American West

• The Tipi was the tent the sioux Native Americans lived in.
• They were quick to take down and light to move.
• The doorway faced east toward the rising sun.
• They were made of buffalo hides
• They were in the shape of teh circle- very symbolic to the native Americans
• They didn't rely on wood for shelter
• They could withstand the strong winds
• They were warm in the winter and cool in the summer

• Was not a matter of long campaigns fought with large armies
• No formal declaration of war.
• It was normally a seris of raids by relativly small groups of warriors. Raiding parties would typically set out from a village 3 to 4 times a year.
• Plains indians went on raids for a number of reasons; to stealhorses, to seek revenge or to destory their enemies.
• Plains Indians did not believe you could own land so they did not want to conquer it.
• They did not go to war in the winter months as they had not been able to store up food.
• They counted coup(running up to an touching the other warriors)
• They collected scalps
  

• In 1845 John L. O'Sullivan editor of the morning post first used the phrase Manifest Destiny.

"It is our manifest destiny to overspread and the posess the whole of our continent which providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty."

• They felt it was there god given right to settle the whole of the country

• Some of the first people to travel west across the Plains and over the Rockies were the mountain men
• Their life was harsh and the men could easily freeze to death and the rockies were full of grizzly bears.
• The relationship between the mountain men and the indians was mixed.
• Some were enemies but some married married Plains Indians.
• The mountain men introduced the Indians to alchohol and Firearms which made the indians less self-suficant.
• By 1840 the mountain men had moved on. Most of the the beavers had been wiped out and fewer skins were traded.