Moving westward and Moving Native Americans

    The two deadliest conflicts between Americans and the Native Americans were the battle at Little Bighorn and the Massacre at Wounded Knee. At the Battle at Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse, the leader of the Cheyenne tribe, and Sitting Bull, the leader of the Lakota Sioux tribe, were fighting General George Custer and his American forces. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse killed Custer and his whole army. The Battle at Little Bighorn was the Native Americans last great victory over the Americans. The Massacre at Wounded Knee was probably the saddest thing Americans did to the Native Americans. On the morning of December 29, 1890, in South Dakota, a lot of Teton men, women, and children were killed by American soldiers. Most of the time people wouldn’t kill women or children because they had nothing to do with the war. I think they killed women and children to make them scared. This would be the last time Native Americans would fight Americans. If you were an American soldier at this time would you be that desperate to kill women and children?

    I bet you're wondering why there were so many battles between the Native Americans and the Americans. Well it all started when the Americans were trying to move west. Americans were killing the animals Native Americans depended on. They left the dead carcass lay on the ground. The Native Americans use the whole animal so when you leave it there it rots and they can't use it. The American wanted to make treaties because all they wanted to do was take their land. The treaties were unsuccessful because people in the west didn't hear about them for months. In the 1860s reservations were set up to move the Native Americans so we could take their land. If you were an American in the 1800s would treat the Native American in this same way?  Would you kill their animals and take their land?  Why or why not?

For people living in the west there were two kinds of houses they could live in.  You could either build a soddie (made of chunks of grass and mud) or a dugout (whole dug into a hillside). Would you live in a dugout or a soddie? Why? When more people started to move near the same area a town would spring up. The children went to one room schools. As time passed railroads would begin to run through towns and would ship goods from the east. If you were a settler at this time how would your life change once railroads came through your town?   Settlers could now send messages with a telegraph to the family they had back east. The change of the west affected everyone differently.  

     The challenges farmers in the west had to face could be devastating.  Tornadoes were dangerous because their was no safety shelter and they destroyed crops. They also had to deal with grasshoppers. Grasshoppers can wipe out your entire crop in a short period of time. However, drought was the biggest problem farmers had. Drought killed crops because they had no water and crops need water to live. What impact do tornados, grasshoppers, and         drought have on farmers living in the Great Plains today? Why?

Whether you were a Native American or a settler you dealt with a lot of changes living in the Great Plains.