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 settle by the Columbia River to convert the Cayuse. Cultural clashes and a measles outbreak increase tensions, leading to a fateful confrontation.

The abduction of nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker kicks off a series of increasingly deadly confrontations between her Comanche captors and the newly independent Texas.

In Gold Rush California, Mexican immigrant Joaquin Murrieta forms a gang of outlaws that spreads terror across the newly formed state.

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.

Civil War veteran Col. Henry Carrington takes command of Fort Phil Kearny in Northern Wyoming.

A cabal of cattle barons smear small-time ranchers as common thieves and plot an invasion.