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First transcontinental telegraph

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The first transcontinental telegraph (completed October 24, 1861) was a line that connected the existing telegraph network in the eastern United States to a small network in California , by means of a link between Omaha , Nebraska and Carson City , Nevada , via Salt Lake City . It was a milestone in electrical engineering and in the formation of the United States . It served as the only method of near-instantaneous communication between the east and west coasts during the 1860s. For comparison, in 1841, the news of the death of President William Henry Harrison had taken 110 days to reach Los Angeles .

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128-463: After the development of efficient telegraph systems in the 1830s, their use saw almost explosive growth in the 1840s . Samuel Morse 's first experimental line between Washington, D.C. , and Baltimore —the Baltimore-Washington telegraph line —was demonstrated on May 24, 1844. By 1850 there were lines covering most of the eastern states, and a separate network of lines was soon constructed in

256-497: A 175-yard (160 m) long trench as well as an eight-mile (13 km) long overhead telegraph. The lines were connected at both ends to revolving dials marked with the letters of the alphabet and electrical impulses sent along the wire were used to transmit messages. Offering his invention to the Admiralty in July 1816, it was rejected as "wholly unnecessary". His account of the scheme and

384-547: A Cherokee ancestor on the Dawes Rolls, although all Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants had been members since 1866. As of 2004, various Native Americans are wary of attempts by others to gain control of their reservation lands for natural resources, such as coal and uranium in the West. The State of Maine is the only State House Legislature that allows Representatives from Indian Tribes. The three nonvoting members represent

512-465: A body of law, Jim Crow institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for Native Americans, and other people of color living in the south. Native American identity was especially targeted by a system that only wanted to recognize white or colored, and the government began to question the legitimacy of some tribes because they had intermarried with African Americans. Native Americans were also discriminated and discouraged from voting in

640-475: A clock-face, and the signal caused a needle to indicate the letter. This early system required the receiver to be present in real time to record the message and it reached speeds of up to 15 words a minute. In 1846, Alexander Bain patented a chemical telegraph in Edinburgh. The signal current moved an iron pen across a moving paper tape soaked in a mixture of ammonium nitrate and potassium ferrocyanide, decomposing

768-490: A federal Indian trust relationship are based. Cultural activism since the late 1960s has increased the participation of Indigenous peoples in American politics. It has also led to expanded efforts to teach and preserve Indigenous languages for younger generations, and to establish a more robust cultural infrastructure: Native Americans have founded independent newspapers and online media outlets, including First Nations Experience ,

896-468: A few kilometers (in von Sömmering's design), with each of the telegraph receiver's wires immersed in a separate glass tube of acid. An electric current was sequentially applied by the sender through the various wires representing each letter of a message; at the recipient's end, the currents electrolysed the acid in the tubes in sequence, releasing streams of hydrogen bubbles next to each associated letter or numeral. The telegraph receiver's operator would watch

1024-467: A large degree of tribal sovereignty . For this reason, many Native American reservations are still independent of state law and the actions of tribal citizens on these reservations are subject only to tribal courts and federal law. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted US citizenship to all Native Americans born in the US who had not yet obtained it. This emptied the "Indians not taxed" category established by

1152-724: A more collective basis than the culture which Europeans were familiar with. Most Indigenous American tribes treated their hunting grounds and agricultural lands as land that could be used by their entire tribe. Europeans had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were extremely different. The differences in cultures, as well as the shifting alliances among different nations during periods of warfare, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence, and social disruption. Native Americans suffered high fatality rates from contact with European diseases that were new to them, and to which they had not acquired immunity . Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused

1280-674: A moving paper tape by a stylus which was operated by an electromagnet. Morse and Vail developed the Morse code signalling alphabet . On May 24, 1844, Morse sent to Vail the historic first message “ WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT " from the Capitol in Washington to the old Mt. Clare Depot in Baltimore . The first commercial electrical telegraph was the Cooke and Wheatstone system . A demonstration four-needle system

1408-565: A permanent magnet and connecting the coil with the transmission wires by means of the commutator. The page of Gauss's laboratory notebook containing both his code and the first message transmitted, as well as a replica of the telegraph made in the 1850s under the instructions of Weber are kept in the faculty of physics at the University of Göttingen , in Germany. Gauss was convinced that this communication would be of help to his kingdom's towns. Later in

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1536-426: A practical alphabetical system in 1840 called the A.B.C. System, used mostly on private wires. This consisted of a "communicator" at the sending end and an "indicator" at the receiving end. The communicator consisted of a circular dial with a pointer and the 26 letters of the alphabet (and four punctuation marks) around its circumference. Against each letter was a key that could be pressed. A transmission would begin with

1664-468: A resolution recommending that the federal and legislative branches of the U.S. government terminate tribal governments. In 2007, a group of Democratic Party congressmen and congresswomen introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to terminate Federal recognition of the Cherokee Nation . This was related to their voting to exclude Cherokee Freedmen as members of the tribe unless they had

1792-545: A sensitive indicator for an electric current. Also that year, André-Marie Ampère suggested that telegraphy could be achieved by placing small magnets under the ends of a set of wires, one pair of wires for each letter of the alphabet. He was apparently unaware of Schweigger's invention at the time, which would have made his system much more sensitive. In 1825, Peter Barlow tried Ampère's idea but only got it to work over 200 feet (61 m) and declared it impractical. In 1830 William Ritchie improved on Ampère's design by placing

1920-583: A short-distance transmission of signals between two telegraphs in different rooms of his apartment. In 1836, the British government attempted to buy the design but Schilling instead accepted overtures from Nicholas I of Russia . Schilling's telegraph was tested on a 5-kilometre-long (3.1 mi) experimental underground and underwater cable, laid around the building of the main Admiralty in Saint Petersburg and

2048-405: A steady rhythm, and the usual speed of operation was 30 words per minute. By this point, reception had been automated, but the speed and accuracy of the transmission were still limited to the skill of the human operator. The first practical automated system was patented by Charles Wheatstone. The message (in Morse code ) was typed onto a piece of perforated tape using a keyboard-like device called

2176-467: A telegraph along the Nuremberg–Fürth railway line , built in 1835 as the first German railroad, which was the first earth-return telegraph put into service. By 1837, William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone had co-developed a telegraph system which used a number of needles on a board that could be moved to point to letters of the alphabet. Any number of needles could be used, depending on

2304-488: A terrain that was not always inviting. California Chief Justice Stephen Field sent one of the first messages from San Francisco to Abraham Lincoln , using the occasion to assure the president of California's allegiance to the Union . The construction coincided with Civil War combat to the southeast. The entire cost of the system was half a million dollars (equivalent to $ 17 million in 2023). Difficulties did not stop with

2432-477: A useful communication system. In 1774, Georges-Louis Le Sage realised an early electric telegraph. The telegraph had a separate wire for each of the 26 letters of the alphabet and its range was only between two rooms of his home. In 1800, Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile , providing a continuous current of electricity for experimentation. This became a source of a low-voltage current that could be used to produce more distinct effects, and which

2560-400: A variety of diseases, but in many cases this happened long after Europeans first arrived. When severe epidemics did hit, it was often less because Native bodies lack immunity than because European colonialism disrupted Native Communities and damaged their resources, making them more vulnerable to pathogens." After the thirteen British colonies revolted against Great Britain and established

2688-537: Is condescending for such lands to be considered "held in trust" and regulated in any fashion by any entity other than their own tribes. Some tribal groups have been unable to document the cultural continuity required for federal recognition. To achieve federal recognition and its benefits, tribes must prove continuous existence since 1900. The federal government has maintained this requirement, in part because through participation on councils and committees, federally recognized tribes have been adamant about groups' satisfying

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2816-595: Is known as the " Kelp Highway ". The early inhabitants by land were classified as Paleo-Indians , who spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into numerous culturally distinct nations. Major Paleo-Indian cultures included the Clovis and Folsom traditions , identified through unique spear points and large-game hunting methods, especially during the Lithic stage . Around 8000 BCE, as the climate stabilized, new cultural periods like

2944-729: Is the largest tribe if only full-blood individuals are counted; the Navajo are the tribe with the highest proportion of full-blood individuals, 86.3%. The Cherokee have a different history; it is the largest tribe, with 819,000 individuals, and it has 284,000 full-blood individuals. As of 2012, 70% of Native Americans live in urban areas, up from 45% in 1970 and 8% in 1940. Urban areas with significant Native American populations include Minneapolis, Denver, Phoenix, Tucson, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Houston, New York City, and Los Angeles. Many live in poverty. Racism, unemployment, drugs and gangs are common problems which Indian social service organizations such as

3072-543: The American Indian Movement (AIM) drawing attention to Indigenous rights. Landmark legislation like the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 recognized tribal autonomy, leading to the establishment of Native-run schools and economic initiatives. Tribal sovereignty has continued to evolve, with legal victories and federal acknowledgments supporting cultural revitalization. By

3200-533: The Archaic stage arose, during which hunter-gatherer communities developed complex societies across North America. The Mound Builders created large earthworks, such as at Watson Brake and Poverty Point , which date to 3500 BCE and 2200 BCE, respectively, indicating early social and organizational complexity. By 1000 BCE, Native societies in the Woodland period developed advanced social structures and trade networks, with

3328-511: The Census Bureau until 1930: American Indians and Alaska Natives as percentage of the total population between 1880 and 2020: Absolute numbers of American Indians and Alaska Natives between 1880 and 2020 (since 1890 according to the Census Bureau ): 78% of Native Americans live outside a reservation. Full-blood individuals are more likely to live on a reservation than mixed-blood individuals. The Navajo , with 286,000 full-blood individuals,

3456-636: The Dawes Act , which undermined communal landholding. A justification for the policy of conquest and subjugation of the Indigenous people emanated from the stereotyped perceptions of Native Americans as "merciless Indian savages" (as described in the United States Declaration of Independence ). Sam Wolfson in The Guardian writes, "The declaration's passage has often been cited as an encapsulation of

3584-761: The Hopewell tradition connecting the Eastern Woodlands to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico . This period led to the Mississippian culture , with large urban centers like Cahokia —a city with complex mounds and a population exceeding 20,000 by 1250 CE. From the 15th century onward, European contact drastically reshaped the Americas. Explorers and settlers introduced diseases, causing massive Indigenous population declines, and engaged in violent conflicts with Native groups. By

3712-859: The Indigenous peoples of Canada are generally known as First Nations , Inuit and Métis ( FNIM ). The history of Native Americans in the United States began before the founding of the U.S., tens of thousands of years ago with the settlement of the Americas by the Paleo-Indians . The Eurasian migration to the Americas occurred over millennia via Beringia , a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska , as early humans spread southward and eastward, forming distinct cultures and societies. Archaeological evidence suggests these migrations began 60,000 years ago and continued until around 12,000 years ago. Some may have arrived even before this time fishing in kayaks along what

3840-613: The Mississippi River , in order to accommodate continued European American expansion. This resulted in what amounted to the ethnic cleansing or genocide of many tribes, who were subjected to brutal forced marches . The most infamous of these came to be known as the Trail of Tears . Contemporary Native Americans have a unique relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes, or bands that have sovereignty and treaty rights upon which federal Indian law and

3968-511: The Mississippi River . A second significant step was the passing of the Telegraph Act by Congress in 1860, which authorized the government to open bids for the construction of a telegraph line between Missouri and California and regulated the service to be provided. Eventually, the only bidder would be Sibley, because all competitors—Theodore Adams, Benjamin Ficklin and John Harmon—withdrew at

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4096-460: The Pony Express obsolete, which officially ceased operations two days later. The overland telegraph line was operated until 1869, when it was replaced by a multi-line telegraph that had been constructed alongside the route of the first transcontinental railroad . Electric telegraph Electrical telegraphy is a point-to-point text messaging system, primarily used from the 1840s until

4224-602: The Senate Indian Affairs Committee endorsed a bill that would grant federal recognition to tribes in Virginia. As of 2000 , the largest groups in the United States by population were Navajo , Cherokee , Choctaw , Sioux , Chippewa , Apache , Blackfeet , Iroquois , and Pueblo . In 2000, eight of ten Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed ancestry. It is estimated that by 2100 that figure will rise to nine out of ten. The civil rights movement

4352-696: The United States Constitution , allowed Natives to vote in elections, and extended the Fourteenth Amendment protections granted to people "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. However, some states continued to deny Native Americans voting rights for decades. Titles II through VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applies to Native American tribes and makes many but not all of

4480-536: The booming economy of California. California was admitted to the United States in 1850, the first state on the Pacific coast. Major efforts ensued to integrate California with the other states, including sea, overland mail pioneered by George Chorpenning , the Pony Express , and passenger services such as Butterfield Overland Mail . Proposals for the subsidy of a telegraph line to California were made in Congress throughout

4608-565: The first written accounts of the contact were provided by Europeans . Ethnographers classify the Indigenous peoples of North America into ten geographical regions which are inhabited by groups of people who share certain cultural traits, called cultural areas. The ten cultural areas are: At the time of the first contact, the Indigenous cultures were different from those of the proto-industrial and mostly Christian immigrants. Some Northeastern and Southwestern cultures, in particular, were matrilineal and they were organized and operated on

4736-495: The lower 48 states and Alaska . They may also include any Americans whose origins lie in any of the indigenous peoples of North or South America. The United States Census Bureau publishes data about "American Indians and Alaska Natives ", whom it defines as anyone "having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America ... and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment". The census does not, however, enumerate "Native Americans" as such, noting that

4864-470: The 'Stick Punch'. The transmitter automatically ran the tape through and transmitted the message at the then exceptionally high speed of 70 words per minute. An early successful teleprinter was invented by Frederick G. Creed . In Glasgow he created his first keyboard perforator, which used compressed air to punch the holes. He also created a reperforator (receiving perforator) and a printer. The reperforator punched incoming Morse signals onto paper tape and

4992-507: The 1850s, and in 1860 the U.S. Post Office was authorized to spend $ 40,000 per year to build and maintain an overland line. The year before, the California State Legislature had authorized a similar subsidy of $ 6,000 per year. Construction of the first transcontinental telegraph was the work of Western Union , which Hiram Sibley , Jeptha Wade , and Ezra Cornell had established in 1856 by merging companies operating east of

5120-522: The 19th century, westward U.S. expansion, rationalized by Manifest destiny , pressured tribes into forced relocations like the Trail of Tears , which decimated communities and redefined Native territories. Despite resistance in events like the Sioux Uprising and Battle of Little Bighorn , Native American lands continued to be reduced through policies like the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and later

5248-513: The 21st century, Native Americans had achieved increased control over tribal lands and resources, although many communities continue to grapple with the legacy of displacement and economic challenges. Urban migration has also grown, with over 70% of Native Americans residing in cities by 2012, navigating issues of cultural preservation and discrimination. Continuing legal and social efforts address these concerns, building on centuries of resilience and adaptation that characterize Indigenous history across

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5376-455: The 48 states and Alaska. Native American population rebounded sharply from 1950, when they numbered 377,273; it reached 551,669 in 1960, 827,268 in 1970, with an annual growth rate of 5%, four times the national average. Total spending on Native Americans averaged $ 38 million a year in the late 1920s, dropping to a low of $ 23 million in 1933, and returning to $ 38 million in 1940. The Office of Indian Affairs counted more American Indians than

5504-643: The Americas , including Mesoamerican peoples such as the Maya , as well as Canadian and South American natives . In 2022, 634,503 Indigenous people in the United States identified with Central American Indigenous groups, 875,183 identified with the Indigenous people of Mexico , and 47,518 identified with Canadian First Nations . Of the 3.2 million Americans who identified as American Indian or Alaska Native alone in 2022, around 45% are of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, with this number growing as increasing numbers of Indigenous people from Latin American countries immigrate to

5632-399: The Americas. According to the 2020 census, the U.S. population was 331.4 million. Of this, 3.7 million people, or 1.1 percent, reported American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry alone. In addition, 5.9 million people (1.8 percent), reported American Indian or Alaska Native in combination with one or more other races. The definition of American Indian or Alaska Native used in the 2010 census

5760-621: The California system. James Gamble , an experienced telegraph builder in California, was put in charge of the western crew, and Edward Creighton was responsible for the eastern crew. From Salt Lake City , a crew in charge of James Street advanced westward, and W.H. Stebbins's crew eastward toward Fort Kearny. Creighton's crew erected its first pole on 4 July 1861. When the project was completed in October 1861, they had planted 27,500 poles holding 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of single-strand iron wire over

5888-538: The Ghost Dance properly, the European American colonists would vanish, the bison would return, and the living and the dead would be reunited in an Eden ic world. On December 29 at Wounded Knee, gunfire erupted, and U.S. soldiers killed up to 300 Indians, mostly old men, women, and children. Days after the massacre, the author L. Frank Baum wrote: The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon

6016-520: The ITA-1 Baudot code , a five-bit code. This yielded only thirty-two codes, so it was over-defined into two "shifts", "letters" and "figures". An explicit, unshared shift code prefaced each set of letters and figures. In 1901, Baudot's code was modified by Donald Murray . In the 1930s, teleprinters were produced by Teletype in the US, Creed in Britain and Siemens in Germany. By 1935, message routing

6144-571: The Imperial palace at Tsarskoye Selo and Kronstadt Naval Base . In 1833, Carl Friedrich Gauss , together with the physics professor Wilhelm Weber in Göttingen , installed a 1,200-metre-long (3,900 ft) wire above the town's roofs. Gauss combined the Poggendorff-Schweigger multiplicator with his magnetometer to build a more sensitive device, the galvanometer . To change the direction of

6272-561: The Indians were destined to vanish under the pressure of white civilization, stating in an 1886 lecture: I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. One of the last and most notable events during the Indian wars was the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. In

6400-734: The Little Earth housing complex in Minneapolis attempt to address. Below are numbers for U.S. citizens self-identifying to selected tribal groupings, according to the 2010 U.S. census. There are 573 federally recognized tribal governments and 326 Indian reservations in the United States. These tribes possess the right to form their own governments, to enforce laws (both civil and criminal) within their lands, to tax, to establish requirements for membership, to license and regulate activities, to zone, and to exclude persons from tribal territories. Limitations on tribal powers of self-government include

6528-455: The Morse system became the standard for international communication, using a modified form of Morse's code that had been developed for German railways. Electrical telegraphs were used by the emerging railway companies to provide signals for train control systems, minimizing the chances of trains colliding with each other. This was built around the signalling block system in which signal boxes along

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6656-519: The Morse system. As well as the rapid expansion of the use of the telegraphs along the railways, they soon spread into the field of mass communication with the instruments being installed in post offices . The era of mass personal communication had begun. Telegraph networks were expensive to build, but financing was readily available, especially from London bankers. By 1852, National systems were in operation in major countries: The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company, for example,

6784-484: The Penobscot Nation, Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, and Passamaquoddy Tribe . These representatives can sponsor any legislation regarding American Indian affairs or co-sponsor any pending State of Maine legislation. Maine is unique regarding Indigenous leadership representation. In the state of Virginia , Native Americans face a unique problem. Until 2017 Virginia previously had no federally recognized tribes but

6912-502: The Secretary of State, rather than the Bureau of Indian Affairs . The Bureau of Indian Affairs reports on its website that its "responsibility is the administration and management of 55,700,000 acres (225,000 km ) of land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives ". Many Native Americans and advocates of Native American rights believe that it

7040-478: The U.S. federal government's claim to recognize the "sovereignty" of Native American peoples falls short, given that the United States wishes to govern Native American peoples and treat them as subject to U.S. law. Such advocates contend that full respect for Native American sovereignty would require the U.S. government to deal with Native American peoples in the same manner as any other sovereign nation, handling matters related to relations with Native Americans through

7168-405: The US and more Latinos self-identify with indigenous heritage. Of groups Indigenous to the United States, the largest self-reported tribes are Cherokee (1,449,888), Navajo (434,910), Choctaw (295,373), Blackfeet (288,255), Sioux (220,739), and Apache (191,823). 205,954 respondents specified an Alaska Native identity. Native Hawaiians are counted separately from Native Americans by

7296-589: The United States was established, Native American tribes were considered semi-independent nations, because they generally lived in communities which were separate from communities of white settlers . The federal government signed treaties at a government-to-government level until the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 ended recognition of independent Native nations, and started treating them as "domestic dependent nations" subject to applicable federal laws. This law did preserve rights and privileges, including

7424-453: The United States, President George Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox conceived the idea of " civilizing " Native Americans in preparation for their assimilation as U.S. citizens. Assimilation, whether it was voluntary, as it was with the Choctaw , or forced , was consistently maintained as a matter of policy by consecutive American administrations. During the 19th century,

7552-578: The alphabet, a message could be transmitted by connecting the wire terminals in turn to an electrostatic machine, and observing the deflection of pith balls at the far end. The writer has never been positively identified, but the letter was signed C.M. and posted from Renfrew leading to a Charles Marshall of Renfrew being suggested. Telegraphs employing electrostatic attraction were the basis of early experiments in electrical telegraphy in Europe, but were abandoned as being impractical and were never developed into

7680-539: The application of electricity to communications at a distance. All the known effects of electricity – such as sparks , electrostatic attraction , chemical changes , electric shocks , and later electromagnetism  – were applied to the problems of detecting controlled transmissions of electricity at various distances. In 1753, an anonymous writer in the Scots Magazine suggested an electrostatic telegraph. Using one wire for each letter of

7808-536: The armature was intended to make marks on paper tape, but operators learned to interpret the clicks and it was more efficient to write down the message directly. In 1851, a conference in Vienna of countries in the German-Austrian Telegraph Union (which included many central European countries) adopted the Morse telegraph as the system for international communications. The international Morse code adopted

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7936-420: The bar, creating a much more powerful electromagnet which could operate a telegraph through the high resistance of long telegraph wires. During his tenure at The Albany Academy from 1826 to 1832, Henry first demonstrated the theory of the 'magnetic telegraph' by ringing a bell through one-mile (1.6 km) of wire strung around the room in 1831. In 1835, Joseph Henry and Edward Davy independently invented

8064-403: The bubbles and could then record the transmitted message. This is in contrast to later telegraphs that used a single wire (with ground return). Hans Christian Ørsted discovered in 1820 that an electric current produces a magnetic field that will deflect a compass needle. In the same year Johann Schweigger invented the galvanometer , with a coil of wire around a compass, that could be used as

8192-407: The census, being classified as Pacific Islanders . According to 2022 estimates, 714,847 Americans reported Native Hawaiian ancestry. The 2010 census permitted respondents to self-identify as being of one or more races. Self-identification dates from the census of 1960; prior to that the race of the respondent was determined by the opinion of the census taker. The option to select more than one race

8320-685: The chemical and producing readable blue marks in Morse code. The speed of the printing telegraph was 16 and a half words per minute, but messages still required translation into English by live copyists. Chemical telegraphy came to an end in the US in 1851, when the Morse group defeated the Bain patent in the US District Court. For a brief period, starting with the New York–Boston line in 1848, some telegraph networks began to employ sound operators, who were trained to understand Morse code aurally. Gradually,

8448-447: The colonization process as comprising genocide against Native Americans. As part of a policy of white settler colonialism , European settlers continued to wage war and perpetrated massacres against Native American peoples, removed them from their ancestral lands , and subjected them to one-sided government treaties and discriminatory government policies. Into the 20th century, these policies focused on forced assimilation . When

8576-447: The communicator. Pressing another key would then release the pointer and the previous key, and re-connect the magneto to the line. These machines were very robust and simple to operate, and they stayed in use in Britain until well into the 20th century. The Morse system uses a single wire between offices. At the sending station, an operator taps on a switch called a telegraph key , spelling out text messages in Morse code . Originally,

8704-418: The completion of the project. Keeping it in operation faced multiple problems: (a) inclement weather in the form of lightning bolts, strong winds, and heavy snow damaged both poles and the wire; (b) rubbing on the poles by bison from time to time sent down sections of the telegraph, eventually contributing to their demise; (c) the system had to be rerouted through Chicago to avoid Confederate attempts to cut

8832-516: The dehumanizing attitude toward Indigenous Americans that the US was founded on." Native American nations on the plains in the west continued armed conflicts with the U.S. throughout the 19th century, through what were called generally Indian Wars . Notable conflicts in this period include the Dakota War , Great Sioux War , Snake War , Colorado War , and Texas-Indian Wars . Expressing the frontier anti-Indian sentiment, Theodore Roosevelt believed

8960-525: The east coast by 24 October 1861, bringing an end to the Pony Express . France was slow to adopt the electrical telegraph, because of the extensive optical telegraph system built during the Napoleonic era . There was also serious concern that an electrical telegraph could be quickly put out of action by enemy saboteurs, something that was much more difficult to do with optical telegraphs which had no exposed hardware between stations. The Foy-Breguet telegraph

9088-504: The electric current, he constructed a commutator of his own. As a result, he was able to make the distant needle move in the direction set by the commutator on the other end of the line. At first, Gauss and Weber used the telegraph to coordinate time, but soon they developed other signals and finally, their own alphabet. The alphabet was encoded in a binary code that was transmitted by positive or negative voltage pulses which were generated by means of moving an induction coil up and down over

9216-605: The electric telegraph, visual systems were used, including beacons , smoke signals , flag semaphore , and optical telegraphs for visual signals to communicate over distances of land. An auditory predecessor was West African talking drums . In the 19th century, Yoruba drummers used talking drums to mimic human tonal language to communicate complex messages – usually regarding news of birth, ceremonies, and military conflict – over 4–5 mile distances. From early studies of electricity , electrical phenomena were known to travel with great speed, and many experimenters worked on

9344-970: The first Native American television channel; established Native American studies programs, tribal schools universities , museums, and language programs. Literature is at the growing forefront of American Indian studies in many genres, with the notable exception of fiction—some traditional American Indians experience fictional narratives as insulting when they conflict with traditional oral tribal narratives. The terms used to refer to Native Americans have at times been controversial . The ways Native Americans refer to themselves vary by region and generation, with many older Native Americans self-identifying as "Indians" or "American Indians", while younger Native Americans often identify as "Indigenous" or "Aboriginal". The term "Native American" has not traditionally included Native Hawaiians or certain Alaskan Natives , such as Aleut , Yup'ik , or Inuit peoples. By comparison,

9472-516: The first means of radiowave telecommunication, which he began in 1894. In the early 20th century, manual operation of telegraph machines was slowly replaced by teleprinter networks. Increasing use of the telephone pushed telegraphy into only a few specialist uses; its use by the general public dwindled to greetings for special occasions. The rise of the Internet and email in the 1990s largely made dedicated telegraphy networks obsolete. Prior to

9600-525: The greatest loss of life for Indigenous populations. "The decline of native American populations was rapid and severe, probably the greatest demographic disaster ever. Old World diseases were the primary killer. In many regions, particularly the tropical lowlands, populations fell by 90 percent or more in the first century after the contact." Estimates of pre-Columbian population of the United States vary from 4 to 18 million. Jeffrey Ostler writes: "Most Indigenous communities were eventually afflicted by

9728-402: The guarantees of the U.S. Bill of Rights applicable within the tribes. Since the 1960s, Native American self-determination movements have resulted in positive changes to the lives of many Native Americans, though there are still many contemporary issues faced by them . Today, there are over five million Native Americans in the US, about 80% of whom live outside reservations. The states with

9856-556: The highest percentage of Native Americans are Alaska , Oklahoma , New Mexico , South Dakota , Montana , and North Dakota . Beginning toward the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas led to centuries of population, cultural, and agricultural transfer and adjustment between Old and New World societies, a process known as the Columbian exchange . Because most Native American groups had preserved their histories by means of oral traditions and artwork,

9984-532: The ideology known as manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Westward expansion of European American populations after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native Americans and their lands, warfare, and rising tensions. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act , authorizing the federal government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of

10112-641: The last minute. Later they joined Sibley in his effort. Similar to the first transcontinental railroad , elimination of the gap in the telegraph service between Fort Kearny in Nebraska and Fort Churchill in Nevada was planned to be divided between teams that would be advancing the construction in opposite directions. The Pacific Telegraph Company would build west from Nebraska and the Overland Telegraph Company would build east from Nevada's connection to

10240-615: The late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems called telegraphs , that were devised to send text messages more quickly than physically carrying them. Electrical telegraphy can be considered the first example of electrical engineering . Text telegraphy consisted of two or more geographically separated stations, called telegraph offices . The offices were connected by wires, usually supported overhead on utility poles . Many electrical telegraph systems were invented that operated in different ways, but

10368-514: The latter term can encompass a broader set of groups, e.g. Native Hawaiians , which it tabulates separately. The European colonization of the Americas from 1492 resulted in a precipitous decline in the size of the Native American population because of newly introduced diseases , including weaponized diseases and biological warfare by colonizers, wars , ethnic cleansing , and enslavement . Numerous scholars have classified elements of

10496-453: The line communicate with neighbouring boxes by telegraphic sounding of single-stroke bells and three-position needle telegraph instruments. In the 1840s, the electrical telegraph superseded optical telegraph systems such as semaphores, becoming the standard way to send urgent messages. By the latter half of the century, most developed nations had commercial telegraph networks with local telegraph offices in most cities and towns, allowing

10624-619: The line in Missouri to disrupt communications among Union forces; (d) Native Americans soon started to do the same farther west as part of their hostilities with the Army. Financially, the first transcontinental telegraph was a big success from the beginning. The charge during the first week of operation was US$ 1 (equivalent to about $ 34 in 2023) per word, whereas the Telegraph Act of 1860 had specified 30 cents. The telegraph line immediately made

10752-491: The magnetic needles inside a coil of wire connected to each pair of conductors. He successfully demonstrated it, showing the feasibility of the electromagnetic telegraph, but only within a lecture hall. In 1825, William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet , with a single winding of uninsulated wire on a piece of varnished iron , which increased the magnetic force produced by electric current. Joseph Henry improved it in 1828 by placing several windings of insulated wire around

10880-473: The mercury dipping electrical relay , in which a magnetic needle is dipped into a pot of mercury when an electric current passes through the surrounding coil. In 1837, Davy invented the much more practical metallic make-and-break relay which became the relay of choice in telegraph systems and a key component for periodically renewing weak signals. Davy demonstrated his telegraph system in Regent's Park in 1837 and

11008-432: The most widely used of its type was the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph , invented in 1837. The second category are armature systems, in which the current activates a telegraph sounder that makes a click; communication on this type of system relies on sending clicks in coded rhythmic patterns. The archetype of this category was the Morse system and the code associated with it, both invented by Samuel Morse in 1838. In 1865,

11136-422: The number of characters it was required to code. In May 1837 they patented their system. The patent recommended five needles, which coded twenty of the alphabet's 26 letters. Samuel Morse independently developed and patented a recording electric telegraph in 1837. Morse's assistant Alfred Vail developed an instrument that was called the register for recording the received messages. It embossed dots and dashes on

11264-414: The ones that became widespread fit into two broad categories. First are the needle telegraphs, in which electric current sent down the telegraph line produces electromagnetic force to move a needle-shaped pointer into position over a printed list. Early needle telegraph models used multiple needles, thus requiring multiple wires to be installed between stations. The first commercial needle telegraph system and

11392-415: The pointer reached the position of the depressed key, it would stop and the magneto would be disconnected from the line. The communicator's pointer was geared to the magneto mechanism. The indicator's pointer was moved by a polarised electromagnet whose armature was coupled to it through an escapement . Thus the alternating line voltage moved the indicator's pointer on to the position of the depressed key on

11520-410: The pointers on the dials at both ends set to the start position. The transmitting operator would then press down the key corresponding to the letter to be transmitted. In the base of the communicator was a magneto actuated by a handle on the front. This would be turned to apply an alternating voltage to the line. Each half cycle of the current would advance the pointers at both ends by one position. When

11648-507: The possibilities of rapid global communication in Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph and of some other Electrical Apparatus was the first published work on electric telegraphy and even described the risk of signal retardation due to induction. Elements of Ronalds' design were utilised in the subsequent commercialisation of the telegraph over 20 years later. The Schilling telegraph , invented by Baron Schilling von Canstatt in 1832,

11776-558: The printer decoded this tape to produce alphanumeric characters on plain paper. This was the origin of the Creed High Speed Automatic Printing System, which could run at an unprecedented 200 words per minute. His system was adopted by the Daily Mail for daily transmission of the newspaper contents. With the invention of the teletypewriter , telegraphic encoding became fully automated. Early teletypewriters used

11904-410: The problems of Virginia Indians in establishing documented continuity of identity, due to the work of Walter Ashby Plecker (1912–1946). As registrar of the state's Bureau of Vital Statistics, he applied his own interpretation of the one-drop rule , enacted in law in 1924 as the state's Racial Integrity Act. It recognized only two races: "white" and "colored". Plecker, a segregationist , believed that

12032-497: The public to send messages (called telegrams ) addressed to any person in the country, for a fee. Beginning in 1850, submarine telegraph cables allowed for the first rapid communication between people on different continents. The telegraph's nearly-instant transmission of messages across continents – and between continents – had widespread social and economic impacts. The electric telegraph led to Guglielmo Marconi 's invention of wireless telegraphy ,

12160-476: The receiving end. The system was very stable and accurate and became accepted around the world. The next improvement was the Baudot code of 1874. French engineer Émile Baudot patented a printing telegraph in which the signals were translated automatically into typographic characters. Each character was assigned a five-bit code, mechanically interpreted from the state of five on/off switches. Operators had to maintain

12288-450: The return current and one for a signal bell. When at the starting station the operator pressed a key, the corresponding pointer was deflected at the receiving station. Different positions of black and white flags on different disks gave combinations which corresponded to the letters or numbers. Pavel Schilling subsequently improved its apparatus by reducing the number of connecting wires from eight to two. On 21 October 1832, Schilling managed

12416-498: The right to label arts and crafts as Native American and permission to apply for grants that are specifically reserved for Native Americans. But gaining federal recognition as a tribe is extremely difficult; to be established as a tribal group, members have to submit extensive genealogical proof of tribal descent and continuity of the tribe as a culture. In July 2000, the Washington State Republican Party adopted

12544-471: The same limitations applicable to states; for example, neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or coin money (this includes paper currency). In addition, there are a number of tribes that are recognized by individual states , but not by the federal government. The rights and benefits associated with state recognition vary from state to state. Many Native Americans and advocates of Native American rights point out that

12672-511: The same requirements as they did. The Muwekma Ohlone of the San Francisco Bay Area are pursuing litigation in the federal court system to establish recognition. Many of the smaller eastern tribes, long considered remnants of extinct peoples, have been trying to gain official recognition of their tribal status. Several tribes in Virginia and North Carolina have gained state recognition. Federal recognition confers some benefits, including

12800-469: The same year, instead of a voltaic pile , Gauss used an induction pulse, enabling him to transmit seven letters a minute instead of two. The inventors and university did not have the funds to develop the telegraph on their own, but they received funding from Alexander von Humboldt . Carl August Steinheil in Munich was able to build a telegraph network within the city in 1835–1836. In 1838, Steinheil installed

12928-426: The sending rate. There were many experiments with moving pointers, and various electrical encodings. However, most systems were too complicated and unreliable. A successful expedient to reduce the cost per message was the development of telegraphese . The first system that did not require skilled technicians to operate was Charles Wheatstone's ABC system in 1840 in which the letters of the alphabet were arranged around

13056-649: The south in the late 1950s after they reached out to him. At that time the remaining Creek in Alabama were trying to completely desegregate schools in their area. In this case, light-complexioned Native children were allowed to ride school buses to previously all white schools, while dark-skinned Native children from the same band were barred from riding the same buses. Tribal leaders, upon hearing of King's desegregation campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, contacted him for assistance. He promptly responded and, through his intervention,

13184-662: The southern and western states. In the south segregation was a major problem for Native Americans seeking education, but the NAACP's legal strategy would later change this. Movements such as Brown v. Board of Education was a major victory for the Civil Rights Movement headed by the NAACP , and inspired Native Americans to start participating in the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King Jr. began assisting Native Americans in

13312-535: The state as "colored" and gave them lists of family surnames to examine for reclassification based on his interpretation of data and the law. This led to the state's destruction of accurate records related to families and communities who identified as Native American (as in church records and daily life). By his actions, sometimes different members of the same family were split by being classified as "white" or "colored". He did not allow people to enter their primary identification as Native American in state records. In 2009,

13440-493: The state had recognized eight. This is related historically to the greater impact of disease and warfare on the Virginia Indian populations, as well as their intermarriage with Europeans and Africans. Some people confused ancestry with culture, but groups of Virginia Indians maintained their cultural continuity. Most of their early reservations were ended under the pressure of early European settlement. Some historians also note

13568-529: The state's Native Americans had been "mongrelized" by intermarriage with African Americans; to him, ancestry determined identity, rather than culture. He thought that some people of partial black ancestry were trying to " pass " as Native Americans. Plecker thought that anyone with any African heritage had to be classified as colored, regardless of appearance, amount of European or Native American ancestry, and cultural/community identification. Plecker pressured local governments into reclassifying all Native Americans in

13696-474: The total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In the 20th century, Native Americans served in significant numbers during World War II, marking a turning point for Indigenous visibility and involvement in broader American society. Post-war, Native activism grew, with movements such as

13824-433: The two clicks. The message was then written out in long-hand. Royal Earl House developed and patented a letter-printing telegraph system in 1846 which employed an alphabetic keyboard for the transmitter and automatically printed the letters on paper at the receiver, and followed this up with a steam-powered version in 1852. Advocates of printing telegraphy said it would eliminate Morse operators' errors. The House machine

13952-416: The use of sound operators eliminated the need for telegraph receivers to include register and tape. Instead, the receiving instrument was developed into a "sounder", an electromagnet that was energized by a current and attracted a small iron lever. When the sounding key was opened or closed, the sounder lever struck an anvil. The Morse operator distinguished a dot and a dash by the short or long interval between

14080-694: The years leading up to it the U.S. government had continued to seize Lakota lands. A Ghost Dance ritual on the Northern Lakota reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota , led to the U.S. Army's attempt to subdue the Lakota. The dance was part of a religious movement founded by the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka that told of the return of the Messiah to relieve the suffering of Native Americans and promised that if they would live righteous lives and perform

14208-410: Was a five-needle, six-wire system, and had the major advantage of displaying the letter being sent so operators did not need to learn a code. The insulation failed on the underground cables between Paddington and West Drayton, and when the line was extended to Slough in 1843, the system was converted to a one-needle, two-wire configuration with uninsulated wires on poles. The cost of installing wires

14336-646: Was a very significant moment for the rights of Native Americans and other people of color. Native Americans faced racism and prejudice for hundreds of years, and this increased after the American Civil War . Native Americans, like African Americans, were subjected to the Jim Crow Laws and segregation in the Deep South especially after they were made citizens through the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. As

14464-415: Was an early needle telegraph . It had a transmitting device that consisted of a keyboard with 16 black-and-white keys. These served for switching the electric current. The receiving instrument consisted of six galvanometers with magnetic needles, suspended from silk threads . The two stations of Schilling's telegraph were connected by eight wires; six were connected with the galvanometers, one served for

14592-435: Was approved for a telegraph between the imperial palace at Peterhof and the naval base at Kronstadt . However, the project was cancelled following Schilling's death in 1837. Schilling was also one of the first to put into practice the idea of the binary system of signal transmission. His work was taken over and developed by Moritz von Jacobi who invented telegraph equipment that was used by Tsar Alexander III to connect

14720-511: Was as follows: According to Office of Management and Budget, "American Indian or Alaska Native" refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment. Despite generally referring to groups indigenous to the continental US and Alaska, this demographic as defined by the US Census Bureau includes all Indigenous people of

14848-520: Was considerably modified from the original American Morse code , and was based on a code used on Hamburg railways ( Gerke , 1848). A common code was a necessary step to allow direct telegraph connection between countries. With different codes, additional operators were required to translate and retransmit the message. In 1865, a conference in Paris adopted Gerke's code as the International Morse code and

14976-634: Was created in 1852 in Rochester, New York and eventually became the Western Union Telegraph Company . Although many countries had telegraph networks, there was no worldwide interconnection. Message by post was still the primary means of communication to countries outside Europe. Telegraphy was introduced in Central Asia during the 1870s. A continuing goal in telegraphy was to reduce the cost per message by reducing hand-work, or increasing

15104-513: Was eventually adopted. This was a two-needle system using two signal wires but displayed in a uniquely different way to other needle telegraphs. The needles made symbols similar to the Chappe optical system symbols, making it more familiar to the telegraph operators. The optical system was decommissioned starting in 1846, but not completely until 1855. In that year the Foy-Breguet system was replaced with

15232-665: Was far less limited than the momentary discharge of an electrostatic machine , which with Leyden jars were the only previously known human-made sources of electricity. Another very early experiment in electrical telegraphy was an "electrochemical telegraph" created by the German physician , anatomist and inventor Samuel Thomas von Sömmering in 1809, based on an earlier 1804 design by Spanish polymath and scientist Francisco Salva Campillo . Both their designs employed multiple wires (up to 35) to represent almost all Latin letters and numerals. Thus, messages could be conveyed electrically up to

15360-479: Was granted a patent on 4 July 1838. Davy also invented a printing telegraph which used the electric current from the telegraph signal to mark a ribbon of calico infused with potassium iodide and calcium hypochlorite . The first working telegraph was built by the English inventor Francis Ronalds in 1816 and used static electricity. At the family home on Hammersmith Mall , he set up a complete subterranean system in

15488-453: Was henceforth the international standard. The US, however, continued to use American Morse code internally for some time, hence international messages required retransmission in both directions. In the United States, the Morse/Vail telegraph was quickly deployed in the two decades following the first demonstration in 1844. The overland telegraph connected the west coast of the continent to

15616-427: Was implemented in Germany during the 1930s as a network used to communicate within the government. At the rate of 45.45 (±0.5%) baud – considered speedy at the time – up to 25 telex channels could share a single long-distance telephone channel by using voice frequency telegraphy multiplexing , making telex the least expensive method of reliable long-distance communication. Automatic teleprinter exchange service

15744-526: Was installed on the Euston to Camden Town section of Robert Stephenson 's London and Birmingham Railway in 1837 for signalling rope-hauling of locomotives. It was rejected in favour of pneumatic whistles. Cooke and Wheatstone had their first commercial success with a system installed on the Great Western Railway over the 13 miles (21 km) from Paddington station to West Drayton in 1838. This

15872-621: Was introduced in 2000. If American Indian or Alaska Native was selected, the form requested the individual provide the name of the "enrolled or principal tribe". Censuses counted around 346,000 Native Americans in 1880 (including 33,000 in Alaska and 82,000 in Oklahoma, back then known as Indian Territory ), around 274,000 in 1890 (including 25,500 in Alaska and 64,500 in Oklahoma), 362,500 in 1930 and 366,500 in 1940, including those on and off reservations in

16000-542: Was introduced into Canada by CPR Telegraphs and CN Telegraph in July 1957 and in 1958, Western Union started to build a Telex network in the United States. Native Americans in the United States This is an accepted version of this page Native Americans (also called American Indians , First Americans , or Indigenous Americans ) are the Indigenous peoples of the United States , particularly of

16128-469: Was the last great barrier to full automation. Large telegraphy providers began to develop systems that used telephone-like rotary dialling to connect teletypewriters. These resulting systems were called "Telex" (TELegraph EXchange). Telex machines first performed rotary-telephone-style pulse dialling for circuit switching , and then sent data by ITA2 . This "type A" Telex routing functionally automated message routing. The first wide-coverage Telex network

16256-426: Was ultimately more economically significant than the cost of training operators. The one-needle telegraph proved highly successful on British railways, and 15,000 sets were in use at the end of the nineteenth century; some remained in service in the 1930s. The Electric Telegraph Company , the world's first public telegraphy company, was formed in 1845 by financier John Lewis Ricardo and Cooke. Wheatstone developed

16384-473: Was used on four main American telegraph lines by 1852. The speed of the House machine was announced as 2600 words an hour. David Edward Hughes invented the printing telegraph in 1855; it used a keyboard of 26 keys for the alphabet and a spinning type wheel that determined the letter being transmitted by the length of time that had elapsed since the previous transmission. The system allowed for automatic recording on

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