During the 1840s, the rarely visited Great American Desert of the Southern Plains and Southwest became part of the inexorable westward expansion, as European traders and settlers headed overland from the eastern seaboard. The traditional lands of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole Indians were quickly absorbed, and the rapid advance of the frontier soon brought the white man into conflict with the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache and Navajo tribes. Numerous posts and forts were built to protect trading posts and settlers, and to police the Indian reservations. This title explores the design and development of these sites, the life of the garrisons that manned them, and the clashes with Native American warriors such as Geronimo, Manuelito and Quanah Parker.