History - America (the west)

• Key groups to consider


  • Native Americans
  • Black Americans
  • White Americans
• The time period covered is from 1839 to 1868
• The Great Plains


  • Vast and dangerous area
  • Believed to be uninhabitable before the 1840s
  • Open grassland between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains
  • Scarce resources like wood and water
• White Americans referred to the Great Plains as a 'great desert' and not worth settling
• Native American tribes were pushed westwards due to the expansion of the USA into their Eastern territories
• During the 1820s, white American fur trappers and mountain men began traveling west across the Great Plains into the Rocky Mountains
• There was a positive and peaceful relationship between white Americans and Native Americans living on the Great Plains before the 1840s
• From the 1840s, white Americans wanted to claim the land due to the idea of Manifest Destiny
• Migrants began traveling over the Great Plains to settle in places like Oregon, California and the Pacific coast
• Mormons began traveling across the Great Plains to escape religious persecution and settled in Salt Lake City
• Gold was discovered in the Rocky Mountains during this time period
• Native American nations on the Great Plains

  • Lakota Sioux
  • Cheyenne
  • Nez Perce
• Lakota Sioux


  • Organized into bands led by powerful warriors
  • Nomadic lifestyle following the buffalo
  • Relied almost entirely on buffalo for food
• Cheyenne


  • Organized into tribes and bands led by powerful warriors or traders
  • Partially nomadic, some settled near trading posts
  • Traded with white Americans and fought other tribes for hunting grounds
• Nez Perce


  • Organized into villages with elected headmen
  • Not nomadic, had fixed villages
  • Hunted buffalo in summer, ate fish and roots in winter
• Native American nations on the Great Plains had different cultures, histories and characteristics
• Native American nations on the Great Plains shared beliefs about the sacredness of land and the importance of particular natural features
• Relationship between Native Americans and white Americans

  • Lakota Sioux were generally hostile and fought to keep control of their land
  • Cheyenne saw trade with white Americans as key to their survival
  • Nez Perce were friendly with white Americans and helped the Lewis and Clark expedition
• Before 1840, very few people had tried to travel west as the journey was long, dangerous and difficult
• Hundreds of thousands of white settlers traveled west between 1839 and 1860, known as 'overlanders'
• Pull factors for white Americans to travel west

  • Explorers and mountain men had mapped safe routes
  • Advertisements suggested people could improve their lives by moving west
  • The Preemption Act made it cheaper to buy land in Oregon
  • Manifest Destiny ideology that it was America's destiny to settle the west
• Push factors for white Americans to travel west

  • Economic collapse in 1837 left many unemployed and without savings
  • Land in the east was becoming overcrowded
• Travelers heading west were known as 'overlanders' and traveled in wagon trains
• Journey of the overlanders

  1. Decide on route and wagon train to join

  2. Buy necessary equipment and supplies

  3. Often spend winter in towns along the Missouri River

  4. Load possessions into covered wagons and join wagon train

  5. Travel 18-20 miles per day, often getting stuck or injured
• Overlanders faced many dangers on the journey including disease, Native American attacks, and buffalo stampedes
• There wasn't a lot of supplies on the planes, lots of grasslands quite exposed to the weather, so they needed supplies for the journey such as flour, bake and salt, coffee, sugar, things like that
• Many took guns to defend against Native American attacks although they weren't basically that common and more actually injured themselves with their own guns rather than actually getting attacked by Native Americans
• Crush injuries were common, people died of water-borne diseases so drinking clean water was sometimes difficult, the Buffalo would Stampede and injure people, there were Native American attacks at times, and there were floods so swollen Rivers getting across swollen Rivers people drowned
• When they got to places like Fort Laramie or Fort Kearney, they would have completed nearly a third of their Journey Overland
• Groups who arrived at the Rocky Mountains too late in the Autumn had to spend winter on the plains or risk crossing the mountains which led to many deaths
• Crossing the Rocky Mountains was difficult with wagon struggling with possessions struggling with children with animals, Autumn snows could trap them in the mountains which could cause people to starve to death
• Native American groups would sometimes help some of the white Americans across the Rocky Mountains but that was always a real Challenge and that was not something that people wanted to do in the Autumn or winter, it's definitely something to do in spring or summer
• Having passed through to Rocky Mountains they would arrive at a place called Fort Hall and they had to decide whether to follow the southern route to California or the northern route to Oregon which had the additional Challenge of getting into Oregon across on the Blue Mountains
• The final leg into Oregon and California was then a little easier, local Native American tribes often helped to Ferry Travelers down the rivers but disease was still major issue and those floods in late summer autumn could also be a killer
• Migration to the Far West had a negative impact on Native Americans that were living in the west part, it led to increased tension on the planes and conflict in Oregon
• In 1851 at Fort Laramie, tribes such as the Sioux, the Northern Cheyenne and the crow granted the USA rights to establish forts on safe routes across the plains in exchange for compensation, but their hunting grounds were cut into two
• In 1855 the US government had signed treaties with the Nez Perce Native American tribe and other Native American groups living in Oregon Territory, the Native Americans agreed to give up huge areas of land to the U.S settlement but settlement was supposed to be delayed for two years, however the treaty was broken straight away as settlers arrived after just 12 days
• The Nez Perce felt cheated, they were angry and they began raiding the white settlements, the U.S army was called in, the Nez Perce asked a Spanish Christian Mission to protect them but the mission was burned by the U.S army, by 1858 the Nez Perce lost 90% of their land and 24 of their Chiefs have been killed
• Brigham Young


  Leader of the Mormons, chose Utah territory as a place to build a new settlement at the Great Salt Lake, which became known as Salt Lake City
• The Mormon Church decided how much land each family got, nobody was allowed for example to own things like water, a Mormon temple was built at the center of the city which was modeled on Paris</b>