The West: What did freedom mean to native peoples and how did that conflict with the interests and values of most white Americans in the second half of the 19th century? What did white Americans want? How did they see native peoples? How did different groups of natives (there is variation in their reactions) respond to white encroachment?

To most Native Americans in the second half of the twentieth century, freedom meant being able to practice one's culture the way one saw fit. This was usually done within the accepted social norms of the tribe. The Native Americans who were not yet on reservations desired to stay off the reservations and live in the same manner as their ancestors. Those who were on the reservations wished to maintain their ancestral lifestyle as much as possible.
Most white Americans of the late nineteenth century saw the Native Americans as an unfortunate race who could not keep up, per the tenets of Social Darwinism. They thought that the Native Americans would become extinct due to the cultural "superiority" of white values and work habits. White people forcibly assimilated Native American to white culture via harsh boarding schools. Since the whites did not believe that the Native Americans were capable of higher-ordered thinking, they concluded that Native Americans would always either be farmers or laborers.
The Native Americans were forced to either adapt or fight back. Many Plains tribes, such as the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Comanche, fought against encroaching whites. This strategy was brought to a close when the US Army started targeting buffalo, thus cutting off a vital food and cultural asset for the tribes. Some tribes attempted European-style agriculture more readily than others; for example, the Cherokee of Oklahoma had already adopted many white ways before they were deported from the Southeast on the Trail of Tears. Other Native Americans attempted escape, such as a band of Lakota led by Sitting Bull, and the Nez Perce tribe, led by Chief Joseph, in 1877. Some Native Americans even tried to appeal to the whites by becoming scouts for their armies. The Crow tribe used their longstanding feud with the Lakota in order to become scouts in the Sioux wars. Some tribes even managed to sell beadwork to white tourists in the West; the Navajo tribe managed to supplement their reservation subsidies through sales of wool and beadwork. In this manner, the Native tribes were able to hang on to some of their ancestral culture as well as create a better situation on the reservation. Life on most reservations was hard, and this trend has continued through modern times.