The West. Eps 1 and 2: The People. Empire upon the trails

Episode of Series “The West”.
Episode one (to 1806): “The People” (88 mins) Begins the historical mapping of a vast expanse of land (over 2 million square miles) which stretches from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, from the northern plains to the Rio Grande and which for a thousand generations belonged to more than 3 million Indians of various nations including the Comanches, the Hidatsas, the Cheyenne, the Apache, the Zunis, and the Hopi. Describes the lives and cultures of some of the tribes, their rituals, sacred sites, beliefs and customs. The first Europeans to set foot in the West was in 1528 by a small group of shipwrecked Spanish soldiers lead by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. This episode tells of the Spanish invasion and conquest, their religious fervour and hunger for land and the devastation which their wars, famine and diseases brought upon the native Indian. Follows through to October 1804 when American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off on an expedition to explore the Missouri River and hopefully find a north-west passage across to the Pacific Ocean. Episode two (1806-1848): “Empire upon the trails” (84 mins) Deals with the control and destiny of the West. By 1821, two Republics had claimed a sizeable part of the West - the United States (half of the West) and the Republic of Mexico (South-west and California). England still had outposts in the Pacific North-west and several Indian nations held fast to their lands. Covers the Battle of the Alamo, the arrival of the Mormons, the formation of the States of Texas and California and the addition of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to the Union, the Mexican-American War and the relocation of some 90,000 Indians. In 1848 gold was discovered - “Nothing in the West would ever be the same again”. Narrated by Peter Coyote.