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Expansionism. Why Head West?. Who Traveled West? . Mountain Men Explorers Lewis and Clark Indian Removal Manifest Destiny Mining Cattle Frontier Homesteaders Farming Transcontinental Railroad. Expanding Settlement, 1810-1850. Mountain Men.
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Expansionism Why Head West?
Who Traveled West? • Mountain Men • Explorers • Lewis and Clark • Indian Removal • Manifest Destiny • Mining • Cattle Frontier • Homesteaders • Farming • Transcontinental Railroad
Mountain Men • The legends of the mountain men live on because of the truth of the tales that were told. • The life: • Rough • Face to face with death • Starvation, dehydration, burning heat, or freezing cold, and the attack of animal or Indian. • Mountain Men • Jed Smith • Josiah Walker • Kit Carson • Jim Bridger • Jeremiah Johnson
Mountain Men • Jedediah Smith - "I wanted to be the first to view a country on which the eyes of a white man had never gazed and to follow the course of rivers that run through a new land • Jim Bridger - Bridger's most important discovery would come years later, in 1850. Captain Howard Stanbury stopped at Fort Bridger and inquired about the possibility of a shorter route across the Rockies than the South Pass. Bridger guided him through a pass that ran south from the Great Basin. This pass would soon be rightfully called Bridger's Pass and would be the route for overland mail, The Union Pacific Railroad line and finally Interstate 80. • Kit Carson - These fictional tales tend to portray Carson as a heroic figure slaughtering two bears and a dozen Indians before breakfast, and when mixed with a few real historic events, the result is that Kit Carson becomes larger than life.
Trappers • Fur Trade Companies • The American Fur Company opened the way for the settlement and economic development of the Midwestern and Western United States. • Mountain men working for the company would carve the trails that led settlers into the West. • The American Fur Company played a major role in the development and expansion of the young United States. • Hudson Bay Co. • American Fur Co. • Rocky Mt. Fur Co.
Early Explorers • Lewis & Clark – • First to map out the Western United States and the Louisiana Purchase. • The grand purpose of the Lewis and Clark expedition was to find a practical water route to the Pacific Ocean and set up a fur trade enterprise in alliance with northern Indian tribes. • Zeb Pike – • American soldier and explorer for whom Pikes Peak in Colorado is named. • His Pike expedition, often compared to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, mapped much of the southern portion of the Louisiana Purchase.
Indian Removal • The Advance to the Mississippi • Indian Removal East of the Mississippi • The Trail of Tears • John C. Calhoun, Monroe's Secretary of War established a resettlement policy of Indians beyond Missouri Rivers • by 1830's completed • William Henry Harrison destroyed Indian power in Northwest. • Andrew Jackson crushed the Creeks & Cherokees of the Southwest
Manifest Destiny • Manifest Destiny "Our manifest destiny (is) to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions." John O' Sullivan "Democratic Review” 1845 Zinn pg. 152
GOLD!!!!! • Westward Expansion • Gold Discovery in California 1848 • In 1849 30,000 would be miners set out overland from Missouri to CA • Another 25,000 made it by sea • Few became rich, but the hundreds of thousands pushed CA towards statehood
Cattle Frontier • The railroad made it profitable to raise cattle on the Great Plains. • In 1860, some five-million longhorn cattle grazed in the Lone Star state. Cattle that could be bought for $3 to $5 a head in Texas could be sold for $30 to $50 at railroad shipping points. • The popular image of the cowboy • John Wayne & Roy Rodgers • Truthfully - One in five cowboys was a Mexican American, and one in seven was black.
Homesteaders • 1841 • Government of America passed an act that allowed people to purchase 160 acres of Plains land for a very small price. • People could claim 160 acres of land. • Requirements – • Pay a small administrative fee • Build a house on the land • Live on the land for at least 5 years.
Compromise over Oregon “54’ 40” or Fight!” Britain relinquished all territorial claims 1846 The Oregon Boundary, 1846
Farming • Technology Innovations • Steel Plow – • John Deer – More reliable and stronger • Barbed Wire – • Bad Winters – Ranches decided to fence their cattle. • Barbed wire made it possible to build fences without lumber • Protected railroads from stampeding animals • Houses • Sod Houses • Other Advances
