1. The Western Frontier: Native Americans & Miners and Farmers
United States History
The Western Frontier:
Native Americans
&
Miners and Farmers

2. American Bison
As the government pushed Native Americans onto smaller and smaller territories, the numbers of bison dropped too.

3. The Link
For centuries, 30+ tribes of Plains Indians relied on bison for food, clothing, bowstrings. Spanish brought horses to the Americas. Plains Indians used horses to kill more bison, selling hides to Americans. Railroad trains, crossing the continent by 1869, took Indians out of the picture.

4. First Wave of Pioneers: Miners
Gold & silver drew many west. Towns grew up around mines.

5. The Evolution of Mining
1849: Sutter’s Mill, 36 miles from Sacramento
Miners panned gold from stream bottoms.
1859: Comstock Lode, Nevada, near Tahoe
Miners dug deep mines & used power tools.
1874: Black Hills, South Dakota
Miners crushed rock in mills to extract gold.

7. Changing Roles
From independent gamblers hoping to strike it rich, miners soon became paid laborers working for companies that owned mines.

8. Labor Unrest
Dangerous work led miners to strike in Nevada in 1864, Idaho in Soldiers were sometimes sent to break strikes, and mine owners hired “scabs” to replace strikers.

9. Paving the Way
Mining towns & the growing railroad system opened the west to the farmers lured by cheap land.

10. The Homestead Cat Act (1862)
For $30, farmers who worked land in the west for 5 years received 160 acres.

11. Crossing the 100th meridian