The biggest thing to change the life for the people/Native American tribes of the Great Plains was probably the slaughter of the buffalo. Similarly, probably the biggest thing that changed life for the farmers who came to the plains was the Dust Bowl of the 1930s which caused crops to fail, farms to be repossessed by banks, and the farmers to leave. largely to California. Daily life was hard for the peiple of the Great Plains but they made the best of the land they could with the resources they had.