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Several decades after Lewis and Clark (1803) led the first expedition following the Missouri River and other rivers north and west in search for the ocean and the limits of the westward expansion; settlers and pioneers had followed their lead and had found their way to an area they referred to as The Great American Desert. This of course would later be known as the Great Plains to most, but at the time it was a barren waste land with little surface water and no evidence of any agriculture. For many of these early settlers in the southern plains, they found that they didn't or couldn't farm this land, so instead they used it as vast cattle grazing land or a system referred to as 'pastural' agriculture. This of course was the beginning of the Cattle Kingdom and the very common practice of ranching.

Prior to the Lewis and Clark expedition which re-discovered western America, the Spaniards and the French made their initial indention of the land as they first discovered it. It was the Spanish conquistadors (Coronado and Cortez) who first ventured across the Great Plains region back in the sixteenth century. Both Coronado and Cortez were on missions to find these deposits of precious metals (gold) that covered cities in the western untamed land. The users and guards of the gold were the Natives, or referred to as savages, who would first need to be conquered in order for the Spanish to access these cities of gold. The Spaniards also had labor in mind when they first encountered these savages. They felt that they could manipulate these Indians and used them as labor sources, as well as take their gold. As it plays out, neither of these goals were hardly achieved, as the Spanish conquistadors failed to find these cities of gold and tame all of the savages. However, in 1718, the French followed the Spaniard's lead and ventured westward into the new land, but most French never crossed the Mississippi River, and instead they settled much of the eastern half of new America. They lead the fur trapping in the north and controlled the southern ports such as New Orleans in the south, and with that the rights to many of the rivers in the east. The French had no intentions of conquering the Indians, but instead to live along with them and be able to trap and live in peace. The French would eventually be run out, as would the Spanish; but before the nineteenth century and even the Lewis and Clark expedition; it was clear that many other Europeans were among the first to discover the Great Plains region.

Many of those who followed the Lewis and Clark expedition and used the southern Plains land to graze and the northern land to farm; eventually kept moving westward. Events such as the California Gold Rush in 1849, intrigued many to continue west in hopes of a quick fortune and a well-off lifestyle. Among those who led these pioneers and settlers west, were John C. Fremont, Stephen Long, and George C. Sibley. Also, the traders who took the Santa Fe trail and throughout the 1820s-1840s, recorded and named many locations among the trail and the new and open landscape that existed to the west. Even though it was mostly desert and wasteland, to them it was an exciting, new and ever changing landscape full of abundant wildlife and resources.

In conclusion, I feel that it would have been an exciting, but extremely scary experience, being some of the first travelers west of the Mississippi River, through the untamed savage-filled lands, to the dark and enclosed mountains valleys; it would have been an adventure unlike any other, just trying to stay alive. My other main thought and question, was exactly how overwhelming and devastating where the first Europeans to the Natives of the Plains? The European conquests must have been so unpredictable to the Natives, and when the Europeans wanted to conquer the Natives and steal their life, land, and gold; what was going through the Natives’ heads knowing that they couldn’t stand up to these men in armor with 'boom sticks'. So as much as it was a dangerous and frightful period of years for European settlers in the west; it must have been an even more crushing defeat for the Natives and their culture.