Lecture 11: Crossing the Plains
This lecture deals with the western movement of
Euro-Americans during the generation prior to the Civil War. The emphasis is
on the great trails by which travelers and emigrants crossed the Great Plains.
Outline of Lecture
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Introduction
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Our subject in this lecture, the overland migration, is mythic,
its scale epic. Crossing the plains parcel to westward migration,
Anglo-Americans had a notable encounter with landscapes and peoples that
were foreign to them. The two main routes across the plains were the Santa
Fe Trail and the Oregon (California, Mormon) Trail.
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The Santa Fe Trail
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The Santa Fe Trail, pioneered in 1821 by William
Becknell, followed the Arkansas River across the central plains in order to
connect the border towns of the Missouri River with the Mexican towns of New Mexico. Its purpose
was commerce—hence the title of Josiah Gregg’s classic travel narrative, The
Commerce of the Prairies. Documents of the Santa Fe Trade,
nevertheless, reveal much more about experiences on and attitudes toward
the plains than just business considerations.
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The Oregon Trail
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The Oregon Trail is
also known as the California Trail and also as the Mormon Trail. It began
its history in the 1840s as the Platte
River route across the plains for
farm-family emigrants to Oregon.
After 1849 it also was the principal overland route of argonauts heading
for the California
goldfields. Following the same general path, but trekking up the other bank
of the Platte, came Mormon pilgrims bound for the valley of the Great Salt Lake.
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Singing “Sweet
Betsy”
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“Sweet Betsy from Pike,” a folksong of the California gold rush
and the overland trail across the plains, is a primary document of a
peculiar sort. As a folksong, it shows attitudes among ordinary people. It
also exposes the dynamics of gender relations in America during the 1840s.
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Assignments
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Tocqueville
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Chapter 41: “How Americans
Understand Equality of the Sexes.” In lecture on the overland trails, I'll be
discussing gender relations on the trail, and even considering "Sweet
Betsy from Pike" as an example of such. That's why you're reading
Tocqueville on women in a democracy at this point.
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What are the assumptions underlying gender
relations in America,
according to Tocqueville?
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Clearly discernable in Tocqueville's remarks
are the lines of what later historians would call "separate
spheres." What are the "spheres" of authority,
responsibility, and competence of men and women as here outlined?
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Are the gender relations described by
Tocqueville characterized by equality?
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WWW
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In regard to the California
Gold Rush, we're going to study the traditional ballad, "Sweet Betsy
from Pike."
To believers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints the story of Joseph Smith is credible and important, but
non-believers ridicule it. The story is one, however, of terrific narrative
power. It is presented plainly at the website
of the LDS.
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Film Review
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How the West
Was Won
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An outrageously hokey film about the overland trails,
but in its time, it was regarded as epic, and you can trace themes of the
American mythic West through it.
Make a trip to the fridge when Debbie Reynolds starts to sing.
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Book Review
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Trafzer & Hyer, Exterminate
Them
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Winn, Exiles in a Land of Liberty
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Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail
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