chapter14

= Go West: The Manifest Destiny = Until the 1880s most American settlers who moved to the West settled in California, Oregon, or Texas. By the mid-century, however, settlers changed their destinations. With the U.S. government’s encouragement and military’s protection, non-Indians began settling on the Great Plains and in other parts of the West. To make room for settlers, the government forced Native Americans onto reservations, provoking nearly a half century of conflict. **People:** Sitting Bull, George Armstrong Custer, Chief Joseph, Geronimo, Helen Hunt Jackson, Sarah Winnemucca, Wovoka, Chief Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Charles Dawes Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee ||  || Attracted by the promise of free or cheap land, thousands of farmers moved to the West after the Civil War. In fact, pioneers settled some 430 million acres between 1870 and 1900. The spread of railroads across the West allowed farmers to ship crops and other farm products to the East and around the world. Although new technologies allowed farmers to cope with harsh environments, western farm life remained difficult. Cattle ranchers were eager to use western lands that the government had originally reserved for Native Americans. Although Mexican settlers had been raising cattle since the 1600s, the boom era for cattle ranching arrived only after the Civil War, when the railroads linked the West with growing eastern markets. The two-decade boom created cattle towns and new stresses on the Great Plains environment. Ever since the forty-niners had flocked to California after the discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada, miners from all over the world had been drawn to the American West. After the richest California diggings were claimed, hundreds of forty-niners moved eastward and northward into the Rockies and beyond. A few individuals prospered from new mineral discoveries, but large mining companies reaped the greatest profits.
 * === Native American Resistance ===
 * === Western Farmers ===
 * People:** Hamlin Garland ||  ||
 * === The Cattle Boom ===
 * People:** Joseph Glidden ||  ||
 * === A Mining Boom ===
 * People:** William H. Seward ||  ||