The American West and the Native Indians

Mormon Family, Great Salt Lake Valley.

This image shows the small house that many westerners lived in. This house is made of wood, showing that there was a forest nearby or some form of wood emough to create houses. Many places did not have wood and so settlers there would have had to use materials such as mud or clay to make houses. From this image it seems that this family is alone, due to the hills you can see the in background. 

Mormons were prosecuted a lot in the East as Mormons believed in polygamy, whic. h the rest of the Christian society believed as sinful. The execution of their founder, Joseph smith is 1844 led to the movement of most mormons to the west, mostly to the Great Salt Lake. Mormons moved to the Great Salt Lake as the Christian society hated Mormons, and Great Salt Lake was a place that no one wanted to live, as it was deemed hard to use for agriculture and so it wouldn't be sustainable to live there, as they could not grow crops for food and to sell. Around 16,000 made the journey to Great Salt Lake, although 700 were lost along the way due to illness. Due to fact that there is only one male and many females highlights the polygamy lifestyle that the mormons lived.

Sioux Indians:

The Sioux Indians came to America 30,000 years ago, and were known for their long blank hair, which showed their descent from Asia. This image shows that the Sioux Indians were not ones for settlement, as they lived on the plains they tended to travel where their food source was, which were buffaloes. Most of their belongings were made out buffalo, as this was usually their only source and so used everything the buffalo offered. ,The Spanish introduced horses to the Sioux in the 1500s, making their nomadic life easier as they were able to easily transport materials and themselves as well as being able to easily catch buffaloes. The Sioux fought the white men for the rights of their land during the 1800s. Most Sioux Indians today live in a reservation in South Dakota, there being 30,000 of them living there.

Sources:

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/11/scenes-from-the-american-west-150-years-ago/416787/

https://gcsehistory.wikispaces.com/Mormons
http://indians.org/articles/sioux-indians.html