CONTENTS:

1. Introduction
   Frontiers
   Pushing westwards

2. The Plains Indians
   America’s Indians
   The beliefs of the Plains Indians
   The Plains Indians and the buffalo
   The tepee
   Indians on the move
   Family life
   Government of the band and the tribe
   Warfare
   The threat of change

3. Early settlers in the West
   Mountain men
   Migrants: pioneers go to the far west
   The Mormons: a special group of migrants
   Miners

4. The cattle kingdom: cattlemen and cowboys
   The Great Plains
   The coming of the railroad
   Texans on the trail
   Ranching on the Great Plains
   Cowboys
   The end of the open range

5. Homesteaders
   A land unfit for cultivation
   "A woman’s work is never done"
   Farming: the problems
   Farming: the solutions
   Manifest destiny

6. Law and order
   The Wild West?
   Problems of law and order in the mining regions
   Gunslingers and gangs
   The Johnson County War

7. The struggle for the Plains
   White Americans and Indians: early days
   Settlers move west: the Indian policy
   The Plains wars
   A new policy
   The final conflict: Sheridan, Sherman and Custer
   The Battle of the Little Big Horn: Custer’s last stand
   Was the Battle of the Little Big Horn really a victory for the Indians?
   The end of the Indian way of life

8. The Plains are conquered: the close of the frontier
   The end of the battle for the Plains
   Land: the white man’s solution