Western Settlement (1850-1900)

Reasons for settling the West:

• 1. Mining Boom– Gold Rush (1849)

and silver strikes

– “Get rich quick”

– Mining towns created

2. Transcontinental Railroad

• Completed in 1869• Union Pacific and

Central Pacific work to complete RR line connecting Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento, California.

• USA now “smaller”

3. The Homestead Act

• 160 acres of land given to settlers for FREE

• Land must be farmed for five years

“Manifest Destiny”

• 4. Manifest Destiny-Americans were destined to move across the continent; America destined to become larger and more powerful.

Impact of Western Settlement on Native Americans

• The buffalo populations were destroyed

• US Military put in charge of rounding up Native Americans and placing them on reservations

• Reservations: small areas of land set aside for Native Americans – Forced to become more like “white” people

The Indian Wars

• Series of conflicts between the US military and Native American Indians in the West (1860s-1880s)

• Goal was to remove Indians from their land to make room for white settlers

• The Battle of Little Bighorn (Custer’s Last Stand) – June 1876

Lt. Colonel George Custer