Many people today know the history of the Indians who were native to this land, before the "white men" came to live on this continent. Few people perhaps know that white men pushed them westward as many immigrants took over the east and moved westward. White men made “reservations” that were basically lands that the Indians were promised they could live on and manage. What many Americans don't know is what Indians struggled and continue to struggle on reservations. Indians had been moved long before the nineteenth century, but the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was the first legal account. After this act many of the Indians east of the Mississippi River were relocated west of the river. Tribes that refused to relocate ended up losing much of their lands to European peoples (Sandefur, p.37). Before the Civil War in the United States, many farmers and their families stayed away from the West due to lack of precipitation (Nash et al., 2010). Newspaper propaganda attracted Americans and many other immigrants to the West to farm. The abundance of natural grasses in the West also attracted ranchers and their families. In addition to the farming craze, mining soon became very popular. Cities centered around mining would emerge, but soon after, they would disappear. This caused the Indians to move based on the mining towns. All this movement in the West made life even more difficult for Native Americans. When Americans and immigrants moved to the West, they brought with them disease and violence. Ninety percent of Native Americans died after the California Gold Rush (p. 501 Nash et al., 2010). These movements west of the Mississippi River caused the newly relocated Indians to give up some of the...... paper ......r housing. Living conditions are making life more difficult for these already broken people. Works Cited Canupawakpa Dakota. (2011, November 12). Children of the Plains [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GACcBe9Be58Grant, U. (1873, March 4). Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1873) Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3557Nash, G.B., Jeffery, J., Howe, J., Winkler, A., Davis, A ., Mires, C., et al. (2010). The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society. (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson EducationSandefur, G. (n.d.). American Indian reservations: the first subclass areas? Retrieved April 28, 2014, from http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc121f.pdfUshistory.org. (n.d.). Life on the reserves. Retrieved April 23, 2014, from http://www.ushistory.org/us/40d.asp.