 Events and conditions that either force (push) people to move elsewhere, or that entice them (pull) to do so.

 What could be done with the Western Native Americans in order to use the land “more productively”? › Farming › Ranching › Mining

 Thousands of Americans were displaced by the Civil War  Escape from religious & racial oppression  Eastern farmland was too expensive  2 nd chance for failed entrepreneurs  Shelter for outlaws on the run

 The Federal Government gave 175 million acres of Western land to the Union & Central Pacific RR companies to ensure completion of the transcontinental railroad  Settlements developed all along the railroad as it was completed  Pull Factors

 The Federal Government gave state governments millions of acres of Western land to sell  Profits from those sales would be used to found “land grant” colleges specializing in agricultural arts and engineering  Pull factor

 The Federal Government gave settlers a measured, registered, and deeded plot of 160 acres (1/4 sq. mi.) if they met a certain set of criteria  Pull factor

 21 years of age; or the head of a household  American citizen; or an immigrant who was pursuing citizenship  Live on the land at least six months a year  Farm/improve the land for five straight years

 Think about the factors that pushed people West and combine them with the offer of free legal ownership of land – recognized by the U.S. Government!  People with next to nothing were offered the chance of something substantial for five years of hard living.

 The open, fertile, grasslands in the middle of the United States; stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains

 Fueled by the philosophy of Social Darwinism, many Americans believed they were superior to Native Americans therefore it was okay to take their land for more productive uses.

 Farmers, hunters, gathers  Nomads: no permanent home, but always living on the move following the food source… which for nomadic Native American tribes was buffalo!

 Sign treaties with Native American tribes for the “sale” of traditional tribal lands to the Federal Government  Sign treaties with Native American tribes forcing them to move off of traditional tribal lands to government designated reservations

 Government negotiators often deemed people “chiefs” who had no power to speak for a tribe, and in some cases had no actual affiliation with the tribe  The government did little to protect tribes from settlers forcibly taking their land  Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA): branch of the federal government overseeing the reservations (supplies, security) highly corrupt

 Not at all!

 Disease and diminishing food sources because of increased settlement and a unofficial federal policy of thinning buffalo herds.

 Little Big Horn  2,000 Sioux warriors annihilated Custer’s 200 soldiers

 The process by which one society becomes a part of another by adopting their customs, language, etc.

 It divided reservation lands into individual plots of varying sizes for cultivation  Forced European conceptions of land ownership on Native Americans, who believed nobody owned the land

 Native Americans depended on the buffalo for everything! › Food › Shelter › Clothing › Tools/weapons  Settlers, the U.S. Army, and others were encouraged to thin the herds

 Boomers: legal settlers who were given government claims to land in the Oklahoma territory  Sooners: claim jumpers who illegally staked their claim to land in the Oklahoma territory