What Role Did Railroad Play In Westward Expansion

The conquest of the West had happened by the early 1900’s but by this time the indigenous populations living west had been disappearing. In the last three decades there has been a vast amount of settlers venturing into the lands across the Mississippi River. With the end of the Civil War in 1985, the white Americans claimed land and expanded across the continent. They destroyed the culture of the Native Americans and ignored all races along the way such as the Chinese miners and the laborers and the Mexican herdsmen.

government has unspecified and unorganized policies, which were unprotected for Native Americans who lived in the west because of all the new coming Americans. During westward expansion, a majority of who moved were whites, who didn’t know the Native Americans who already lived in the west. The Natives felt their land was being conquered, because of the U.S government policies(Louisana Purchase & Homestead Act) and the whites not wanting them to be there, which lead to fighting between the Natives and the whites. These acts and policies such as the Indian Removal Act often resulted in violated treaties and violence. The Indian Removal Act was the removal of Native American homes and tribes. “This also confines the Indians to still narrower limits, destroys that game which in their normal state, and constitutes their principal means of subsistence.” Resulting in westward expansion, Native Americans began rapidly decreasing in the area by wars and new diseases caught by new coming

In a bid to encourage people onto the Plains advertisements told success stories of those who had claimed land under the terms of the Homestead Act and had become successful. It divided 2.5 million acres of Plains land into sections or homesteads of 160 acres. People could now claim 160 acres of land. The only requirement on their part was that they paid a small charge and built a house or added something to the land such as a house or a well and lived on the land for at least 5 years.

The American West is one of the most famous and important part of the American history. The American West or another name the American Frontier started off in the late-1700 and ended in mid-1940. Although that part of history ended, but the influence and the old west culture is still around today. So let get into the history of the American West, of what made the West what it is and how all the forces molded the West.

The Homestead Act was a vital part of the Westward Expansion and a unique opportunity for people. The Homestead Act was the first time the government had ever offered free land, and the land was offered to anyone, regardless of citizenship, gender, or adulthood. Even teenagers wanting a new life started homesteads because the minimum age was 15 to own a piece of land according to the Homestead Act. It was an opportunity for many people to start their life over and to build something. However, the way was hard and fraught with difficulty but the rewards were worth the effort.

Westward Expansion started with President Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase from the French for only fifteen million dollars. This allowed landless families to migrate from where they currently were to a new place with fresh lands to claim. This had a few effects such as increasing the size of the country, while providing land and means for income to families. During the course of westward expansion the size of the United States took a drastic population increase, with the overall population going from five million to seventy-six million. This set the U.S. on the fast track to expand out to the west coast. Abraham Lincoln signed in to law the Homestead Act, which gave people willing to

(flattened) the land by as much as a hundred miles a stretch. Behind them came

In the late 19th century, the American people began to go west. Americans began to pour into the West because of rapid population growth and affordable land (Importance of the West). They were also promised wide open land and to be free of Indians (Importance of the West). The West was in fact not free of Indians, and there were several wars that ensued in Arkansas, Montana, Washington, and California (Youngs).

Politicians believed the U.S should conquer western lands which prompted the Indian Removal Act in 1830 by Andrew Jackson.The Act enabled the president to make a deal with Indian tribes in the Southern United States to move to federal land by the Mississippi River in exchange for their territory. The indians tribes had no choice to accept, they were forced to leave their homelands and walk

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the idea of the far west captivated many. The chance to begin life anew attracted thousands of individuals and families alike to move out west and escape their current life, which was usually full of poverty and for some, full of discrimination. As the west expanded and grew into an important part of the United States, westerners found it somewhat difficult to survive with important resources going scarce. Although the

The Comanche Campaign was a generalization of multiple battles and wars between the United States government and the Comanche tribes. Most of the wars were fought between 1867 and 1875 in the freshly settle wild west. The United States military fought against different Comanche tribes in numerous expeditions until the Comanche people surrounded and surrendered. After peace was established between the Natives and the United States, the Comanche people were relocated to a reservation. In the late 1800’s different ideas and proposals, such as the Manifest Destiny and Homestead Act, fueled the expansion of American settlement out West.

A number of settlement changes had occurred in California since 1796. The discovery of gold greatly accelerated these changes. Prior to the unearthing citizens from Russia, México, America and the natives themselves had already turned California into a universal frontier. It is due to this reason that immigrants from all over the world jostled up here. Many gold seekers and other investors flooded California all with the motive of benefiting from it. This in turn brought people from different races together and encouraged the spread and development of varying ethnic languages, social languages and religions to the new American state (Rawls and Bean 21). However, most of these visitors were not interested in settling down in California. The

This text is a sampling of times, places, and people of the Westward Expansion. A teacher teaching the Westward Expansion will find historical images and stories behind the historical times and the sheet music that correlates to the topics. This cross-curricular resource allows for the stories to be read and the pictures to study, and ultimately the music to be incorporated into the classroom learning. Ultimately this book can be utilized to bring adventure, danger, dreams, and the realities of American life during the Westward Expansion to come alive for students. This will make history fun for all students, allowing students to build more of a connection to the past. This is another great resource but because I don’t teach Western Expansion

Free land led to new opportunities, and it was up to each individual and their desire to work hard and climb the economic and social ladder: “…each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society…”(Turner, 100). Everything was open to the man who knew how to seize the opportunity. The self-made man became the ideal of the West, and eventually every man in the U.S.A. should be like him.

The American Frontier, or as it was also known, the Wild West was a time between the 1770s and the late 1900s. The Wild West consisted of the and west of the Mississippi river. This time period lasted for about thirty years, and during this time there were a variety of people that roamed around the towns such as outlaws, lawmen, Native Americans, townspeople, and cowboys. Out in the Wild West the towns were small but, for the size of them, they were called 'home' for many people.