4-5.6
Standard 4-5 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the westward movement and its impact on the institution of slavery.
4-5.6: Compare the experiences of different groups who migrated and settled in the West, including their reasons for migrating, their experiences on the trails and at their destinations, the cooperation and conflict between and among the different groups, and the nature of their daily lives.(H, G, E)
It Is Essential For Students To Know:
- People migrated to the west for a variety of reasons.
- Trappers went to Oregon for the profit that could be made from fur trading.
- Southerners moved to Texas for more land on which to plant cotton.
- Farmers and ranchers moved west because of the availability of inexpensive or free land.
- Some settlers wanted a new start in life.
- Still others were lured by the gold in California or the silver in the Black Hills of the Dakotas.
- The Mormons moved to Utah for freedom of religion.
- The migrants’ experience on the trail was often full of hardship. They might encounter broken axels, bad weather, limited food, sickness or bandits and unfriendly Native Americans. The trip was particularly hard on women and children. Babies were born and people died on the long trip west.
- The cooperation and conflict among travelers on the wagon train was one of the main reasons for the success or failure of the trip.
- People who did not know each other at the beginning of the trip had to learn to work together to cross deep rivers and traverse down steep mountain paths.
- The daily lives at the end of the journey also often contained many hardships. At their destinations these migrants had to build new lives with only the items they had brought in the wagon or that they found in their environment.
- Many built houses made of sod on the plains because there were no trees.
- Others had to cut down trees to make room for crops.
- Bad weather, sickness or bandits could rob them of the little that they had.
- During the Gold Rush, Chinese were welcome as long as the surface gold was plentiful. They were also welcome because they performed a lot of the drudgery work such as laundering and cooking. As gold findings became scarce, competition created anti-minority (Chinese, African American, Mexican) sentiment.
- White Americans boldly asserted that California’s gold belonged to them.
It Is Not Essential For Students To Know:
- It is not essential for students to know the names of persons traveling on the wagon trains or their life stories.
4-5.6 Links To Information For Teachers