Native American tribes in west were culturally predisposed to political and military independence. In turn, they struggled to unite against white settlers from the east, and were often distracted from doing so by internal conflicts of their own. Some individual tribes even had trouble uniting among themselves. Still, some managed to form coalitions, such as the alliance between the Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne which dominated the northern region of the Great Plains during the mid-nineteenth century. Regardless, all native peoples were at an economic and industrial disadvantage to the United States.