Following years of land encroachments by American settlers, Chief Little Turtle of the Miami leads the Indian Nations of the Northwest Confederacy to a major victory over the fledgling U.S. Army. But a new force under General "Mad" Anthony Wayne embarks on a counteroffensive, leading to a final battle that will see the Confederacy defeated - and open a new era of westward expansion.

After building his reputation as a formidable hunter on Lewis and Clark's Expedition into the newly acquired Louisiana Territory, John Colter chooses to stay out in the wilderness and enter the booming fur trade. But when he repeatedly ignores warnings from the Blackfeet not to hunt their sacred beaver on their lands, he's taken captive and forced to make a run for his life.

Missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman seek to bring their way of life to the local Cayuse people; their struggle to adapt heightens fears and tensions both with the Cayuse, and each other, setting up for a historic encounter with tragic consequences.

The abduction of Cynthia Ann Parker kicks off a series of confrontations as her rescue sees her unhappyly removed from her new native family and dropped back into a hostile foreign culture, while pushing her son into a campaign of revenge.

In California, Mexican immigrant Joaquin Murrieta forms a gang of outlaws that spreads terror across the state; a posse of California Rangers, led by Harry Love, takes Murrieta down - but his legend as a hero to the downtrodden lives on to this day.

When Kansas becomes a battleground in the national debate over slavery, settlers on both sides of the issue pour into the territory to determine its future as a free or slave state in its eventual admission to the Union.

When Civil War veteran Col. Henry Carrington takes command of Fort Phil Kearny in Northern Wyoming, he never expects to face such a ferocious enemy as Red Cloud's band of Lakota Sioux.

In Northern Wyoming's Powder River Valley, a group of ranchers band together to protect their rights to graze cattle; a powerful cabal of cattle barons smear the ranchers as common thieves and plot an invasion.