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The Plains Indians In the year 1860, Native Americans were thriving in the West; about 360,000 Indians were settled there. These were called the Plains Indians, who specialized in horses and became nomadic and more warlike people. The Plains Indians ruled the West for some time, but when the Civil War ended things began to change. The government began to take control and move Indians into reserved settlements, but the Indians became furious and fighting commenced. When …

…of the railroad through the West; the locomotives could bring unlimited number of troops, farmers, cattlemen, sheepherders, and settlers. Also, the whites unintentionally spread diseases through the Indian tribes, which had a devastating effect on the people. The other major reason was the white man nearly exterminated the buffalo by grazing their livestock on the prairie grasses. These aspects proved to be too much for the Plains Indians who were forced into extremely small reservations.