The American West -The Early Settlement Of The West

Question 1

Who were the plains Indians?

Answer 1

Many different American tribes who lived in the great plains

Question 2

What were bands?

Answer 2

Groups within a tribe that would help each other to survive

Question 3

What were nations and give an example of one ?

Answer 3

Very large tribes e.g The Sioux

Question 4

What was the role of a chief in plain Indian society?

Answer 4

1. To lead negotiations with other tribes

2. To guide a band in finding enough to eat and protecting the band from danger

Question 5

What was the role of a council in plain Indian society?

Answer 5

1. To declare war on another tribe/negotiate peace with the other side when necessary
2. To listen to everyone’s opinion (in a tribe)

Question 6

What skills did chiefs need to have and give an example of a few famous chiefs?

Answer 6

1. Great leadership skills
2. Wisdom
3. Spiritual power
4. Good warriors/hunters

• Red cloud
• crazy horse
• sitting bull

Question 7

Brotherhoods were groups that…

Answer 7

• Trained young men in fighting skills

- taught young men about the tribes beliefs and values

Question 8

Who disagreed with red clouds peace treaty during the war against white Americans?

Answer 8

1. Sitting Bull
2. Crazy horse
3. Many plain Indians

Question 9

What was the role of women in plain Indian society?

Answer 9

• feeding and clothing their families
• looking after their families possessions
• processing buffalo meat and turning them into products that could be traded

Question 10

What did the Plain indians develop, in order to survive?

Answer 10

1. Amazing hore-riding and archery skills to hunt buffalos
2. A travelling lifestyle: used tipis (move-able tents) and travois (to help move belongings)
3. Skills to use every part of the buffalo
4. Respect for the animals they depended on (e.g. they didnt waste buffalo parts on things they didnt need)

Question 11

What were lodges?

Answer 11

Circular buildings, made of earth and timber logs, that would be inhabited by the Plain Indians during harsh winters

Question 12

Give 3 parts of a buffalo and their uses?

Answer 12

1. Dung - fuel
2. Bladder - food bag
3. Hooves - glue/tools

Question 13

Why were horses important for the Plain Indians?

Answer 13

They needed them to hunt buffalo and to travel across the Plains to search for food

Question 14

What did the Plain Indians believe about nature and land?

Answer 14

1. They believed everything in nature had a spirit that would sometimes help humans and that these spirits could be contacted through ‘vision quests’, guided by spirit animals
2. They believed land was sacred

Question 15

Describe two ways that the Plain Indians would carry out raids?

Answer 15

1. They’d only go ahead with a raid f it looked like it would work and they would escape as quickly as they could if there was opposition
2. Only selected brotherhoods would go on a raid to minimise losses

Question 16

What was a ‘counting coup’?

Answer 16

A special type of fighting in which a warrior would attempt to hit or touch an enemy and get away again without being injured/killed. Success gained the warrior a lot of respect and honour from the rest of the tribe

Question 17

Why did the White Americans believe that the Plain Indians shouldnt have the land?

Answer 17

1. They believed they were savages who did nothing to improve the land and just lived off the resources that the land naturally produced
2. They believed they (the americans) had better rights to the land as they were trying to improve it e.g. by poughing it for farming and digging up its materials for manufacturing

Question 18

What was the US governments approaches to tackle the conflict between the White Americans and the Plain Indians and why were the approaches a problem?

Answer 18

1. Keeping the two groups separated
2. Encouraging the Plain Indians to become like white settlers

• it was a probem because keeping them separated made it hard for the Plain Indians to become like white settlers

Question 19

What was the permanent indian frontier?

Answer 19

‘All that Part of the US west of the Mississipi River and not within the states of Missouri and Louisiana, or the territory of Arkansas’

Question 20

What was westward expansion and what were the consequences of it?

Answer 20

When White Americans had started to gain more land after winning wars, such as the war in Mexico 1848,
- Consequences: Instead of the Indian Frontier dividing the American Indians in the West from the White Americans in the East, American Indian lands were now in the middle of the USA

Question 21

What was the Indian Appropriatons act (1851)

Answer 21

An act that provided the government money to pay for the moving Plain Indians onto reserved land (reservations)

Question 22

Why did the government want the Plain Indians to move onto reserved land (reservations)

Answer 22

1. It moved American Indians away from land that white people wanted to use
2. By reducing the amount of land Plains Indians had available for hunting, the gov hoped it would encourage them to take up farming and live like white people

Question 23

What factors encouraged Migration West?

Answer 23

1. Economic crisis in the East
2. Rich Farmland in the West (Oregon)
3. The Oregon trail (a practical way to travel to the West)
4. Gold rush of 1849
5. The belief that Americans had to populate all areas of America (Manifest destiny)

Question 24

What were the main problems of the Oregon trail?

Answer 24

1. Getting stuck
2. Falling Ill
3. Running out of supplies

Question 25

What happened to the Donner Party

Answer 25

They took a shortcut and got lost, which caused half of them to die of starvation

Question 26

Which group successfully got the west without using the Oregon Trail?

Answer 26

The mormons (led by Brigham Young )

Question 27

Why were farming conditions good n California?

Answer 27

1. Californias mild climate and fertile soils were excellent for growing spring wheat

Question 28

What problems did the Plain Indians face in the Great Plains?

Answer 28

1. Low Rainfall: too dry for crops
2. Few trees: no timber for houses/fences
3. Climate extremes: Very hot summers/very cold winters (causing crops to shrivel in summer heat)
4. Poughing: Soil was hard to plough due to deep tangled grass roots
5. Grasshoppers: would pollute water sources and turn everything brown

Question 29

Why was there tension between the Plain Indians and the White Americans?

Answer 29

1. The white americans had racist views about the Plains Indians
2. The White Americans feared the Plain Indians
3. The White Americans disrupted the Plains Indians way of life

Question 30

What were a few agreements in the Fort Laramie treaty (1851)?

Answer 30

The Plain Indians would :

• end the fighting between the tribes
• allow migrants to travel through their land in safety

The US gov would:

• Protect the Plain Indians from white Americans
• Pay the tribes 50,000 dollars yearly if the treaty terms were kept to

Question 31

What were problems with the Fort Laramie treaty (1851)

Answer 31

1. Translation difficulties

2. The Sioux had said that their hunting land is larger than the land shown in the treaty

Question 32

What was an impact of mass settlement?

Answer 32

Crime e.g. racism increased