The Exile Trains

During the 19th century, most settlers to the West held the common belief that the Indians had to give way to westward civilization by the white man.  There was no grand strategy to force the Indians out - no government law or military plan.  In fact, one of the legendary Indian-fighting generals, General Crook, reportedly told a West Point graduating class,  "with all his faults, the America Indian is not as half black as he has been painted.  He is cruel in war, treacherous at times, and not over cleanly.  But so were our forefathers."

It was believed, however, that two opposing lifestyles, could not exist in one nation, no matter how expansive that nation was.  There was no room for buffalo herds and nomadic tribes in the white's civilization.  The Indian had no concept of boundaries, private land ownership or progress...all things that was building the West.

It was the railroad that became the final destruction of the western Indians.  As rail lines grew, they give the Indian-fighting army a new and deadly ability to move over vast wilderness in great force in short period of times.  The railroad was singly responsible for the extinction of the buffalo/  The Plains Indians, who depended on the buffalo for food, clothing and lifestyle, were doomed. 

Railroads brought the great Indian war years and the last generation of Indian heroes trying to hold on to their lifestyle.  Even victories again the white settlers, the railroad men or the US Army could not bring back the buffalo.  The progress of the iron horse went on.

In 1872, the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs, who watched the building of the second transcontinental railroad said, "The progress of the Northern Pacific railroad will of itself leave 90,000 Indians ranging between two lines as incapable of resisting the Government as are the Indians of New York  and Massachusetts."

Indians were put on :"exile trains" to promised lands in the Black Hills and Florida.  Land taken, food source slaughtered, lifestyle stolen...they were resigned to ride the iron horse as their final attempt to survive.

Next time...Cowboys and Cattle Kings
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On June 4, 1876,  a mere 83 hours after leaving New York City, the Transcontinental Express train arrives in San Francisco.  That any human being could travel across the entire nation in less than four days was inconceivable to previous generations of Americans.