What Was the Impact of the White Settlers Upon the Native American Indians?

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The Gold rush began in 1849 when around 50,000 miners (known as the ’49ers’) travelled to California to mine for gold on the Native Americans land. The mining took place on the Natives sacred land which understandably angered the tribes as it caused many problems for them. With all the noise and disturbance from the mining, the buffalo herd that the Natives relied on for food and to make their tipis from, was driven of their grazing land. As dangerous, dodgy gold towns began to populate the Natives area, forcing them of their land the Natives tried to defend their homes and tribes. War broke out between the whites and the Natives, the whites began scalping missions on the tribes and soon disease and conflict wiped out a majority of the Native population. The building of the first transcontinental railroad began in 1863, west of America in Sacramento, started by a group of shopkeepers during the civil war. When the civil war ended, as the railroad construction progressed through the mountains in the west, another group of men began a railroad from the east heading west. With millions of dollars at stake the race began between the two companies to complete their railroad first. After losing hundreds of men to gold mining, the shopkeepers employed thousands of Chinese immigrants to build their railroad. They were forced to work long hard hour at little pay to complete the railroad on time and when they went on strike the greedy engineers starved them back into work. Many Chinese labours died in work related accidents, whether it was being buried alive after experimental use of bombs to mine through mountains, killed in avalanches or suffering from disease or injury during the construction, the engineers didn’t care as long as their railroad won the race and they became rich. In the east, the union pacific had begun their construction at a rapid rate, completing 200

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