Name three of the Indian tribes living along the Santa Fe Trail.
The Santa Fe Trail ran between which two locations?
How long is the Santa Fe Trail?
When it first opened, how long would it take to travel?
Who was Josiah Gregg?
Who were Charles and William Bent?
Why were relatively few women ever on the SFT? Which trail were they more likely to take, and towards what ocean?
What animals did the Plains Indians hunt? What was one of the reasons the Indians attacked the wagon trains?
They would go from Missouri to Kansas following the Arkansas River into Colorado before turning south at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Then they followed the Purgatoire River (Picketwire) to Raton Pass. From Raton, the trail went south and swung around the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to Santa Fe. In terms of terrain, what might have been the toughest part of the journey? Why might the travelers have preferred the Desert Route to the Mountain Route, even though it had a fifty mile stretch without any water?
Conestoga style wagons (six foot tall wheels; two tons of cargo; curved canvas tops; eight animals needed to pull one wagon) were also known as prairie schooners. Why?
What event led to the closure of the Santa Fe Trail in 1879?
The Santa Fe Trail had been used for 60 years, and it brought the Southwest into the United States.
