Great Plains
Uploaded by Rapidfries on Feb 12, 2006
What were the economic, political, technological and social changes that took place on the Great Plains between 1800 and 1900?
Many things happened on the Great Plains in a century,
The political changes were something new to the Indians, they were used to having their own tribe to themselves, and other tribes ruled other parts of North America. Then the Europeans came, and then they ruled the Great Plains.
Americans and Canadians wiped out most of the Indians. A man named Major Edward Wynkoop received news that one of the tribes wanted to end the war. The Major said that was out of his command and went to the Governor of Colorado, and he replied “What should I do with the 3rd Colorado Regiment if I make peace? They have been raised to kill Indians so they will kill Indians.” So they continued with the war.
Their homeland was going to become the USA and they would be part of it. Laws that had never heard of would be put into action. But the Indians were forced to hand over there land. The Indians had no choice; they had to give up their land a go to reservations. So they met with the US Government and agreed to surrender their land. Then go to places with a very low supply of buffalo, which was the Indians main supply of food.
Therefore the ones in charge of the Plains were the white Americans. They built railroads, farms and schools all over the Indians previous land. While the Indians tried to live on the reservations they had been given.
The first thing they built to help the economy were some railroad tracks over the Plains, from Cheyenne to Chicago, Ellsworth to St. Joseph and Dodge City to St. Louis, each of these railways also stopped at nearby towns. These massive railways took hundreds of works lives away, because they had to survive extreme hot and freezing cold temperatures. They also had to be careful of hostile Indians But this helped people travel the USA a lot faster. Indians were a bit worried about the train’s loud noises scaring off their buffalo.
Soon after, farmers decided to raise their cattle and do their farming over the plains, making supplies of food for nearby towns, there food could have been transferred by the train. Then cattlemen thought that if they could make their cattle go to a...