Americans Head West seeking Their Manifest Destiny….

By Morgan J. Burris & Jenny Strader

Lexington Middle School

Note Page 17 A“The Western Pioneers”

John L. O’Sullivan coined the term MANIFEST DESTINY (1845):

God has given the continent to Americans and wanted them to settle WESTERN lands

"The Western Pioneers"

1800 – only 387,000 white settlers west of Appalachian mtnsBy 1820, over 2.4 million.

By Civil War more than on Atlantic coast. Reasons: Religious Freedom & Land

1st pioneers called SQUATTERS - because they settled on land that they did not officially own

Government eventually guaranteed squatters they could have the right to buy the land up to 160 acres for $1.25/acre

Farming the New Lands

New Technology that helped open the Great Plains for farmingJethro Wood – Iron plow 1819John Deere - Steel Plow 1837Cyrus McCormick - Mechanical

Reaper 1834 Allowed Wheat (Grain) to be harvested with

far less efforts

Plows and Reapers

Wooden Plow

IRON PLOW

Steel Plow

MECHANICAL REAPER

Why?? Thought the Great Plains were NOT Fertile

Closer to markets in China and AsiaOregon: Claimed by US, Native Am. &

Britain- 1818, agreed to both settle and fix border dispute later

Settling the Pacific Coast

Convert – American missionaries tried to convert Native Americans and persuaded others to come to

land….

Willamette Valley, Oregon

Mountain Men= Guides; created several East to West Passages

Kit Carson – Famous TrailblazerOregon Trail & Santa Fe Trail – most

popular routes / maps Overlanders - People who moved out West

Westward Migration

Took 5-6 Months15 miles a dayTraveled in Covered WagonsUsed Staging Areas on Frontier Towns

to gather supplies, guides, and other families to go West together

Donner Party (1846):- 87 Overlanders followed guidebook and got trapped in Mountains. 41 died of starvation and the others were forced to eat the dead

Wagon Trail Life

o Most Overlanders had a great fear of conflict with

Native Americanso Most were peaceful; offered helpo Native Americans did fear the new arrivals

would take away their food and shelter and alter the Buffalo migration patterns

TREATY of FORT LARAMIE:- Signed by 8 Native Am. Tribes and they agreed to specific territorial boundaries and to maintain peaceful relations against US settlers & Gov’t Payments- Gave the U.S. Settlers land and made other areas ‘off limits’ to settle (Great Plains)- Treaty was violated by Americans several times

Native Americans

Signing of the Treaty

Young image of B. Young

The Mormon Migration

Reason – Religious Freedom

Joseph Smith murdered, Brigham Young leads thousands to Great Salt Lake, Utah in 1847.

Became a popular Trail

The Death of Joseph Smith

Brigham Young

Note Page 17 A“The Western Pioneers”