1. The Wars for the West

2. Treaties in the Great Plains
As miners and settlers began crossing the Great Plains, the U.S. government began to make agreements with American Indians.
The treaties accepted Indian claims of the Great Plains and promised to pay for damages to their lands.
These treaties did not keep peace once gold was discovered in Colorado.
The U.S. government creates reservations; areas of land set aside for American Indians.

3. Reservation System
Many American Indians refused to live on reservations.
American Indians and U.S. troops attacked one another continually; which resulted in brutal massacres.
The Sioux Indians, led by Sitting Bull, were famous for fighting against the reservation system.
The Battle of Little Bighorn was the worse defeat the U.S. Army suffered in the West.

4. Policy and Protest
In the 1870s, many American Indian peoples were living on reservations.
Indian leaders spoke out against the reservation system because:
Government agents were stealing food and money.
The land was not useful for farming or hunting.
As a result, many Indians were starving.
An Indian woman, Sarah Winnemucca, became one of the first to go to Washington D.C. to fight for reform.

5. Dawes Act
Many reformers believed that American Indians would be better off if they adopted the ways of white people.
The Dawes Act, passed in 1887, reflected this view.
Reservation land was to be broken up for families rather than it being shared.
They were also promised U.S. citizenship.
Instead, they lost about 60% of their land and it did not lead to citizenship.

6. Mining Booms
In Nevada, miners found gold and silver known as the Comstock Lode.
Over 20 years, the Comstock Lode produced over $500 million worth of gold and silver.
It took expensive equipment to mine out the metals.
As a result, mining became a big business in the West.

7. Mining Life The deeper companies dug, the work became more dangerous.
Cave-ins or floods trapped and killed miners below ground.
The threat of fire and high temperatures caused even more hazards.
Miners came from the U.S., Europe, Central and South America, Australia, and Asia.

8. Mining Towns
Mining towns produced boom towns that sprang up when a mine opened.
They were dangerous places that lacked basic law and order.
There were very few women (example 75 to 1).
Boomtowns disappeared when the mine closed down.