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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.