O'Sullivan wrote in favor of the U. Mexico maintained that the region was Mexican territory. For more than 20 years, Anglo-Americans had migrated into the region, bringing ever-increasing numbers of enslaved men and women with them, tying the region to the economics and politics of the U. Sentiment for and against annexation reached fever pitch in and became a major feature of the presidential election campaigns of Henry Clay and James Polk. Opponents to annexation, he argued, were trying to stop "the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions" 1.
In simple terms, Manifest Destiny was the idea that Americans were destined, by God, to govern the North American continent. This idea, with all the accompanying transformations of landscape, culture, and religious belief it implied, had deep roots in American culture. In , John Winthrop, writing decades before the 13 original colonies declared independence, said that the English men and women who hoped to settle New England "shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world" 2.
Examine how establishment of the Oregon and Overland Trails enabled diverse groups to travel west. The Oregon Trail was a 2,mile, historic east-west wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between. The eastern part of the trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming.
The western half of the trail spanned most of then future states of Idaho and Oregon. The beginnings of the Oregon Trail were laid by fur trappers and traders from about to ; these early trails were only passable on foot or by horseback. By , when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho.
Wagon trails were cleared increasingly further west, eventually reaching the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Each year, as more settlers brought wagon trains along the trail, new cutoff routes were discovered that made the route shorter and safer. Improved roads, ferries, and bridges also improved the trip. From the early to mids, and particularly through the epochal years of —, about , settlers, ranchers, farmers, miners, and businessmen and their families used the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots.
The eastern half of the trail was also used by travelers on the California Trail from , Bozeman Trail from , and Mormon Trail from , who used many of the same trails before turning off to their separate destinations. Use of the trail declined as the first transcontinental railroad was completed in , making the trip west substantially faster, cheaper, and safer.
Today, modern highways such as Interstate 80 follow the same course westward and pass through towns originally established to service the Oregon Trail. The Overland Trail also known as the Overland Stage Line was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American west during the 19th century. While explorers and trappers had used portions of the route since the s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the s as an alternative route to the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails through central Wyoming.
Starting from Atchison, Kansas, the trail descended into Colorado before looping back up to southern Wyoming and rejoining the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger. The stage line operated until , when completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad eliminated the need for mail service via stagecoach. Ruts on the Oregon Trail : So many wagons traveled the Oregon Trail that ruts are still visible along some sections.
This photograph was taken in in Wyoming. In the 19th century, as today, relocating and starting a new life took money.
Because of the initial cost of relocation, land, and supplies, as well as months of preparing the soil, planting, and subsequent harvesting before any produce was ready for market, the original wave of western settler-invaders along the Oregon Trail in the s and s consisted of moderately prosperous, white, native-born farming families from the east. More recent immigrants also migrated west, with the largest numbers coming from Northern Europe and Canada.
Germans, Scandinavians, and Irish were among the most common. Compared with European immigrants, those from China were much less numerous, yet still significant. In addition to a significant European migration westward, several thousand African Americans migrated west following the Civil War, as much to escape the racism and violence of the Old South as to find new economic opportunities.
The latter were were known as exodusters, referencing the biblical flight from Egypt, because they fled the racism of the South, with most headed to Kansas from Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. By , over , African Americans lived west of the Mississippi River. While the motivation for private profit dominated much of the movement westward, the federal government played a supporting role in securing land and maintaining law and order.
Despite the Jeffersonian aversion to, and mistrust of, federal power, the government bore more heavily into the West than any other region, fueled by the ideas of manifest destiny. Because local governments in western frontier towns were often nonexistent or weak, westerners depended on the federal government to protect them and their rights.
The federal government established a sequence of actions related to control over western lands. First, it sent surveyors and explorers to map and document the land and ultimately acquire western territory from other nations or American Indian tribes by treaty or force.
Next, it ordered federal troops to clear out and subdue any resistance from American Indians. It subsidized the construction of railroad lines to facilitate westward migration, and finally, it established bureaucracies to manage the land such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Land Office, US Geological Survey, and Forest Service. By the end of the 19th century, the federal government had amassed great size, power, and influence in national affairs. Transportation was a key issue in westward expansion.
The Army especially the Army Corps of Engineers was given full responsibility for facilitating navigation on the rivers. The steamboat, first used on the Ohio River in , made inexpensive travel using the river systems possible. The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and their tributaries were especially used for this purpose.
Army expeditions up the Missouri River from to allowed engineers to improve the technology. During this period, Colonel Henry Atkinson developed keelboats with hand-powered paddle wheels. In addition to river travel, the Oregon and Overland Trails allowed for increased travel and migration to the West. The completion of the first transcontinental railroad in dramatically changed the pace of travel in the country, as people were able to complete in a week a route that had previously taken months.
The rigors of life in the West presented many challenges and difficulties to homesteaders. The land was dry and barren, and homesteaders lost crops to hail, droughts, insect swarms, and other challenges.
There were few materials with which to build, and early homes were made of mud, which did not stand up to the elements. Money was a constant concern, as the cost of railroad freight was exorbitant, and banks were unforgiving of bad harvests. For women, life was especially difficult; farm wives worked at least 11 hours a day on chores and had limited access to doctors or midwives.
Still, many women were more independent than their eastern counterparts and worked in partnership with their husbands. As the railroad expanded and better farm equipment became available, by the s, large farms began to succeed through economies of scale. Yet small farms still struggled to stay afloat, leading to rising discontent among the farmers, who worked so hard for so little success. Although homestead farming was the primary goal of most western settlers in the latter half of the 19th century, a small minority sought to make their fortunes quickly through other means.
Specifically, gold and subsequently silver and copper prospecting attracted thousands of miners looking to get rich quickly before returning East. In addition, ranchers capitalized on newly available railroad lines to move longhorn steers that populated southern and western Texas.
This meat was highly sought after in eastern markets, and the demand created not only wealthy ranchers but an era of cowboys and cattle drives that in many ways defines how we think of the West today. Although neither miners nor ranchers intended to remain permanently in the West, many individuals from both groups ultimately stayed and settled there.
The American West became notorious for its hard mining towns. Deadwood, South Dakota, in the Black Hills, was an archetypal late gold town founded in Although the town was far from any railroad, 20, people lived there as of Tombstone, Arizona was a notorious mining town that flourished longer than most, from to Silver was discovered there in , and by the town had a population of over 10, Entrepreneurs in these and other towns set up stores and businesses to cater to the miners.
The popular image of the Wild West portrayed in books, television, and film has been one of violence and mayhem. The lure of quick riches through mining or driving cattle meant that much of the West indeed consisted of rough men living a rough life, although the violence was exaggerated and even glorified in the dime-store novels of the day. The exploits of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and others made for good stories, but the reality was that western violence was more isolated than the stories might suggest.
These clashes often occurred as people struggled for the scarce resources that could make or break their chance at riches, or as they dealt with the sudden wealth or poverty that prospecting provided. As wealthy men brought their families west, the lawless landscape slowly began to change. Abilene, Kansas is one example of a lawless town, replete with prostitutes, gambling, and other vices, that transformed when middle-class women arrived in the s with their husbands.
These women began to organize churches, schools, civic clubs, and other community programs to promote family values. Western mining towns : The first gold prospectors in the s and s worked with easily portable tools that allowed them to follow their dream and try to strike it rich a. It did not take long for the most accessible minerals to be stripped, making way for large mining operations, including hydraulic mining, where high-pressure water jets removed sediment and rocks b.
During the early years of settlement on the Great Plains, women played an integral role in ensuring family survival by working the fields alongside their husbands and children.
This was in addition to their handling of many other responsibilities, such as child-rearing, feeding and clothing the family and hired hands, and managing the housework. As late as , a typical farm wife could expect to devote 9 hours per day to chores such as cleaning, sewing, laundering, and preparing food. Two additional hours were spent cleaning the barn and chicken coop, milking the cows, caring for the chickens, and tending the family garden. While some women could find employment in the newly settled towns as teachers, cooks, or seamstresses, they originally were deprived of many rights.
Women were not permitted to sell property, sue for divorce, serve on juries, or vote. For the vast majority of women, work was not in towns for money, but on the farm. Despite these obstacles, the challenges of farm life eventually empowered women to break through certain legal and social barriers.
Many lived more equitably as partners with their husbands than did their eastern US counterparts. If widowed, a wife typically took over responsibility for the farm, a level of management very rare back east, where the farm would fall to a son or another male relation. Pioneer women made important decisions and were considered by their husbands to be more equal partners in the success of the homestead.
This was because of the necessity that all members had to work hard and contribute to the farming enterprise for it to succeed. Outside the family, women also played a crucial role in the community. People living in rural areas created rich social lives for themselves, often sponsoring activities that combined work, food, and entertainment, such as barn raising, corn husking, quilting bees, Grange meetings, church activities, and school functions.
Women also organized shared meals, potluck events, and extended visits between families. Homesteading family : Many women traveled west with family groups, such as the mother in this photograph.
While homesteaders were often families, gold speculators and ranchers tended to be single men in pursuit of fortune. The few women who went to these wild outposts were typically prostitutes, and even their numbers were limited. In , in the Comstock Lode region of Nevada, for example, there were reportedly only 30 women in a town with some 2, men.
Women found occupations in all walks of frontier life. Some women worked in brothels despite the harsh and dangerous working conditions. Many Chinese women, for example, came to the western camps as prostitutes to make money to send back home.
What was known at the time as the Louisiana Territory stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky The California Gold Rush was sparked by the discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early and was arguably one of the most significant events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th century.
As news spread of the discovery, thousands of In a speech to Congress in , President James Monroe warned European powers not to attempt further colonization or otherwise interfere in the Western Hemisphere, stating that the United States would view any such interference as a potentially hostile act.
Later known as the The Oregon Trail was a roughly 2,mile route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, which was used by hundreds of thousands of American pioneers in the mids to emigrate west. The trail was arduous and snaked through Missouri and present-day Kansas, Buffalo soldiers were African American soldiers who mainly served on the Western frontier following the American Civil War.
In , six all-Black cavalry and infantry regiments were created after Congress passed the Army Organization Act. Their main tasks were to help control Conestoga wagons, with their distinctive curved floors and canvas covers arched Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Louisiana Purchase Thanks to a high birth rate and brisk immigration, the U. The Coining of 'Manifest Destiny' By the time Texas was admitted to the Union as a state in December , the idea that the United States must inevitably expand westward all the way to the Pacific Ocean had taken firm hold among people from different regions, classes and political persuasions.
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