White Americans expanded their settlements into the western part of America in the late 1800s ("How The Western United States Was Settled"). The West was special to the White Americans as it provided a land of opportunity for many of them. For instance, the West provided lots of land to the growing population of America (Ushistory.org). According to "The American West," the key opportunities in the West included farming, mining, ranching, and railroad construction.
The picture below shows settlement in the West and unoccupied land at the back. The empty/unoccupied land is what attracted the White Americans to expand their settlement to the West. At that time, most of the land was unsettled, which attracted many people to move to the west. As seen from the picture, the West was not advanced at that time, as it is evident from the buildings and machines in the picture.
Figure 1: The American West in the 1800s, Source: Seager and Herweijer
The people who lived in the West were the White Americans and the American Indians. Some of the challenges they faced included few trees to build houses, little fuel for cooking and heating, difficulties in finding water and preparing land for planting. The weather in the West was also a challenge. The winters were cold and sometimes months would pass without a trace of rain ("How The Western United States Was Settled"). The West changed in the late 1800s as the settlers invented new ways of doing things while trying to find solutions to their problems in the West. Railroads were built in the West, new equipment was invented for digging wells, and new farm equipment was invented.
According to Tdl.org, conflict in the West in the 1890s was due to the federal policy that enforced the differing views on land ownership and the environment. Disputes erupted over railroads, and labor relations among other things. The conflicts of the 1890s were linked to the changes going on in the country at that time. In the 1890s, the White Americans and the Native Indians wanted to own land in the West, but the federal policies imposed on the land issues were not fair to the Native Indians. For instance, the picture below shows a cartoon that symbolizes the corruption of federal agents in charge of Indian land reservation in the West. The federal agents took most of the federal money set aside for the Indians land reservation. The corruption was abetted at the expense of the Native Indians. They had lived as communities, and the new adjustments disrupted their normal way of life.
Figure 2: Cartoon symbolizing the corrupt federal agents, Source: Seager and Herweijer
The disputes in labor relations were as a result of dissatisfaction from the people who worked at the mining sites and railroads. The 1890s era was marked by events that changed the American West among them being the Wounded Knee massacre that saw the death of many American Indians troops. One of the points that came out from the 1890s era was that the White Americans were determined to take the West. The 1890s also prepared the White Americans to trade with China since most of the workers in the railroad were from China.
In conclusion, the West was heralded as the place be in the 1800’s. The massive land was a big attraction, and a sizeable number of people moved to the area. However, not everything was smooth as expected; the weather was harsh, and land preparation was a challenge too. Native Americans also lost huge tracts of communal land, thus disrupting their lifestyles.
Works Cited
"How The Western United States Was Settled". Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
Seager, Richard, and Celine Herweijer. Causes and Consequences Of Nineteenth Century Droughts In North America. 2016. Web. 24 Feb. 2016.
Tdl.org. "Native Americans And The West". Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
"The American West". Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
Ushistory.org. "The Importance of the West [Ushistory.Org]". Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
