Impact of railroads on Native Americans
The impact of railroads on Native Americans during the 19th century was significant and transformative. As railroads expanded across the United States, they were often built through Indian lands, a process facilitated by treaties and government policies aimed at removing Native peoples from their territories. This expansion was fueled by the ideology of Manifest Destiny and the desire for increased access to resources, notably leading to the construction of major transcontinental railroads.
The establishment of these railroads not only disrupted the traditional ways of life for many Native American tribes but also contributed to the mass slaughter of buffalo, which were essential to their livelihoods. Furthermore, the railroads facilitated military campaigns against various tribes, ultimately leading to the breakdown of organized resistance to white settlement. By the late 1800s, the presence of railroads brought an influx of settlers, tourists, and goods that further exposed Native American communities to European-American culture and commerce. This profound shift had lasting effects on tribal identities, economies, and social structures, marking a critical period of change in Native American history.
Impact of railroads on Native Americans
Tribes affected: Pantribal
Significance: Nineteenth century railroads, especially transcontinental lines, signaled an end to the isolation of Indian lands and the destruction of traditional Indian economies, military capabilities, and cultural integrity
Through the early 1860’s, American railroads were granted rights-of-way across Indian lands east of the Mississippi by treaties or by virtue of Indian removals such as occurred with the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole peoples that began in the early 1800’s. By the 1850’s, because of sectional politics, the lobbying of private businesses, a popular belief in Manifest Destiny, and a general desire to end Indian problems, proposals emerged at the federal level for construction of transcontinental lines. The Gadsden Purchase (1853) was based on visions of a southerly rail route to California, while additional proposals argued for more northerly lines crossing the United States and Canada.
These proposals came to fruition between the early 1860’s and the 1890’s, as Americans built the world’s densest railway network, the centerpieces of which were the American (and one Canadian) transcontinental railroads: the Union Pacific-Central Pacific; the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe; the Southern Pacific; and the Canadian Pacific. Construction of these railways and their ancillary lines was partially subsidized by federal and state land grants that totaled 139 million acres west of the Mississippi. By design, the transcontinental railroads cut through the heart of Indian lands. This situation resulted in the slaughtering of the buffalo upon which Indian livelihoods depended, facilitated American military campaigns against dozens of western tribes, and accelerated white settlement. By the mid-1880’s, hastened by railroads, effective Indian resistance to white incursions had collapsed. Subsequently, railroads helped expose nearly all Indian peoples to white culture—its products, settlers, tourists, scientists, government officials, and businesses—and wrought profound changes in traditional tribal ways.