TV SERIES Ended

How the West Was Lost

Name: How the West Was Lost
Genre: Documentary
Released: 1993-05-16
Cast: Peter Thomas

Documentary

Premiered 1993-05-16 2 seasons 13 eps

The history of 19th-century America is the story of struggles between settlers moving west and Native Americans trying to hold on to their ancestral territories. The clash between lifestyles and land rights forged a new land and unified an American culture, but in the process a venerable way of life was destroyed. Follow the Cherokee, Dakota, Lakota, and Nez Perc as they fight to keep their homelands.

Last Episode Aired 1995-05-21

S2E7 — As Long As the Grass Shall Grow

Though the fledgling United States tried to respect Indian rights, the country couldn't restrain settlers' impulses to be "fruitful, multiply replenish the earth, and subdue it". Every Indian felt the pressure as the white men moved them to smaller tracts of land further west, into an area called "Indian Country." Despite being uprooted, the Cherokee enjoyed a Golden Age launched by an 1846 Treaty. They established public schools, and seminaries for men and women. (The female seminary was revolutionary since most Americans thought women were intellectually inferior to men). They also built homes and farms. But when the Civil War swept west, the railroads signalled the end of Cherokee sovereignty.

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