For white Americans in the early nineteenth century the West represented many things. For some it offered adventure or a chance to get rich quick; for others, the opportunity to own land. The stock figures of the Old West remain in American memory: the mountain man, the hardy pioneer, the immigrant on the Overland Trail, the gambler, and the gold miner. However, when Americans advanced into what they thought of as wilderness, they were entering a land with a long history. For uncounted generations Native American peoples had created their own cultures and told their own stories about the land on which they lived. Whites and Native Americans sometimes met peacefully, but more often disease and warfare took a heavy toll on the original inhabitants of the West. The West was also home to Spanish and Mexican settlers. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California would become states.....
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