Wednesday Nov. 4

Question 1

What did the Great Plains means to Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century?

Answer 1

really tough environment to live in.

Ex. Rainfall

Question 2

How might ideas of American identity fit into the history of the Great Plains?

Answer 2

Expansion;

Ambitious people willing to overcome obstacles.

Question 3

William Becknell 1821

Answer 3

• follow water route to make track down to Santa Fe.
  National Park Service
  -what it is like on the Santa Fe trail.

Santa Fe Trail Association
community things, trail markers
bring tourism to their area.

Question 4

Cimarron Cutoff

Answer 4

Stories= what does America mean?
Cimarron river; trader miss the water hole, it dried up; see a buffalo on top of a ridge; shoot the buffalo, stomach full of water; dig hole in the sand where the river was, water appeared.

Overcome harsh obstacles to find goal.

Question 5

More than commerce (Trail Experience)

Answer 5

beauty on Great Plains
no trees
hunting buffalo
storms

Diary of Josiah Gregg
-personal look of who they understood the Great Plains

Question 6

Point of Rocks, NM

Answer 6

treeless, flat, w/o water

Question 7

Trail ruts

Answer 7

wagons rut
Where Santa Fe trail use to be. 
Distance from Native Americans
-hostile
-50 Native American attacks 
Interaction:
How do we decide with what in the world is right? THEME

Question 8

Antonio Jose Chavez Wagon box

Answer 8

relationship of anglo traders to Mexican traders
-hostile 
-little interaction besides trading,
-Mexicans using Santa Fe trail
-Trader AJC- frequent user,
murdered

Question 9

Bent’s Fort safety and imagination

Answer 9

Not being connected; distance to feel safe/rely on. (Ex. No police)
Natives attack,
Set up forts- sense of security.
-food, water, sleep comfortably.
Imagination
-understanding yourself as safe. always pending danger to Natives so safety is a must.

Question 10

Route of commerce, 1821-46 Santa Fe Trail

Answer 10

Mexican War (cut off trade with them 1846-48)
Santa Fe becomes joined with US
Route of internal commerce & migration 1849
became railroad?

Question 11

Oregon Trail

Answer 11

Route of immigration 
fur traders
christian missionaries (similar- to John White New Found men of West Virginia)
1840-50s 
caravans to Oregon
mass migration of people

Question 12

Hostile environment

Answer 12

Accidents and disease
gunshots- not experienced with firearms.
run over by wagons, horses
collera
Typhoid
Losing family members and leaving them behind; place w/o much water , trees, mountains

Question 13

Environmental determinism?

Answer 13

Wallace Stegner Wolf Willow: A History, a Story and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier

• life is like
• stories of his childhood
• rough living
• Ex. whipping from parents, cowboys
• fellow classmates, did bigger things. Politicians businessman= make strong people from the rough life

Willa Cather, My Antonia

• Doesn’t have a lot, but has a family and has a life of her own, hope her kids to obtain a better life.
• family is poor, live in cave, get day by day
• doesn’t work out for your generation, maybe the next one.
• Resemble American Dream, risk and reward, doesn’t mean its going to work out

Garrison Keillor, New from Lake Wobegon

• American writer and radio show host
• recollection of life on the prairie
• Minnesota, North Dakota
• Wobegon, place of despair= how hard life was, but rewarding at the same time.
• living wisely, working hard,