US History/Napp
Thematic Essay Practice – Migration of Peoples
Name: __________________
From the August 2006 New York States Regents/ U.S. History & Government
THEMATIC ESSAY QUESTION
Directions: Write a well-organized essay that includes an introduction, several paragraphs
addressing the task below, and a conclusion.
Theme: Migration of Peoples
Throughout our nation’s history, important migrations or movements of people
within the United States have occurred. These migrations have had a significant
impact on both the people who moved and on American society.
Task:
Identify two migrations or movements of people within the United States and for
each
• Discuss the historical circumstances that led to the migration of these people
• Discuss the impact of the migration on the people who moved and/or on American
society
Some suggestions you might wish to consider include the forced migration of Native
American Indians (1800–1880), the westward movement (1840–1890), the migration of
African Americans from the South to cities in the North (1900–1929), the Puerto Rican
migration to the North after World War II (1945–1960), the westward migration from the
Dust Bowl (1930s), suburbanization (1945–present), and the migration to the Sun Belt
(1950–present).
Gathering the Facts:
1- The Forced Migration of Native American Indians (1800 – 1880)
 “Early in the 19th century, while the rapidly-growing United States expanded
into the lower South, white settlers faced what they considered an obstacle.
 This area was home to the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and Seminole.
 These Indian nations, in the view of the settlers and many other white
Americans, were standing in the way of progress.
 Eager for land to raise cotton, the settlers pressured the federal government to
acquire Indian Territory.
 From 1814 to 1824, nine out of eleven treaties divested the southern tribes of
their eastern lands in exchange for lands in the west.
 The tribes agreed to the treaties for strategic reasons.
 They wanted to appease the government in the hopes of retaining some of their
land, and they wanted to protect themselves from white harassment.
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As a result of the treaties, the United States gained control over three-quarters
of Alabama and Florida, as well as parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi,
Kentucky and North Carolina.
The Cherokee used legal means in their attempt to safeguard their rights.
They sought protection from land-hungry white settlers, who continually
harassed them by stealing their livestock, burning their towns, and squatting on
their land.
In 1827 the Cherokee adopted a written constitution declaring themselves to be
a sovereign nation.
The state of Georgia, however, did not recognize their sovereign status, but saw
them as tenants living on state land.
The Cherokee took their case to the Supreme Court, which ruled against them.
The Cherokee went to the Supreme Court again in 1831.
This time they based their appeal on an 1830 Georgia law which prohibited
whites from living on Indian Territory after March 31, 1831, without a license
from the state.
The state legislature had written this law to justify removing white missionaries
who were helping the Indians resist removal.
The court this time decided in favor of the Cherokee.
The state of Georgia refused to abide by the Court decision, however, and
President Jackson refused to enforce the law.
In 1830, just a year after taking office, Jackson pushed a new piece of legislation
called the ‘Indian Removal Act’ through both houses of Congress.
It gave the president power to negotiate removal treaties with Indian tribes
living east of the Mississippi.
Under these treaties, the Indians were to give up their lands east of the
Mississippi in exchange for lands to the west.
For the next 28 years, the United States government struggled to force
relocation of the southeastern nations.
The Cherokee, on the other hand, were tricked with an illegitimate treaty.
In 1833, a small faction agreed to sign a removal agreement: the Treaty of New
Echota.
The leaders of this group were not the recognized leaders of the Cherokee
nation, and over 15,000 Cherokees – led by Chief John Ross – signed a petition
in protest.
The Supreme Court ignored their demands and ratified the treaty in 1836.
The Cherokee were given two years to migrate voluntarily, at the end of which
time they would be forcibly removed.
By 1838 only 2,000 had migrated; 16,000 remained on their land.
The U.S. government sent in 7,000 troops, who forced the Cherokees into
stockades at bayonet point.
They were not allowed time to gather their belongings, and as they left, whites
looted their homes.
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Then began the march known as the Trail of Tears, in which 4,000 Cherokee
people died of cold, hunger, and disease on their way to the western lands.” ~
pbs.org
2- The Westward Movement (1840–1890)
 “The boundaries of the United States of America in 1787, at the time of the
British Colonies War for Independence, were: the Appalachian Mountains to the
west, St. Lawrence to the North, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east
occupying the eastern part of the North American continent.
 To the west there were thousands of miles of open fertile land having forests,
mountains, rivers and plains which were inhabited by Indigenous peoples and
Spanish Mexicans. The frontier between the settled lands of the east and the
lands of the wild-west was pushed further and further westward in two waves as
land was bought, explored, and taken over by the United States Government and
settled by immigrants from Europe.
 The first wave settled land west to the Mississippi River following the Louisiana
Purchase. The second wave settled lands west of the Mississippi to California.
Farms, mines, railroads, cities and industry sprung up.
 Many of these immigrants suffered, or worse, died from thirst in the deserts,
Indian raids, or from outlaw violence. Most simply wanted land to farm; others
wanted to make a quick fortune in the gold prospects of the West.
 In 1803, the United States had made the Louisiana Purchase purchasing many
hundred thousands of square miles of land between the Mississippi and the
Rocky Mountains which was claimed by the French. Napoleon, the ruler of
France, was fighting wars in Europe and did not care much about America.
 So, in order to finance his wars in Europe he agreed to sell the French claim to
the land.
 Daniel Boone explored the territories of Kentucky and Tennessee west to
Missouri.
 Under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, 48 tough young
men set off in the spring of 1804 up the river Missouri into the unknown. Aided
by an Indian woman named Sacajawea, they reached the Rocky Mountains in
May 1805 and finally the Pacific Ocean in November.
 The next great addition of land to the United States came in the 1840s and
brought the American flag right up to the Pacific.
 Mexico had won her independence from Spain in the 1820s and owned
California, Texas and most of the Southwest of the present-day United States.
 The Mexican government had enormous problems in its early years. It did not
have proper control of its outlying territories and was unable to stop large
numbers of North Americans settling in them.
 These Americans tried to throw off Mexican control.
 Texas broke away in the 1830s and became a member of the Union in 1845. In
the following year the United States declared war on Mexico.
 By 1847 she had conquered all Mexican territory north of the Rio Grande,
including California. At the same time the British government agreed to hand
over to the United States most of the Oregon territory which lies north of
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California. Both countries had claimed it but in the end the British did not think
it worth a fight. By 1850 then, the bulk of the 20th century United States was in
existence.
In the 1840s it was Oregon above all that attracted settlers. Stories spread of
how good the Oregon farming was. Thousands of families caught what was
known as 'Oregon fever'. They sold up all their possessions to buy a wagon or
'prairie schooner' to make the long journey from the starting point at
independence, Missouri.
Had they known what the journey was going to be like, probably many would
never have started. The first part of the journey was easy, with few Indians to
fight and plenty of grass for grazing. Then they entered Indian Territory and
often met fierce resistance from the Great Plains Confederation of the Sioux.
Lastly they had to cross the mountains. Thousands never reached Oregon.
It was, however, gold rather than land that triggered off the really big movement
to the far West in 1849, when gold was discovered in California. The rush to
California meant disaster for many who did not prepare for the journey
properly. Instead of following the Oregon Trail to its end and then going down
the coast, many tried to take a short cut across the Nevada desert. As a result the
desert trails were littered with the bones of horses and men. Most of the 80,000
or so ‘Forty-niners’ who reached California did not find gold. They came
because of stories of the lucky few who had found gold dust in river and stream
beds.” ~ isu.edu
3- The Migration of African Americans from the South to cities in the North (1900–
1929)
 “In 1910 – nearly 50 years after the Civil War ended – 89 percent of all blacks
remained in southern states, and nearly 80 percent of those lived in rural areas.
 But between 1915 and 1920, at least 500,000 blacks migrated north.
 Some estimates double that number to a million.
 Thousands more migrated west.
 There were a number of reasons for the exodus.
 From 1913 to 1915, falling cotton prices brought on an economic depression
across the South.
 After prices dropped, boll weevil insects destroyed much of the cotton crop.
 In 1915, severe floods destroyed the houses and crops of farmers along the
Mississippi River, most of whom were black.
 African Americans suffered under ‘Jim Crow’ laws in the South that segregated
schools, restaurants, hotels, railroad cars, and even hospitals.
 Blacks were effectively kept from voting by laws requiring a literacy test (if you
wanted to vote, you had to show you could read) and a poll tax (you had to pay
to vote).
 Whites were exempted from either test by a ‘grandfather clause’ – if your
grandfather voted, you could, too.
 Those were some of the factors that pushed African Americans away from the
South. There were other factors that pulled migrants to the North.
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Northern industries were going through an economic boom, especially as the war
in Europe began creating a demand for war goods.
Those industries could no longer rely on new immigrants from Europe to fill the
jobs. The war had limited immigration from Europe.
When America got into the war, many young white men (and some young black
men) were recruited into the military, leaving their old jobs open.
Salaries were higher in the North. Wages in the South ranged from 50 cents to
$2 a day. In the North, workers could make between $2 and $5 a day.
During these years, there were a number of strikes as unions began to organize
and demand decent wages. In general, blacks were willing to become
‘replacement workers,’ as the companies called them, or ‘scabs,’ as the unions
called them.” ~ Nebraskastudies.org
4- The Puerto Rican migration to the North after World War II (1945–1960)
 “Puerto Rican migration was facilitated after 1917 by the granting of US
citizenship to all the residents of the Island, which had been acquired from
Spain in the War of 1898.
 However, the change of legal status which took place in 1917 did not
immediately produce a wave of migration from Puerto Rico to the United
States.
 The large migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States took place after 1945
as a result of economic changes having to do with the transformation of the
Island’s economy from a monocultural plantation economy into a platform for
export-production in factories.” ~ lehman.edu
 “After the end of the Second World War, Puerto Rican migration exploded.
 In 1945, there had been 13,000 Puerto Ricans in New York City; in 1946 there
were more than 50,000.
 Over the next decade, more than 25,000 Puerto Ricans would come to the
continental U.S. each year, peaking in 1953, when more than 69,000 came.
 By 1955, nearly 700,000 Puerto Ricans had arrived. By the mid-1960s, more
than a million had.
 The continuing depression in Puerto Rico made many Puerto Ricans eager for a
fresh start, and U.S. factory owners and employment agencies had begun
recruiting heavily on the island.
 In addition, the postwar years saw the return home of thousands of Puerto
Rican war veterans, whose service in the U.S. military had shown them the
world.
 But perhaps the most significant cause was the sudden availability of affordable
air travel. After centuries of immigration by boat, the Puerto Rican migration
became the first great airborne migration in U.S. history.” ~ loc.gov
5- The Westward Migration from the Dust Bowl (1930s)
 “When the drought and dust storms showed no signs of letting up [on the Great
Plains], many people abandoned their land.
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Others would have stayed but were forced out when they lost their land in bank
foreclosures.
In all, one-quarter of the population left, packing everything they owned into
their cars and trucks, and headed west toward California.
Although overall three out of four farmers stayed on their land, the mass exodus
depleted the population drastically in certain areas.
In the rural area outside Boise City, Oklahoma, the population dropped 40%
with 1,642 small farmers and their families pulling up stakes.
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history.
By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states; of those, 200,000
moved to California.
When they reached the border, they did not receive a warm welcome as
described in this 1935 excerpt from Collier’s magazine. “Very erect and primly
severe, [a man] addressed the slumped driver of a rolling wreck that screamed
from every hinge, bearing and coupling. ‘California’s relief rolls are
overcrowded now. No use to come farther,’ he cried. The half-collapsed driver
ignored him — merely turned his head to be sure his numerous family was still
with him. They were so tightly wedged in, that escape was impossible. ‘There
really is nothing for you here,’ the neat trooperish young man went on. ‘Nothing,
really nothing.’ And the forlorn man on the moaning car looked at him, dull,
emotionless, incredibly weary, and said: ‘So? Well, you ought to see what they
got where I come from.’
The Los Angeles police chief went so far as to send 125 policemen to act as
bouncers at the state border, turning away ‘undesirables’.
Called ‘the bum brigade’ by the press and the object of a lawsuit by the
American Civil Liberties Union, the LAPD posse was recalled only when the use
of city funds for this work was questioned.
Arriving in California, the migrants were faced with a life almost as difficult as
the one they had left. Many California farms were corporate-owned. They were
larger and more modernized that those of the southern plains, and the crops
were unfamiliar.
The rolling fields of wheat were replaced by crops of fruit, nuts and vegetables.
Like the Joad family in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”, some 40
percent of migrant farmers wound up in the San Joaquin Valley, picking grapes
and cotton.
They took up the work of Mexican migrant workers, 120,000 of whom were
repatriated during the 1930s.
Life for migrant workers was hard. They were paid by the quantity of fruit and
cotton picked with earnings ranging from seventy-five cents to $1.25 a day.
Out of that, they had to pay twenty-five cents a day to rent a tar-paper shack
with no floor or plumbing. In larger ranches, they often had to buy their
groceries from a high-priced company store.
~ pbs.org
6- Suburbanization (1945–present)
 “The years after World War Two saw a massive movement of people into new
suburbs.
 The growth of suburbs resulted from several historical forces, including the
social legacy of the Depression, mass demobilization after the War (and the
consequent ‘baby boom’), greater government involvement in housing and
development, the mass marketing of the automobile, and a dramatic change in
demographics.
 As families began moving from farms and cities into new suburbs, American
culture underwent a major transformation.
 Race and class dynamics began to shift; the longer distance between home and
work generated a highway and housing construction boom; and older
community institutions began to disappear as the family turned inward.” ~
umbc.edu
 “Postwar affluence redefined the American Dream. Gone was the poverty borne
of the Great Depression, and the years of wartime sacrifice were over.
 Automobiles once again rolled off the assembly lines of the Big Three: Ford,
General Motors, and Chrysler. The Interstate Highway Act authorized the
construction of thousands of miles of high-speed roads that made living farther
from work a possibility.
 Families that had delayed having additional children for years no longer waited,
and the nation enjoyed a postwar baby boom.
 Racial fears, affordable housing, and the desire to leave decaying cities were all
factors that prompted many white Americans to flee to suburbia. And no
individual promoted suburban growth more than William Levitt.
 Contracted by the federal government during the war to quickly build housing
for military personnel, Levitt applied the techniques of mass production to
construction. In 1947, he set out to erect the largest planned-living community in
the United States on farmland he had purchased on Long Island, New York.
Levitt identified 27 different steps to build a house. Therefore, 27 different teams
of builders were hired to construct the homes.
 Each house had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and no basement. The kitchen
was situated near the back of the house so mothers could keep an eye on their
children in the backyard. Within one year, Levitt was building 36 houses per
day. His assembly-line approach made the houses extremely affordable. At first,
the homes were available only to veterans. Eventually, though, Levittown was
open to others as well.” ~ ushistory.org
7- Migration to the Sun Belt (1950–present)
 “The Sun Belt region comprises 15 southern states in the United States and
extending from Virginia and Florida in the southeast through Nevada in the
southwest, and also including southern California.
 Between 1970 and 1990, the South grew in population by 36 percent and the
West by 51 percent, both well above the national average.
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Large in-migration, along with a high birth rate and a decline in out-migration,
all contributed to rapid growth of both the Sun Belt’s population and
manufacturing activities.
Improvements in transportation and communications, abundant air
conditioning in summer, and a favorable winter climate are attractive forces for
retirees as well as workers.”
~ Britannica
Look at the thematic essay question again. Which two turning points will you choose?
In addition, in your own words, summarize the suggested turning points:
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The Forced Migration of Native American Indians (1800 – 1880)
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The Westward Movement (1840–1890)
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The Migration of African Americans from the South to cities in the North (1900–
1929)
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The Puerto Rican migration to the North after World War II (1945–1960)

The Westward Migration from the Dust Bowl (1930s)
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Suburbanization (1945–present)
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Migration to the Sun Belt (1950–present)
Outlining the Thematic Essay:
Migration: _______
Migration: _______
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Discuss the historical circumstances
that led to the migration of these
people
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Discuss the historical circumstances
that led to the migration of these
people
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Discuss the impact of the migration
on the people who moved and/or on
American society

Discuss the impact of the migration
on the people who moved and/or on
American society
Additional Notes:
Additional Notes:
Write the Essay:
Introduction:
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Body Paragraph:
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Body Paragraph:
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Conclusion:
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Explain the meaning of the political cartoon.
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Explain the meaning of the political cartoon. _______________________________________