Ch. 21: Westward Expansion
Vocabulary:
westward expansion, reservations,
Manifest Destiny, transcontinental railroad,
tycoon, Andrew Jackson, John Ross
Trouble for the Native Americans
• Dozens of Native American
tribes had lived throughout
the West.
• On the Great Plains, tribes
like the Arapaho and the
Sioux hunted buffalo.
• In the Southwest, the
Pueblo, Hopi, and Navajo
were successful hunters and
farmers.
• In the Pacific Northwest, the
Nez Perce were traders and
fishermen.
Trouble for the Native Americans
• After the United States
government bought the Louisiana
Purchase and Lewis and Clark
Expedition explored it, many
settlers from the East Coast
wanted to move onto the new
lands.
• They claimed that it was the
Manifest Destiny of the United
States to stretch from the Atlantic
to the Pacific Oceans.
• They also didn’t think they should
share the land that the United
States had just bought from
France.
Conestoga Wagon
Trouble for the Native Americans
• Over time, the Native
Americans found the lands
that they had lived on filled
with new American settlers.
• Railroad tycoons were
building the Transcontinental
Railroad on lands that were
originally theirs, taking up
spaces that used to be grazing
lands for buffalo herds.
• They became angry and
bands of men from both
sides: Native American and
settler alike would attack
each other’s villages and
towns.
Transcontinental Railroad
Trouble for the Native Americans
• In time, the U.S. Army was called in to deal with the
problem of the Native Americans attacking American
towns.
• The Native Americans would sit down with Generals
and form treaties to keep new settlers out of their
lands, but in a few years the treaties would be broken
and the fighting would begin again.
• Oftentimes, the U.S. Army would use diseases like
smallpox and measles to kill large sections of Native
Americans.
The Battle of Little Bighorn
• In one battle, the Native
Americans were actually
successful against the U.S.
Army: the Battle of Little Big
Horn.
• General George Custer was
defeated by the Lakota tribe
at Little Bighorn in Montana.
• But even that success was
short lived.
• The Lakota were eventually
defeated and sent to live on
reservations with other
Native American tribes.
Broken Promises
• In the early 1800’s the Cherokee were living in
the Appalachian Mountains around Georgia,
Tennessee, and North Carolina.
• A group of Creeks, called the Red Sticks,
attacked Fort Mims in Alabama, and started
the Creek War.
Broken Promises
• Andrew Jackson was a
Colonel in the U.S. Army
during the Creek War.
• He enlisted the help of the
local Cherokees to fight
against the Red Sticks.
• When the Cherokee got
back to their villages after
the Creek War, they found
their homes and villages
destroyed.
• The Cherokee leaders were
furious.
Gen. Andrew Jackson
Broken Promises
• After the Creek War, the U.S. government
wanted to thank the Cherokee people for their
help.
• The Cherokee leaders signed the Treaty of
New Echota.
• It said that the Cherokee were allowed to keep
the lands that they lived on in Georgia.
• Soon, the state of Georgia gave the land that
belonged to the Cherokee to American settlers.
Broken Promises
• The Chief of the Cherokee,
John Ross, knew that this was
against the law.
• So, instead of declaring war,
he took the state leaders of
Georgia to the Supreme Court.
• The Supreme Court said that
the land belonged to the
Cherokee, and American
settlers could not take it away
from them.
• The Cherokee were thrilled,
and they celebrated their
victory.
Chief John Ross
Broken Promises
• Settlers from Georgia, however, kept moving
onto Cherokee lands.
• The Cherokee complained again, but the U.S.
government did nothing to stop the new
settlers.
The Trail of Tears
• To make matters worse, a few years later, Andrew Jackson was
elected to be president of the United States; and as one of his
first acts signed the “Indian Removal Act of 1830.”
• The “Indian Removal Act of 1830” stated that all Native
Americans east of the Mississippi were to be moved, forcibly
if necessary, to reservations in Oklahoma.
The Trail of Tears
• The U.S. Army came back to Cherokee lands to move them to
Oklahoma.
• They started moving from the mountains, on foot, in October of 1838.
• They travelled all winter to their new lands on the reservation in
Oklahoma.
• Over 4000 Cherokee died on this journey because of cold or disease.
The Trail of Tears
• John Burnett, a soldier that escorted Native
Americans to the reservations in Oklahoma
wrote in his journal:
“…I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes,
and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades…One can never forget
the sadness and solemnity of that morning. Chief John Ross led in prayer
and when the bugle sounded and the wagons started rolling, many of the
children rose to their feet and waved their little hands good-bye to their
mountain homes…the suffering of the Cherokees were awful. The trail of
the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in the wagons and on the
ground without fire. And I have known as many as twenty-two of them to
die in one night of pneumonia due to ill treatment, cold, and exposure.”
Questions about Chapter 21
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Why did many Native American groups have a right to be
angry?
What happened to Native Americans who fought against the
American settlers in the West?
What two Native American groups were involved in the
Creek War? Tell what their relationships to the United
States were.
Who was the leader of the Cherokee during the Trail of
Tears?
How did he react differently than other Native American
chiefs when their lands were being taken by settlers?