Discuss the events that took place during real life in the west.

He late 19th century saw the end of the "old west." By the 1880s, the Transcontinental Railroad connected all America from Pacific to Atlantic. The railroad represented the new age of industry.

Whereas in the American east at this time, life could be somewhat easily defined by where one lived, in the west it was a mixed bag. All its territory had been conquered, and there began to quickly develop a nostalgia for pre-settlement times. This was exploited by Buffalo Bill's traveling Wild West Show, where old west scenes were re-enacted with real cowboys and Indians.

Many Indians resented the coming of the railroad because they knew it signified the coming of more white men, settlements and laws forced upon them. They had good reason for resentment because so far every treaty they made with American government had been broken.