1992 DBQ

"Rain will follow the plow" this was the belief of many americans who were moving westward looking for new opportunities. Thefarmers soon found out that inorder to linve in the arid west they would have to develop a new way of living. The natural environment of th west called for new ways of attracting people to move west which changed the lives of Native Americans living on the land.
As shown by document A, th West was maily desert and Grassland, not the most feasible land for growing. For this reason many were reluctant to move to the west. After the Civil war a transcontinental railroad was built to connect the west coast to the east coast. At the time much of the west was unpopulated. To attract people, the government passed the Homestead
Act. This allowed adults to claim at most 160 acres of land. After improving the land for five years and paying a fee of $10.00 the land was theirs. With the passage of this act 100,000 people rushed to the west and the development of the West began.
"Cold weather, scarcity, lassitude and fatique."(Doc C) This was the position of many americans travelling to the west. Andy adams one of the many travelling ot the west said, " Our foreman scouted in quest of water a full day in advance of the herd. The arid west had very little rain fall per year making farming there very diffcult. Mosquitoes and other bugs were another problem for farmers. The weather also did not help farming. In the summen it was too hot and the land became dry. In the winter there were extreme blizards. Many had very little or no food during the winter like Lucy Henderosn Deady's family. Shw wrote in her diary, " We liven don boiled wheat and boild peas that winter." (Doc E) With lack of wood farmers had to build their home out of sod and fence thier plot of land iwth barbed wire. Alson with farming not feasible the cattle business rose to power and the Railroad facilitatied their business.
With the settlement of the West, Clashes with Native Americans increased. The end of the Plains Indians came with western expansion. Parra-Wa-samen a native American says, " the White men have the country which we loved, and we only wish to wander on the prairie until we die. This time the Natives Americans rebelled but white americans responded by killing their buffalo and cattle. The natives were forced to move back to reservation s where disease, alcohol and stravtion killed the native americans.
Overall as shown in Documen G the West transformed from a sparcely populated, barren land to a city. The transformation occured because Native Americans adopted to its climate and changed their methods of living to make the west a liveable place.