American success on the battlefield was swift. By August, General Stephen W. Kearny had captured New Mexico—there had been no opposition when he arrived in Santa Fe. Securing California would take longer, although on June 14, , settlers in Alta California began the Big Bear Flag Revolt against the Mexican garrison in Sonoma, without knowing of the declaration of war.
Cumulative U. He promised the U. Once in Mexico City, however, he reneged on the agreement and seized the presidency. Taylor pushed south into Monterrey, Mexico, in September. After a hard-won victory, Taylor negotiated the surrender of the city and agreed to an eight-week armistice, during which the Mexican troops would be allowed to go free. In January , Santa Anna learned of the U. Santa Anna began the long march back to Mexico City.
Read more about the Mexican American War. On January 24, , James W. Although he and Sutter tried to keep it a secret, word got out—the first printed notice of the discovery was in the March 15, , San Francisco newspaper The Californian.
Not long after, gold was discovered in the Feather and Trinity Rivers, also located northeast of Sacramento. The first people to rush the gold fields were those already living in California, but as word slowly got out overland and via the port city of San Francisco, people from Oregon, Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Pacific Islands arrived to find their fortunes.
In , there was such a huge influx of gold-seekers—approximately 90,—that they would be referred to collectively as "forty-niners.
It is estimated that by some , people had streamed into California hoping to strike it rich. The port town of San Francisco went from a population of about 1, in to become the eighth largest city in the U. Read more about the California Gold Rush. The Klondike gold rush consisted of the arrival of thousands of prospectors to the Klondike region of Canada as well as Alaska in search of gold.
Over , people set out on the year long journey to the Klondike, with less than one third ever finishing the arduous journey. Only a small percentage of the prospectors found gold, and the rush was soon over. Read more about the Klondike Gold Rush. The first concrete plan for a transcontinental railroad in the United States was presented to Congress by dry-goods merchant Asa Whitney in Whitney had ridden on newly opened railway lines in England and an — trip to China, which involved a transcontinental trip and the transport of the goods he had bought, further convinced him that the railroad was the future of transport.
The act, based on a bill proposed in that had been a victim of the political skirmishes over slavery, was considered a war measure that would strengthen the union between the eastern and western states. The Central Pacific started work in Sacramento, California, in January 8, , but progress was slow due to the resource and labor shortage caused by the Civil War. The California Gold Rush and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad brought the first great waves of emigration from Asia to America.
Learn more about the Transcontinental Railroad. Since construction began in earnest after the end of the war, most of the workers on the Union Pacific were Army veterans and Irish immigrants who had come to the U. When the railroad was completed on May 10, , with the ceremonial driving of the last spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, it had already facilitated further population of the western states in concert with the Homestead Act.
The railroads led to the decline and eventual end to the use of emigrant trails, wagon trains, and stagecoach lines, and a further constriction of the native population and their territories. Telegraph lines were also built along the railroad right of way as the track was laid, replacing the first single-line Transcontinental Telegraph with a multi-line telegraph.
The Homestead Act of was intended to make lands opening up in the west available to a wide variety of settlers, not just those who could afford to buy land outright or buy land under the Preemption Act of , which established a lowered land price for squatters who had occupied the land for a minimum of 14 months. In the s, Southerners had opposed three similar efforts to open the west out of fear that western lands would be established as free, non-slaveholding areas.
Most of those objecting to such legislation left Congress when the Southern states seceded, allowing the Homestead Act to be passed during the American Civil War. Learn more about the Homestead Act.
The Homestead Act required settlers to complete three steps in order to obtain acre lots of surveyed government land. First, an application for a land claim had to be filed, then the homesteader had to live on the land for the next five years and make improvements to it, including building a 12 by 14 shelter.
Finally, after five years, the homesteader could file for patent deed of title by filing proof of residency and proof of improvements with the local land office, which would then send paperwork with a certificate of eligibility to the General Land Office in Washington, DC, for final approval. The land was free except for a small registration fee. On New Years Eve, he met local Land Office officials and persuaded them to open early so he could file a land claim. By the end of the century, more than 80 million acres had been granted to over , successful homesteaders.
In total, about 10 percent of the U. Pony Express : The Pony Express was a system of horse and riders set up in the mids to deliver mail and packages. It employed 80 deliverymen and between four and five hundred horses. Read more about Pony Express. It resulted in Mexico taking control.
Read more about Battle Of The Alamo. It took place in North America and involved many Native American people. Read more about French Indian War. The Sand Creek Massacre : The Sand Creek Massacre was the brutal attack of Cheyenne Indians consisting mostly of women and children by Union Soldiers that occurred, despite the flying of an American flag to show that they were peaceful and a white flag after the attack began, in Colorado in Read more about The Sand Creek Massacre.
Oregon Territory : The Oregon Territory was the name given to the area that became the state of Oregon. It became an official state in February of Read more about Oregon Territory.
It was used by thousands of people to populate the western frontier. Read more about The Oregon Trail. They were led by a Sauk warrior named Black Hawk. Read more about Black Hawk War.
Read more about The Mountain Meadows Massacre. John Jacob Astor : John Jacob Astor was a wealthy merchant and fur trader whose enterprise was played an important role in the westward expansion of the United States. Read more about John Jacob Astor. Corral : The O. Corral refers to a fight at this corall in Tombstone, Arizona. Read more about the gunfight at the O. The acquisition of this land re-opened the question that the Missouri Compromise had ostensibly settled: What would be the status of slavery in new American territories?
After two years of increasingly volatile debate over the issue, Kentucky Senator Henry Clay proposed another compromise. It had four parts: first, California would enter the Union as a free state; second, the status of slavery in the rest of the Mexican territory would be decided by the people who lived there; third, the slave trade but not slavery would be abolished in Washington , D. But the larger question remained unanswered. In , Illinois Senator Stephen A.
Douglas proposed that two new states, Kansas and Nebraska , be established in the Louisiana Purchase west of Iowa and Missouri. The battle for Kansas and Nebraska became a battle for the soul of the nation. Emigrants from Northern and Southern states tried to influence the vote. For example, thousands of Missourians flooded into Kansas in and to vote fraudulently in favor of slavery.
A decade later, the civil war in Kansas over the expansion of slavery was followed by a national civil war over the same issue. Start your free trial today. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa, forced into slavery in the American colonies and exploited to work as indentured servants and labor in the production of crops such as tobacco and cotton.
By the midth century, Look at a couple of the documents more closely. Ask students if anyone can identify and explain any of the documents they see without further examination. Choose one of the documents used in this activity to model document analysis. Ask them to work as a full class, in small groups, or individually for more advanced students, to put the documents in the correct chronological sequence according to their creation dates.
Students can continue their study of westward expansion by completing a companion activity contrasting the experience of Western settlers with the experience of Native Americans in the West. For more information about the featured documents, follow the links below.
Documents in this activity "Deadwood in Follow us on Twitter:. Follow us on Facebook:. Please enter a valid email address. This belief they felt gave them the right to take land from the Native Americans.
The writer Horace Greeley, who popularised this idea, advised Americans:. Once the population of an area reached 60,, it could apply to become a state of the USA. Local governments therefore could benefit from encouraging more settlers to move to their areas.
They attracted people using publicity campaigns which claimed, for example, that farmers in the west could grow pumpkins as big as barns and maize as tall as telegraph poles.
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