Financial Crisis in

the Eastern USA.

In 1837 the economy of the Eastern USA collapsed.
Factories closed and people lost their jobs. Banks
collapsed and people lost their savings. Crime rose
and the East no longer seemed like an attractive
place to live. Land in the East was hard to come by
at this time as the region was filling up with
Americans.
This all acted as a major PUSH factor for people
moving out of the East to go to the West. The West
appeared as the promised land with lots of cheap
land for settlers able to make the journey there.
 The death of
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith founded the Mormon Church and became
its first leader. He attracted thousands of followers and
led them in a desperate search for a place where they
could build Zion in the East. Smith would not take the
Mormons to the West as he believed it was unsafe and
that they could find a place to live in the East. Smith
was shot in 1845 whilst escaping from jail.
He was replaced as leader by Brigham Young. Young
made the decision to take the Mormons to the Great
Salt Lake. This date is a turning point in the history of
the Mormons.
 The discovery of
gold in California.
Before 1848 the flow of migrants to the West
(California and Oregon) was slow with less than 5,000
a year crossing the Plains. In January 1848 gold was
discovered in California and the settlement of the
West speeded up. 50,000 miners flooded across the
Plains into California in search of gold in 1849. They
established definite trails for families of settlers to use
after them. The ’49ers proved it was possible for huge
numbers to go to the West. By 1850 California was a
state in the USA. The Goldrush of 1848 acted as a
massive boost to the settlement of the West by the
USA.
 The Fort 1st

Laramie Treaty.
In 1831 the USA had set up the Permanent Indian Frontier.
This gave the Native American Indians control of the Great
Plains ‘forever’. However with the discovery of gold in
California and the flood of migrants on the Wagon Trails
across the Great Plains in the 1840s, the Frontier was soon
broken.
In 1851 a new treaty was signed, the 1st Fort Laramie
Treaty. Under this treaty the Plains Indians agreed to keep
away from the wagon trails in return for annual payments.
This made travel to the West easier for white Americans, as
well as establishing the idea of limiting the Plains Indians
to certain parts of the Great Plains.
 The Homestead
Act.
By the early 1860s the only area of the USA not settled by
white Americans was the Great Plains. These had been
ignored by settlers going west. The fertile lands in
California and Oregon were more attractive than the so
called ‘Great American Desert’.
However to truly control the whole of the USA and fulfil
Manifest Destiny the government needed settlers to move
on to the Plains. The act gave each American 160 acres of
land for a small registration fee. This encouraged
Homesteaders to move to the Plains and started the
settlement of the last bit of the USA.
 The Sand Creek
Massacre.
By the early 1860s the Cheyenne lands in Colorado were
being occupied by miners, ranchers and Homesteaders.
The presence of the Cheyenne was viewed as a threat by
the settlers and miners of the region. Led by Colonel
Chivington, a local regiment of volunteer soldiers
massacred hundreds of men, women and children
camped at Sand Creek near Denver, Colorado. This was
the first of the Indian massacres. It shows the lengths
that the USA was prepared to go to assert its control
over the Great Plains, and how the Plains Indians would
find it impossible to live in peace with the American
settlers.
 Goodnight and Loving
establish the first Cattle
trail.
At the end of the Civil War in 1865, cattle ranchers
returned to their Texan herds to discover that their
numbers had increased to over 5 million cows. Cut off
from markets in the East and North by the war, the cattle
had bred. Goodnight and Loving took 5,000 cows from
Texas on a drive up to Colorado where they sold them to
railroad workers and the US Army to feed the Indians on
reservations. This was the start of the cattle industry
boom. Soon trails were established to the new cowtowns
of Abilene and Dodge City. The cows were transported on
the railroads to the cities of the East such as New York
and Chicago.
 The Fort 2nd

Laramie Treaty.
By 1868 white settlers were pouring on to the Great
Plains. The treaties signed with the Plains Indians in the
1850s and early 1860s were increasingly worthless as
miners, Homesteaders and cattle ranchers ignored the
rights of the Plains Indians to their lands. Following the
defeat of the USA in Red Cloud’s War, the 2nd Fort
Laramie Treaty was signed. This treaty gave the Sioux
control of the sacred Black Hills area ‘forever’. It also
gave them rights to hunt buffalo in the Powder River
country. The treaty also marked the formal start of the
government’s Indian Reservation policy, putting Plains
Indians into small areas where they would be dependent
on government money and food to survive.
 The completion of the
Transcontinental Railroad.

Before the railroad was built it took six months for a

family to travel from the East to California or Oregon.
Settlement of the Plains was also limited as
Homesteaders were cut off from civilisation and access to
markets for their crops or supplies of machinery and
seeds. In 1869 the first railroad connecting the East and
West was completed with the Golden Spike Ceremony.
The railroad cut journey times to just one week from East
to West. It also encouraged trade across the USA,
brought government and law and order to the Plains,
carried cattle to market, and led to the first towns on the
Great Plains giving Homesteaders access to civilisation
and markets.
 The Battle of the
Little Bighorn.
By 1874 the USA was building a railroad through the Black
Hills. This broke the 2nd Fort Laramie Treaty. Custer and the 7th
Cavalry were sent to protect the railroad from Indian attacks.
They also discovered gold, and set off a goldrush in the area.
Led by Sitting Bull, Sioux Indians left the Black Hills
Reservation to hunt buffalo in the Powder River country. This
led to a US Army campaign to force the Sioux back on to the
reservation. The Battle of the Little Bighorn resulted, and
Custer’s 7th Cavalry were destroyed by the Indian forces. After
this however the US Army poured in reinforcements and
within 12 months the Indians were either dead or back on
reservations. The Sioux lost the Black Hills and all treaties
were cancelled by the US Government.
 The end of the
Open range.
By the 1880s there were millions of cows on the Great Plains.
They were left unfenced to roam around. The profits to be
made were enormous and this encouraged ever more cows to
be placed on the Open Range. By 1887 however the Open
Range was over due to a combination of factors. The
overgrazing of limited grass supplies and scarce water was
one reason. To protect their grass and water supplies cattle
ranchers put up barbed wire fences. To pay for these they sold
cattle which flooded the market and led to low prices by 1885.
This was followed by cold winters in 1885-86 and 1886-87.
The summer of 1886 was marked by a severe drought. With
falling demand and the need to protect new weaker breeds of
meatier cows, the Open Range had come to an end by 1887.
 The Battle of
Wounded Knee.
By the late 1880s the Plains Indians were almost all on
reservations. The buffalo were exterminated, and the Plains
were controlled by the USA as Homesteaders and cattle
ranches covered the land. In desperation the Plains Indians
adopted the Ghost Dance. They sang, prayed and danced in
the belief that the Great Spirit would come to their aid. They
believed that the whites and their civilisation would be
swallowed by the Earth and that the buffalo would return with
the Indians killed by the whites. However this was all
shattered when in December 1890, Sitting Bull was killed by
another Indian, and Big Foot’s Sioux were massacred in the
snow at Wounded Knee Creek. This marked the end of the
resistance of the Plains Indians to US control of the Great
Plains.