1. Objectives
Identify the destinations of settlers heading west in the early 1800s.
Describe the unique culture of the Southwest.
Explain the meaning of Manifest Destiny.

2. Terms and People
frontier – the land that forms the farthest extent of a nation’s settled regions
land grant – a government gift of land
ranchero – owner of a ranch
expansion – extending the nation beyond its existing borders

3. What cultures and ideas influenced the development of the West?
Since colonial times, settlers had been moving westward and encountering Native Americans and Mexicans.
The mixing of these cultures affected the development of the West and the entire United States.

4. Early Americans had thought of the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River as the western frontier.
However, by the 1820s, much of that land had been settled, and Americans began to look beyond the Mississippi River.

5. Between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains are the Great Plains.
Settlers in the early 1800s were not attracted to this region because they did not think it was good for farming.

6. For many settlers in the early 1800s, the Great Plains were simply a route to the Far West.
Some were attracted to the area known as Oregon Country in the Northwest.
Others were interested in the Mexican lands of the Southwest.

7. In the Northwest, settlers were attracted to the fertile land of present-day U.S. states Oregon and Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia.

8. Southwestern Mexican settlements were another major destination for settlers.
Together with Mexico, the Spanish borderlands had been claimed for Spain in the 1500s.

9. The Southwest included present-day:
Arizona
California
Half of Colorado
Nevada
New Mexico
Utah
Texas
Ruled first by Spain and then by Mexico, these lands had a culture and history very different from that of the eastern United States.

10. Over the years, many peninsulares (Spanish settlers) had children who were called creoles.
Peninsulares, Native Americans, and Africans also intermarried and had children called mestizos.
By the 1800s, this combination of ethnic groups had created a distinct Southwestern culture.

11. Cultural Exchange Spanish to Native Americans
The Spanish brought their language, religion, and laws to the Southwest.
Native Americans to Spanish
Native Americans introduced the Spanish to foods such as beans and squash.
The Spanish adopted Native American clothing, such as ponchos and moccasins.
A Blending of Cultures
The general style of Southwestern architecture was European, but the Native Americans who constructed buildings used adobe, a traditional Native American building material.

12. Spanish missionaries wanted to convert Native Americans to Catholicism.
Many Native Americans in the borderlands were forced to live and work at missions, where they learned about the Catholic religion.
At the missions, thousands of Native Americans died from overwork or disease.

13. When Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821, its land was redistributed.
Under Spanish rule, land grants had been given to only a few peninsulares, but Mexico made many grants to individual rancheros.
Mexico ended church control of missions and gave their lands to rancheros and a few American settlers.
Native Americans raided ranches to protest the theft of their land, but they were soon crushed.

14. United States and other countries
Mexico’s independence changed the region’s relationship with the United States.
Previously, Spain had followed the mercantilist system, so New Spain had only been permitted to trade with Spain.
After it won its independence, Mexico allowed its people to trade with other countries, including the United States.
Spain
New Spain
United States and other countries
Mexico

15. By the 1840s, many people supported Manifest Destiny, the belief that the United States was destined to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The American drive for westward expansion was partly responsible for the Native Americans’ plight.
By 1850, the Native American population in the Southwest had dropped drastically.

16. Section Review
QuickTake Quiz
Know It, Show It Quiz 16

17. Objectives Explain how traders and fur trappers helped open the West.
List the reasons pioneers traveled along the Oregon Trail and describe the hardships they faced.
Discuss the issues for women, Native Americans, and new settlers in the West.

18. Terms and People
William Becknell – an American who forged the Santa Fe Trail in 1821
John Jacob Astor – a German immigrant who established the American Fur Company in 1808
mountain man – a fur trapper of the Northwest
rendezvous – a meeting where the trappers would trade furs for supplies
Marcus and Narcissa Whitman – a couple who set up a mission in Oregon and were eventually killed by the Cayuse

19. Why did people go west and what challenges did they face?
Some people went west for the fur trade, others to become missionaries, and still others for the free and fertile land.
They all faced dangers including assault, diseases, accidents, and natural disasters.

20. The first Americans who moved into the Far West—traders looking for new markets—blazed important trails for others.
In 1821, Captain William Becknell led a wagon train filled with goods over an 800-mile route.
The men who traveled the route, which stretched from Missouri to New Mexico, faced dangerous environmental conditions.

21. Becknell’s group eventually reached New Mexico with their wagons.
Others followed their route, which became known as the Santa Fe Trail.
The trail soon became a busy international trading route.

22. $ $ $ Farther north, fur traders were making huge fortunes.
John Jacob Astor sent the first American fur-trading expedition to Oregon.
Astor established the American Fur Company in 1808 at Fort Astor, now Astoria, Oregon.

23. Astor’s expedition consisted of two groups:
The first group sailed around South America and up the Pacific coast.
The second group traveled across the continent and found the South Pass through the Rocky Mountains on the way.
This important route helped to open the Northwest to the missionaries and settlers who followed.

24. The fur trade made Astor the richest man in the United States.
Mountain men, who trapped beaver and other animals, also longed for riches.

25. One mountain man, an African American named James Beckwourth, discovered a pass through the Sierras that later became a major route to California.

26. For most of the year, mountain men led isolated lives facing danger from animals and the environment.
Once a year, trappers would attend a rendezvous where they celebrated and sold their furs.

27. By the 1830s, the beaver population was nearly exhausted.
Many trappers moved back east to take other jobs.
Others became guides for wagon trains.

28. In the 1830s, the first white easterners to live permanently in Oregon were missionaries.
Marcus and Narcissa Whitman set up a mission in Oregon to convert a Native American group, the Cayuse, to Christianity.
When the Cayuse lost land to whites and many of their people to a measles epidemic, they killed the Whitmans and other settlers.

29. Still, missionaries like the Whitmans helped spur settlement of the West.
Their glowing descriptions of the free and fertile land in Oregon led many easterners in the grip of “Oregon Fever” to make the journey west.

30. Many settlers followed the Oregon Trail, a route that stretched more than 2,000 miles from Missouri to Oregon.

31. More than 50,000 people reached Oregon between 1840 and 1860.
One out of every ten travelers on the Oregon Trail was killed along the way by disease or accidents. v
For protection, most pioneers on the trail traveled in long trains of covered wagons.
More than 50,000 people reached Oregon between 1840 and 1860.

32. When gold was discovered in northern Oregon in the 1850s, large numbers of white and Chinese miners moved to the area.
In 1855, the miners killed many Native Americans, and the Native Americans fought back.
The U.S. government intervened and forced the Native Americans to accept peace treaties.

33. Pioneer life was filled with hardships, and some settlers gave up and went back East.
Those who stayed had to clear the land, plant crops, and build shelters with only a few hand tools.
Disease, accidents, and natural disasters were ever-present threats.

34. On western farms, women’s labor was necessary to their families’ survival, and this raised their status.
The West was more liberal than the United States, which did not pass a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote until 1920.
In 1869, the Wyoming Territory became the first area of the United States to grant women the right to vote.