American_West_flashcards_(1).pdf

7/28/2019 American_West_flashcards_(1).pdf

1/6

People moved from the East of

America West to California and

Oregon at rst and then later

to sele on the Great Plains.

In the middle of America are the

Great Plains where there is lots of

grassland and the Bualo live. The

Indians and the selers fought

hard over this land.

These people seled on the Great Plains to

farm the land they were given by the

government.

The land was not good for farming and the

people struggled to survive.

Homesteaders and Indians fought over land.


2/6

Most Indians at the me lived on the Great

Plains where they lived nomadically (moved

around) and hunted the Bualo. They fought

the selers for land.

The biggest tribe were the Sioux.

Europeans who moved

to America early and

trapped animals for fur

to send back to Europe.

Oen lived rough in the

Rocky and Sierra

mountains.

When people moved West at rst they

used to travel in long wagon trains with

lots of other people.

These journeys were dangerous and

many people died.

Dangers included Indian aacks, bad

weather, illness and deep rivers.


3/6

Gold Miners went to mine

gold in the West mostlyduring the Gold Rush.

They used to ght with the

Indians since they were

mining gold on land sacred to

the Indians.

Mormonism was a religion

founded by Joseph Smith aer he

said he found some gold plates

with angelic wring on them.

Mormons were persecuted in

most places so moved to Salt Lake

and founded Salt Lake City where

they could live in peace.

The idea that the white selers were

supposed to live in all parts of

America and be in charge of all of it.

Manifest Desny was part of why

people moved West to live in the

empty parts of the country.

Brigham Young took over

the Mormons aer Joseph

Smith died, he decided to

go to the Great Salt Lake.


4/6

Huge trainlines that went all over America

from East to West.Made it much easier to move people, goods

and cale to dierent parts of the country.

Land around the railways became valuable,

people wanted to live there and be

connected to the rest of the country.

Huge farms on the Great Plains full of

cale. Cale could be sent on a drive

with Cowboys to the East to be sold.

Later the cale were sent by the

railroads and were slaughtered and

butchered in cow towns like Abilene.

Economic = money situaon

Depression = in a bad way

In 1837 the stock markets at Wall Street

crashed. This led to many losing money

and high unemployment (no jobs).

People moved West to nd a beer life

away from money troubles.


5/6

The Indians and the white selers went to

war many mes over land in the Great

Plains.

Bale of Lile Bighorn - Indians won.

Sand Creek Massacre - whites killed Indian

women and children.

Wounded Knee - another massacre which was the end of Indian ghng.

The whites wanted to destroy the Indians

way of life and did this by destroying all

their culture.

They starved them into Reservaons by

killing all the Bualo which the Indians

hunted.

A man standing on a pile of Bualo skulls

The Indians were sent to live on Reservaons

which were to small to hunt Bualo from.

They depended on the government to give them

food and supplies.

The government wanted to stop their culture

and punished them if they had their own religion

and sent their children to boarding schools.


6/6

It was dicult to police the areas on the

Plains that were so far apart.

Sheris and Judges were the ocial

lawmen.

Vigilante groups made up of ordinary

people would somemes try to enforce

the law and kill criminals.

When taking cale from the ranches to be sold

Cowboys used to take trails that

had been used over and over.

The Goodnight-Loving Trail was

one of the rst main trails and

was used for many years. It was

an easy way to get across the country.

Ranches used to be so huge they did

not need fences and the Plains were

open.

When more ranches opened up and

competed with Homesteaders they

needed to build barbed wire fences.

This meant the end of the Open Range.

Documents

American_West_flashcards_(1).pdf