Subsequent to the War of 1812 much of America's thought turned to exploration and settlement of its territory to the West, which had been really inflamed by the Louisiana Purchase. Pioneers moved westward and formed communities throughout the Midwest, and around 1820, six new states were admitted to the Union. The land boom was supported by the government and land speculators, who bought up large tracts to sell at high prices The people did about the high prices and high interest on loans because of success of American agricultural products. Many western settlers suffered greatly during the Panic of 1819, but most survived and continued the take-over the West. A major aspect of the conquest of the West was the removal of the Indians who dwelled there.
They would get new equipment or new breakthroughs in equipment or technology and what not to increase production and things of that nature (Two Old West Legends). In Shane it described them in this nature and shows it in that perspective. Like when Joe went to go buy the new steel plow to use on his field (Schaefer). There were many conflicts between the cattle barons and homesteaders that would eventually lead to a war know as the Johnson County War. In Wyoming there was land that was mostly used by the large ranch owners but as more and more homesteaders there were more resistance.
In cow towns, the worst problems came when the cowboys came back from the cattle drives as they had been away from civilization for a long periods of time and as a result of this, when they returned, they went to the saloons, with money earned from numerous jobs they had accomplished and it would often lead to a lot of trouble. This happened as so little women were available and men would often fight with other men, as there was a gender imbalance. The Women hadn’t yet come to the newly set up towns and the few who had usually travelled with the saloons. A wagon driver and a gambler shot each other when arguing over a woman in 1879, is an example of this. Violence was often happening in cow towns, this is because when cow boys came back from the cattle drives, they would go to the saloons and have lots of alcohol.
Agriculture in Russia was far behind other great powers and peasants were suffering greatly through the repeated famines in 1902 and 1905. Sergei Witte had done nothing to improve agriculture only focusing on the economy of Russia. This led to subsistence agriculture. Grain was being exported and there wasn’t enough for the peasants. This also meant that the land was not used to it full potential, all these factors lead to the famines and causing peasants to up rise using violence against government officials.
As a result of European settlement, many populations of Native Americans were brought to near extinction. The hunger for a new and free word had blinded Europeans’ humanity towards the Native Americans that had lived in these lands for hundreds of years from the Atlantic to the Pacific in harmony and respect of their lands. The discovery of gold was of the most important factors that promoted violence against the Native Americans. When gold was discovered in California in 1848 it initiated a large amount of migrant traffic across the North American continent. This large influx of Americans brought more diseases to the Native Americans that devastated their tribes with great number of deaths.
The transcontinental railroad was the means of transportation that motivated white expansionism. Included in this motivation was the desire for wealth during the gold rush, the need for increased agricultural production, and the expansionist mindset to spread beyond their homeland. The main destruction that the white expansion caused was that it killed off the buffalo, which as a hunting society, was the essential source of living for the Plains Indians. They not only relied on the buffalo as a main source of food, but they also provided warm furs and means for a
Diary Entry 2: I am a white and I am on my way right now to find some gold my chances are slim and I know it but I am very frightened that the natives will capture me, the time period 1840-1860,, which are probably low, indicate that 362 emigrants were killed by Indians and 426 Indians were killed by emigrants. This makes me very nervous knowing that natives in the past have actually killed whites. On my way I found that there were many rotten animals which I believe was buffalo there was sixty million buffalos before the whites came and took land. Food was scares and we have to stop early just to start a fire; it took two or three bushels of chips to heat a meal because chips burned so rapidly I was very sad that we could not move on faster. Wagons
The Way West Beginning in the early 1800’s, Americans began to look west. The start of the first railroads to the Pacific began and the path was anything but easy to navigate. The draw for expanding the railroad was not only the ability to travel faster and move goods throughout the country, but the railroad also gave people a sense of freedom to move about the lands of this vast country. With the larger populations of cities like New York and Boston building up and becoming more heavily crowded, many people were searching for a way to move outward where there was more space and more freedoms including mining, farming, and natural resources. Before the railroad, the only means of travel was by wagon, horseback, or boat.
Many tense moments helped push the United States on, but these put it to war. In 1848, the United States added 500,000 square miles of land to itself for winning the Mexican-American War. There were many debates about the issue of slavery in the new lands. Lewis Cass encouraged popular sovereignty to let the people decide on the issue. Many Northerners wanted to follow the Wilmot Provisio, a document
English emigrated to America due to high population, high unemployment and the promise of a better life which America was offering. Thomas Malthius published his essay “the principles of population” in 1798. In this he claims that Britain’s population was growing at a faster rate than the food supply, this causing panic and encouraging the government to conduct a census in 1801. The result was 10.501.000, Britons population was estimated to have doubled in fifty years since 1750. This population problem coupled with new agricultural developments such as enclosure acts, which doubled crop production using fewer workers meant that there were many agricultural workers who were jobless.