TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Settlement of the West
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Objectives
•
Trace the settlement and development of
the Spanish borderlands.
•
Explain the concept of Manifest Destiny.
•
Describe the causes and challenges of
westward migration.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Terms and People
• Junípero Serra – Franciscan priest who set up
a series of missions along the California coast
• expansionists – Americans who favored
territorial growth
• Manifest Destiny – belief that God wanted the
United States to own all of North America
• Santa Fe Trail – wagon trail trade route
between Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Terms and People (continued)
• Mountain Men – American hunters and
trappers who blazed trails into the Rockies in
the early 1800s
• Oregon Trail – trail from Independence,
Missouri, to Oregon that was used by pioneers
in the mid-1800s
• Brigham Young – Mormon leader who
brought his religious group to Utah in 1847
• Treaty of Fort Laramie – 1851 treaty that
restricted the Plains Indians to territories away
from the overland wagon routes
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
What were the causes of westward migration?
By the 1840s, American migrants were
crossing into Oregon and California seeking
economic opportunity.
Soon, these and other western lands became
part of the United States, helping the nation
grow in both wealth and power.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The Spanish founded New Mexico
in 1598 but the area grew slowly.
• In 1765, there were 9,600 Hispanics, located
mainly around El Paso, Santa Fe, and the Rio
Grande Valley.
• Settlers were threatened by nomadic tribes on
horseback, primarily the Apache.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The Spanish built a mixture of missions,
ranches, and fortified military presidios to
protect against Indian attacks.
The Spanish had founded Texas as a
buffer zone to protect the towns and
mines of Mexico against nomadic
raiders. In 1760, there were only
about 1,200 settlers, mostly around
San Antonio.
Development was slow. By 1821, New
Mexico still had only 40,000 settlers.
A Spanish mission in Arizona
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Spanish Territory, 1820
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
• In the 1760s, a few small
At first,
California
developed
very slowly.
settlements served as a buffer
against Russian traders moving
south from Alaska.
• Father Junípero Serra, a
Franciscan priest, set up a string
of missions to convert Indians.
• When Spain left in 1821, more
than 18,000 Christian Indians
lived in the missions.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
American expansionists believed in the idea
of Manifest Destiny. John L. O’Sullivan, a
journalist, coined the phrase in 1845.
Manifest Destiny was the belief that God favored
U.S. expansion westward to the Pacific.
Expansionists saw Mexican independence as
an opportunity to take New Mexico, Texas,
and California.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Expansionists did not care
about Mexicans or Native
Americans, whom they
saw as inferiors to be
pushed out of the way.
Southern expansionists
also hoped to add new
slave states to strengthen
their position in Congress.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The first Americans attracted to the west
were Mountain Men like Jedediah Smith
who blazed trails across the Sierra Nevada
into California.
The Mountain Men crossed the Rockies
seeking beaver pelts.
They established fur trading routes later
followed by wagon trains of settlers.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
During the 1840s,
20,000 Americans
migrated to Oregon,
Utah, and California
by covered wagon.
In 1836, the missionaries
Marcus and Narcissa Whitman
established a trading post on
what became the Oregon
Trail. Many were attracted to
Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
In 1842, John C. Freemont
led an expedition following
trails blazed by the Whitmans
and the Mountain Men. His
reports attracted settlers.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The Oregon,
Mormon, and
Santa Fe Trails
were popular
routes west.
Between
1840 and 1860,
260,000 settlers
crossed the
continent.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Groups of 10 to 100 wagons
and 50 to 1,000 people left
Missouri in early spring for an
uncertain future.
• The 2,000-mile trip took several months.
• They by passed the dry Great Plains and the
deserts of the Great Basin.
• Emigrants faced exposure, starvation, disease,
poisoned streams, and hostile Indians.
• The Donner Party resorted to cannibalism to
survive blizzards in the Sierra Nevada.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The Mormons migrated west after an Illinois mob
murdered their spiritual leader Joseph Smith.
•
In 1847, Brigham Young brought them to Utah
where they established New Zion.
•
By 1860, there were 40,000 Mormons living near
Great Salt Lake.
•
Young remained the group’s leader for 30 years,
including 8 years as territorial governor of Utah.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The federal government sought to protect
settlers by restricting the Plains Indians.
• Settlers traveling west generally avoided
the Native Americans.
• The Plains Indians attempted to cling to
their nomadic way of life, but their future
was limited.
• In 1851, the Treaty of Fort Laramie
restricted Native Americans from areas
near wagon routes.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Westward Migration, 1840s
Western
Trail
Number of
Settlers
Destination
When
California Trail
2,700
California
1842–1848
Mormon Trail
4,600
Utah
1847–1848
Oregon Trail
11,500
Oregon
1842–1848