Use this Discovering American History video entitled The Trans Mississippi 1860 to 1900 to study the changes in transportation and technology that enabled White settlers to move into the trans-Mississippi West, an area previously labeled the "Great American Desert" and occupied almost exclusively by Indians and Mexicans. Mining, commercial farming, and ranching brought in more settlers as homestead laws and railroad land advertising promoted the settlement of the Great Plains. Learn about how Indian communities were under siege and the Indians were generally pushed onto reservations.
Learn about Conquest and Survival and The Trans Mississippi 1860-1900.