The Settling of the West Indian Reservations The Long Walk The Dawes General Allotment Act A Miner’s Life The Great Race Impact of the RR A Cowboy’s Life A Farmer (Homesteader’s) Life Transcontinental RR The Populist Party Homesteader Omer Yern and family Custer Country, Nebraska, ( Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society.)

Reservation System Areas of federal land set aside for Indians. Operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs The Government expected the Indians to stay on the land which made their former way of life (ie. Hunting) difficult. Many wars were fought over this system between the tribes and the U.S. government.

Map of the Indian and Oklahoma territories

The Long Walk In the year of 1864, thousands of Navajos were forced to leave their land and travel on foot to a reservation at a place called Bosque Redondo. Some of them had to travel more than 450 miles by foot, and many died along the way from cold, starvation, or murder. This trip came to be known as "The Long Walk."

Native American Response Assimilation –Adapting to European traditions, Economically and culturally

Native American Response Resistance –The final act of fighting back was the Wounded Knee Massacre

Dawes Act The Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 lessened the tribal influence on Indian Society by making land ownership private rather than shared. Individual Indians got some land and settlers got the rest! It promised Indians citizenship, but never gave it to them.

A Miner’s Life After the Gold Rush, many traveled west looking for fortunes. They found work in mining which was often dangerous! Boom towns would grow suddenly and become ghost towns when the land was all “mined” up. THREE BRICEVILLE, TN MINERS (Photo courtesy of Bobby Wright)

Hydraulic Mining 7grgDL4

A Cowboy’s Life The Stereotypes The Reality The American Hero HollywoodVs. History

A Cowgirl’s life w0gAo&feature=BFa&list=PLEF6B B9A817http:// w0gAo&feature=BFa&list=PLEF6B B9A817

A Farmer’s Life Many more people went west after the US Civil War ended in Thousands of freed black slaves became homesteaders. These people were known as the homesteaders and their homes called sodhouses. Many thousands of them moved west from the 1850s onwards to begin new lives. They came from the east and from Europe - mainly England, Germany and Sweden, to escape poverty and over-crowding and sometimes to escape religious persecution.

Transcontential Railroad, the Great Race and Impact of the RR

The Uniting of the Railroads Promontary Point: May 10, 1869

Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion

VIDEOS! –Transcontinental Railroad –The Great Train Robbery

Review Are there any questions?

Populist Party (1870s-1890s) 3 rd party “the people v. the elites”; “farmer/laborer coalition” Movement of Small Farmers (agrarian) from the South and West; eventually tried to appeal to urban workers in the West Discuss their “Platform” using Primary Source “The Omaha Platform of the Populist Party” (1892) –What did they stand for? –Who did they oppose or see as their enemy/ oppressor?