Final answer:
Farming in the west served as an assimilation tactic by spreading American values and displacing Native American tribes, promoting farmland settlement through the Homestead Act and enforcing assimilation through reservations and boarding schools.
Step-by-step explanation:
Farming in the west was an assimilation tactic primarily because it sought to transplant predominantly American values and lifestyles into the lands beyond the Mississippi, significantly altering the lives of the Native Americans already living there. By introducing policies such as the Homestead Act of 1862, which readily provided land for agriculture to settlers, the U.S. government encouraged the spread of its citizens and their farming practices westward. This shift not only facilitated the dispossession and displacement of Native American tribes but also attempted to assimilate them into the American way of life, often through forceful means such as the establishment of reservations, the introduction of boarding schools, and various restrictive policies.