The "Conquest of the West"

For Friday-Mon, 2/26-29; Anglo-Indian Conflict in the Trans-Mississippi West: Read 594-604.
1. What was the relationship between the Plains Indians and the buffalo?
2. Was there always conflict on the Plains between whites and Indians? Why was there eventual conflict between the two?
3. Why did the Sioux go to war with the United States in 1876? What was the result? Why did the Sioux and other tribes eventually lose to the United States?
4. What was the Dawes Severalty Act? Who supported it and why? What was the effect on the tribes and on their land?
5. What was the Ghost Dance? Why did Indians follow this new religion? Why is Wounded Knee significant?
6. What was the overall effect of reservations on Indian society and culture?

 For Tues-Wed, 3/1-2; Railroads Open the West & Success and Defeat for the American Farmer: Read pages  604-625.
1. What effect did railroads have on populating the West and promoting the economy there.
2. How did the government enable and support the railroads?
3. How did railroads abuse their clients, investors, and the government?
4. How did the government try to control these abuses? Were they successful?
5. How and why did cattle-raising evolve from the “Long Drive” to an organized “big business?”
6. What were the factors that led farmers to settle the West? How did government laws, the military, railroads, economic and environmental factors impact this movement?
7. Was the Homestead Act successful? Why?
8. What obstacles did the western environment present to farmers? How were they overcome? What problems were not overcome?
9. What was Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis?” Was it a realistic and accurate explanation of American history?
10. How and why did farming become an “industrialized” big business? What effect did this have on farmers and farming?
11. How did immigration affect the West? From what countries did immigrants to the West come?
12. Why did so many farmers get caught up in a cycle of debt that they could not get out of?
13. How and why did farmers organize themselves for their benefit?
14. Were the National Grange, the Farmer’s Alliance and the Populists successful? Why?