Then, when the predictable drought hit, they all scurried back East, or died where they'd plunked themselves down.
The big drought cycle is roughly 80 years long from beginning to end ~ the beginning is drought, the end is drought, and the middle sees rain sufficient to grow bountiful crops.
The big cycle affects both North America and East Asia ~ and to a degree Central and West Asia.
This cycle is clearly driven by the Sun.
There are smaller droughts of less duration in between!
The dry periods in the Great drought cycle can be longer than normal. That's the sort of thing that led the Tang dynasty to EVACUATE Northern China!
Spain gave up on developing Virginia in the midst of a dry spell that lasted from what seems to be about 1560 to 1611. There had undoubtedly been an earlier part to that drought since DeSoto and his men were able to navigate the Southland without being bothered by trees! It was like a huge sea of dirt interspersed with grasslands.
For the most part few humans live long enough to witness 2 or more parts of the great drought cycle ~ which is why you have people like Obama imagining that the current dry spell is unusual.
Not necessarily since bison and elk ranged across much of the southeast and helped maintain open spaces.
I think longer, the last time TX had a similar weather pattern to 2010-2012 was in 1895. My ancestors were here then and some moved back to Coryell Co. in 1895 and did not come back until 1898. "They" say that is as far back as record keeping goes, but rainfall and weather is very very local and even 5 miles can make a huge difference in measurable rainfall. One rainfall number for the State of Texas is a joke for this reason. We still farm (dryland) and have a seed business.
He is correct, it is the Sun that causes these patterns. There have been correlations drawn between Sunspot Cycle and crop production for 400 (or more) years.
Please watch “Why in the world are they spraying” on Youtube. The chemtrail (fact not theory) metals that tankers are spraying in the west are evidently attaching to water vapor which is carried eastward where huge storms develop and drop larger than normal amounts of snow and rain. The evidence of USAF etc spraying is overwhelming but the reasons are “secret”. The metals are strongly suspect for increasing plant, insect and human ill health and for unusual weather causing thousands of hot/cold records set in the last five years.
What we call “The Great Plains”, that land between the Missouri River and the Rockies, was originally called “The Great American Desert” by early explorers and settlers. It was only after exploitation of the Ogallala aquifer that that area became reliable farmland.
A mere 6,000 years ago, Nebraska was dry enough to allow formation of huge sand dunes, and the 300 foot tall Loess Hills of western Iowa were built of wind-blown soil from from vegetation-free lands to the west.