Question

How did the American West change the landscape and lives for many Americans? What impact did American policy have on the lives of Native Americans? (Please provide examples) How did the railroad industry impact Western life?

Answer 1

Following the Civil War the construction of the railroads to the West opened up large areas of the country for settlement and economic growth. White eastern settlers poured to mine, farm, and ranch across the Mississippi. African-American immigrants also came from the Deep South to the West, persuaded by all-black western town promoters that wealth could be found there. Chinese railway employees additionally contributed to the diversity of the population of the city.Eastern settlement had changed the Great Plains. American bison's large herds that roamed the plains were effectively wiped out, and farmers plundered the natural grasses to plant wheat and other crops. The beef industry was growing in importance as the railroad offered a realistic way to market the beef.

The bison extinction and white settlement development dramatically changed the lives of the Native Americans living in the West. Given occasional successes in the wars that followed, the American Indians appeared doomed to defeat by the larger number of settlers and the U.S. government's military force. By the 1880s most American Indians had been confined to reservations, mostly in areas of the West which seemed to white settlers to be least desirable.

The cowboy became the icon for late 19th century West, frequently presented as a glamorous or heroic character in popular culture. However the heroic white cowboy's stereotype is far from real. Spanish vaqueros were the first cowboys, who had brought cattle to Mexico centuries ago. Black cowboys were riding the range too. In fact, the cowboy's life was far from glamorous, including long, stressful work hours, bad living conditions and economic hardship.

There is no question that the Native Americans suffered greatly at the hands of white Americans, but paternalism, though misplaced, influenced the federal Indian policy almost as much as white greed. Nor were Indians pure passive victims of the acts of white Americans. Their reactions to federal policies, the actions of white Americans and the twentieth century's profound cultural, social, and political shifts were complex and divisive. Such contradictions and cross-currents are evident in the history of the Indian New Deal and the termination policy that replaced it in the late 1940s and 1950s.