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moving west
Why did the Mormons decide to go west in the 1840's?
There are many reasons why the Mormons decided to go west in the 1840’s. The Mormons were initially hated. They were persecuted and driven from place to place. The Mormons were hated because non-Mormons disliked that they could have more than one wife, people were afraid of the large and growing numbers of the Mormons; people disliked the fact that they encourage slaves and freed the slaves to join them as Mormons.
The Mormons first started in Kirkland, Ohio in 1831; it was a nice change from New York where Joseph Smith lived. The Mormons set up a back there; it was the only bank in the small town, leading to all non-Mormons and Mormons investing their money into it. In 1837, the town hit economic depression with caused the bank they had founded to go bankrupt. This ended with the Mormons being driven out altogether.
They then went on to move to Missouri, an area where few people lived. In Missouri, the Mormons were attacked by mobs, resulting in them moving to Nauvoo, Illinois which is a swamp area that most settlers avoided. The locals that did settle there hated the Mormons, especially when Joseph Smith began to sanction polygamy. In 1844, Joseph Smith was then killed by a mob.
The Mormons were then led by a man called Brigham Young. In 1847, Brigham Young made a big decision to move the Mormons to a place called, Great Salt Lake. It was an ‘unpopulous’ country where ‘a good living will require hard labour, and consequently will be coveted by no other people’. An important reason for moving to Salt Lake was that the Mormons wanted to escape from the non-Mormons they despised and called the Gentiles. Brigham Young was believed by the Mormons to be their prophet – appointed by God to lead them. Brigham told the Mormons that Salt Lake was ‘the promised land’.
Joseph smith: Brigham Young:
Joseph Smith
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exam question
Practice exam questions
Questions:
2 - The Indians adapted well to the conditions on the Great Plains
a) Briefly describe the main features of the Great Plains:
The Great Plains is a large area of grassland, even though the grass there is a yellow colour, due to the lack of water there is. All across the Great Plains there is little amount of trees, this being the reason why the Indians have to adapt to a life with not much wood. On the Great Plains, in summer everything is scorching hot and very dry because there isn’t that much water; in winter the weather drastically changes to freezing cold and hail storms.
b) Explain why the plains Indians lived in tepees:
The Plains Indians lives in tepees because they designed the shape of the tipi into a conical shape, causing the wind to travel around it instead of flowing into the tipi and blowing it over. Also, they lived in tepees because it was made with little amounts of wood and then covered in the skin of a buffalo, which they had already caught and killed. The Indians adapted their tepees to life on the plains, they pinned the bottoms of the tipi to the ground in winter to keep all the warmth inside, in the summer they were able to roll up the bottoms of the tipi and let the air pass through.
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native american buffalo hunt
The Indians used bows and arrows and also spears as there weapons, they usually used them for hunting the buffalos. When the Indians first started hunting the buffalos they had to attack the horses just with their weapons running after them, eventually as they started to capture the white men’s horses they were able to hunt the buffalos on horses. To capture the buffalos, the Indians rode after them and shot them with their arrows or threw their spears into them. The Indians used to circle around the buffalos and then target the weaker one, and then they were able to get everything they needed to survive on the plains all from the buffalos.
When the Indians were ready to hunt the buffalos they painted different types of symbols and drawings onto their horses; the different symbols symbolised different meanings like the way they lived, hunted and survived out there on the plains.
An Indian man never only had one wife, he had more wives because they each had a specific job to do, e.g. cooking, looking after the children and cleaning. The feathers that Indians wore on their head symbolises an act of bravery for each individual feather.
I think that this video is a useful source to us as historians because it is able to show you what life back then would have been like also it isn’t a video that over-crowds you with writing.
When the Indians were ready to hunt the buffalos they painted different types of symbols and drawings onto their horses; the different symbols symbolised different meanings like the way they lived, hunted and survived out there on the plains.
An Indian man never only had one wife, he had more wives because they each had a specific job to do, e.g. cooking, looking after the children and cleaning. The feathers that Indians wore on their head symbolises an act of bravery for each individual feather.
I think that this video is a useful source to us as historians because it is able to show you what life back then would have been like also it isn’t a video that over-crowds you with writing.
