Transcript Westward Expansion - Your History Site

Samoset Middle School
8th Grade Social Studies
Belief popularized in 1840’s that the U.S. was clearly
destined to extend to the Pacific
 1783 => Treaty of Paris extends territory west to Mississippi River
 1803 => Louisiana Purchase extends territory west to Rocky
Mountains
 1819 => purchase of Florida from Spain
 1845 => annexation of Texas
 1846 => agreement with Britain gains the Oregon Territory to the
Pacific Ocean
 1846-1848 => victory in Mexican-American War gains New
Mexico & California territories
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Starting in the mid1850’s, miners,
railroads, cattle drives,
and farmers came to
the Plains
Homestead Act of
1862 gave farmers 160
free acres of land in the
Plains to settle it for at
least 5 years
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Indian Removal Act of 1830 – federal gov’t allowed to pay
Native Americans to move west of Mississippi River
Cherokees held out until 1838 but were forced by federal
troops to leave. Thousands of Cherokees died on the
Trail of Tears
Native American Struggles
• The Plains Indians had millions of buffalo to supply their needs.
• After the Civil War, American hunters hired by the railroads began killing
the animals to feed the crews building the railroads and for sport.
 William “Buffalo Bill” Cody claimed to have killed more than 4,000
buffalo in 18 months.
• The loss of the buffalo helped lead to the loss of a way of life for the Plains
Indians.
In 1867 the federal government began moving the
Indians to a few large reservations.
• One large nation was in Oklahoma, the “Indian Territory”.
Another was in the Dakota Territory.
•Most reservations were on poor land and the Indians were
often tricked to move there.
•Many Natives moved to the reservations but some resisted.
1874 – Sioux chiefs Sitting Bull &
Crazy Horse defeat Gen. George
A. Custer at Little Big Horn River.
Custer and his army were trying
to remove the Laota Sioux from
their holy land in search of gold.
Army crushed the after.
1880’s – Apache leader,
Geronimo, escapes to Mexico but
leads raids against settlers and
the army in Arizona. He
surrenders in 1886.
Chief Joseph upon the
surrender of the Nez
Perce tribe in 1877
Final conflict with whites in
1890 when 200 Lakota Sioux
are killed at Wounded Knee, SD
after police kill Sitting Bull
The Dawes Act of 1887
•Ethnocentrism =>
belief that your own culture is superior to others
•The law aimed to give Native Americans private individual ownership of land, eliminate
their nomadic lifestyle, and encourage them to become farmers
•The law broke up the reservations in an attempt to end tribal identification
•Native American children were sent to white-run boarding schools for deculturization
•The plan failed and speculators acquired most of the valuable land with Natives receiving
land that was often dry and ill-suited for farming.
Did this law have good intentions?