Indian Expulsion | Mining Towns
Indian ExpulsionThis interactive map shows the U.S. government's pushing of Native Americans from their tribal lands in the eastern United States to less-settled areas in the west, and the years of conflict that ensued.
Examine the timeline for the 1830s. Which Indian groups were forced to move? Where did they have to settle? What was the climate like in their new homes? What economic prospects did they have?
Follow the course of Indian conflicts through the timeline. Is there a pattern that emerges? Compare this map with the map on mining towns. Do any new patterns emerge?
What strategies did Native Americans try to preserve their lands and cultures? Compare, for example, the strategies of the Cherokee in the East and the Apache or the Sioux further to the west.
Mining TownsMining sparked the West's first economic boom. The lure of precious metals also attracted the first mass migration of Anglo-Americans to the future territories of Colorado, Nevada, and the Black Hills of southwestern Dakota. This map shows the rapid rise and fall of mining communities searching for gold and silver. Gold mining, for example, moved quickly from California in the 1850s, to Idaho and Montana in the 1860s, and to South Dakota in the 1870s.
Estimate the average duration of gold or silver booms. List the stages of a typical mining town from the first strike to ghost town. Why did most mining towns experience this boom, decline, and bust cycle? What techniques did corporations employ to extend the profitability of some regions well into the twentieth century?
For each time period on the map, pay special attention to the changing boundaries of the United States, Mexico, and the Native American nations. How did the previous occupants of the mining areas receive the Anglo-American migrants? Where did mining rushes spark conflicts between the United States and Native Americans? How were these conflicts resolved?
Describe in a few sentences the everyday life of mining boomtowns. Characterize relations between men and women, between various ethnic and racial groups, and between upper and lower classes. Contrast this society to that of northeastern cities like Boston and southeastern cities such as Charleston.
A young relative from Philadelphia writes that he or she is tired of the crowded city and wants to join you out West. From the perspective of a miner, a farmer, or a rancher, write a letter back to your relative with a fair appraisal of the opportunities, challenges, and conditions of life in your specific region. Describe your precise location, your living quarters, surrounding countryside, climate, and social conditions. What should your relative bring? Comment on his or her prospects for marriage and family life. When you are finished, explain how your advice would change if your correspondent were Mexican, Indian, Chinese, African-American, European, male or female (pick three different scenarios). Finally, does your portrait of opportunity in a mining town support or contradict the picture of the West presented by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner in his "Frontier Thesis"?
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