American West

• General Philip Sheridan to plan.
• Indian Removal Act forced Indians in East to move west of Mississippi


  1830
• Permanent Indian Frontier established (thousands died - Trail of Tears)


  June 1834
• Indian Trade and Intercourse Act


  Established a frontier between Indian land and European colonialist land. Prevented traders from selling alcohol or guns to indians
• US won the American-Mexican War, gaining a lot of land in the west

  February 1848
• Fort Laramie Treaty established diplomatic relations between the US and Indians

  February 1851
• Fort Laramie Treaty


  1. US agreed to pay tribes $50,000 a year

  2. US built forts along Oregon Trail to protect migrants

  3. Indians agreed to stop fighting and allow migrants
• The payments changed Indian way of life and made them dependent on Americans
• Indians were allowed to build roads and plan railroads through their land
• Neither side stuck to the treaty (not Indian culture to make decisions this way - they didn't understand) : Fort Laramie Treaty
• Indian Appropriation Act funded the movement of Indians onto reservations

  February 1851
• The Homestead Act encouraged settlement westward as people were able to acquire free land from the federal government.
• The Homestead Act provided that any adult citizen or intended citizen could claim up to 160 acres of surveyed government land if they lived there for five years and improved it.
• The Homestead Act was passed by Congress on May 20, 1862.