Chapter 13 section 1-2 questions

1. What are some of the main reasons that the federal government's policy of assimilation failed?

A main reason that the government never achieved assimilation with the Native Americans is because they had no motivation to actually let assimilation occur. Other than those who resented the way that the Natives were treated (and these people were a minority) nobody really cared what happened to them. There was no benifit for the government to allow assimilation to occur and it would save money and help American settlers prosper to just simply continue oppressing the Native Americans, which is what eventually ended up happening.
Another reason that the idea of assimilation didn't work was because the two cultures were so fundemently different from eachother, it would be impossable for one group to make the transition from one culture to the other. The only way the two groups could have gotten along would be for each group to allow their cultures to coexist, which neither the Americans or the Natives would allow to happen.

2. How successful were government efforts to promote settlement of the Great Plains? Give examples to support your answer.

The federal governemtn was extreamily successful in promoteing settlement of the Great Plains. This is because it was planned out so well on how to get people to move there. Giveing away land to railroad companys was brillant because not only did that give citizent intersted in moveing westward a means of getting there, but the companys could also turn around and sell that land to settlers. In order to extend the opprunity of moveing westward to those who couldn't afford to buy land of their own, the government gave away land grants to thousands of familys and was able to increase the US population liveing in the west to 30% by the turn of the century.