American West

• The Great Plains


  • Vast expanse of land in the centre of North America
  • Bordered by the Rocky Mountains to the west and the Appalachian Mountains to the east
  • Experienced harsh weather conditions
• Indigenous tribes of the Great Plains

  • Sioux Nation
  • Pawnee
  • Dakota Sioux
• Tribal structure


  • Tribes divided into sub-tribes and bands
  • Tribes had multiple chiefs, not just one overall leader
  • Tribes contained warrior brotherhoods
• Tribal beliefs


  • Nomadic, following buffalo herds
  • Used every part of the buffalo
  • Some tribes grew crops as well as hunting
  • Sioux believed in the Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit)
  • Women had a valuable role but were not treated equally to men
  • Counting coup instead of fighting to cause death
• European reaction to indigenous people

  • Did not understand tribal structure and multiple chiefs
  • Thought indigenous people were "savages" and needed "civilising"
• Westward expansion was motivated by

  Push factors: economic crash in the East and South

  Pull factors: belief in better opportunities for land and wealth in the West, fulfilling religious calling (Manifest Destiny)
• Manifest Destiny


  Belief that it was God's will for white, Christian settlers to control the whole of America

  Motivated settlers to overcome difficulties with migrating westward

  US government encouraged to increase number of settlers
• Oregon Trail


  2,000-mile-long route from Missouri to Oregon

  By 1869, 400,000 people had used it to settle in the West

  Travelling was dangerous, with risks of lack of food/water, disease, and attacks
• Manifest Destiny


  The belief that westward migration was God's mission to control and "civilise" the whole of America
• Westward migration on the Oregon Trail

  1. 2,000-mile-long route from Missouri to Oregon

  2. Groups as large as 900 people completed the trip by the 1840s

  3. 400,000 people had used the Oregon Trail by 1869

  4. Travelling was dangerous - lack of food/water, diseases, attacks from indigenous tribes

  5. Taking shortcuts could prove fatal (e.g. Donner Party)
• Oregon Trail


  • Made westward migration easier before the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869
• Gold had been discovered in Sierra Nevada, California in 1848
• In April 1849, 100,000 people (the 49ers) migrated to California to find gold
• California's economy and population boomed due to the gold rush


  Gold prospectors needed food, equipment, drink and entertainment, encouraging more people to travel to California
• By 1850, California became a state because of the number of US citizens living there
• Many gold prospectors did not find gold and returned to the East poorer than before
• Fort Laramie Treaty (1851)


  Indigenous people agreed to stop wars, allow railway surveys and government roads/troops, receive compensation for broken terms; US government agreed to protect indigenous land and pay annuities
• The Fort Laramie Treaty ultimately failed due to continued tribal warfare, white settlers ignoring the terms, and the US Army not protecting the indigenous tribes as agreed
• Indian Appropriations Act (1851)

  Moved indigenous peoples into smaller reservations, some with limited hunting grounds
• Homestead Act (1862)


  Gave 160 acres of land to create a farm for $10, with ownership after 5 years of living and working on the land
• Many railroad companies and cattle ranchers took more land from the government than homesteaders
• Homesteading


  • Railroads made it easier by providing cheap/quick transport and access to manufactured products
  • New inventions like windmills, barbed wire, and the Sulky Plow improved homesteading
  • Dry farming helped crops grow with little water
• By the 1890s, life on the Plains had changed dramatically - indigenous people had lost rights, railroads connected East and West, once-infertile land became farms, and cattle ranching became common
• The US government's attitude to indigenous tribes changed dramatically - keeping them away from settlers, opening up the Plains, fighting to place them on reservations, and assimilating them
• The near-extermination of the buffalo led many indigenous people to abandon their nomadic and spiritual way of life, and forced them to learn farming
• Early settlements struggled with law and order, but by the mid-1800s, most settlements had proper law enforcement and murder was rare
• The biggest conflict was between homesteaders and cattle ranchers over how to use the land, but this was resolved by the decline in the cattle industry
• Pacific Railway Act led to the successful completion of the transcontinental railroad, which reduced the travel time across the continent from several months to one week
• The Exoduster movement led to an increase in black settlement, including the all-black settlement of Nicodemus, founded in Kansas