Westward Expansion
Market, Communication,
Transportation Revolution
• Market
– People bought and sold
goods, rather than making
goods for themselves
• Communication
– People in better contact
• Telegraph
• Transportation
– Steamboat
– Canals
– Trains developed in 1840s
New Markets Link Regions
• Northeast
– Shipping and Manufacturing
• West
– Farming cash crops: wheat and corn
• South
– Crops: tobacco, cotton, rice
Question: How does this link the regions?
Manifest Destiny
• Definition: to express their belief that the
United States’ destiny was to expand to
the Pacific
Manifest Destiny
• Causes of American Expansion in 1830s
and 1840s
– Economic factors
• Exhaustion of good lands in the east
• Effects of the Panic of 1837
– Psychological factors
• manifest destiny
– Attractive regions
• east Texas, California, Oregon
– Advertising the West
• Santa Fe traders
• Mountain men--fur trappers and traders
Problems with Natives in the West
• Black Hawk War - 1832
– Natives lead by Chief Black
Hawk rebelled in IA/IL
– 200 Sauk and Fox killed by
Illinois militia, rest forcibly
moved West of MS river
• Fort Laramie Treaty - 1851
Current location of the RoL. Brown - current
reservation land; Orange - Treaty of Fort Laramie
1868; Yellow - Treaty of Fort Laramie 1851
(includes the Black Hills
– Occasional attacks by
Natives lead to government
intervention
– Natives: control of central
plains (400 mile land east of
Rockies), annual payment
from Gov.
– Settlers: promise from
natives would not attack
• Oregon Territory
– Expansionists urged seizure of Oregon from England
– "54 40’ or Fight" became slogan
– Oregon Treaty (1846) set boundary at 49th parallel
Oregon Trail
• Not easy to follow
– Trip often took months, even if all went well
– Diseases
– Lack of supplies and water
• Trouble with natives upon arrival
– Whitman Massacre – Native attack on
Whitman Mission in Oregon Country