1834 Permanent Indian Frontier

1836 Oregon Trail opened 1843 The ‘Great Emigration’ on Oregon Trail

1846 Donner Party 1846 Mormons travel to Great Salt Lake

1848 Gold discovered in California

1849 Californian Gold Rush 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty (1) 1851 The Indian Appropriations Act

1858 – 59 Gold discovered in the Rocky Mountains

1859 Gold mines opened in Colorado & Nevada

1861 – 65 The American Civil War

1862 Homestead Act 1862 Little Crow’s War 1862 Pacific Railway Act passed

1864 Sand Creek Massacre 1865 Slavery abolished in the USA

1866 Goodnight & Loving reach Fort Sumner with a herd of cattle

1866 Fetterman’s Trap 1866 – 68 Red Cloud’s War 1867 Abilene becomes the first cow town

1868 The ‘Winter Campaign’ 1868 President Grant’s ‘Peace Policy’

1868 Fort Laramie Treaty (2)

1869 First Transcontinental Railroad completed

1870 Cattle ranching begins on the Plains, leading to the ‘Open Range’

1873 Timber Culture Act

1874 Barbed wire begins to be mass-produced

1874 Wind-powered pump introduced

1874 Custer leads expedition to the Black Hills

1876 – 81 The Great Sioux War 1876 The Battle of Little Big Horn

1879 Exoduster Movement

1881 The OK Corral 1885 All Plains Indians are resettled on to reservations

1886 – 87 Severe winter leads to the end of the open range

1887 Dawes Act 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre 1890 The US Government closes Frontier

1892 Johnson County War 1893 Oklahoma Land Rush Structure of Plains Indian society

Survival on the Great Plains Importance of buffalo & horses Beliefs of Plains Indians – land, nature & war

Lawlessness Attempts to combat lawlessness

Reservations

John Iliff 1871 Indian Appropriations Act End of the open range

Extermination of the buffalo