2. The West in General
We learned many things about the West from
Movies, Books, Television shows, toys and tons
more.
In the West they mined for many things, but they
loved GOLD, they liked it so much that some people
would never get a single gram of gold for years and
still try to find some!
They had saloons, Cowboys, Cattle, Whiskey and
many other things!
3. Mining
They loved mining, especially the mining for GOLD
The miners would mine for Gold in many different
ways, they looked in streams, hills and sometime
dug straight into the ground!
4. Cattle!
Cowboys!
Cowboys are usually the first picture that comes to
my head when I think about the West, Cowboys
were men that would go on month long journeys to
get the cattle to the nearest train station to ship them
off to meat compounds and markets.
They usually called the cattle big horns or sometimes
even bulls.
5. Railroads
Railroads were a key part of life in the West, the only
way you could whip the cattle across country would
be by Cowboys who then gave them to the railroad
stations.
They also helped with getting imports from the
major ports into the smaller cities.
Railroads also made great ways to travel if you had a
long trip, but sometimes their were train robbers
who would take control of the train!
6. Farmers
Farming was another way of making money in the
West
In the 1800’s the US Government was giving away
over 150 acres of land for FREE to anyone that
wanted it, Whites, Blacks and sometimes even
Women!
Farmers farmed things such as corn, beans, wheat,
barley, oats, field hay, tobacco, field peas, cattle,
hogs, and sheep
7. Populists
In the West they had political parties and one major
one was called the Populists
Populists were people that wanted the common
working man to be helped and they wanted the
Government to be more hands on.
The Populist group went away and soon turned into
the Democratic political party.
8. Exodusters
Exodusters was a name given to African Americans
who moved from the southern states, to the West to
escape from the KKK and Jim Crow Laws.
They wanted to have new lives so they bought farm
land to farm on, over 20,000 acres in Kansas.
9. Native Americans
Many native Americans lived in the West
The Native Americans that lived in the Great Plains region
usually lived in Tipis made out of sticks and Buffalo hide.
Their main priority was Buffalo, they provided clothes, food,
shelter, weapons tools and were pretty much the most valuable
thing to the Native Americans
There used to be millions of them grazing around in the West
until the Government had taken them out with their rifles and
usually just let them sit there and rot. After that was over, there
was only a couple thousand left!
Sadly, many of them had been pushed out of their land and
forced to stay in reservations and sometimes their kids would
be taken to go to Indian Boarding schools to learn the ways of
an American Man/Woman
