🦬 1800s | Native Americans and the American West What you're seeing: A visual timeline of Native American life and westward expansion across the 19th century, from the pre-contact Plains through the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Where is this? The Great Plains and Western territories of the United States, from the river valleys of present-day Nebraska to the Sierra Nevada mountain passes. Who are these people? Before European expansion, Plains nations like the Comanche, Lakota, Pawnee, and Cheyenne had distinct languages, political systems, and ways of life. The Comanche were the dominant military power on the Southern Plains from roughly 1750 to 1850, largely because of their mastery of mounted warfare. A Comanche archer on horseback could fire 20 arrows in the time it took a soldier to reload a single-shot musket. The transcontinental railroad employed an estimated 10,000-15,000 Chinese laborers on the Central Pacific side alone, many of whom were excluded from the...