Question

1. social clashes out west

a. what led to a decrease in the buffalo population and native americans’ lives being drastically altered?
b. define assimilation:
c. define the dawes act:
d. what is the chinese exclusion act?
i. why did the us government pass it?

Explanation:

a. White settlers and the U.S. government promoted large-scale commercial buffalo hunting for hides, sport, and to disrupt Native American subsistence and resistance. This, combined with settlement encroachment on buffalo grazing lands, caused the population crash and upended Native American cultures tied to the buffalo.
b. Assimilation is the process of a minority group adopting the cultural, social, and political norms of a dominant majority group, often to integrate into the larger society.
c. The Dawes Act was an 1887 U.S. law that divided communal Native American tribal lands into individual private plots, with the goal of forcing Native Americans to adopt white American agricultural and property-owning norms.
d. The Chinese Exclusion Act was an 1882 U.S. federal law that banned the immigration of Chinese laborers and blocked Chinese immigrants from becoming U.S. citizens.
i. The act was passed due to anti-Chinese prejudice from white workers who viewed Chinese immigrants as economic competition, as well as political pressure from nativist groups and politicians in Western states.

Answer:

a. Large-scale commercial buffalo hunting by white settlers, supported by the U.S. government (to undermine Native American self-sufficiency and resistance), and the loss of buffalo grazing lands to settlement caused the population decline and drastic disruption of Native American lives tied to the buffalo.
b. Assimilation is the process by which a minority group adopts the cultural, social, and institutional practices of a dominant societal group to integrate into the majority community.
c. The Dawes Act (1887) was a U.S. law that split communal Native American tribal lands into small individual allotments, with surplus land sold to white settlers, designed to force Native Americans to adopt white American private property and farming practices.
d. The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was a U.S. law that prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers and barred Chinese immigrants from gaining U.S. citizenship.
i. The U.S. government passed the act due to widespread anti-Chinese nativism, economic competition claims from white workers who saw Chinese immigrants as undercutting wages, and political pressure from Western state politicians and nativist organizations.