Based on the OCR GCSE History course

1. The American West
1840 - 1895

2. The Plains
• Extreme Weather:
• W – windy
• I – isolated
• T – treeless
• C – cold
• H - hot
• Short Grass
• Desert-like
• Hard to farm
• Not much rain
• Not many trees and resources
• A lot of storms and tornados
• Settlers thought it was inhabitable

3. The Plains Indians
• Native Americans
• Polygamists - everyone looked after
• Lived in Tribes, within Tribes
• were bands - each had a chief
• Counting Coup - Warfare
• Laws but not punishments
• Buffalo uses: Clothes,
• Food, Shelter, Tools, Religion
• Horses – Currency
• Nomadic
• Believed no one could own land

4. The White Settlers
• Thought that:
• Indians were savages
• Land should be tamed
• Mainly Christian
• Arrogant
• Closed minded
• Humanitarians – People who believed that Indians
should be negotiated with not killed
• Exterminators – People who believed that Indians
could not be reasoned with and should be killed
• Manifest Destiny - Felt it was there God given
duty to spread across the land and farm it

5. The Mountain Men
• Originally trapped animals and sold their fur
• Over 3,000 Mountain men roamed America
• Rendezvous - bought + sold things + drunk
• Worked out best routes for white settlers to travel
• Brought back stories to the east about the west
• Found undiscovered land
• Often died young
• Led a very Lonely life
• Very Dangerous
• Guided people west

6. The Pioneers
• First to head west
• Many people died
• Bad weather
• Very dangerous
• Took months by wagon
• There was a lot of disease
• Some groups even ate each other
• They went because they wanted a better life
• Many people didn’t have horses (pulled it by hand)

7. The Mormons
• A Religion hated by many
• Practised Polygamy
• Called normal people ‘Gentiles‘
• 1830 - New York – J.Smith accused of being a fraud
• 1837 – Kirtland, Ohio – Mormon bank collapsed
• 1838 - Missouri – Accused of stirring up trouble with
Indians and they freed slaves (not liked by people)
• 1842 - Illinois – People scared that they’d take over
(J.Smith ran for President + he was like a dictator)
• J.Smith was shot and B.Young took over
• Settled successfully in Salt Lake City in Utah

8. The Miners
• Also called the 49ers (gold rush was in 1849)
• People got Gold Fever – Blinded by their greed
• Claim Jumping – Saying you found the gold first
• The gold was found on sacred Indian land
• The journey was also very hard
• Everyone came from everywhere
• Crime bad in the mining towns
• Personalities + cultures clashed
• Fights over the gold
• Not much gold found

9. The Homesteaders
• They settled on the plains
• 1862 – Homesteader act
• Problems and Solutions –
• Water shortages = Water Pumps
• Weather extremes = No solution
• Fuel = Used dried buffalo dung
• Supplies = Railways were built
• Ploughing = Sod Buster invented
• Protecting crops = Barbed wire
• Growing crops = Red Turkey Wheat
• 1874 – Barbed wire and water pump invented

10. Cattle Ranching + Cowboys
• Peaked between 1867 – 1880
• Open range – Area of land where cattle roam free
• Railhead towns – Towns at the end of the railroads
• Ranchers – People who owned ranches + cattle
• Texas longhorns – Cross breed of cattle
• Long drive – herding + moving cattle
• Cattle Barons – Bigger Ranchers
(pushed out smaller ranchers)
• 25% of cowboys where ex-slaves
• Life of a cowboy – Lonely + dangerous
• Cattle industry fell when the price of beef fell

11. Conflict
• Johnson County War – 1892 =
Between the homesteaders and cattlemen (cattle
ate h.s. Crops + h.s. accused of rustling cattle)
• Little Crows War – 1862 =
Sioux tribe attacked food supply wagons because
they were starving on their reservation
• Sand Creek Massacre – 1864 =
Cheyenne tribe had same problems as the Sioux,
except 450 Indians were murdered by US army
• Red Cloud’s War – 1865 =
A new trail went through Indian land, breaking the
Fort Laramie Treaty. A few Indian tribes trapped
the army and forced them to sign a new treaty

12. The Destruction of the Indians
• Battle of Little Bighorn – 1876 =
(also called Custer’s last stand) General Custer
didn’t listen to orders and so his army was
surrounded + killed by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull
• The Battle of Wounded Knee – 1890 =
The Indians ghost dance told them that they would
win but the US army took disarmed the Indians and
opened fire killing over 250 Indians. It was all over.
• Separation – Moved the Indians away from the east
• Concentration – Confined them to certain bits of land
• Reservation – Keeping them in very small areas
• Destruction – Killing the buffalo (Indians couldn’t live)

13. Key People and Groups
• John L O’Sullivan – Said the words Manifest Destiny
• George Catlin – Painted and observed the Indians
• Joseph Smith – Invented the Mormon Religion
• Brigham Young – Second Mormon Leader
• Jim Bridger – Famous mountain man
• John Sutter – discovered the gold first
• John Iliff- The first rancher
• Joseph McCoy – Promoted the railways
• The Goulds, Donners and Sagars – Pioneers
• Charles Goodnight + Oliver Loving – Cattle ranchers
• Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse + Red Cloud – Indian Chiefs