The nineteenth century American frontier comes alive for students and interested readers in this unique exploration of westward expansion. This study examines the daily lives of ordinary men and women who flooded into the Trans-Mississippi West in search of land, fortune, a fresh start, and a new identity. Their daily life was rarely easy. If they were to survive, they had to adapt to the land, to modify every aspect of their lives, from housing to transportation, from education to defense, from food gathering and preparation to the establishment of rudimentary laws and social structures. In addition, they had to adapt--through acculturation, warfare, or co-existence--to those already on the land, the Native Americans.