a
picked population not noteworthy for its culture or its refinements,
but eminent in qualities of positive force for good or bad. The bad
man has been