Moving West

1. Moving West

2. Westward Expansion What effect did Westward Expansion have on the United States?

3. Push-Pull Factors • Led people to push (forced) or pull (attract) them to move west • Southeastern farmland (expensive) • Sheltered outlaws on the run • Adventure, fresh start, imagination

4. The Lure of the West • Lewis and Clark and the Corp of Discovery • Mountain Men and Trappers • Gold and Fortune Seekers • Free/Cheap Land

5. Essential Understandings • Americans, stirred by their hunger for land and the ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” flocked to the new frontiers. • Manifest Destiny means an obvious fate of the Untied States to grow and become powerful. • Conflicts between American settlers and Indian nations in the Southeast and the old Northwest resulted in the relocation of many Indians to reservations.

6. Essential Questions • What factors influenced American westward movement?

7. The Louisiana Purchase • Jefferson as President in 1803 purchased the huge Louisiana Territory from France, which doubled the size of the United States overnight. • He authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the new territories that lay west of the Mississippi River. • Sacajawea, an Indian woman, served as their guide and translator

8. The War of 1812 • The American victory over the British in the War of 1812 produced an American claim to the Oregon territory, and increased migration of American settlers into Florida, which was later acquired from Spain.

9. Westward Expansion • American settlers poured westward from the coastal states into the Midwest, Southwest, and Texas, seeking economic opportunity in the form of land to own and farm. • The growth of the railroads and canals helped the growth of an industrial economy and supported the westward movement of settlers.

10. Westward Expansion • American migration into Texas led to an armed revolt against Mexican rule and a famous battle at the Alamo, in which a band of Texans fought to the last man against a vastly superior force. The Texans’ eventual victory over Mexican forces subsequently brought Texas into the Union.

11. Westward Expansion • The American victory in the Mexican War during the 1840s led to the acquisition of an enormous territory that included the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and parts of Colorado, and New Mexico.

12. Impact on the American Indians • The belief that it was America’s “Manifest Destiny” to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific provided political support for territorial expansion. • During this period of westward migration, the American Indians were repeatedly defeated in violent conflicts with settlers and soldiers and removed from their lands.

13. Impact on the American Indians • They were either forced to march far away from their homes (the “Trail of Tears,” when several tribes were relocated from Atlantic Coast states to Oklahoma) or confined to reservations. • The removal of the American Indians from their lands would continue throughout the remainder of the 19th century as settlers continued to move west following the Civil War.

14. Homestead Act • Signed by Lincoln • Small fee = 160 acres of land (1/4 mile) • Rules: • At least 21 years old or head of a family • American citizen or immigrant filing for citizenship • Build house a minimum size (12 feet by 14 feet) • Live in house 6 months out of year • Farm land 5 yrs in a row before ownership set 372,000 new farms - 600,000land claims – 80 million acres

16. The Homestead Act of 1862 • The Homestead Act gave public lands (lands owned by the national government) to American citizens.

17. Facts: • Any person who was the head of a family or was at least 21 years old could become the owner of a homestead. - homestead = 160 acres - an acre = 4,840 square yards, or 43,560 square feet • Married couples were entitled to two shares, or 320 acres. In the photos above, the blue square represents one acre. 

18. Requirements: • The settler must live on the land and work it for five years. Homesteader with an 8-mule team, Nebraska, late 1800’s

19. Effects: • The Homestead Act helped poor families who could not afford land in the eastern states. • It gave unemployed workers a chance to find work on land of their own. Daniel Freeman Standing, Holding Gun, with Hatchet Tucked in Belt,The "first homesteader" to settle in Beatrice, Nebraska, 1863.

20. Thousands of African-Americans moved west in 1879 in an effort to find a better life. • This was known as the “Exodus of 1879”, and the participants were called “Exodusters”.

21. Native American Conflict • Great Plains: area of land between Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains. • Native Americans vs. New Settlers • Deemed settlers as invaders • Sacred land invaded • Indians were nomads • Move from place to place…why? • Food, survival, buffalo

22. Reservations • Federal land set aside for Native Americans • Native Americans fought back • Sandy Creek Massacre (1864) - Colorado • Battle of Little Big Horn (1876) – Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana • Battle of Wounded Knee (1890) – South Dakota

23. Hardships • Lived in soddies • Homes made of sod: grass, root and dirt. ($3.00) • Livable homestead cost ($1000) • Difficulty farming for five years to claim land • Bugs: • grasshoppers, locusts • ate wheat, rye barley fields • mosquitos • Carried disease • Drought • Reduced land productivity

24. New Farming techniques • Barbed wire • Dry farming • Steel plow • Steel windmill

25. Mining, Ranching, Farming GOLD RUSH “gold everywhere you stick your shovel” • $400 million in gold and silver • Placer mining: running water over boxed dirt looking for gold and silver particles

26. Cowboys • 25 million buffalo killed (1840-1889) • Long drive: • Herding of thousands of cattle from one cattle ranch to another • 1867: 35,000 cattle driven • 1881: 250,000 cattle driven

27. Driving Cattle to Market · After the Civil War, growing cities in the East increased their demand for beef. · Texas ranchers began to drive herds of longhorns hundreds of miles north to the railroads, where they were shipped east.

28. · Cow towns developed near the railroads, offering cowhands hotels, saloons, and restaurants. Abilene, Kansas (late 1800’s)

29. Cattle Boom · Cattle roamed free on the plains. Cowboys at the end of an 1897 roundup in Ward County, Texas, pose with their herd of almost 2,000 cattle.

30. * The spread of farming, as well as harsh weather, destroyed the cattle boom by 1887. Hundreds of miles of barbed wire were strung across the state in the 1880s, forever changing the character of the frontier and bringing a measure of management to the cattle industry.

31. Objective: To examine the causes and effects of the boomtowns and ghost towns of the West.

32. Gold and Silver Strikes - The CA Gold Rush began in 1849, attracting thousands of gold hunters known as forty-niners.

33. Above: Levis clothing Below: Levis Logo Audio: The Story of Levi Strauss & Co.

34. Major "Strikes" in the California Gold Rush In 1852 the take for the year was $80 million ($1.9 billion in 2005 dollars). 1. Sutter's Mill/Coloma - Jan. 24, 1848James Marshall kicked off the California gold rush when he spotted some pea-sized bits of gold in a mill raceway. The news brought thousands of prospectors to the area, but neither Marshall nor his employer John Sutter prospered from the find.

35. Gold and silver mines were discovered throughout the West. Thousands of miners from the U.S., Europe, Mexico, and China flocked to the West. Audio: A Miner’s Life Chinese miners working an abandoned tailing. White and Chinese miners hoping to strike it rich during the California Gold Rush at Auburn Ravine in 1852.

36. Boomtowns - towns that grew up near major mining sites · Some boom towns developed into cities, such as Denver, CO, and Reno, NV. Reno, Nevada 1997

37. Boomtown - The General Store, Corinne, Boxelder Co., Utah

38. Iditarod Gold Sled (1912) Dogs hauling gold from the boom-town of Iditarod, Alaska

39. · Many of these new towns became abandoned ghost towns when the ore disappeared. Silver City, Idaho

41. · Mexican and Chinese miners faced severe discrimination. Tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants came to San Francisco, California, in the 1850s to participate in the gold rush. However, anti-Chinese racial prejudices among miners grew in the midst of the gold frenzy.

42. The Transcontinental Railroad · Railroad companies raced to lay tracks to the mines in order to supply the miners.

43. Promontory Point, Utah Omaha, Nebraska . . Union Pacific Railroad x Central Pacific Railroad J j Sacramento, California · In 1863, two companies, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, began building the first transcontinental railroad.

44. Immigrant Workers · Labor was scarce due to the hard, dangerous work and low pay. Union Pacific - hired many Irish immigrants Central Pacific - approximately 90% of their workforce were Chinese immigrants · Therefore, immigrant labor was used.

45. · The workers endured scorching deserts, blinding snowstorms, and blasted through mountains. Chinese railroad workers perform their duties in the snow.

47. On May 10, 1869, a golden spike was hammered into a track joining the two tracks in Promontory Point, UT.

48. Gold-plated Golden Spike that was donated by the governor of Arizona Territory. Spike is now owned by the Museum of the City of New York. Photo by poster, 12/06

50. Transcontinental Railroad • The Transcontinental Railroad • Completed in May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point Utah. The railroads cut travel time west from six months to six days!