GCSE History: The American West Guide

Early settlement

Migrants travelled west along routes like the Oregon Trail seeking land and opportunity, facing harsh conditions, while Plains Indians lived a nomadic lifestyle centred on the buffalo.

Conflict with Plains Indians

As settlers, railroads and the US government expanded west, land and resources were increasingly taken from Plains Indian tribes, leading to broken treaties and violent conflicts, including events like the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876).

The cattle industry and railroads

The expansion of railroads connected the West to eastern markets, fuelling a boom in the cattle industry, with cowboys driving cattle along trails to railheads for transport and sale.

The closing of the frontier

By the late 19th century, the buffalo had been hunted to near-extinction, Plains Indian resistance had been largely crushed, and increased settlement and farming meant the "open frontier" was considered closed.

Common mistakes

• Treating Plains Indian tribes as a single, uniform group rather than distinct nations with different cultures.
• Assuming conflict was constant throughout the period rather than escalating over time.
• Forgetting the railroad's role in enabling both settlement and the decline of the buffalo population.