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A range of push and pull factors led to the settlement of the American West. Conditions were difficult and homesteaders and other settlers had to solve a range of problems to survive and prosper.

Slavery existed in the USA since the Seventeenth Century. Southern and Northern states disagreed about the role of slavery in society, which ultimately led to the civil war and the rise of the Republican Party in the 1850s.

After the Civil War, slavery was abolished. Laws were enacted and the Freedmen's Bureau was established in 1865 to help formerly enslaved people. Many of these changes however, failed to end racism or improve the lives of those who had been enslaved.

The Native Americans of the Plains were ultimately defeated and contained by white settlers, who outnumbered them, had more technology, more money, and who destroyed their traditional way of life.