Settlers on the Plains

Once the first settlers had colonized the Eastern part of the American continent in the seventeenth century, they lost their taste for pioneering. The rest of America remained uninhabited by anybody except the Plains Indians for a very long time. In the nineteenth century, however, all that began to change. Travellers in search of adventure started to explore the land, and found that parts of it were good for farming, while other parts were rich with gold and silver. The government, eager to prevent any part of the land being settled by the Spanish, British or French, encouraged American citizens to move into the uninhabited areas, offering incentives for the bravest pioneers. As we'll hear in this title, these incentives combined with a lot of other factors to encourage all kinds of people out into the Great American Desert.

Chapters

1. Early Attitudes to the Great Plains
2. Early Visitors to the Plains
3. Moving West: Push and Pull Factors
4. The Journey West
5. The Mormons: Their Early History
6. The Mormons: Their Journey and Settlement of Salt Lake City
7. The Mormons: Their Experiences in Salt Lake City
8. The Reasons for Continuing Settlement of the Plains