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talked about the day-to-day workings of the presidency including the history making moments he witnessed. exploring the american stories. watch american history tv saturdays on c-spa and find a full schedule und program guide watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> elliott west is alumni dismiss professor of history emeritus at the u of a work he earned his phd at the university of colorado. and history that we hear is that to colorado to study the history of thehe american south, but he was told they don't do that at the university of colorado, and so he said okay so instead he went on to become one of the leading scholars of the american west. he has written nine scholarly books including the last indian war, the essential west. he's won numerous prizes for his research including the price of the western historical association, the francis hartman

priced from the society of american historians, and the billington price from the organization of american historians. those of you who have the good fortune to bit in class with him know that he is an outstanding teacher. he has been recognized with the faculty achievement award, arkansas professor of the year recognition from the carnegie foundation, he was also named a finalist for the robert foster cherryry award for the nations best college teacher. we think' each he's the nat college teacher, for sure. this latest book the subject of tonights talk is "continental reckoning: the american west in the age of expansion" here this is, i read it over the breaker this is a monumental synthesis, that's my take, okay, monumental synthesis based on decades of research on the american west but it also says a lot about the country as a whole. the elliott west who arrived in boulder, colorado, to study the american south has at last received his wish, i guess

because this book, this book aims to bring together the narrative threads of westward expansion at the american civil war east and west to rethink the place of the west in american history. i hopell you will be inspired to pick up a copy for more friends at pearl's books after. i will warn you, i am a european specialist by training, but if i read this book when i was a college student i think i would be in a different feel today. it's very inspiring. so please join me in welcoming professor elliott west. [applause] thank you. thank you, laura. to. you can hear my contribution. can we turn it down a bit? not just trying to get. thank you for that generous. what was my what my hearing aids or if i take them off i won't hear myself try.

whether that is okay. okay. whoops. so good. please. thank you very much, lawrence, for the wonderful thanks to the pryor center for having us here for this. this is talk like especially to the kennedy family and for all of those who have contributed to the to the kennedy to the kennedy lecture. it is my privilege and honor to take part in lecture. tom kennedy there are very few people in my professional life whom i have loved more and who can make me laugh than tom kennedy. and those who those of you who know him. i think, can kind of can appreciate that. anyhow, thank you all for coming on this on this chilly evening this last in this book continental is about the american west, but it's also i've tried to make it also about something something more. and i want to take one particular theme in that book to

to to talk about that a little bit this evening. someone said, despite my early infatuation, the american south, i fell in love with the history of the american west. i love all of it. what i particularly have been drawn to this period of we might call the birth of the west. this period, roughly 30 year period when what we know of what we call the american that region that we call the west came into being. it's fascinating. it's one that most of us are familiar with through, popular culture. this is the period when of overland trails, the the period of the indian wars. this was the period custer's sitting bull. this was the period of mining rushes, the period of all of those things that dominate, dominate popular culture. but what i hope to get across to you this evening is it's really much more than that. it really is much more than that to teach us and tell us about american history. so what period will we talk about? what sets up the roughly as i

said, about a but a 30 year period? it begins with expansion, the expansion of the states from 1845 until 1848, three years, a little than three years. it comes out about 28 months and 15 days. we acquired annexed texas in 1845, 1846. we acquire the pacific northwest in a treaty with england. 1846. we go to war with mexico to the south. the war that lasted a couple of years. 1848, we signed a treaty with mexico. the treaty guadalupe ago. that gives california or the southwest part of the great basin that adds up to about 1,200,000 square miles. that's right. at three quarters of a billion acres added into this country in less three years. that's a lot of land. what if we. well, if that were to happen today, say, starting today, this expansion begins, it ends on

july. 2025. what this country look like. we can't expand the far further west because we get wet. but if we expand to the south, what would that look? what would the united states look like? then, july 4th, 2025. it would expand. it would reach across mexico now through all of central america in about half of columbia. so if you can imagine, in less than three years, this country added that much territory. and of course, this like that territory. it's an area of enormous complexity geographically in terms of resources, climatically demographically, in terms of its human makeup. this is the map by a french cartographer in 1844, right on the eve of this. if you were to zoom on that map, you would see it while it's claimed or its mexican territory up to the fort. it's like a parallel. it's really just this hodgepodge outside of parts of california.

this is this is this hodgepodge. different of dozens of different native groups overlapping authorities, different cultures. 30 years later, basically one generation later, it's that all of that has come a kind of coherence. by 1848, it's organized politically. obviously you see on the map here. but also integrated into the united states integrated politically integrated culturally, politically, economically it has become by 1880, let's say, it has become what we call today, the west. the west has been born. so what we see then in this 30 year period is the emergence is the birth of this distinctive, familiar part of society and american life in american landscape, the birth of the west. that's what this is book continental reckoning. it was contracted to write about

was contracted to be. that's what was supposed to do here. i did it. it's a it's a fabulous story. fascinating, much more complex, interesting note than the popular culture would tell us. but as i researched wrote that, i became increasingly convinced that it was much more than that. it's really a couple of stories. these same 30 years waiting. 45, 1845, 48 to about 1880. those same 30 years were also years. and the american historians here with will confirm this year in which a fundamental the tragic story of american history our narrative shifts in an important way. it moves in a new direction that would carry us into we call today modern america. but 1880, the latter part of

19th century modern america emerging the america that we know in the 20th century and in the 21st century. so the years of eight, 1850, in the 1880s were both the years of the birth of the american west and the years in which this nation shifts in its in its movement, historical movement into modern america. and what became increasingly convinced with about was these two stories overlap not only chronologically, not only in time, but in fact that in fact, the birth of the west, the birth of modern america, are hopelessly intertwined. and you cannot separate them. you cannot understand one without the other. and that's the thing that's idea that i want to play with. i want to play with this evening. and of course, it's in a way, it

flies in the face with the way we have been. we've grown up thinking about the birth, the west, about these events. so when we mentioned those events before, so, you know, when you look at these years, what do you think of cowboys and indians, right. mining rushes. i don't know. the indian wars before. what do they have with the birth modern america? what they have to do with. well nothing. you can think of. you know, in our popular perception, it's as if they're sort of floating out there, you know, part of this other story, apart from apart from the course of what's going on. but in the main narrative of united states history, it's as if those events were staged to entertain us rather instead of to instead of to show us what was on in this larger course of change in this country. that's not true.

not true. and what i what trouble what i try to emphasize to you tonight is, again, those two those two stories are are absolute interlocking. so how can we show that? how do you how do you get that? what i like to suggest to you this evening is to imagine something. what do they call it? it's a thought experience experiment where the sort of thought experiment took make a list, a mental list of those. the main the most important traits of what we think of as modern america. make a little list of them right up those events, those those traits of of america today, the 20th and 21st century that are fundamentally different from the united states before 1850. what the contrast. what do we mean? modern america in contrast to.

the earlier one. now go back and look at what's going on with the birth of the west and see if there are any connections or their connections between this particular trait that defines america. and these changes that are going on out there between 1850 and around 1880. i think there were i think there were a lot of them. so i will suggest what i'm trying to make that point this evening, looking at three of those items on the list, three point historians or trinity is we always make three points, never, never for three points. so here are three ways in which we i think we can we can illustrate this. there is that there is a change. first, i think we can say without conscious the united states is the wealthiest and the most powerful economy, the wealthiest people, the most powerfulconomy in the history of the world.

we are also we have gone through all stages of of industrial growth and power into a post economy. now. and we did that more thoroughly, more productively. and more generating more wealth than any other nation in the world at the time. okay. are there any connections between that and what was going on in the west during these years? yes. let's begin. what i call in the first chapter of the book, the great coincidence. the great coincidence. the treaty that ended this three stage expansion, the treaty of what goes in a suburb of mexico city by nicolas trist, this guy on the left. that treaty was signed on february. the second, 1848, or january

24th, 1848, nine days before trist signed that treaty. this guy on the left, james marshall, kind of a happy, lucky guy, as you can see here for marshall of look down and the america he was he was overseeing the construction of a mill on the american river in northern california. and he saw this little fleck of shiny stuff. you pick it up and said, i think it's gold and it was it was worth about $0.50. marshall's discovery this was roughly 200 hours, 200 hours before we acquired set loose what was by far the greatest output of gold in human history until that time. more gold came out of california and one year, 1852 that had been produced the world throughout the entire 18th century. if you in australia they had

their rush pretty after this one. if you add in australia gold to california more gold was produced between those two gold rushes and five years. then it was produced. between 1492 and 1848. incredible incredible. so, you know, virtually at the same moment that we acquired california, it began to be revealed to california was one of the richest places on earth. aphorism from the 19th century, god looks after dogs, drugs and the united states of america. and boy, you know, you got wonder at least back then. well, and of course, over just the beginning, california forgetting what this then triggered a whole series of gold rushes, australia, australia and canada. but across the united states, in the us and all in the west all of this area that we had, we

recently. then ten years after marshall's discovery, just over the sierra nevada and virginia city, nevada. silver was discovered it was be called the comstock lode that proved to be one of the richest silver strikes in human history up until that time. and then there were other silver structures and not just nevada, but arizona and, idaho and montana and colorado. so over the next over the 30 years or so, one of the things west of us was to generate incredible amounts overall wealth. the very definition of wealth at that time that was used to finance this basic retooling of american the american economy towards its modern its modern status. that was just the beginning of that provides the money to do it. and in terms of what you need, resources you need to to do to create that conversion, to make that change the most important,

non precious of those years was copper. copper that's used for the wiring in factories. copper that she was the course for the telegraph enormous still is very valuable very valuable metal. it turns out the american west had at that by far the most productive concentrations of copper on earth and in history. up until that time in 1865, michigan accounted for production of three fourths of all copper in the united states. 1885. the amount copper produced in united states have increased nine times over, and two thirds of it was produced in montana and in arizona. so the basic stuff of the basic stuff to accomplish this transition came out of the world as well as the money that to pay for it all.

this we're moving into the age of metal. but this was in some ways still age would the american way especially northwest gives us this unprecedented amount of timber products to build the infrastructure we would need for this for this new economy. the amount of wood that was cut, it put down deep into the earth to build a comstock lode, to produce the silver that came out of the comstock low was enough wood to build a modern houses for a modern city of 50,000 people that much wood went down into into this one this one industry and counterforce all the other stuff that we're building again for this retooling just, you know, this remaking of american economic life, other things that you might not think of, you probably think of some others. but here's one you might not think of. we're all familiar with the

great slaughter of the bison it takes place about 12 years, 1870, to do around 1884, 1872. there were about million bison on the great. 1884. there are 1019, according to official according to the official count, that's a decline. of 99.99993% over 12 years. we're familiar with this. you know, all the great cases, environmental misconduct in modern history. but you have to ask yourself why, what? why did they do that and why did it happen? just it's like somebody flips a switch. suddenly they go out there, start killing all these bison. right. money, obviously, for the guys who were shooting it. but why what? what's worse? the demand for the ban in 1870, it was a global shortage of

leather, of leather, not for boots or hats or upholstery leather for factories, leather that was used for this before rubber. and so for synthetic rubber. leather that was used for the belts of these machines. leather was used for the gaskets. and these industries in argentina have been providing this. but cattle, of course. but that was about. so there was this huge for industrial leather. and in 1871, two tanneries, one in pennsylvania, one in germany. their experiments discovered that they could treat, bison hides into and turn them into industrial leather. so just like that, just like they go there and starts killing or killing them 12 years, they're basically gone. thank you for go out there. there's a kind of a nice parallel here. it was, you know, the process.

it looks like a factory, right? it's basically it slaughter out on the great plains as part of this industrial revolution that's taking place in this country. so is there a connection? yeah. the west gave us money. the west gave us resources that we needed. the west even gave us the leather. those factories that we're building. but when i got into it, you know, i began to understand that there was really more than this there was another change a related change that's going on here, another christmas. the birth of the west took place exactly coincident with this revolutionary technology, revolutionary technologies and movement, the movement of people, the movement of things, movement of information. 18 railroads, most obviously one who really began to take in the 1840s and fifties by 1855, as you can see, you know, there are

about 128,000 miles of rails in the united states. in 1880. and a lot of a lot of those miles around with those were all. and for every one of those large, you see all, of course, feeder lines, of course. and going off them or lift something don't i think we're less aware of the same kind of revolution and power is being to maritime movement and commerce especially the the invention of development screw propeller that allows ships to go much to rely far less on wind to go much faster and farther with less fuel. the screw propeller, the first ship, the princeton, the first u.s. ship, a screw propeller was built in 1849. so exactly coincident with this with the beginning of this. and you can see here. those were all maritime routes of commerce during those years,

those new technologies. and, of course, a lot of it centering there on san francisco that is suddenly one of the busiest ports on earth because of because of the gold rush. and of course, the telegraph the telegraph was first famously, of course, first demonstrated what have gone right may of 1844, the year before this expansion begins. and an the first transport telegraph line, 1861 by 1880 32 million telegraphic messages sent every year in this country over these lines. and by 1880, you'll helena montana is on telegraph in connection with tokyo. so in other words, the world is shrinking because of these tech, new technologies and boom. but what does that mean for the west? well, for one thing, this allows

us of course to do acquired, take those resources, get them out to where we them. so it connects us to those basic resources i talked about just a moment ago. it also integrates the west into the national international economy, become one economic tissue by the 1880s. but it also this is took me a while to catch on to this but it also does is allow the american west itself to go through this industrial revolution in ways that you wouldn't normally think. i mean, so far what i've talked about, i think you've probably of okay with the western parts of the west was are the resources the to go east to accomplish that economic that industrial transformation but because of this that transformation is happening in the west itself as well. the west in many ways was industrializing faster earlier than the and in areas that you

might not think of like agriculture, agriculture, i think farming in the west, you probably think of and you should, but that was not all that was going on. the central valley of california, almost over within a decade, 50 years really became one of the most productive grain producing areas in the world world. by 1875, the value of grain exports not just produced the value grain exported out of california was greater than the value of gold and silver being produced in california. it becomes major a major world. the largest foreign market for grain coming out of california was liverpool, 17,000 nautical

miles away from the central valley and has also produced basically by these sort of industrial methods. it's its industrial grain production, basically. these are in north they're called mega farms, three farms in the central valley of california together covered 76,000 acres, one of those farms produced in one season, enough grain to fill 40 ships that were being sent all around the pacific rim and also over over england to. feed the bellies of folks of liverpudlians over there. so, oh, here's another example. these are called bonanza. this is on the northern plains. enormous, enormous productions of grain, as you can see, the railroad hauls in and out the

new mechanized machinery that's developing during these years being used. gang often imported abroad. it's industry this is basically industrial production. so in addition to areas that you would expect like mining the west was industrializing even even in its farms. so we're not only paying for all of this transformation, we're not only providing the resources for it. the west is in many way leading the way in the process. this is the birth. this is part of the birth, an a central part of the birth of modern america. point. latin america as a scientific leader, was trying to figure out a way to to illustrate this. so i got online there are three categories of nobel prizes.

in the sciences chemistry, physics and. from 2010 until 2004, 2010 or 1221 nobel prizes were awarded. 54 scientists in. the united states that is equal to the number of nobel prizes in those three sciences awarded to the next six nations after us. second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. so i think it's fair enough to say that if we are not the leader, we're really up there in terms of of scientific muscle in world today, we'll look at that possibly have to do with the with the birth of rhythm what does a sitting bull or or have to do have to do with that? well, you know, you can read a lot of history on this period, though, getting the slightest

inkling that fact the west during those 30 years was one of the most productive scientific laboratory arrays on earth during these years in field after field after field after field name of field. pick one out geology. in some ways, sort of the prince of the sciences during those years, fundamental breakthroughs made in both historical and structural geography, geology that is the history of the earth and the mechanisms of the formation, the formation of the earth and its topography topography, relatively young areas, and the social sides like anthropology. the american what's called the american school of anthropology, was a leader in this emerging ethnology during these years, meteorology you know, choose enology, you know, and i could probably show you people out there who are doing this fundamental work that's it's recognized all over the world of epidemiology, a sort of talk on that type.

one of the most important, most fundamental breakthroughs in our understanding of disease in a particular held diseases transmitted comes from is connected to, of all things, those cattle drives that came out of texas, you know, driving longhorns northward was a problem. there was around those cattle that led to this aha moment of understanding how diseases are passed from one, one person to another. but i'd like to focus on this evening. is one of the most active ones of the early years and one of the most important ones, paleontology, you know, bone hunting. what the search for the categorization of ancient fossils fitting together into this to to, after all, try to tell the oldest story in the world. the story of story of life. life on earth. this was a really hot topic during these years and for an

obvious reason. this, of course, spoke directly to the most contentious idea of the day. and that was charles darwin's theories of evolution and by natural selection. one way you test darwin's ideals darwin said okay this is this is a change of species that happens over unimaginable amounts of time and what you can see you know these if you study these ancient these species you'll be able to see these relationship that i'm talking about. so these bone hunters went out there. the two most famous them were these guys. after you'll see marsh, nobody is of sun after you anymore. oh, see marsh edward. author o.c. marsh was a professor paleontology at yale. cope was, a very wealthy independent researcher. these two guys were the they were the superstar and they were

engaged this ferocious competition. they bitter bitter bitter enemies. and that, of course, spurred them to do to keep trying to to scoop or to scoop the other one. this is front page news would read front page articles in new york times on the rivalry between these two guys and the hatred. the open loathing and hatred between them is a story, you know, great press. but the result was hundreds of new ancient species were unearthed by these guys and the people were who were working with them. so this was this was a very popular topic at the time. and the west was the center of the action, in particular the great plains and the american southwest. what was interesting to me when i got into it is that while these guys with the superstars, some of the most interesting work and work was being done by

westerners, these self-taught, trained paleontologists who out there making these fundamental footholds, there's here's one bill reed. bill reed was a meat in the construction of the union pacific railroad. he would go out and shoot bison to feed the guys who were building the railroad. but he he became interested in bone hunting and sort of reading up on it became a pretty pretty good seat of. the pants paleontologist. and he caught marcia's eye when he found some stuff and it correctly it telegraphed marsh said i've got these things i'm not tell you where they are because want some money so they and bar said great he hired him he hired him on. reed went on to become his top field man at the fossil bears in wyoming which was a racist untrained riches fossil bedsee t the time it was bill reed who found and oversaw the unearthin unearthing, the reassembly of

one of the most famous of these dinosaurs on earth at the time, you know, diplo doctors carnegie, which is today in the carnegie museum in pittsburgh here has anyone ever seen that? you can imagine people fighting this thing, it was the meat counter without the damn thing and oversaw the excavation of it. charles sternberg was a teenager in upstate new york when he moved out to kansas to where his brother george coincidentally later went only to become this surgeon general of the united states. his brother george was postsurgical at the fort but had a ranch so charles started working on the ranch and coming across these fossil fuels of ancient trees, magnolias and

caught the bug to keep it went on to work with scope up in montana, where others out and became one of the leading paleontologist in the united states, in the world. his is fine regarding museum l over the world including this one, triceratops, the london museum of natural history. the sort of local rents are doing this as well but the big guys are marsh and cope and it's out especially of the work in bosch that the two most important breakthroughs confirming darwins ideas of the entire period team. marsh would go out every summer out of the plate and leave these expeditions out on the planes to hunt for stepio up your here hes in the center up there of course. those are all yale grad students by the way.

[laughter] tried really hard to look tough in western -- they going to be bank presidents and stuff after this. he argued every species today, every species that ever existed is distended from earlier ones and reached its current position, current embodiment through a series of gradual changes that come about through we know now is sort of genetic drift but he said these gradual changes that linked together to produce the current one that you see. and his critics said, prove it. so marsha did. marsh did. he did it with a study of horses, in particular course feet, starting with horse toes, a three toed animal through a series of, he fits these changes

together, going about 50 billion years to the eocene, up to to the modern horse. fitting together course feet he shows how he shows, and it was incontestable. this is how it works. so you can see here, starts at down here, about the size of a collie, makes its way up. these are the toes, feet, to the modern horse. this was the first demonstrated evolutionary chain, the first time that anyone had ever e to show the evidence for exactly what darwinat had predicted. darwin also argued that if you take this branching, think of

this sort of a as sore end of this great tree of life here if youth take this and you trace it back you will see that it branches off something and there's another twig going in the other direction and you follow that comment branching down, that branches with the branches off with these others. this gradual branching out. what this means is that if you follow that branching back, that you will find distant relationships between seemingly very differently animals. right? they are related. if you go back far enough that we all related of course, amoebas or such if you go back far enough to the critics, of course, prove it, short. and marsh said okay, so we did. he published this. if you could buy, safer at the checkout stand. this is a study of ancient

aquaticpu birds that report primarily of the chart beds of kansas by marsh and by these others who were working with him. why he showed here is quite clearly desperate i should say, darwin for example, suggested that birds are connected to reptiles. birds are connected can think back to dinosaurs. remember the final scene of jurassic park and their flight off, they escaped the island, they are flying away and looked out the window at the birds flying. what you were saying of course are those birds are distant from those things that were trying to eat us a few minutes ago. so he was saying pigeons are distant cousins to crocodiles. people said really? show us.

okay. odontornithes, these go back between 100 million, 60 million years ago. they are very large birds that swam like penguins, snapping up fish back when kansas was the shallow ancient sea. if you look at their leg bones, i don't how to read the stuff of course, but what he showed was these leg bones are quite clearly related to reptiles. you can find these connections between them. what it really is a standard, it really was a stunner, was it was a superstar. ancient birds about six feet long. ancient birds with teeth, tooth birds. that's what odontornithes means, birds with teeth.

so he said here you are. you can trace where the leg bones and other things, you can trace this back to tooth reptiles like crocodiles. and this was the clincher. this was the clincher, tooth birds oliver wendell holmes read this and wrote marsh and said, when i read this about tooth birds, he said i was so astonished that the midwife in first look in the amount of richard the third, which will be about this. but her love the horse feet, is there any animal besides the bison that we associate more with the west and the horse? what does he call this? in the classical scholars here? the bluebird of the west. i love that. well, this was, this was convincing proof, these two things, convincing proof of two of the claims, basic claims made by darwin during this during

that. darwin thought so. marsh sent him a copy of odontornithes. the next day after he got it, darwin wrote marsh back and says this is the best evidence confirming my ideas in the last 20 years. this was published in 1880. what's he saying? the last 20 years. origin species was published in 1859 think this is the best proof of my ideas published, i mean, found since. i wrote this book, since i published this book. so is there a connection between modern america, in this case as a scientific superstar, and the birth of the west? yeah, i thinkhe there is. this is just one scientific area in which we can show this.

point number three, a little murkier, a little more complex. .. citizenship, the united states or america, of course from the beginning has been society of remarkable range of ethnicities and races and origins. but modern america, i think, is distinguish apart because, because the united states has extended citizenship and the basic rights around citizenship to virtually all of these groups across the board. diversity has been there from the beginning. but modern america has opened -- [laughter] think of it this way. from the start, we've been a very diverse society. but beginning of the second half of the 19th century into the 20th and 21st century our embrace, basic embrace of american citizenship has

increasingly widened. the literal meaning of the word comprehended, reached around, large and larger part of our society. bring them in to citizenship. on paperer. paperer. that's the good news. the bad news is citizenship has always beenhe limited, it's nevr been completest the always been contested. many some cases -- in some cases violently and bloodily. as much as scientific leadership, economic power. that is also part of the definition of modern america as in contrast to the america before.. okay. can we associate that back with the birth of the -- [inaudible] what i say to you, during the this 30-year period america

embarkedded on this extraordinary experience which we embraced which we bring far more people into american society, into the national embrace, into the american household than before. i think probably the first thing you would think of would be e a emancipation. and under. finish -- and you should. finish 1865, you know? more than 4 millions displaced -- enslaved people are freed and invited, given citizenship, given the right to vote,ns given the -- on paper -- the rights of citizenship. we also know, of course, that that was compromised from the very beginning. it was increasingly compromised and, inn fact, after reconstruction it turns very, very ugly, indeed. this imposition of a racial order, a white-dominated racial order on, what on paper is this

broad grant of citizenship and rights. all right? essential part of the american story, essential part of the birth of modern america. but and this is all, of course, critical to understanding that. but it begins before that, and it begins in the west. it's in the west where this story begins. it beginss with expansion. the mexican session, 100,000 former mexican citizens, are admitted as a citizens. their rights to property are guaranteed under what will be the treaty of hidalgo. at the same, time, we -- americn borders are now around a dozens of different tribal peoples. now, we don't give them citizenship until 1924 officially, but the promise is

you will become american citizens. you've got to, you've got to get more -- you've got to be more like us. [laughter] so what the government says is we will make you citizens eventually. you will become one of us, but it's going to take time, you know? you've got toit be changed firs. you've got to become like the rest of american society before you can fit in for your own good. for your ownet good. that was done, of course, through reservations. reservations, the main point of reservations was,, of course, to take their land away -- [laughter] and to open it up to settlement by others who were coming in. but the reservation ares were also seen as this kind of social, cultural laboratory in which indian peoples would be transformed into mainline americans. how are we going to do it? what a great way to look at this. these are called piece medals -- peace medals. in the 19th century, presidents handed out these medals to the

to leaders of different native groups as symbols of friendship, of alliance. on one side -- this goes back to jefferson. on one side is the current president. in this case, obviously, lincoln. these medalse of shows what that particular president, that particular administration considers the ideal relationship between the government and indian peoples. what's our vision for you. go back to jefferson, this has to do with trade. it's come a long way by 1862. this is the -- did you see much of this? [laughter] here's an indian with a head dress plowing. so, number one, you've got to be farmers. understand that you're not farmers now, but i don't really understand is that you can't possibly farm out there in

wyoming. but nonetheless, you're going to be farmers because that's sort after a -- of a basic first step into american economic life. you're going to be christians. the church. christian conversion. and you're going to send your kids to school. agriculture, christianity, education for the children. those are the three steps in which you will become american citizens. there's also a wonderful detail here. can you see this? baseball. [laughter] during recession -- recess, you go out there and play baseball. four things, agriculture, christianity, education and baseball. [laughter] to become a real american. listen, what's interesting, of course, is this is 1862. move ahead three years. this, of course, is the same way that supposedly freed people wereos going to be brought into

american society, through the freedmen's bureau, right? send your kids to school. their all -- they're all evangelical christians. of course, 40 acres and a mule, the idea of it. what we're doing here is the prototype in the west is then extended to freed people in the east. we emancipation. it's all part of the same process. is so this ises the offer. so this is the offer. but, of course, the other side of that is, this darker side of it is the imposition of a cultural order, a of a racial order in this process. we'll grant you these things on paper, but that's really not how it's beginning to work. what's really going to work is we have this white-dominated racial system that will really run things. this, of course, is part of it. what are they saying here?

you may think you had your own religion, you may think you can know howow to treat the land, yu may think that you're raising your children rightly, but you're not. we're going to tell you what to do. we're imposing this idea of who you're supposed to be on you. but it gets much uglier than this. in certain parts of the looking at l the resistance to this, wee expanding modern america, we expand this offer. at the same time, we resist it. in some parts of the west, outright genocide. that's a ricky term, and i argue with my colleagues about where you can apply and where you can't. this is california. no question in california, this is attempt genocide of native peoples. native population in california

drops by more than half in 12 years after 1848. 90% by 1900, within a 52 years. this is partly through outright killing. igit's sponsored by the legislature passes bills paying for these mill thats to go ahead and slaughter -- militias to go ahead and slaughter indians. the federal government provides money to reimburse the california legislature for these slaughters. is, it's a type of genocide. other places it's not so outright, but the obvious point is that this is the same time that we're expanding this offer of citizenship others are resisting it. and we're saying, okay, here's the offer, but it's on these terms. how about the hispanics? the hispanics? especially in southern california and in the southwest there was this -- the same thing

is going on. this attempt, they're given citizenship. at the same time, there is this concerted effort to marginalize hispanics in the main areas of economic life, and if there's any resistance to it, to kill them through run are. ing -- lynching. this is the very famous lynching of a woman which is very rare. but on a larger scale, it goes far beyond that that. here's an interesting statistic based on some recent research. we associate lynching, of course, with the southeast. mississippi has the highest rate of lynching during the worst of years. in 1880 up until the 1830s. this is the rate of lynching now. notof numbers, but the rate per 100,000. what is the rate of lynching based on extensive research,

follows extensive research in california and the southwest, but it'sit a hint. what's the rate per 100,000 in mississippi during those years? 53. what is the rate in the 30 years before that, before 1880? in southern california, in the southwest? 473. now, again, please remember -- [laughter] this has been studied far more thoroughly in the southeast than it hasn in the southwest. but these guys, the people who did this were pretty, pretty thorough. and at least there's a hinting of this. the point, of course, here -- oh, the chinese. the most anomalous of these groups during theseom years are the chinese. what about them? they're never offered citizenship.d and, in fact, in 1882 the congress for the only time in

american history in this chinese exclusion act, only time in american history congress excludes or refuses immigration into this country, closes the door absolutely for a group based exclusively simply on their place of origin. only time that it's ever happened. the other great wall of china, keeping the chinese out. so the point here, i think, is that t -- it's a very muddy point, but modern america is, the thing about modern america is we talk a great game, we offer thehe rights to a lot of people. but at the same time, it is always resisted. us at, resisted. it's always this pull and tug, pull and tug over the question of just how pluribus should be our unum in this country. if you look into the 20th

century, we see the door's narrowed. in the early 20th century, the indian exclusion act in 1924 which we try to keep out those garlic-smelling people from eastern and southern europe. after world war ii, the doors are flung open, that's done away with. civil rights movement, black power, red power, and more recently i think we're seeing the other ones pulling back, you know in resistance, more resistance to it. once again, the focus is out west, and once again we're talking about a wall. this time it's not metaphorical, with but actual. okay. oh, 7:00. the point i've tried to emphasize tonight is, first, a couple things. the story of thet birth of the west by itself is a great story. it'sre a wonderful story. but it's a story that is also closely intertwined with the story of the birth offed modern america. theof birth of the west, birth f

modern america, they're really inseparable. the american west is at one time born of modern america, the west at the same time is helping to give birth to, the west is giving birth to modern america. it's as if we are, the west is both the child and the midwife of the modern america we know in the 20th and the 21st century. but mored broadly to this, of course, the point i'm trying to make, the title of the book, "continental reckoning," is if rywe're going to understand american history generally, we've got to make more of an effort to look at it truly continentally. to look at the american narrative from coast to coast. thanks very much. [applause]

we have i'm for questions. time for questions. oh, come on. [laughter] hi, janine. hey, janine. >> i could listen to you talk all day. this iss so interesting, and i just wondered if you could elaborate a little bit more on the third point, because it's of of thest interest to me in politics and government. finish why not also -- and perhaps you did the in the book -- talk about the west as a leader in expanding citizenship to women? >> western leadership in what now? >> expanding to women? >> that's a very good point. part of the chance pangs, of course, is with genders. in fact, i do write about it. what's interesting to speculate, there waser a doctoral defense

today, we talk about this. the fact is the west led the way in the nation in the abolishment of the principle that a woman essentially gives up her legal identity in marriage. the west with has by far and away the most generous access to divorce in the nation. the rate of divorce in the west was seven times the rate of south atlantic and three times the rate of new england. women are given rights in the legal system because of west that they would not have for years in the east. it's interesting the speculate why that is -- [laughter] and i have some ideas. but that was certainly the case. you know, the homestead act, we forget, is gender-neutral. the homestead act said anyone can take up 160 acres, male or female, right? and 10% of the homesteads taken up in the northern plains in one

study were taken up by single women, either single women or widowed, women who had never married or widowed women. everything associated with homestead shows it's very complicated. i think a larger picture in the west is one in which women's rights are significantly expanded. there's annnd interesting story, anothers aspect of this, there's been some really interesting work of what are called women in waiting. these are gold rush widows. these thousands of men, many of them husbands and fathers, you know, who go out to the gold fields and to other mining rushes in the west, and they leave their women, they leave their wives and mothers at home to take on women's work. i mean, men's work. they've got to run the business, they've got to run the the farm, they've got to take on those responsibilities that had been done by men before that. result of that when you follow that story, a lot of cases men

come back and the wives say, whoo,k boy, glad you're back, honey. others, they come back, okay, time for me to take over, she says, hmm, i don't think so. [laughter] so it's interesting, you know? it's one more way in which we see westward expansion in the civil war interacting, because these were, after all, two events.er two events in which thousands of men left their homes and left women behind to talk on male roles. and you can't tell me there was not some connection between that and thect fact that in the generation just a few years ahead we see the rise of modern feminism in the united states. if i think it's one way in which these things are connected. >> i was your student back in the '80s -- [laughter] there were very different questions about the west back then, frontier west, west is region, west is a process.

and then, of course, we went through the new western history. i notice in your book you basically refer to frontier in an an italicized word one time, and i was wondering if you'd that.s i think that's very intriguing because when we were grad students with the new western history, many of us said we're never usingrd that word again. [laughter] >> thankgh you. this is chris hubbard, he's our colleague, a student about 200 years ago. [laughter] heed asked me why i didn't use -- i used the word frontier only once. now, chris knows perfectly well why i didn't use -- [laughter] he's setting me up here. it's because that's sort of a buzzword. it's not so much that it's a negative -- patty limerick, sort of most associate with the new westernso history, referred to e word frontier as the f-word.

[laughter] it's not so much obscene anymore, it's just, okay, let's get beyond that. there are otherer things, other ways to look at this. we don't' need to shoe horn this into every concept in the word frontier and whether we're for it or against it. you can use it occasionally in italics. [laughter] >> hi, elliott. thank you. i wanted to ask about that territory before 1840s. so just going by this map, would you define the american west geographicically as all territory west of the mississippi river -- [inaudible] >> i'm sorry? >> i use the missouri live. >> okay. well, then that might be a little bit different. i'm curious what's going on in the louisiana territory from 1803 until the 1840s. >> oh, that's a great question. youea mean the louisiana purcha,

right in. [inaudible conversations] >> so the territory that we with already owned before the treaty of guadalupe. >> gotcha. okay. well, of course, the missouri compromise because there's -- it's a line across that, north just of us up in bella vista. everything north of that,s which is a much larger territory, have you ever actually questioned that? that's kind of a crappy deal, right this in we just get this small part, and they get this huge expansion. well, the reason for that was except for iowa and minnesota, none of that was considered usable at all. because it was, it didn't have enough rainfall. in fact, think of this. in 18 a 45, the -- 1845, the time we're talking about, that

was called indian country. it was just left up to the tribes. do whatever you want. 1845 money of that had any governmentf whatsoever. it adds up to about one-quarter of all of american territory. in 18 is 45 -- 1845, one-fourth of all the united states a had no government whatsoever. that's because it was considered irrelevant. it was sort of a national irrelevance. now, what happens, one follow-up to that, what happens is when gold, when we get all that land to the pacific, then gold is discovered. suddenly, that country becomes important. not because what it can produce, it'll be a while later before it's arable or usable. butt now it's right in the midde of this expanded country, and we've got to get across it, right in so we've got to start dealing with the indians to get transit rights across that.

and pretty soon we've got to build a railroad to cross that. we've got to organize it, because you can't think this law works without this, without being organized to define the property. so it becomes important, expansion suddenly makes that area that had been ig relevant up til then makes that that area very important simply because it's in the middle of the country. and its history changes from that point on. very good question, thank you. anybody else? everybody wants a beer. [laughter] sir. >> [inaudible] oh, sorry. with the contribution to paleontology, was anthropology also expanded when, in the west in. >> yeah.

[laughter] i was hoping no one would ask. [laughter] it is. in fact, i mention -- it's a relatively new field, anthrothe polling. anthropology. the first head of the bureau, he called it the science of man. and the efforts in anthropology were really quite extraordinary. these railroad surveys of the 1850s surveying ways to go out to the most usable routes for a transcontinental railroad, they nsall brought along sciences, scientists. and among them, anthropologists. record, you know, there's this incredible amount of material the, anthropological material the describing these various native peoples that thep find on the way out there. published in these gorgeous volumes. we don't have any -- the only copies we have nearby are bridges. the publication, the cost of publication of these, of scientific explorations in the 1850s was roughly one-fourth

of the entire national budget, publishing the stuff. and it included are remarkable stuff, i mean, zoology is and biology, botany and entomology, all of this, including a lot of anthropology. and what this did was give a great boost with to the study of anthropology in this country. so what expansion did was suddenly offer this huge number of strange peoples to go out there and study. and we did. but, and here's the other side, this was also a period of so-called race science or pseudo science in which major figures, part of the famous sciences of the day at harvard who believe inol polygenerallists, that is, there's not one human race, there are human races. and you can divide all of humanity this these difference

racial a categories, different - and their species, their species. and they're, of course, also ranked in terms of ability a, intelligence, culturaly, possibilities. and guess who's -- [inaudible] [laughter] as you go down lore, guess who's lower and lower? and indians are close to the bottom except for, you can guess, african-americans. it's called the american school of anthropology, and it becomes a very well known across the worldd for this racial theorizing. and looking ahead, if you look ahead to germany in the 1930s, figures like german racial theorists look to the american school of anthropology as confirmation of what they really believe. so it's a very dark side.

obviously, this has nothing to do with anthropology, but that's, yes, so it was very active. and it's also very influential in terms of this particular science's impact on the world. chipper note. [laughter] anyone else? okay. well, thank you very much, again,thank you -- again, it's an honor to be the kennedy lecturer. ms. -- [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> a healthy democracy doesn't just look like this, it looks

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