History American West

• Plains Indian society

  • Divided into bands, each with a chief and a council
  • Tribes supported each other during crises and held annual meetings
• Chiefs

  Chosen for their wisdom and skills as warriors/hunters, but their decisions did not have to be obeyed
• Warrior societies


  • Supervised hunting and protected the bands from attack, led short raids and wars
• Band roles

  • Men (braves) hunted and fought enemies
  • Women (squaws) made clothing, fed the family and looked after their tipi
  • Everyone looked after children
  • Elders were respected for their wisdom but were left behind to die if their weakness threatened the band's survival
• Consequences: When the US government tried to break up Plains Indian society, it meant the children did not learn all the skills and traditions of their people, impacting their way of life
• Importance of buffalo and horses

  • Horses allowed quicker and easier hunting of buffalo
  • Every part of a buffalo was used for food, clothing and equipment
  • Horses were essential for Plains Indians to survive
• Wealth and status

  Measured by how many horses an individual or tribe had
• Plains Indians believed a buffalo's heart gave new life to a herd
• Nomadic lifestyle

  1. Followed buffalo migrations in summer and autumn

  2. Lived in tipis made of wooden poles and buffalo hide

  3. Lived in wooden lodges insulated with soil in winter
• Consequences: Nomadic tribes found it very difficult to live permanently on reservations because they were used to travelling and hunting freely
• Consequences: Food scarcity on the Plains caused bands to move outside their tribe's traditional hunting grounds, sometimes leading to conflict with other tribes
• Plains Indians constantly raided other tribes for food, horses and people as part of their survival on the Plains
• Beliefs about nature

  • Everything in nature had a spirit that could help humans
  • Humans were part of nature and should work with the spirits of nature, rather than try to tame and control it
  • They could contact the spirit world through visions and special ritual dances
• Beliefs about land and property

  • Land was not owned by anyone, it belonged to everyone
  • Families sometimes had their own garden plots but generally no one owned land
• Consequences: The US government's different views on property led to tension with Plains Indians
• Attitudes to war

  • Tribes had developed ways to avoid too much killing because young men were essential to each tribe's survival
  • The highest respect was given to warriors who 'counted coup' by landing a blow on an enemy and getting away without injury
  • War parties would run away if a fight turned against them
• Consequences: The US Army found it difficult to fight an enemy that ran away rather than fight to the last man, and had to develop new techniques against Plains Indian warfare
• Financial panic in the East


  Motivated many Americans to migrate west in search of a better life
• Farming crisis in the Midwest


  Motivated some farmers to migrate west to settle on better farmland
• Manifest Destiny


  The belief that it was God's will for white Americans to settle over all of America, which led to the taking of land used by Indigenous Americans
• The US government needed to populate their territory in the West to defend it from foreign powers
• The California Gold Rush of 1849 led to a huge increase in migration to the West, and had significant consequences for law and order, settlement, farming and for the Plains Indians
• Gold Rush migrants


  • Hundreds of thousands of people travelled to California from 1840 onwards, hoping to find gold
• Between 1836 and 1846 the total number of migrants to the West increased from around 10,000 to over 500,000
• It was God's will that white Americans should settle over all of America. White Americans at the time simply accepted that Manifest Destiny was right and natural. This meant that they did not see any problem in taking land that was used by Indigenous Americans.
• The discovery of gold in California in 1860 led to a huge increase in migration to the West, and also had significant consequences for law and order, settlement, farming and for the Plains Indians.
• Who were the Gold Rush migrants?

  • From 1840, hundreds of thousands of people travelled to California, hoping to find gold
  • Between 1836 and 1846 the total number of migrants using the Trail was 5000. From 1844, tens of thousands used the Trail in the hope of finding gold
  • Thousands more came by ship, from all over the world, to San Francisco. A famine in China led to 20,000 Chinese people migrating to California in 1852
• Most migrants did not find gold. Professional miners with the equipment and expertise to mine underground (where most of the gold was) took over through the 1850s.
• Racial tension between American settlers and foreign workers

  Consequences of the California Gold Rush
• Gold from California boosted US currency

  Consequences of the California Gold Rush
• Migration to California caused it to become a state in 1850. By 1855 the population was 300,000 people

  Consequences of the California Gold Rush
• Increased migration along the Oregon Trail

  Consequences of the California Gold Rush
• Manifest Destiny - settlers saw their 'destiny' coming, which increases confidence for migration and settlement

  Consequences of the California Gold Rush
• Genocide of California Indians by migrants

  Consequences of the California Gold Rush
• The definition of genocide fits the treatment of California Indians by white migrants.
• The early migrants who travelled west in the years from c1835 to c1850 had different processes when they travelled along the Oregon Trail. The disasters of the Donner Party experiences show what could happen when those processes were not followed.
• The journey west

  1. Wagon trains gathered at Independence, Missouri

  2. The journey took 8-9 months

  3. Migrants needed to complete the journey before winter or risk getting stuck in the mountains
• Crossing the Great Plains

  1. Faced heat, storms, disease, stampedes, hostile Plains Indians and a lack of water

  2. Migrants had to carry enough food for the entire journey, usually a lot of salt pork
• Crossing the mountains

  1. Each trail crossed two mountain ranges - the Rockies and either the Blue Mountains or the Sierra Nevada

  2. Wagons were hauled across using blocks, ropes and pulleys

  3. Injuries were common
• The Donner Party, led by Jacob and George Donner, left Missouri for California in May 1846 with 60 wagons and 300 people. This wagon train was well equipped but had more women, elderly people and children than normal.