"Great Plains Indian Wars" Topic

"The last part of the United States settled by Euro-Americans wasn't the West Coast but rather the Great Plains, stretching from the Texas Panhandle up through western Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, eastern Colorado, and the western Dakotas into eastern Montana — between the mountains to the west and fertile prairies to the east. This was wide-open, unforgiving terrain with little water, harsh winters, hot summers, tornadoes, and grasshopper plagues. Today's farmers can tap into the massive underground Ogallala Aquifer, at least for another 20-50 years but no one is sure what will become of the area when the reservoir runs dry. Scientists think this region and other parts of the West have been plagued by "mega-droughts" intermittently throughout history, wreaking havoc even on Indians with low populations and lower water use. Today, the region's overall population has been declining since the 1930s, in spite of a temporary surge around the Bakken Oil Boom. Some small towns in Kansas have been abandoned altogether.

The Plains' population was likewise sparse compared to most of the country after the Civil War. Before farmers and ranchers fenced in their homesteads with barbed wire, "cattle herders" drove cows across the range to railheads in towns like Abilene and Dodge City, Kansas. At the time, cowboy was usually a derogatory term for outlaw, rustler, or bandit. Former slaves called Exodusters, in reference to the area's dust and the Biblical book of Exodus, staked out precarious homesteads. To overcome concerns about the area's dryness, boosters pushed the pseudo-scientific theory that plowing released moisture back into the air that would return as rain. "Rain follows the plough!" was their sales pitch. White Soddies built mud huts and busted sod to eke out a hardscrabble living while millions of buffalo grazed under the big sky. Unlike other parts of the country, Whites on the Plains didn't hugely outnumber the Indians around them in the late 19th century…."
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