Railroad Construction Dbq Analysis

During the 1800s while extensive railroad construction was occurring, many positive and negative things happened. Some of these events included spreading trade throughout the country, an increase in racist feelings, a rise in jobs for the poor and a lot of fighting with Native Americans. All of these as well as an increase in Patriotism through the idea of the Manifest Destiny occurred because of the Railroad construction. These events helped transform the United States, and link several parts of the nation together allowing for an era of unparalleled development. Although the railroads construction created many positives for the development of the United States it also created a lot of negative effects. Due to the railroads construction, many owners of the company wanted to use immigrants as cheap labor and because of this many died while working extensive hours for little to no pay (doc.4). For many years this went on without any fight but as labor unions and …show more content…
This lead to hostile feelings between the Native Americans and the settlers resulting in battles between the two like the Battle of Little Bighorn. To try and settle these feeling between them the government passed some laws including the Dawes Act to try and get Native Americans to assimilate into American Culture and forcing them onto reservations. Eventually leaders like Sitting Bull decided to stop the fighting to try and save his people and went into the Reservations as their last options. The railroads also cause deaths of many buffalos, the Native American sacred animal and primary hunting animal (Doc 3). These events all lead to negative effects of the development of the United States because of the Railroad but even with all of these bad events many good things happened due to railroads as