Transcontinental Railroad Research Paper

After President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, everyone was eager for the construction to begin. The railroad was needed to connect California to the eastern and midwestern large cities in order to ship valuables and natural resources. The problem for the Indians was that the tracks would be set right through their ancestral land. Unfortunately, The United States could care less about the native’s wants because the construction of the railroad was seen beneficial to them. One of the many reasons was because it provided Americans and immigrants with jobs. The decline in buffalo began when they would stampede across the tracks. White workers decided that they were getting “in the way” and would kill massive herds at a time. This leads in to the most important reason for the decline of the Plains culture and their ultimate defeat, the Buffalo.

Not only was the railroad disturbing to hunting but this also made it much easier and cheaper bring out the military troops, their food and supplies. The troops were hired be the government to search out the Indians and get them to move off and sign over their land. One main land that the government and the Indians feuded over was the Black Hills. They were over run with new settlers because of the rumor of gold. The Indians went to the government to complain about the unwanted guest, but even though the treaty of 1868 had granted the Black Hills as Indian

Construction of the Transcontinental Railroad not only affected the United States itself but also anything that inhabited the lands that it was constructed on. As a necessary to build the railroad they had to go through mountains, Native American land, animals homes, etc. Native Americans being inhabitants of the land did not welcome the white settlers which resulted in violent conflict. When it came to building the railroad two companies were assigned the task, pinning them up against each other to lay the most track for more money. The Central Pacific company which started in California had to go through mountains while the Union Pacific which started in Nebraska only had to go through the Great Plains. For Central Pacific workers there was horrible working conditions, discrimination, and the chance dying for every mile laid.

Although, discriminating and judging other people may seem good, there is always karma. In the past, the whites were used to blackmailing the blacks, but as everyone says “Politics can really screw you over” and this time, blacks bribed the whites.This was very unexpected. Around the 1890’s, the ICR (Intercontinental Railroad) was finished being built and it needed lots of jobs. Driver, Passenger, e.t.c. But as everyone knows, blacks have to be less than the whites at the moment. So, they got jobs like servants. As a servant, you would clean the train, Clean cars, serve them and Clean their shoes. 3 or 4 years for the African Canadians were good and they earned good money but as new technology was developing the Transcontinental Railroad was

The first way the transcontinental railroad changed the US socially was by building the railroad in the indian territory and causing the indians to attack workers. In Document H, the pictures shows a crew aiming their guns at american indians in the background. We used to have a slight peace with the indians. When we built on their territory the indians started to attack the citizens of the United States again and we had to come up with another way to gain peace with them again..

By 1890, the vast hunting ground that was so hard fought and won by Red Cloud and the Oglala Sioux would be lost. New treaties scattered the Indians to reservations and opened the last great Native American holding to the settlers so steadily branching outward from the iron road. Although the railroad affected the Native Americans negatively, the railroad affected the settlers and immigrant positively.4 Mixed emotions led to be a problem for some time to come.

The transcontinental railroad had a massive impact on settlers and Native Americans. Today, a modern piece of technology that affects society both positively and negatively are smartphones. When the Transcontinental railroad was built, it impacted settlers in a positive way. There was now a much safer, quicker, and less expensive way to travel down to the west. There were no longers worries about wagons tipping and the chance of dying on the middle of the trip was greatly reduced. I can relate this to present day smartphones because this technology helps people stay in touch better and makes information quick and easy to access. Students can check their grades on their phones, do research, and even write papers. This new technology is advanced

America kept moving westward, into Native American territory, which is what started the problems. The US government did not want the Native Americans attacking the settlers so they created reservations. The settlers agreed to this idea, but the Native Americans were not so sure because before they were able to roam freely and now they were confined to hunting in one open space. The main source of all life was the buffalo because it provided food and clothing (Doc. A). When trains were put in it disrupted the hunting pattern of the buffalo meaning that they lost a huge source of their life. To get revenge on the the settlers for putting the trains through their hunting land, the Natives would clip the telegraph lines. Famous Buffalo Bill Cody was a American icon during the twentieth century because he symbolized what the wild west was like.

(flattened) the land by as much as a hundred miles a stretch. Behind them came

for it (Cooke 254). If it had been left to the government, it would have taken

The First Transcontinental Railroad, completed in 1869 by the U.S. government under president and former Army general Ulysses S. Grant, was a defining moment in American history. The railroad, which stretches across 1,900 miles of mountainous terrain, was completed nearly 6 years after construction began in 1863. The First Transcontinental Railroad became the cornerstone of the economic prosperity in the western United States, allowing American citizens to conveniently travel to the west coast in a matter of days. The creation of this railroad, along with the American dream of unifying the coasts, is what ultimately drove Americans to colonizing and transforming the west into the urban environment it is today. Significantly, this railroad became the physical manifestation of Manifest Destiny, or the idea that America not only could, but was destined to be connected between its coasts. The First Transcontinental Railroad became the physical manifestation of the American Identities consisting of American Exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, as well as the fundamental American ideals such as prosperity, freedom, and democracy which were first brought to the continent in the 1600s.

The Transcontinental railroad was the most prolific tool for United States western expansion and acted as jet fuel to the fire of the United States economy. The railroad revolutionized transportation of goods and the freedom that Americans now had to travel from coast-to-coast.

Since the beginning of recorded history, mankind has been caught in the middle of being

The first big battle was called Powder River. On June 25, 1876 the American army was trying to round up all the northern Cheyenne and the Lakota tribes and try to put them on a reservation. This leads to a battle which the army commander was killed who was Lt. col. George Custer. This made the Americans outraged. Five months after the battle the army attacked their camp, which had 1,200 Indians. this was the biggest impact to the Cheyenne tribe. If that wasn’t enough the American army was killing the buffalos to start to eliminate the Indians food source. Many of the Indians died because of this. the biggest impact on all the Indian tribes was the battle of Little Bighorn. This was the greatest battle and win for the native americans. Over 262 soldiers died with, only 63 Indian soldiers died. After the battle the american army forced 1,000 Indians onto a reservation. Most of them died along the way there because of malaria and different type of illness. Some of the Indians tried to run away and go back to Montana but most of them was caught and killed on the spot. Little wolf and some of his companies was the only ones that made it back to Montana.

The Underground Railroad was not a railroad or underground. The Underground Railroad was a path for slaves to escape. More than 100,000 slaves escaped through the Underground Railroad. (History.com, history.com staff, paragraphs one and two) The slaves can thank people like Harriet Tubman because she was one of the people that helped the slaves leave and be free. There were other people, like William Still, Levi Coffin, and John Fairfield. One of the paths that went through the Underground Railroad was in Cincinnati, Ohio. Different paths extended through fourteen states and including Canada. The Underground Railroad was formed during the 1700-1790s. The Underground Railroad ended in 1861 when the Civil War started. (history.net, in between paragraphs one and two)