Although the course deals mostly with the last 500 years of history of the American West, the greater history is 10-20,000 years of experience shared by American Indians. Much of their experience is expressed in myths and the material evidence from archaeological sites. Specifically, American Indians changed their lifestyles and cultures in response to emerging post-Pleistocene deserts of the American West. Much of the American West was utilized by hunting and gathering peoples, but by 2,000 bc, CBS (corn, beans & squash) farming made its way into the Southwest and later into the Plains. Thus American Indians of the American West were diverse relative to the different regions that still exist today.

Given the time that Native Americans had in each of these areas the environment tended to shape their culture that is reflected in subsistence, houses, tools, clothing and adornment.

Southwest:

In the Southwest people farmed the deserts and produced CBS varieties with other unique plants we still use today, like the sunflower. The Pueblos (named by the Spanish) built ancient stone multileveled complexes like Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, NM. After a tremendous draught people rebuilt. Today, Acoma (Sky City) and Old Oraibi are considered some of the oldest continually inhabited settlements on the North American continent (A.D. 1000). The Pimans (O’otam) built irrigation works in and around the Phoenix area to bring water to low desert lands in the Gila and Salt River valleys.

The Yumans utilized the Colorado River flood plains to bring water to CBS gardens. Most people associated the Navajo and Apache as indigenous desert people; however, they came from the Subarctic to the Southwest less than a thousand years ago. They too adapted well to the desert environments.

The Plains:

When Lewis & Clark explored the upper Missouri River country in 1804, a major shift in power was accruing in the Plains. European influences especially disease, had already set into motion a major demographic shift with the decimation of American Indian population by epidemics from 1795. Most of the Plains people had been farmers (CBS) for more than 1000 years. For farmers like the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara a sedentary lifestyle resulted in population losses of over 50% with smallpox and cholera epidemics, multiple times. Newly arrived tribes from the Great Lakes like the Sioux (Lakota, Dakota, Nakota) and Cheyenne had given up farming in the Plains since they had taken up horses (from the Spanish) to hunt the great bison herds. When Lewis & Clark spent the winter of 1804-05 with the farming people in the Dakotas stories of great epidemics abounded. The Mandan were friendly in spite of the European intrusions and helped the Lewis & Clark party get through a rough winter. That was the winter when Sacagawea a sixteen year old Shoshone women (wife of trader J. Charbonneau) went through a difficult birth of her son Jean Baptise. With young Jean Baptise she would help the party over the Rocky Mountains. Earlier the Lewis & Clark expedition had tense moments when they encountered Black Buffalo of the Brule (Lakota group) and barely avoided bloodshed. The Brule and other Lakota bands were increasing in power and had avoided the severest epidemic outbreaks.

By the middle of the 19^th century the Sioux (Lakota/Nakota) would grow from 12,000 to 40,000. Cheyenne and Arapaho would form alliances with the Lakota and become formidable enemies to expanding settlers and the U.S. Army. A similar pattern was developing with the Comanche and Kiowa of the Southern Plains as they to acquire many horses and remained semi-nomadic pastoralists, thus avoiding epidemics in the S. Plains.

Since these groups were powerful and fought to keep their lifestyle by hunting bison, they became the image of Plains people and American Indians in general. Throughout most of the world the Plains people fulfill most people’s imagination of what an American Indian is. Conflict in the American West was also portrayed as Plains Indians fighting Cowboys. This never happened since the cowboy and their cattle replaced the Plains Indians and bison after the Indian Wars

Far West:

The Far West consists of four American Indian culture areas, the Northwest Coast, Plateau, California, and the Great Basin. American Indians subsisted by hunting and gathering in all these regions, but depended on different staple foods in each.

The Northwest Coast is located in a temperate rainforest that provided many wild plants and the great cedars that were used for houses, boxes, canoes, textiles, masks, totem poles. The Pacific Coast and the Rivers were teaming with salmon, shellfish, fish, and other sources of food. As a result the Northwest Coast people were materialistically well off and sedentary.

The Plateau  was an intermountain area like the Basin. However, it had seven species of salmon running at different times through the Cascade Mountains into the Rocky Mountains western slope, which along with the camas bulb and game provided considerable resources. After 1750, the horse was used by some of the Plateau people who bred horses, like the Appaloosa, to cross over the Rocky Mountains to hunt bison in the summer. Rather than stay in the Plains, the Plateau people like the Yakima and Nez Perce returned to their fishing weirs in the fall for more salmon runs.

California had great resources with the great redwood/sequoia trees and many varieties of oak. The California Indian people in turn used the oak trees’ acorns as a staple. Acorns had to be leached like olives, but were rich sources of oil and protein. Salmon, shellfish, fish, game and many seeds served as additional food resources.

The Basin was also intermountain, but it did not have rivers connecting the Pacific Ocean, thus no salmon. The Basin is a high desert and the least favorable of the Far West areas for subsistence, the soil is alkaline and was not good for CBS farming, which was tried by prehistoric cultures. The people that stayed in the Basin utilized pine nuts as a staple food and hunted jackrabbit or antelopes in huge summer drives. It took 15 square miles to support one human in the Basin and so its population was the least dense in the entire Far West.

The persistence of American Indians of the American West and their survival as sovereign bands, tribes, or nations was a surprise to non-Indians. The non-Indian immigrants, mostly European Americans that dominated U.S. policy saw American Indians and American Indian culture as an impeding progress. Those American Indians that did not die in early epidemics or battles were placed on wretched reservations to die of neglect. The American Indians of the Eastern Woodlands had been removed in 1830 to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and effectively became part of the West. Once the Indian Territory had been filled with both Eastern and Western tribes, new reservations were created in the rest of Western Territory. Imagery of American Indians tended to favor the Plains Indian culture so that today’s Pow-Wow Dances have become a Pan-Indian phenomena.

At the end of the 19^th century American Indian populations left in the American West were reduced to below 100,000 and recovered to 2 million by 2000 U.S. population census. Today, the largest reservations are in the West and American Indians have gained considerable power with new legislation (Gaming and NAGPRA). The Western Indian Reservations are on 40-60% of the nation’s fossil fuels and uranium. Corporate America and the U.S. government have attempted to steal as much resources from American Indians through various schemes legal and illegal.

Gaming has probably, brought more attention than any other recent American Indian issue. The sheer volume of revenue to Indian communities and non-Indian communities has made the presence of America’s first people known to more Americans since the Indian Wars of the post Civil War era.

The gaming revenue has allowed for cultural revitalization, language recovery and preservation of culture.

As we have seen American Indians were the first people and first westerners of the American West. When Europeans came to what they called the ‘New World’, they saw it as their right or ‘Manifest Destiny’, conquer the land and disposes the American Indian. To help justify conquest, Europeans perceived indigenous peoples, including American Indians and their culture unequal (even non-human), and unworthy; often mentally rendering them invisible. American Indian discovery of America was also ignored so as to put into effect the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’. Thus you will see false statements like ‘Columbus discovered America’, even though it is not clear he new where he was. So as immigrants, some by choice and others forced, made their way to America and the American West, the American Indians were a barrier to be removed or simply invisible, especially if already removed to reservations. These immigrants were from Europe, Africa, Asia and Pacific Islands. Most policy and influence came from Europeans and a dominant English influence. American language, measurement, science, technology were derived from English influences. Most Western States were surveyed with an English system while only Texas and Louisiana retained French or Spanish survey systems. However, the natural environment was often the greatest barrier to settlement in the American West as we have noted with Prescott’s thesis.

The Spanish, English, French and Russians were the first foreigners to invade the American West and they came from all directions. Early probes were for quick discovery of fame and wealth. Often navigation and mapping was all that was accomplished. Some took the wealth and left, while others stayed to settle.

The Spanish were the first to expand into ‘New Spain’ from Mexico to the Southwest (New Mexico) and Lower (Baja) and Alta California as early as 1519. The Spanish initiated the ideas of ‘Manifest Destiny’ and ‘Doctrine of Discovery’, since they felt that their god had given them dominion over all living things, including newly discovered infidels. The ‘New World’ was given by the Spanish Pope Alexander VI to the Crown of Castile in 1493. Spanish conquest and colonization was under the jurisdiction of the Council of the Indies.

Initially, an inadvertent probe along Florida’s western coast led Alonso Alvarez de Pineda along the gulf coast of Texas in 1519. In 1528 Cabeza de Vaca, a survivor from Narvaez’ expedition to Florida, shipped wrecked along the Texas coast and walked back to Mexico. These fueled rumors of Indian empires with riches in these unknown

lands. The viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza, sent a priest Fr. Marcos de Niza by land into New Mexico. He claimed to have found the famed ‘Seven Cities of Cibola’ and that were he reputed to have more riches than Mexico and Peru. The viceroy then sent Francisco Vazquez de Coronado on a major expedition. He and his men split into three probes from New Mexico, one toward California, one toward the Grand Canyon and one he led all the way into Kansas. No wealth came out of these, but he did report that he saw ‘shaggy cattle’ as far as the eye could see on the Great Plains- no doubt the American Bison. The viceroy, Mendoza sent another explorer, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo on three ships up the Baja and Alta California coastline. They ‘discovered’ many harbors in upper California including San Miguel (later called San Diego), but Cabrillo died of an injury, probably on Santa Catalina Island and they never found gold or wealth. The most important contribution was to expand European maps and provide guidance for future settlement.

It was not until 1598 that Juan de Onate led into New Mexico a group of soldiers and their family’s intent on colonization. They settled along the Rio Grande River at today’s El Paso, TX and Sante Fe, NM, where Onate set up his headquarters. Coronado and subsequent expeditions were harsh to any Indians that did not cooperate, which usually meant providing food. This continued when the people at Acoma Pueblo refused requisitions and attacked Spanish soldiers, killing eleven. Onate retaliated with a force that went up into the Acoma Pueblo (nicknamed Sky City) and killed 500 men and 300 women by pushing most off the 350’ cliff. He took the rest captive and tried the men. Men 12-25 were sentenced to 20 years in servitude and men 25+ had one foot cut off in public. As the Spanish colonial empire grew its system of missions, pueblos, and presidios also grew. Indians were expected to provide goods and services to the Spanish. This system was called the encomienda and was the economic mainstay of Spanish colonization. However, disease and Indian rebellion made it difficult to turn surplus or profit in the northern frontier. The Pueblo Indians of the Southwest from Taos to Hopi grew fed up with the Spanish subjugation. The Indians did not understand the contradictions of the teachings of Jesus and cruel and evil behavior by Europeans. By 1680 Pueblo peoples’ population had been reduced by more than half. Pueblo leaders asked the mission priests to leave. Finally, on August 10, 1680, 24 Pueblos rebelled and drove the Spanish out of New Mexico into Texas. The Spanish came back for revenge and a smaller revolt again occurred in 1696. The end result was devastating for the Pueblo people but the Spanish priests did less to totally eradicate traditional religion. The Hopi villages and the Zuni villages did not allow missions to be built in their villages again.

During all of these early colonial events in the Southwest, California was virtually ignored albeit ships of the Manila Galleons sailing along the coast as a navigational tool. Carlos III of Spain decided that threats from Russian, French and English fur interests were too much in his northern frontiers and decide to expand into Louisiana and California to gain a more substantial foothold. In 1769 a multi party land and sea expedition went into California establishing a mission in San Diego and in 1770 at San Carlos (Carmel). The expedition was commanded by Gaspar de Portola with a

contingency of Franciscans led by Fray Junipero Serra. Fray Serra and his protégé Fray Lausen established 21 missions from San Diego 1769 to San Rafael 1821. The Russians did succeed in establishing Ft. Ross on Bodega Bay just north of San Francisco, but went no further. The Russians were moving in on the lucrative sea otter trade that had expanded well into Southern California. Eventually, the sea otter would be rendered almost extinct by the late 19^th century.

From 1600 on the English and the French fought over for control of the Eastern United States and Canada. The French explored the Mississippi River (Champaign 1633, Jolliet & Marquette 1673, LaSalle 1677) to form a wedge between the Spanish and English and effectively flank the English from the West. The French established New Orleans in 1718 and St. Louis in 1764. The French actually drove east and as far as Ft. Duquesne (Ft. Pitt) but were eventually defeated in the French and Indian Wars 1756-1763 (also called the Seven Years War). French fur traders and priests had made their way into the Great Plains so that people like the Sioux and Osages were using French words or French names, such parfleche, coup, travois, etc. or tribal names like Sioux or Gros Venture.

Finally, after the America Revolution the United States began to think about the American West. The English had really only explored the Pacific Northwest with the likes of Capt Cook. visiting the Nootka on Vancouver Island.

As the American Republic expanded and more immigrants demanded new land since the soil in old farms was overtaxed with cash crops like tobacco, various schemes to expand the frontier were put into motion. With the colonial and post colonial wars, pension compensation was often made with frontier lands, in lieu of money. Most often this was in the form of Indian owned land and so the frontier folk had to adopt rather aggressive methods to fight for their new land. Most of these frontier families were Scotch- Irish, Welsh, German and Irish immigrants. These were those that developed the independent fervor and rejected interference from government authority. Thomas Jefferson had been an architect of a number of schemes in the East, but in 1803 he pulled off his biggest land scheme, the Louisiana Purchase. Not only was this for land expansion (nobody knew if the land was arable at the time), but Jefferson was concerned about fur trade expansion by the British fur companies. Jefferson also was still seeking a Northwest Passage to Asia. Further, Thomas Jefferson was a man of enlightenment and saw the ‘Voyage of Discovery’ (1804-06) by two of his Virginia friends, Lewis and Clark, as a scientific expedition. The Lewis and Clark expedition failed at finding a Northwest Passage, but it really provided considerable information about the American West all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

After Lewis and Clark's Expedition had opened the Trans-Mississippi West, the United States government continued to add land throughout the 1800s in the American West. Most of the land was acquired through purchase, treaties, and spurious annexations. Texas was added in 1845. After the Mexican- American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo effectively added 1.2 million square miles of land in New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and California. Later, the Gadsden Purchase added the lower half of New Mexico (including the now Arizona portion). In 1846 Great Britain ceded  the Oregon Country to the U.S. and Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. in 1867. Native Americans continued to loose claimed land within these acquisitions with or without treaties.  The only land given up was the cessation of Canada to Great Britain in 1818.

As the U.S. acquired land it sent out exploratory survey parties to map the land based on longitude and latitude with grid baselines enclosing sections (36 sq. mi.) broken down into townships (6 sq. mi.). Who then got the land ? The government tried to cater to capitalist interests and individual settlers. They really needed both to settle the American West and to keep their political machine going.  Many laws were enacted to handle the entanglements often with confusion and conflict. Squatters, railroads, territorial or state governments and other corporate speculators all joined in. Since fences were next to impossible to construct as was traditionally was done in the East. Therefore all  land 'management' in the West had to deal with open range. This confusion and conflict was a dominant theme of the 'real 'West' and Western genre of films.

 Before the Civil War most settlers launched from St. Louis, MO  went West on the various trails initially to Oregon's Willamette Valley and California's Central Valley and Gold Fields in the Sierras.  The wagon trains used many animals to pull wagons and do the work. Horses, mules and oxen had all been brought to America were essential to the settling the West. In 1858 the Butterfield Stage Line opened which provided additional transportation and communication.

After the Civil War (1861-65), settlers and speculators were desperate enough to settle the Great Plains. The cattle industry bolstered after the Civil War and Chisholm Trail opened from Texas to Kansas. The Transcontinental Railroad opened up the American West's desert and mountain regions to both coasts. Since cattle industry was booming a series of range wars broke out in Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming and Montana. The most famous of these were the Red River Wars and the Lincoln County War of New Mexico, that involved the legendary outlaw, Billy the Kid.

American had shifted their food habits in the 1840s from pork and chicken to beef. Beef became a symbol the 'down to earth' American, rather than elitist food from Europe. In fact American beef even expanded to the European export market. Initially the Longhorn and wild Criollos cattle were well adapted to survive in desert environments. But later, Eastern demands for marbled beef stimulated practice of using hybrid cattle, usually  Hereford and Shorthorn cattle. Longhaired Scottish cattle were interbred in the High Plains cattle to deal with the severe winters. After the Civil War, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving founded various markets for their beef. Later, Jesse Chisholm  (Cherokee Texan) opened the Chisholm Trail up into Abilene, KS for rail connections to East. In 1882 Gustav Swift developed refrigeration. Eventually, Chicago packing corporations (Swift, Armour, etc.) developed monopolies to control the market. Also, some of the ranches became huge with vast land holdings such as the XIT ranch in Texas.

However, the cattle industry would suffer down turns especially with terrible droughts and blizzards in the 1880s. In effect this opened up alternative crop farming in the Great Plains. Between 1880-1920 steam and gasoline threshers and tractors replaced the draft animals. Hay, barley, oats and wheat began to be used for non-feed markets. In the late 1890s into the 1920s sheep also became a replacement for the cattle industry, especially in New Mexico and Nevada.

By the end of the 19th century a number of changes had occurred in the American West. As already noted the U.S. Census declared the frontier line closed. In 1890 the Plains Indian world came to a horrific end with the massacre of 300 men women and children at Wounded Knee Creek, SD. The world of the cowboy was coming to an end. This is often seen as the end of the 'Old West' ; between 1890-1910. Many wealthy men from the East (City Slickers) relished the ideals of the 'Old West' and established hunting groups like the Boone and Crockett Club. They would pay big money to go out West to shoot record size game for sport. Many outdoor organizations were also formed at the turn of the century like the Sierra Club and Campfire Girls.

The displacement of the American Indian continued with the Allotment Act of 1880 (sometimes referred to as the Dawes Act), but was implemented numerous times into the 20th century as non Indians coveted Indian reservation lands. America industrialized and so the demand for resources exploded at the turn of the 20th century. By 1900 90% of America's  forests have been cut down and 90 % of American Indians are gone. A wilderness crisis emerged with the conservation movement that began with the Forest Reserve Act of 1991, which began to set aside public forests. John Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1893. In 1902 Theodore Roosevelt got the Newland Reclamation Act passed. This eventually allowed for the massive dam projects during the depression, such as Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee Dam , Shasta Dam and Glen Canyon Dam. The 1906 Antiquities Act allowed  Roosevelt to create National Monuments like the Grand Canyon and Devils Tower. Later, some like the Grand Canyon became National Parks. The conservation movement helped to preserve some of the American West but other changes brought even more ambitious capitalist expansion into the West. In 1901 oil was discovered in Texas as the automobile made inroads into replacing the horse. Henry Ford began his company in 1903. West coast developers expanded water resources just in time for the Panama Canal, which was completed in 1914. In 1913 William Mulholland  finished the Los Angeles Aqueduct to bring Owens Valley water to LA and the Riker Act was passed to dam Hetch Hetchy R. in Yosemite National Park . The new Panama Canal made West coast seaports to be closer to the world's new sea lanes. Battles between conservationists and developers/recreation advocates continued into the 20th century such as the Echo Park Dam proposal and the Glen Canyon Dam project in 1948-56. In the 1960s another reclamation project within Grand Canyon National Park was defeated due to public outcry.

The American West continues to provoke controversy that involves idealization of that Old West of the 19th century and the New West of the 20th and now 21st century.