Why was there conflict between cattle ranchers and homesteaders?
In the 1860s a conflict began to develop over the plains between the ranchers and the homesteaders. The ranchers had moved in from the east to tame the wild lands of the west, to raise farms and families. The ranchers had moved up from the south, using the plains to graze cattle and drive the herds through on the way to the railroads or Boston.
Early conflicts were caused when homesteaders tried to stop cattle drives. ... These conflicts were continued into the 1870s when ranchers wanted the plains to be ‘open range’, the homesteaders were anxious to put up fences to protect their crops. ... However their claim was disregarded by both the cattle ranchers and the homesteaders so they were pushed into near extinction. Their Buffalo was killed off by hunters and sportsmen and their land taken over by crop farmers and ranchers.
Ranches sprang up on the Great Plains as a means of avoiding the long and uneconomic cattle drive north. The spread of homesteaders across the plains had previously blocked their way northwards, and so it made sense to settle on the plains. ... Here they could sell their cattle at ten times the amount they would have gotten in Texas.
The demand for beef in America was growing as the population began to eat increasing amounts of meat. ... The market became saturated down south so they needed a way to transport the cattle northwards. ... The trouble was getting the meat from the south where the cattle originated from to the north where the demand was. ... With his partner Oliver Loving, Goodnight he drove his cattle to Fort Summer in New Mexico and sold the cattle to the army and Indians of a reservation. ... In 1966 they drove the cattle from Texas to Missouri, a distance of 1000 miles, this avoided the homesteaders land. ... But this encored heavy losses, as the cattle became thin and died along the way.
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