EARLY HISTORY OF THE WEST What would you do if your parents told you that your family was going to leave your home behind and walk 2 000 miles through searing deserts and over mile high mountains That they were only taking food blankets and a few changes of clothing That the trip would take almost a year That vicious wild animals and blizzards poisoned water and starvation would all be possible What if they added that they didn't even have a map to where you would be going Whew Now you know how someone like you might have felt in the 1800s when people began heading into the American West Two hundred years ago most people thought the West was as far away as the moon Only a few had been to the West and their tales of vast deserts empty plains soaring mountains and hot water gey sers seemed unbelievable People said the land was worthless the North American Indians were fierce and grizzly bears were everywhere Few people thought it would be an interesting place to visit let alone a place to live And few could go even if they wanted The western part of North America belonged to foreign countries Spain owned what is now most of
Texas and New Mexico half of Colorado all of Ari zona Utah Nevada and California Britain con trolled the Oregon Country now Oregon Washington Idaho and part of Montana Russia owned Alaska and Hawaii was an independent nation called the Sandwich Islands To travel to any of these territories required a passport and special permission of the U S and territorial governments Maybe the state where you live was once part of a foreign empire If history had gone differently you might be speaking a very different language today There were native people already living in the West and when the first settlers came to their lands they were welcomed North American Indians looked forward to trading goods selling horses and learning new things from the newcomers But so many people moved into the West so quickly that the Indians lives were changed forever The settlers took up the land and farmed or fenced it They killed the buffalo and wild animals for food or skins The Indians became angry and unhappy They moved farther west too to get away from the masses of newcom ers Tribes fought with each other over land as the Sioux left Minnesota and the Blackfeet who had been called Algonquian moved from the East Every one fought over the land but that didn't stop them from going
US at Great Bntain France exico Spain United States before the Louislana Purchase of 1803 Americans went to the West looking for things they couldn't find in the growing cities of the East like land fresh air and clean water They hated work ing long hours in factories for only a dollar or two a week Many people fled starvation or lives of servi tude in Europe to settle in the West After the Civil War many people left the South including many freed slaves People wanted to own land of their own hoped to get rich or just looked for adventure A few people found that the West wasn't what they had expected and went back but most stayed and built towns and villages schools and churches and tried to make it as much like the place they had left as they could Here Comes the Horse Things were very different in western North America long ago Native North Americans had lived on the
plains and deserts of the West for 20 000 years They lived on the land planting small gardens and hunt ing fishing or gathering what they needed They traveled to trade with others who did the same thing Then one day a strange animal arrived that changed their lives forever the horse New Spain Mexico This map shows how horses spread into North America after 1600 In 1519 eleven stallions and five mares came ashore from a Spanish ship off the coast of what is now Mexico Before that arrival no horses had lived in North or South America since prehistoric times when a small horse called eоhippus roamed among the dinosaurs Each year the Spanish herds in the New World grew and horses spread out across the continent Some were sold others stolen Some escaped the
