1. THE GREAT PLAINS AND PRAIRIES
(Chapter 12)
Elizabeth J. Leppman

2. Introduction: Perceptions
• Coronado (raised in dry Spain):
“This region is the best I've seen
for producing the crops of Spain.
[The land] is very flat and black
[and] well watered by the rivulets
and springs and river.”
 Early 1800s (by people raised in
humid east) perceived as wholly
unfit for cultivation and habitation
• Mid-1850s: "Great
American Desert"
• Region largely an
academic construct of 20th
century

4. (page 231)

5. The Great Plains in
Literature
• Hamlin Garland, Main-
Traveled Roads (1891)
• O. E. Rölvaag, Giants in the
Earth (1927)
• John Steinbeck, The Grapes
of Wrath (1939)
• Marie Sandoz, Old Jules
(1935)
• Willa Cather, My Ántonia
(1918)

6. Physical Geography
• General rise in elevation from
east to west: 500 meters (1,600
feet) to 1,500 meters (5,000 feet)
• Southern half unvaried
topography—all within Interior
Plains physiographic province
• Subdivisions
– High Plains: western margin
from Edwards Plateau (Texas) to
southern Nebraska
– Lake Agassiz Basin
• Formerly occupied by
largest Pleistocene lake
• Southern Manitoba,
eastern Saskatchewan, Red
River of the North valley

7. Topographic Variation
• Hills
– Black Hills—geologically part of Rocky Mountains
– Cypress Hills—Alberta and Saskatchewan
– Sand Hills—central and northwestern Nebraska
• Badlands
– Desolate, irregular topography from erosion
– Badlands National Park (South Dakota) and Theodore
Roosevelt National Park (North Dakota)

8. Black Hills
Cypress Hills
Topographic
Variation
Black Hills—geologically part of Rocky
Mountains
Cypress Hills
—Alberta and
Saskatchewan

9. Mt. Rushmore

10. Crazy Horse Monument

11. Sand Hills
About a quarter of Nebraska is covered by the Sand Hills. These are Pleistocene (1.8-1.6 million to 10,000
years before present) sand dunes derived from glacial outwash eroded from the Rocky Mountains, and now
stabilized by vegetation. The hills are characterized by crowded barchan (crescent-shaped) dunes, general
absence of drainage, and numerous tiny lakes filling the closed depressions between dunes. Covering an
area of 51,400 square kilometers, the Sand Hills are the largest sand dune formation in America. This
ASTER simulated natural color image was acquired September 10, 2001, covers an area of about 57.9 x
61.6 km, and is centered near 42.1 degrees north latitude, 102.2 degrees west longitude.

12. Sand Hills
Sand Hills—central and
northwestern Nebraska

13. Badlands National Park, South Dakota
Desolate, irregular topography from erosion
Badlands National Park (South Dakota) and Theodore
Roosevelt National Park (North Dakota)

14. Vegetation
• Grasses characteristic
vegetation
– Taller and more dense in
the East
– Shorter and relatively
sparse in the West
• Intricate root systems
– Add decayed organic
matter to soil
– Difficult to plow
– Often required “bonanza
teams" of about 20
animals to break the sod

16. State Symbol:
Illinois State Prairie
Grass — Big Bluestem
Pronghorn on sagebush/short grass
prairie, Shirley Basin, Wyoming
Transistion to mid-grass
prairie near Lamar, Colorado
West: Shorter, drier
East: Taller, wetter

17. Sodbusters

18. Climate: Precipitation
• Most precipitation from
conflict between air masses
– Cool, dry air from north
– Warm, moist air from Gulf of
Mexico (misses southern
Great Plains)
– In Canada: Pattern is
northeast-southwest
• Wide variation from year to
year: 80% to 120% of
“average”
• About 75% from April
through August (growing
season)

20. Vegetation in
Canadian
Prairie
Provinces
(page 236)

21. Drought
• Approximately 20-year cycles
• Optimism in good years followed by disaster
in dry years (e.g., Dust Bowl)
(page 237)

23. Extreme Weather
• Thunderstorms
– Collision of contrasting air masses, especially in spring
– May produce wind, rain, lightning, hail
Average days with hail
(page 238)

24. Wind
• Late spring, summer velocities in central and northern Plains
among the highest in North America—mixed blessing
– Ensures maximum efficiency of windmills
– High rates of evaporation and transpiration (increase dryness)

25. Wind Power: Certainty Rating of the Wind Resource

26. Tornadoes
• Occur throughout North America
• Collision of air masses especially great in “Tornado
Alley”
• Small area but tremendous damage
Tornado Frequency
(page 238)

27. Winds
• Chinook
– Occurs in winter
– Warm, dry air descending from
Rocky Mountains
– Pushed over mountains by
Pacific air flow
– Relief from bitter cold and
snow
• Blizzards
– Storms of snow, wind, and
intense cold
– Occur when cold polar air
masses push south along the
Rockies
– Can last for several days
– Cause “whiteouts” that limit
visibility
– May block livestock from food
supplies

28. Plains Indians
• Buffalo hunting main economic base
• Mobility limited by lack of transportation—dog
was only domesticated animal
• Acquisition of horses (left by Spanish)
– Spread through Great Plains
– Excelled at horse-mounted warfare
– More easily followed buffalo herds
• Pushed from Great Plains
– Loss of buffalo to trophy hunting
– Flood tide of European settlement

29. Plains Indians
Comes Out Holy, Oglala Sioux 1900

30. Settlement Geography of the
Great Plains
The Plains Indians
The Plains Indians were the
earliest settlers on the Great
Plains. They traditionally lived in
small groups scattered in semi-
permanent settlements along the
dispersed streams in the region.
They often migrated following the
large bison (American buffalo)
herds that roamed the Plains.
Spanish Horses
When the Spanish explorers
arrived in the 1600s, they brought
and left a few horses, which also
thrived in the Plains environment.
By the time the first Americans
arrived from the East Coast in the
1800s, the horse had become
widely adopted by the Plains
Indians.
Plains Indians - 1880

31. Sioux Indian Tipi
The photo was taken in 1907. The picture shows Slow Bull in front of his dwelling.

32. Nineteenth-Century
Population Pressures in
the East
As nineteenth-century population
pressures increased in the east,
European-American settlers
increasingly came into conflict with
native tribes. This was especially
true in the South, where many of
the soldiers who fought in the
Revolutionary War were given
Indian land instead of the salary
they were entitled to.
Native Americans were not
considered US citizens; however,
the US Supreme Court had
declared in 1831 that the federal
government must protect their
rights under the US Constitution.
White settlers openly took Indian
lands in the east. President
Jackson refused to enforce any
laws protecting Indian rights,
thereby engaging in a legally
impeachable offense.)
Sioux Indian Village
The picture was taken in 1891 near the pine ridge Indian Reservation

33. Oklahoma Taken from the Indians
The Native Americans who were removed from the East to Oklahoma in 1831 were promised
the rights to their new lands "for as long as the sun shines, the rivers flow, and the grass
grows." Many of the Plains Indians were also relocated to reservations in either Oklahoma or
South Dakota. Gradually, more and more homesteaders made their way westward, settling the
areas around Oklahoma. Because good homesteading land was becoming increasingly scarce,
President McKinley, in 1889, voided the treaties establishing the Oklahoma reservations and
opened the lands to non-Indian settlement. (Native Americans commemorated the 100-year
anniversary of this event in the summer of 1989, declaring it to be the greatest single betrayal
ever perpetrated against Indians by the US government.)
Guthrie, Oklahoma Land Office on opening day Oklahoma 1890

34. Oklahoma 1905

35. First Euro-American Settlers
• Hindered by
– Lack of trees for
building, fencing, fuel
– Lack of water
• First settlers
– Best waterways—
riparian rights
– Excluded later settlers
• Great Plains bypassed in
favor of West Coast

36. Sod Houses

37. The Kern family seated
in front of their sod house
in 1886, holding slices of
an enormous melon as if
to show off their
prosperity and the bounty
of their land. (Courtesy
Nebraska State Historical
Society

38. The Shores family, one of the African-American families that came to settle on the
Great Plains, whose formal pose, with their sod house and other possessions
displayed behind them, conveys a strong sense of accomplishment and
determination to stay on their own land. (Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society

39. Raising a Fine Family of Pioneers, which shows a family of ten dressed in their
best and posed in front of their almost windowless sod house. (The Fred
Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, North Dakota Institute for Regional
Studies, NDSU, Fargo, ND.)

40. Exterior and Interior of Elling Ohnstad Sod House, photographed in 1923, showing how settlers smoothed and whitewashed the interior walls of sod
houses and fitted them for comfortable living. (Reproduction No. 2028.078 and 2028.075, courtesy The Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection,
North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, NDSU, Fargo, ND.)

41. Ranching
• Introduced into Texas by Spanish
• Rapid expansion (post–Civil War)
– Unbranded cattle running loose during Civil War
– Railroads pushing to West Coast
– Cattle drives to rail heads in Kansas
• Collapse (late 1880s)
– Overgrazing
– New cattle-raising operations in Midwest
– Slipping national economy
– Disastrous blizzards of 1887-1888
– Influx of farmers

42. The Spanish Introduction of Ranching
The entire approach to cattle ranching in the American West actually originated on the plains of
Spain, where climate and geology is quite similar to that of the Great Plains. Cattle ranching on
the Great Plains was first introduced into south Texas by Spanish migrating up from what is today
Mexico. Ranching was rapidly adopted across the Plains, reaching all the way to Canada by the
mid-1800s.
Post-Civil War Cattle Boom
During the Civil War, millions of cattle ran free and unmarked across the Great Plains. After the
war, these cattle formed the basis for new, and even larger, ranching operations to feed the
growing industrial cities of the Northeast. Herds of cattle were driven across the Plains to the
newly constructed transcontinental railroad lines, also built after the Civil War.
The Open Range
In the early years, cattle grazed on the "open range," meaning there were no fences. By the
1880s, the open range was rapidly disappearing due to overgrazing and increasing competition
for land from sodbusters. Open range ranching was pushed farther and farther westward, until it
completely disappeared.

43. Cattle and Calves
(page 383)

44. Agricultural Settlement
• Innovations
– Barbed wire for fencing
– Sod houses, until replaced by
frame houses of railroad-
transported lumber
– Deep-well drilling, windmills
– Mechanization of grain farming
• New crop: Hard winter wheat

45. Winter Wheat
Groundwater
Mining

46. Canadian Prairies
• Hudson’s Bay Company
– Charter for Rupert’s Land (1670):
Hudson Bay drainage basin
– Sole agent of British authority until
1870
– Discouraged settlement as interfering
with fur trade
• Canadian government
– Acquired Rupert’s Land in 1870
– Fostered settlement
– Problem of Canadian Shield barrier
– Railroad (1885), but many settlers from
U.S. Midwest
– Leases, rather than land grants
Icelanders in Saskatchewan

48. Agriculture
• Large scale and machinery intensive
• Wheat
– Winter wheat
• Planted in fall, established before winter
• Grows in spring, harvested early May and June
• Grown from Northern Texas to Southern Nebraska, as
far north as Montana
– Spring wheat
• Central South Dakota to south-central Prairie Provinces
of Canada
• Suited to severe winters
• Planted in early spring, harvested late summer–fall

49. Modern Agriculture on the Great Plains
Only limited ranching is practiced on the Great Plains today due to competition from Midwest pen-fed beef
and greater returns from grain production. Modern agriculture on the Plains is characteristically large scale
(much larger than in the Midwest), machinery intensive, and dominated by wheat production.
Winter Wheat
Winter wheat is grown in the central Great Plains from Texas to Nebraska. It is planted in the fall, grows
several inches, becomes dormant in the winter, grows again in the spring, and is harvested in the summer.
This allows it to receive plenty of moisture before the parching summer winds arrive.
Spring Wheat
Spring wheat is grown in the northern Plains. It is planted in the early spring and harvested in the fall. The
cooler summers in the north allow it to thrive through the humid summers. Kansas (with winter wheat) and
North Dakota (with spring wheat) are the largest wheat-producing states in the US. Other important grain
crops grown on the Great Plains include barley and oats in the north and sorghum (used for animal feed)
in the south.
Winter wheat

50. Locations and Methods
• Producing regions
– Great Plains premier wheat-producing region
– Canadian Prairie Provinces leader in Canada
– United States: Kansas, North Dakota, Oklahoma,
Montana
• Techniques
– Dry farming
– Strip fallowing widespread

51. (page 242)

52. Labor and Ownership
• Harvesting teams
– Crews with large combines
– Start with winter wheat harvest in Texas in June and
work northward
– Traditionally well paid
– Gradually being replaced by farm-owned equipment
• Fragmented land holdings
– Pressure to increase farm size
– “Sidewalk farmers”
– Seasonal nature of work
– Spotty nature of hail damage

53. (page 243)

54. Storage and Transportation to Market
• Use of small grain elevators—or open-air
storage
• Transportation
– Canadian
• Most to Winnipeg, then to Thunder Bay for shipment
on Great Lakes
• North to Churchill on Hudson Bay (to Europe)
– U.S.: Great Lakes or Mississippi river

55. Water and Irrigation
• Most important resource second to land
• Irrigation beneficial, produces more than non-irrigated
land
– 45% more wheat
– 70% more sorghum
– 135 % more cotton
• Ogallala aquifer
– Vast, natural underground reservoir beneath 250,000 square
kilometers (100,000 square miles)
– “Fossil” water deposited > 1 million years ago

56. (page 381)

57. Water: Costs and
Government Programs
• Costs
– Water being overdrawn
– Conservation regulations by
states
• Government programs
– National Reclamation Act of
1902
– Big Thompson River project
(1938-1957)
– Missouri valley project (Pick-
Sloan Plan)

58. Costs and Government Programs
Changes in Llano Estado water Missouri Valley Project
(page 246)
(page 247)

59. Energy Resources
• Natural gas: Panhandle field (western Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas)
world’s largest field
• Petroleum:
– Panhandle field
– Wyoming
– Alberta (technical problems with Athabasca Tar Sands)
• Coal
– Thick seams, easily mined
– Low-sulfur (less polluting)
– Expensive to ship
– Wyoming now leading coal-producing state
• Wind?

60. Population and Regional Orientation
• Out-migration to cities
– Larger cities within
region
– Cities beyond Great
Plains periphery
• Transportation routes
– Do little to integrate the
region
– Perceptual orientation
toward places elsewhere
(page 250)

61. Settlement East and West of 98 Degrees West Longitude
The 98-degree west longitude line also divides areas where the US
population density is more than 20 persons per square mile (east) and
under 20 persons per square mile (west). Related to this, the
transportation network (road system) is much more dense to the east
than to the west. Most of the major transportation routes cross the Great
Plains in an east-west direction. They are primarily designed to cross the
region, not provide access to the scattered settlements within it. Rail lines
go only east-west, while the only north-south interstate freeways are
located on the eastern and western edges of the Great Plains.

62. Sitting Bull Quotes
"If you have one honest man
in Washington, send him here
and I will talk to him."
"I was never the aggressor.
I only fought to protect the
children."

63. Sitting Bull
TATANKA IYOTAKA
• 1831-1890
• Head chief of the Lakota Nation in 1869
– He was a great leader
• People left the reservations to follow Sitting Bull
– Gold discovered in the Black Hills 1874
• Sets the course for war between the Sioux and the US
• He and his people were involved in the battle at Little Big Horn in which
General Custer was killed
• After that battle Sitting Bull and his people were pursued constantly so he
took them across the border to Canada
• They stayed in Canada for about four years but could not survive because
the buffalo were nearly extinct
• Sitting Bull was offered a pardon (more than once) and he finally accepted
and took his people to a reservation in Montana
– Instead of giving him what was promised to him in his pardon, Sitting Bull was
taken as a prisoner of war and separated from his people

64. Sitting Bull
TATANKA IYOTAKA
• He was eventually allowed to leave the reservation and travel with Buffalo Bill’s (William
Cody) Wild West show
– Some accounts say that he was released into Cody’s custody
– His time with the show was short, only four months, and he was paid $50 a week to ride around the
ring once
• While on tour with Cody, Sitting Bull realized that it was futile to fight the Americans because
there were so many of them
– He also saw the poverty of the cities-many people were homeless and hungry and Sitting Bull bought
food for many that he encountered
• Back at the reservation, Sitting Bull refused to give up his way of life, he still kept two wives
and refused to convert to Christianity
– BUT he sent his children to the missionary school believing that it was necessary for them to learn to
read and write
• Sitting Bull was killed by his own people, the tribal police, in December of 1890
– The tribal police had come to arrest him because they were afraid of the Ghost Dance movement
– Sitting Bull had allowed his people to participate in the dance and the government was afraid that
the movement would become too strong if Sitting Bull were behind it because his people were still
very loyal to him

67. Class photo of Charles
Eastman-Dartmouth College
Charles Eastman
Ohiyesa
Not a fictional character…
1858-1939
-Started his education at 15
-Became a doctor within 7 years
-Was a witness to the events at
The Standing Rock Agency
-Held many jobs after that
-Wrote several books
-Was politically active
-Was influential in the boy scouts
**Much is based on his
Traditional Sioux boyhood

68. Ghost Dance of 1890
• A religious movement incorporated into numerous Native
American belief systems
• Swept throughout much of the American West starting in
1889
• Started with the prophet of peace Jack Wilson, known as
Wovoka among the Paiute
• Prophesied a peaceful end to white American expansion
while preaching messages of clean living, an honest life,
and cross-cultural cooperation.
• As the Ghost Dance spread from its original source, Native
American tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual
with their own beliefs.
• An alternate interpretation of the Ghost Dance tradition
may be seen in the so-called Ghost Shirts, which were
special garments rumored to repel bullets through spiritual
power
– This is how the Sioux interpreted the Ghost Dance
– They also believed that the white man would be washed away
from their land, which was a variation on Wavoka’s original
prophecy
Wovoka

69. Ghost Dance Shirts

70. Movements with similarities
• 1856-1857 Cattle-Killing in South Africa in which perhaps 60,000 of the Xhosa
people died of self-induced starvation. They destroyed their food supplies based
on a vision that came to Nongqawuse.
• The Righteous Harmony Society was a Chinese movement which also believed in
magical clothing, reacting against Western colonialism.
• The Maji Maji Rebellion where an African spirit medium gave his followers war
medicine that he said would turn German bullets into water.
• Melanesian cargo cults believed in a return of their ancestors brought by Western
technology (see Vailala Madness, Jon Frum).
• The Spanish Carlist troops fought against secularism and believed in the detente
bala — pieces of cloth with an image of the Holy Heart of Jesus — would protect
them against bullets.
• Burkhanism was an Altayan movement that reacted against Russification.
• Child soldiers in the civil wars of Liberia wore wigs and wedding gowns to confuse
enemy bullets by assuming a dual identity See Joshua Blahyi.

71. Dawes Act of 1877-Allotment Act
• Authorized survey of Native
Lands for the purpose of division
• Gives each family 160 acres to
farm, or 80 acres for livestock, or
40 acres just for the purposes of
living
• Had a clause that allows for the
land to be sold once it is in the
hands of the individual
• Also had the clause that who ever
received the grant would become
a citizen
• There was also a clause that
forced children into ‘Indian
Schools’

72. Indian Schools-Americanization of
Native Americans
• Americanization can refer to the policies of the United States government
and public opinion that there is a standard set of cultural values that
should be held in common by all citizens. Education was and is viewed as
the primary method in the acculturation process.
• An Indian boarding school refers to one of many schools that were
established in the United States during the late 19th century and early
20th century to educate Native American youths according to Euro-
American standards.
– Run by missionaries
– They were traumatic to many of children who attended them, as they were
forbidden to speak their native languages, taught Christianity instead of their
native religions and in numerous other ways forced to abandon their Indian
identity and adopt European-American culture.
– There are also documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuses
occurring at these schools.
• A similar system in Canada was known as the Canadian Residential School System.

73. Pupils at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, Pennsylvania (c. 1900)

74. Little girls praying beside their beds,
Phoenix Indian School, Arizona, June 1900.
Stewart Indian School, Carson City, NV
Albuquerque Indian School