1. EQ: Why did people go West and what challenges did they face?
Trails to the West
EQ: Why did people go West and what challenges did they face?

2. What would you consider to be the “Wild West?”
Why there?

3. What do you think the Wild West Looks Like?

5. Trails to the West? Why do you think people went to the West?
What do you think they found there?

6. Manifest Destiny
Many people went to the West because of a belief called Manifest Destiny
Based on the following quote, what do you think it is?
".... the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and development of self-government entrusted to us. It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth."

8. Overland Immigration to the West

9. Why go West?
Americans during this time period began believing in “Manifest Destiny”
Belief that it was God’s will for American’s to extend the U.S. from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Believed Anglo-Saxon (white) race was superior race and wanted to spread its influence
Believed that it was Americans’ duty to spread democracy

10. Why go West? Other Reasons Overcrowded cities
Economic depression in 1819 and 1839 drew people to make their living on the frontier
Land was inexpensive and sometimes free!
Land ownership associated with wealth, self-reliance, and independence
Trading opportunities

11. Where did they settle? Most settled in the Northwest and Southwest
Known as Oregon Country
Land from the Rockies to the Pacific
Very fertile land
Southwest
Had a culture and history very different from the Eastern U.S.

12. How did they get there?

13. How did they get there? Santa Fe Trail The Oregon Trail
800 miles, from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico
Had to cross rivers, pass over mountains, go through a desert
The Oregon Trail
2,000 miles from Missouri to Oregon
Walked the trail and carried their things in covered wagons
Took about 5 months

14. The Oregon Trail – Albert Bierstadt, 1869

15. Dangers?

16. The Donner Party

17. What trail did they take? What struggles did they face?
Why did they come?
What trail did they take?
Where did they settle?
What struggles did they face?
Looking for new markets,
fur trading
Santa Fe, Bucknell’s Route
Traders
Santa Fe & Oregon
Rivers, quicksand, mountains,
Cold, heat, animals, Indians

18. What trail did they take? What struggles did they face?
Why did they come?
What trail did they take?
Where did they settle?
What struggles did they face?
Religious beliefs
Convert Indians
Oregon Trail
Missionaries
Oregon
Cayuse Indians attacked & killed
them after spreading Measles
killing their people.

19. What trail did they take? What struggles did they face?
Why did they come?
What trail did they take?
Where did they settle?
What struggles did they face?
Free land & fertile soil
Oregon Trail
Farmers
California or where they
Stopped on the trail
Disease, accidents, lost in the
Mountains dust, storms, & floods

20. What trail did they take? What struggles did they face?
Why did they come?
What trail did they take?
Where did they settle?
What struggles did they face?
Conflict with beliefs in the West
Land & property
Mormon Trail
Mormons
Crickets, destroyed harvest,
Nauvoo Indians mean to them
NY-OH-MO-IL-Utah

21. What trail did they take? What struggles did they face?
Why did they come?
What trail did they take?
Where did they settle?
What struggles did they face?
To mine gold
California Trail
Forty-niners
Fighting over gold rights &
water rights
Sacramento Valley, CA Or
Sutter Mill, CA

22. The People of West
Who are they???