Settling the Great Plains
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Did he/she call the Great Plains home? Did he/she live there before full-fledged settling began? Picking this Topic lets you describe his/her life on America's frontier and thoughts about the plight of Native Americans.
Did he/she set out across the country to start a new home in the Great Plains?
- Did he/she and his/her family follow in the footsteps of many other "gold rushers" and move West to settle on the Great Plains? Why did he/she go?
- How was the journey? What type of problems arose? Was there enough food and water? Did he/she have negative encounters with natives or weather?
- Where did he/she settle? Was it an unpopulated area, or did he/she move into a town? Did he/she stake a claim through a land office, or did he/she buy his/her land from someone else?
- What did he/she find in the Great Plains? Gold? Freedom? Land? Was it exactly what he/she were looking for?
- What type of work did he/she and his/her family members do at this time? Was he/she a miner, railroad worker, farmer, or employed by the government?
- Did he/she or any of his/her family members have experiences with Native Americans? What happened? How did he/she feel about the natives? Did he/she fear them?
- As the railroad was built, its modern advances substantially changed the Great Plains, did he/she expect it to have such a strong impact?
- Did he/she and his/her family live by a railroad? What impact did this have on their lives? Did he/she have access to more goods? Did he/she travel? Did it cause any fires or kill livestock that strayed onto the tracks?
- What type of school, if any, did his/her family members attend? Was there a structured school for children to go to? How many children attended? How many months out of each year was school in session?
- Was there a church for all to attend? Did he/she attend? Was his/her community religious?
- What else did the closest town contain? A dry goods store? A hotel? How did the town grow over the years?
- Was there a saloon in town? If yes, did it have noisy fights? Was this a place that he/she frequented?
- Were there individuals in town that had a bad reputation? What did they do? Did strangers ever come into town and cause trouble? What happened? Was there a sheriff or was the town quiet enough that it didn't need one?
- What type of home did he/she live in? Did he/she build it himself? What was it made out of? How big was it?
- Were the winters a difficult season? What did he/she worry about? What hardship did each season bring?
Was he/she a member of a Native American Plains tribe when the Great Plains began to be settled in the 1860's?
- There were 31 Plains tribes, what tribe was he/she from? Was he/she forced to move from his/her land when others began to move into his/her territory?
- Where was his/her tribe originally located and to where did it relocate? Did the tribe resist the government's orders to go? How did they resist? Were there any battles with injuries or deaths?
- As more people moved into the Plains, how did his/her life change? Was it more difficult to hunt or find food? Were some of the tribe's traditions hard to maintain?
- How did the tribe adapt to new conditions? Did some adopt aspects of the Caucasian culture? Was the tribe able to stay together or did it disintegrate? Why?
- Did any diseases plague his/her tribe during this time? Was smallpox a threat?
- When the railroad was built, did he/she expect it to have the impact that it did? The railroad brought immigrant workers, the purchase of more land, and the slaughter of buffaloes. How did this worsen an already bad situation in which he/she was involved?
- When the Civil War ended there were 12 million buffaloes on the Great Plains, but by the 1900's there were only 50 left. To him, in what ways did this symbolize the devastation of the Plains?
- Did he/she believe there was a peaceful way for natives and non-natives to live together in North America? Why or why not? Was there a way to preserve more of the Native American heritage?
- What were the feelings of the people in his/her tribe? Were people thankful to be alive, hateful of Caucasians, sorrowful for the loss of land? How did they express their feelings?