The West Was A Land Of Opportunity In The Late 1800's

During the late-1800’s after the civil war in western America, americans from the east settled in occupied Native American land, looking for new opportunities. The Americans moved west to mine for gold, silver, and copper, and wanted to farm. Many people have mixed opinions on whether or not this was a land of opportunity or not based on the many different outcomes from it. Although this time was not a good opportunity for the natives because many were killed or removed from their land and were put in reservations made up of land nobody wanted. The west was a land of opportunities in the late 1800’s for settlers because it was a great time for urbanization and industrialization, and it was a good time for settlers to find gold and different
The miners were looking for gold, copper, and silver to sell. When discovering that the west had good places to mine many moved west. This attracted population to the west causing problems for the Native Americans. Mining was making so much money that it financed the civil war. It facilitated the building of the railroads, which helped the population move towards the west. It also intensified conflict between the whites and Amerindians. Mining was bringing so much people in that it had to force the Native Americans away. Many major towns were formed on railroad routes and major mining
Most Native Americans were nomads who roamed vast distances. As ranchers, miners, and farmers, moved to the plains and deprived Natives of their land, broke treaties, and often relocated them to new territory, the Natives began to often fight back. From 1868- 1890 there was constant warfare between the Native Americans and the white settlers( notes outline). A specific example of this is the sand creek massacre where Cheyenne and Arapaho indians were forced into Sand Creek reservation due to gold mining. Many battles started from tensions between the Government and the Cheyenne indians until eventually after many casualties the Cheyenne surrendered. The militia massacred about 150 indians who had been promised immunity and protective custody from the government. Many more wars happened until 1890s when most Native Americans were on reservations and the American government found it easier to feed the Native Americans than to go to war with them, but even after all of this most reservations were heavily ignored by the U.S government. Around this time most buffalo were killed in the west which was bad for the Native Americans because they used buffalo for most of their daily items in their lives like food, clothing, shelter, tools, and religious icons. White diseases also killed many Native americans. It could be argued that