How Did Americans And Indians Journey Out West?

People know about the conflict between the Indian's cultures and the settler's cultures during the westward expansion. Many people know the fierce battles and melees between the Indians and the settlers that were born from this cultural conflict. In spite of this, many people may not know about the systematic and deliberate means employed by the U.S. government to permanently rid their new land of the Indians who had lived their own lives peacefully for many years. There are many strong and chilling reasons and causes as to why the settlers started all of this perplexity in the first place. There was also a very strong and threatening impact on the Native Americans

Before the white men had moved west Native Americans occupied the land west of the Mississippi River. The Plains Indians were nomadic tribes that moved around throughout western North America. Then in the mid-1800s the east of the United States was starting to get crowded; the idea of moving west was beginning to look very entertaining. There were a lot of natural resources out west such as, precious metals, wood, In 1849 gold was discovered in California and the 1849 Gold Rush occurred. Hundreds of thousands of men moved west to pan and mine for gold. Some of the Americans moved west because they thought it was their God given right to expand throughout the entire continent; no matter who lived there already. Now the settlers were walking right through Native American territory and that angered the natives. This caused skirmishes between the two peoples. On top of that the United States government was passing all sorts of acts to isolate Native Americans. All of these things affected Native Americans. Western expansion and government affected Native Americans by depletion of resources, assimilations, and governmental actions.

With different cultures and beliefs, it is very hard for groups of people to avoid conflict with one another. One of the biggest factors of the clash between Native Americans and Europeans is that they are coming from completely different lifestyles. Europeans had very poor diet, which consisted of mostly bread and soup. Those who did not starve were malnourished. Europe was filled with many diseases that killed much of Europe’s population. Native American survival was based on hunting and gathering. If they killed an animal they ate, if they failed to do so they went hungry. Native Americans lived under a democratic system and were separated into tribes and lived in tents. There was no such thing as rich or poor between tribes, which eliminated competition to move up the social ladder. Some tribes were very small, and to avoid being outrun by larger tribes, the

During westward expansion, the Native Americans got kicked to the side. The settlers coming west often saw the Indians as a threat to them and their families. However, this was not the main reason the Indians were pushed aside. The settlers saw the Indians had fertile land and wanted it for themselves. The Indians were the opposite of what the settlers thought they were. The Indians often helped the people moving west across the plains; giving them food, supplies, and acting as guides. However, the U.S. Government did not see this side of the Indians, instead they forced the Indians onto reservations. During the time of the expansion of the United States to the present, the Native Americans went through many things so that the United States could expand; they were pushed onto reservations, and forced to give up their culture through the Ideas of Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism.

Times were a lot different back in the 1800s as compared to today, and unfortunately, for the minorities of the day, most white people did not see them as equals. The Civil War was testimony to this horrific fact. America was expanding rapidly on the heels of the gold rush and the boom of industry. This expansion posed a major problem in regards to the Native American. Most of the southern and eastern tribes had already been removed from their lands and forced to move west in the 1830s.1 Later, in 1867, a peace commission was appointed to persuade western Native Americans to relinquish their land and move to reservations. Once moved onto these reservations, the Native Americans would be wards of the government until they learned to be more like the white people.2

The making of the treaty was a problem and a conflict for several reasons. One is that the Indians didn’t like it. They were very afraid of being moved onto a reservation. They hated being on reservations because they knew that the Americans were going to put them on the same reservation as 40 other tribes. Plus they didn’t want to move onto the same place with an enemy tribe!(Schuster 65) Neither would I. They would probably get into a fight or an all out war actually! Furthermore there were hardly any resources for one tribe, so how were they going to feed several? Especially when there were hundreds in each tribe! (Lambert, 150) Another reason the Indians didn’t like the treaty was because they couldn’t tell if the Americans were telling the truth, America had broken promises and ripped up treaties with other nations and tribes before, why not this one? Then there was the reason about not wanting to cede their land. It was theirs to keep. They had rightfully claimed that land and who were the settlers to take it? They had made that land livable and they were not about to give it up to a nation that was greedy and selfish in their eyes. Another reason why they didn’t like the treaty was that they didn’t want to give up their land. They wanted to be able to hunt and grow plants and fish, use their own herbs, use their own spices without having to beg, buy, and starve.

In the early 1800’s, The United States and Spain had continuously argued with the Native people. The Louisiana Territory was purchased from France in the year 1803, Americans continued to push farther west for fertile land that could be used for farming. Due to overcrowding of eastern cities like New York City and Boston many settlers moved out west for a new start. It allowed for colonists to spread out and own untouched fertile land. When white settlers arrived they had realized that most of the land acquired from the territory was occupied by Native Americans for thousands of years. For decades Americans had thought that the land west of the Appalachian Mountains were unoccupied, but they were wrong. There were many tribes that had occupied this land. This included tribes like, The Choctaw, Cherokee, and The Chickasaw. In a sense, Americans had violent outbreaks with the Natives the minute the colonists’ had arrived in the United State. As the colonists’ tried to establish complete dominance and superiority over the Indians, ongoing heated debates over land ownership, and demanding requests to satisfy greed made forceful attacks between the groups unavoidable.

The treatment of the Native Americans by the United States government to try to control all the land was poor. The United States Government pushed the Native Americans to the coast. At first, they gave the Native Americans the Great Plains then realized that they could use it. The United States held a meeting with the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Sioux, and Crow tribes. They signed treaties with the Native Americans saying that if they moved they would give them more land that they could keep, they broke all of these treaties which angered the Native Americans.

Throughout the 1800’s there were more and more Americans that had moved onto the frontier of the West coast. The people of the United States believed they were destined to have their land stretched from the Pacific Ocean (the west) to the Atlantic Ocean (the east); from sea to shining sea. This settlement came from the fact that the west not only had an abundance of fertile land for farming, but it had such a great abundance of gold and mineral mining available. The Americans also believed that this was a way (and chance) to spread their beliefs! Many people saw the West as a new beginning, so they decided to head West and begin this journey. This is what the Americans believed they were destined to do… The rapid settlement of the West was caused by the great desire of the American

In the 16th and 17th century, the Americas was being explored by Spain, Britain, and other countries. Many of these countries set up colonies in the Americas where Native Americans were living. Europeans moved into colonization of the Americas and brought changes to the land and its people. Europeans traded, hunted to warfare and personal property. As Europeans established their colonies, their societies also became segmented and divided along religious and racial lines. Most people in the societies were not free. They labored long hours as servants or slaves to produce wealth for others. As more Europeans came to settle the land in the Americas, their presence had a tremendous effect on the native peoples who were living in the Americas. The Native peoples’ life in the Americas provided lots for the Europeans to use. They traded cattle, chickens, horses, pigs, sheep, sugarcane, and wheat, for chocolate, pineapple, potatoes, pumpkins/squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco. The diets of the Natives and Europeans widened as different food types was being traded. The Natives were very open to the Europeans as they came into their land and communicated with the Natives. Over time, the landscape changed as more European communities increased. The Europeans held on to their idea of land ownership while the Natives idea of the land was for the person that need it. Also, the Europeans hoped to change the Natives to Christianity but also trick them into being slaves for the

Because of the desire for land and the discovery of gold in Georgia, there was a push in doing what was necessary to remove Indians from their land (Native History Association). This was the time of Manifest Destiny, where white moved all over the country in hopes to spread their culture and customs. This involved them moving onto Indian land (Peppas 2013, 14). Even though gold was found on Cherokee land, the Cherokee could not touch it because the government did not want the Cherokee to have access to the gold. People from all over came to their land to mine the gold (Peppas 2013, 18).

After the Civil War, thousands of Americans poured into the Great Plains on a collision course with western Indian tribes. Homesteaders, ranchers, and miners encroached on Indian lands and threatened native game and ways of life. They called on the U.S. Army to crush Indian resistance and confine tribes to government controlled reservations.

As the Civil War battles moved towards the West, white families pressed further West trying to avoid the conflicts. (Schultz, 2013). Native Americans believed the land belonged to them. Unfortunate for them, not all Native American tribes were hostile; their outcome may have been different had they been a united front.

North America was a region in the world that was new to many especially the settlers who’d later live there. For thousands of years this region was unknown until men from other countries began traveling from sea to see this part of the world they never knew about. These people who came to what is now known as the United States of America sought to establish a new life. Before the English, Spanish and French colonies stepped foot on North America there were already Indian tribes who inhabited the land. Soon after reaching this land colonist began to settle in and began working and living. Each colony struck an alliance with the native tribes who lived near them. At the same time the colonists weren’t on good terms. The primary role of the Indians

The United States took lands in the southwest to bring development and enlightenment to that area. The removal of Native Americans brought up the question of the morals the American people had. Some said it was because the wild Indians did not fit into eastern society. Some said driving them to new lands was so they could continue their barbaric lifestyles elsewhere. These statements contained much hypocrisy. Not all of the Natives were civilized, but many Native American tribes had literacy rates higher than white southerners. A large amount of tribes in the south were successful farmers, but they were still forced west. The Natives in the north found much success in trade, but they were still forced west. By the late 1800s, the United States border was ranging from coast to coast. The United States had become a prominent world power in a