In 1783, following victory in the American Revolutionary War, the new nation, the United States, extended inland from the Atlantic coast as far as the Mississippi River. The French still owned the land to the west. Their leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, agreed to sell it to the United States in 1803. This was called the Louisiana Purchase. It gave Americans a vast new territory. Settlers were encouraged to move westwards and take over the land for farming. But many Native American peoples lived on this land, the American West.

Lewis and Clark

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson ordered Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the new Louisiana Purchase lands west of the Mississippi River. Their task was to map the region and find a route to the western coast (then still in British hands).

In the 1840s the United States gained Oregon on the northwest coast. It also added lands in the southwest following victory in a war with Mexico. The possibility of starting a new life in Oregon and California encouraged many people to travel westwards. Many took the Oregon Trail, which started at the Missouri River and ended in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The journey was dangerous, and many travellers died.

The Homestead Act

By 1850, American settlements had reached as far as west as the Mississippi River. Travellers had also made it to Oregon and California. But much of the central part of the country, the Great Plains, remained unsettled. It was home to the Plains Indians, the Sioux, Comanche and Cheyenne. In 1862 the government passed the Homestead Act. This encouraged settlers to move there and start farming the land.

Hundreds of thousands of settlers eagerly took up this opportunity—among them African Americans who had once been slaves. The homesteaders, as they were called, were now able to build their own homes and farms. At the same time, a railway was being built across the continent. All of this spelt disaster for the Plains Indians.

Plains Indian warriors attacked the settlers. Sometimes there were even Indian victories over the US army: for example, at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, when Sioux warriors, led by Sitting Bull, routed Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s troops. But by the end of the 19th century, white Americans had taken over the Indian lands, all but wiped out the buffalo herds (on which the Indians depended) and defeated the Indians in battle. The surviving Plains Indians were forced to live in reservations.

Cowboys

By the 1860s, railways linked the Great Plains to the rich cities in the East. The first ranchers (livestock farmers) settled on the Texas prairies (grasslands). They used cowboys to herd their cattle north across the Great Plains to the railways. Trains then transported them East. Later, ranchers set up home on the Great Plains themselves, closer to the railways.

Wild West

Busy towns grew up on the Plains close to the railways. Cattle were driven by cowboys from the ranches in Texas along trails to the railway towns. After their long journey, the cowboys often went wild when they got to town, getting drunk in the local bars.