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After the American Revolution, the U. S. began to sign treaties with Native groups, identified as Tribes, and increasingly tried to take on a dual role of protector and supervisor with sometimes disastrous results.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Indians still lived in villages where several Native groups, European traders, and mixed-ancestry (Métis) people carried on commercial trading locally and internationally, living together peacefully and intermarrying.

How did Indians live in the mid-19th century?

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The American settlers were not interested in being integrated into this kind of society. They found Indian customs alien, and they were determined to gain control of the land, mineral deposits, and other resources in the area.

The new United States government promoted trade and peaceful relations between Americans and Indians. Officials promised that the Indian tribes would hold the right of possession and use of their lands.

How did Indians use trade goods?

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Federal Indian policy stated that land could only be purchased (with money, supplies, and services) and Indian title extinguished through formal treaties. The groups represented by Indian leaders at the treaty councils became identified by the U.S. as tribes or nations, whose rights the U. S. agreed to protect as a trustee would. But the U. S. government could not prevent settlers from steadily encroaching on Indian land. And sometimes Indian groups sold land occupied by other groups.

This eventually led to military resistance by Indian groups in the early 1790s and again in 1810-13 when Tecumseh organized a political movement designed to prevent further land cessions. His defeat led to the sale, often under coercion, of much of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan during the next two decades. The federal government expected Indians to withdraw or assimilate into American society.

In 1830, Congress passed a law that provided for the removal of all Indian peoples to west of the Mississippi River. The rationale was that by separating the "races" trouble could be prevented. Though the settlers far outnumbered the Indians at this time, the Sauk warrior Black Hawk led a resistance movement in Illinois. Black Hawk was defeated by U.S. troops and their Indian allies. Indian people subsequently chose several strategies. Some agreed to go west to Kansas or Oklahoma, where they had been guaranteed a land base and freedom to live as they chose. Others were force-marched from their homes in what has been called a "trail of tears."

Where Did They Go?

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A few groups, including the Ojibwas, successfully negotiated for small reservations in their homeland at the time they ceded land. Others fled to Canada.

Some tried to withdraw to underpopulated areas or live unobtrusively among their non-Indian neighbors. In 1862, Dakotas, who were the farthest west, still resided in Minnesota, but lived a life of destitution, in debt to traders and unable to support themselves. After federal officials failed to honor the U. S.'s treaty obligations, some Dakotas attacked neighboring settlers, which led to the federal government's expulsion of many Indians from Minnesota, including the Ho-Chunk, who had provided troops for the Union during the Civil War.

During the late 19th century, small groups returned from Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma to their homeland in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, joining Indian communities already there. Some Ho-Chunks obtained homesteads in Wisconsin in 1881 and the federal government guaranteed their title to the land. Some Dakotas returned to Minnesota and eventually received land from the government in the 1880s. Most simply tried to avoid antagonizing the settlers and lived as best they could, hunting and fishing and working for wages.

HOW DID THEY STAY WITHOUT RESERVATION LAND?

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In the late 19th century, the U.S. continued to recognize Indian communities on reservations as tribes. The members of several tribes might identify themselves as members of one ethnic group. For example, people ethnically Ojibwa lived on several reservations in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The U.S. dealt administratively with each reservation as a tribe. In its dealings with Indian communities, the government embarked on an aggressive assimilation program with the help of missionaries.

To further the assimilation program, federal officials assigned individually-owned plots of land (allotments) to Indians and "surplus" reservation land went to non-Indians. Although the title to these plots was guaranteed to be held "in trust" for Indians by the federal government so that the land could not be taxed by the surrounding non-Indian communities, Congress reneged on this promise. Educational institutions for Indian children forcibly discouraged Native language and culture practices. Federal officials declared many Indian customs illegal. Nonetheless, Native peoples resisted abandoning their way of life. Well into the 20th century, they both accepted American agricultural technology and continued to hunt, fish, and gather. They incorporated some aspects of Christianity into Native rituals. And they used formal education as a strategy to pursue Indian rights.

HOW DID INDIANS COPE WITH ASSIMILATION PROGRAMS

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Listen to Ojibwas Explain the Impact of the Boarding School Experience on Families Help

1:21 mi.

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American Expansion | Indians of the Midwest

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After the American Revolution, the U. S. began to sign treaties with Native groups, identified as Tribes, and increasingly tried to take on a dual role of protector and supervisor with sometimes disastrous results.

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Westward expansion: social and cultural development (video) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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Westward Expansion: Crash Course US History #24

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What factors, forces or reasons cause people to move from one geographic area to another? The first people to live in what we now call Iowa may have arrived some 8,000-10,000 years ago. They lived along the edges of the receding glaciers and hunted large game animals.

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History: Westward Expansion and the Old West for Kids

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Kids learn about the history of the Westward Expansion and the Old West of the United States as pioneers settled the west as the country expanded. Educational articles for teachers, students, and schools including daily life on the frontier, gold rush, Pony Express, timeline, glossary, and people.

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The Erie Canal is a 363-mile waterway that connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River in upstate New York. The channel, which traverses New York state from Albany to Buffalo on Lake Erie, was considered an engineering marvel when it first opened in 1825. The Erie Canal provided a direct water route from New York City to the Midwest, triggering large-scale commercial and agricultural development-as well as immigration-to the sparsely populated frontiers of western New York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and points farther west. The canal transformed New York City into the young nation's economic powerhouse, and in 2000 the U.S. Congress designated the Erie Canal a National Heritage Corridor.

Early explorers in America had long searched for a water route from East Coast population centers to the resource-rich lands of the Midwest and Great Lakes.

The Northwest Territory-which later would become the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin-had timber, minerals, furs and fertile land for farming, but the Appalachian Mountains stood in the way.

Throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, it took weeks to reach these resources overland. Bulk transportation of goods was limited by what teams of oxen could pull by wagon. The lack of an efficient transportation network confined populations and trade to coastal areas.

Jesse Hawley

Beginning in 1807, Jesse Hawley-a flour merchant from western New York who went broke trying to get his product to market in the Atlantic coastal cities-published a series of essays from debtor's prison. In them, Hawley advocated for a canal system that would span nearly 400 miles from Buffalo, New York, on the eastern shore of Lake Erie, to Albany, New York, on the Hudson River.

Hawley's eloquent essays caught the attention of New York politicians, including New York City mayor DeWitt Clinton. Clinton believed that the canal was crucial to the economic advancement of his city.

Clinton saw his plan come to fruition in 1817 after he became the governor of New York. Workers first broke ground on the Erie Canal on July 4, 1817, near Utica, New York.

An Unprecedented Engineering Feat

The construction of the Erie Canal, through mountainous terrain and dense rock proved as challenging as the political environment.

Throughout construction, Dewitt Clinton's political opponents ridiculed the project as "Clinton's Folly" or "Clinton's ditch."

It took canal laborers-some Irish immigrants, but most U.S.-born men-eight years to finish the project. They cleared the land by hand and animal power and blasted through rock with gunpowder. (Dynamite wasn't invented until the 1860s by Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel.)

The original Erie Canal was just four feet deep and 40 feet wide, though it was considered a major engineering feat at the time of its completion in 1825. It traversed nearly 400 miles of fields, forests, and rocky cliffs, and contained 83 locks-structures used for raising and lowering boats between canal stretches with different water levels.

Project engineers had little experience building canals. The military academy at West Point in New York offered the only formal engineering program in North America at the time the Erie Canal was built.

The project provided practical schooling for a new generation of American engineers and builders, and led to the founding of the nation's first civil engineering school, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York, in 1824.

Erie Canal engineers devised new equipment to uproot trees and stumps and developed a cement that could set and harden underwater.

Erie Canal's Economic Impacts

The Erie Canal opened on October 26, 1825. A fleet of boats, led by Governor Dewitt Clinton aboard the Seneca Chief sailed from Buffalo to New York City in record time-just ten days.

The canal transformed New York City into the commercial capital it remains today. Prior to the canal's construction, the ports of Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans outranked New York in size.

But the construction of the Erie Canal gave New York City (via the Hudson River) direct water access to the Great Lakes and regions of the Midwest. As the gateway to these resource-rich lands, New York soon became the nation's economic epicenter and the primary port of entry to the United States for European immigrants.

New York City's population quadrupled between 1820 and 1850. Financing of the Erie Canal's construction allowed the city to eclipse Philadelphia as the country's most important banking center.

The Erie Canal also provided an economic boost to the entire United States by allowing the transport of goods at one-tenth the previous cost in less than half the previous time. By 1853, the Erie Canal carried 62 percent of all U.S. trade.

For the first time, manufactured goods such as furniture and clothing could be shipped in bulk to the frontier.

Farmers in western New York and the Midwest now had cash to purchase consumer goods, because they could more cheaply ship wheat, corn and other crops to lucrative East Coast markets.

The Erie Canal also helped to stimulate America's nascent tourism industry. It attracted vacationers, including Europeans such as Charles Dickens. Thousands of tourists floated down the canal on excursions from New York City to Niagara Falls.

Impact on Native Americans

The building of the Erie Canal and subsequent population explosion along its route accelerated the dispossession-or removal-of Native Americans in western New York and the Upper Midwest.

The Erie Canal traversed the ancestral homelands of several groups, including the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca.

From the early years of the canal era to the peak of New York's canal boom in the 1840s and 1850s, state and federal policies promoted the removal of indigenous populations from developing portions of New York.

Native Americans were sent to reservations in isolated portions of New York and other eastern States. Others were sent to unfamiliar outlying territories in the American Midwest.

Erie Canal Today

The Erie Canal was enlarged twice to fit wider and deeper boats. Some parts were rerouted to make way for more ship traffic in 1918. Portions of the original canal are still operable, though tourism is now the main source of boat traffic along the Erie Canal.

Commercial and shipping traffic declined abruptly after the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959. The new waterway along the United States-Canadian border allowed large ships to enter the Great Lakes directly from the Atlantic Ocean, bypassing the Erie Canal.

In 2000, Congress designated the Erie Canal a National Heritage Corridor to help preserve New York State's historic waterway and the communities along its banks.

SOURCES

History and Culture; Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor.
Canal History; New York State Canal Corporation.
Erie Canal; Albany Institute of History and Art.

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Jesse Hawley Beginning in 1807, Jesse Hawley-a flour merchant from western New York who went broke trying to get his product to market in the Atlantic coastal cities-published a series of essays from debtor's prison. In them, Hawley advocated for a canal system that would span nearly 400 miles from Buffalo, New York, on the [...]

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The Erie Canal opens, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River. Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the driving force behind the project, led the opening ceremonies and rode the canal boat Seneca Chief from Buffalo to New York City.

Work began on the waterway in August 1823. Teams of oxen plowed the ground, but for the most part the work was done by Irish diggers who had to rely on primitive tools. They were paid $10 a month, and barrels of whisky were placed along the canal route as encouragement. West of Troy, 83 canal locks were built to accommodate the 500-foot rise in elevation. After more than two years of digging, the 425-mile Erie Canal was opened on October 26, 1825, by Governor Clinton.

The effect of the canal was immediate and dramatic. Settlers poured into western New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Goods were transported at one-tenth the previous fee in less than half the time. Barges of farm produce and raw materials traveled east, as manufactured goods and supplies flowed west. In nine years, tolls had paid back the cost of construction. Later enlarged and deepened, the canal survived competition from the railroads in the latter part of the 19th century. Today, the Erie Canal is used mostly by pleasure boaters, but it is still capable of accommodating heavy barges.

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The Erie Canal opens, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River. Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the driving force behind the project, led the opening ceremonies and rode the canal boat Seneca Chief from Buffalo to New York City. Work began on the waterway in August 1823.

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The Gadsden Purchase is a roughly 30,000 square-mile region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that was acquired by the United States in a treaty signed by American ambassador to Mexico James Gadsden on December 30, 1853. The treaty was ratified, with changes, by the U.S.

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Watch The Alamo Clip - America the Story of Us | HISTORY

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Find out why the battle of the Alamo still captures the imaginations of Americans after more than two centuries.

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"Map of the United States of Mexico" used in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

"There shall be firm and universal peace between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic, and between their respective Countries, territories, cities, towns and people, without exception of places or persons." -- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Was Signed In Mexico City
February 2, 1848

Did you know that a large portion of the Western United States used to be a part of Mexico? On February 2, 1848, U.S. and Mexican officials met in Mexico City to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The agreement brought an end to the Mexican War after nearly two years and extended the U.S. west to the Pacific Ocean with 525,000 square miles of former Mexican territory. The new American territory included present-day California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Along with the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, this treaty completed the expansion of the United States to 48 states. Do you know what events led to the signing of the treaty?

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The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Was Signed In Mexico City

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"Map of the United States of Mexico" used in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo "There shall be firm and universal peace between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic, and between their respective Countries, territories, cities, towns and people, without exception of places or persons." -- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848.

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Photographs from the conflict with Mexico

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Photographs from the conflict with Mexico

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prints photographs reading room division library of congress

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Pictorial Americana: War with Mexico (Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress)

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Selected images from the Library of Congress relating to the War with Mexico (1846-1848); one chapter from a 1955 publication of the Prints and Photographs Division, Pictorial Americana.

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Transcontinental Railroad: Mark Twain on the Railroad | American Experience | PBS

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Mark Twain chronicled his experiences living and working out West in his book Roughing It, published in 1872.

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Moving Equipment for the Transcontinental Railroad | American Experience

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Speed was not easy for the Central Pacific.

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primary sources

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Transcontinental Railroad: Reports from the End of the Track | American Experience | PBS

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Harper's Weekly reported on the progress of the transcontinental railroad throughout its construction.

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Over 400,000 people travel West to start a new life and claim new land along the Oregon Trail, including Lucinda Brown. One-hundred seventy years later, one of her descendants sees a kettle from her journey for the first time.

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Watch Migrants Travel West on the Oregon Trail Video - America: Promised Land | HISTORY

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Over 400,000 people travel West to start a new life and claim new land along the Oregon Trail, including Lucinda Brown. One-hundred seventy years later, one of her descendants sees a kettle from her journey for the first time.

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1. The Pony Express was more than twice as fast as its competitors.

In the mid-19th century, California-bound mail had to either be taken overland by a 25-day stagecoach or spend months inside a ship during a long sea voyage. The Pony Express, meanwhile, had an average delivery time of just 10 days. To achieve this remarkable speed, company owners William H. Russell, William B. Waddell and Alexander Majors set up a string of nearly 200 relief stations across what is now Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.

Lone horsemen would ride between stations at breakneck pace, switching mounts every 10-15 miles and then handing their cargo off to a new courier after 75-100 miles. The relay system allowed mail to criss-cross the frontier in record time. The company's personal best came in March 1861, when riders carried the inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln from Nebraska to California in just seven days, 17 hours.

2. It was a financial flop.

Despite its enduring place in Old West legend, the Pony Express never turned a profit during its year and a half history. The company began making deliveries in April 1860, but service ground to a halt just a few weeks later when the Pyramid Lake War erupted between the United States and the Paiute Indians. The temporary shutdown cost the company some $75,000, and it continued to hemorrhage cash over the next few months due to high operations costs and its failure to secure a government mail contract. Though hailed in the press for its efficiency and adventurous spirit, the Pony Express eventually folded in October 1861, having lost as much as $200,000.

3. There was a weight limit for Pony Express riders.

Since speed was its main goal, the Pony Express went to great lengths to keep its horses' loads as light as possible. Rather than burly cowboys, most of the riders were small, wiry men who weighed between 100 and 125 pounds-roughly the same size as a modern horseracing jockey. Their average age was around 20, but it wasn't unusual for teenagers as young as 14 to be hired. One man named "Bronco" Charlie Miller claimed he was only 11 years old when he first joined the Pony Express.

4. Riders were required to take a loyalty oath.

In exchange for their $100-150 monthly salaries-a substantial sum for the time-Pony Express riders were expected to take a loyalty oath that read: "I do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while an employee of Russell, Majors and Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me God." Those who broke the rules risked being dismissed without pay, but it appears that few Pony Express employees followed the pledge to the letter. Liquor flowed freely at relief stations, and an eyewitness named Richard Burton reported that he "scarcely ever saw a sober rider."

5. Mail was carried in a specially designed saddlebag.

To cut down on weight and facilitate swift horse and rider changes, the Pony Express used a special type of mailbag known as a "mochilla"-the Spanish word for knapsack. This consisted of a leather cover that was draped over the saddle and held in place by the rider's weight. It featured four padlocked pockets-three for mail and one for the rider's timecard-and was capable of holding up to 20 pounds of cargo. At each relief station, riders would simply grab the mochilla off one mount and then throw it over the next, allowing them to switch horses in the span of just two minutes.

6. Ordinary people almost never used the Pony Express.

The speed of the Pony Express didn't come cheap. In its early days the service cost $5 for every half-ounce of mail-the equivalent of some $130 today. Prices were later reduced to just $1, but they still remained too high for everyday mail. Instead, the service was mainly used to deliver newspaper reports, government dispatches and business documents, most of which were printed on tissue-thin paper to keep costs (and weight) down.

7. One rider completed a 380-mile run in less than two days.

In May 1860, Robert "Pony Bob" Haslam took off on the most legendary ride in Pony Express history. The 20-year-old was scheduled to make his usual 75-mile run from Friday's Station east to Buckland Station in Nevada. Upon arriving at Buckland, however, he found that his relief rider was petrified of the Paiute Indians, who had been attacking stations along the route. When the other man refused to take the mail, Haslam jumped back in the saddle and rode on, eventually completing a 190-mile run before delivering his mochilla at Smith's Creek.

After a brief rest, he mounted a fresh horse and retraced his steps all the way back to Friday's Station, at one point passing a relay outpost that had been burned by the Paiutes. By the time he finally returned to his home station, "Pony Bob" had traveled 380 miles in less than 40 hours-a Pony Express record.

8. Riders didn't have the deadliest job on the Pony Express.

Pony Express riders had to deal with extreme weather conditions, harsh terrain and the threat of attacks by bandits and Indians, but life may have been even more dangerous for the stock keepers who manned the relief stations. Their outposts were usually crude, dirt floor hovels equipped with little more than sleeping quarters and corrals for the horses. Many were located in remote sections of the frontier, making them extremely vulnerable to ambush.

Accounts differ, but Indians reportedly attacked or burned several relay stations during the Pyramid Lake War in the summer of 1860, killing as many as 16 stock hands. By contrast, only a handful of riders-six, according to the National Park Service -died in the line of duty during the entire history of the Pony Express.

9. Buffalo Bill Cody probably wasn't a Pony Express rider.

In his autobiography, the famed frontier showman William "Buffalo Bill" Cody claimed that he served as a Pony Express rider at the age of 14. He even alleged that he once rode a record 384 miles in a single run. But while Cody almost certainly worked as a messenger for the owners of the Pony Express, there is no record of him ever carrying the mail, and evidence suggests he was probably in school in Kansas during the company's brief history.

Whatever Cody's involvement with Pony Express was, there's no doubt that he later kept its memory alive with his famous "Wild West" vaudeville shows, which featured Pony Express riders and horse swaps as a recurring stunt from 1883 until 1916.

10. The transcontinental telegraph dealt the Pony Express its deathblow.

For all its financial troubles, the Pony Express didn't truly collapse until a better alternative appeared on the scene. The company had spent its brief history bridging the gap between the Eastern and Western telegraph lines, but it was finally rendered obsolete on October 24, 1861, when Western Union completed the transcontinental telegraph line at Salt Lake City. The Pony Express ceased service just two days later. Despite operating for only 19 months, its riders had successfully delivered some 35,000 pieces of mail and traveled more than half a million miles across the American frontier.

Fact Check

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10 Things You May Not Know About the Pony Express | HISTORY

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Explore 10 interesting facts about the short-lived mail service that helped transform the American West.

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In 1830, at President Andrew Jackson's urging, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in order to free up land for the nation's expanding white population. The act granted the president the power to negotiate treaties with Native American tribes to relinquish their lands east of the Mississippi River in exchange for unsettled lands west of the river. While some Indians complied peacefully, the Cherokee, among other tribes, resisted. In 1838, U.S. troops rounded up the Cherokees from their traditional lands in the southern Appalachians, held them in camps then forced them to relocate to Indian Territory, in present-day Oklahoma. An estimated 15,000 to 16,000 Cherokee people made the grueling journey west, following one of several routes that collectively became known as the Trail of Tears. Along the way, some 3,000 to 4,000 of them died from disease, malnutrition and exposure. Check out seven facts about this infamous chapter in American history.

Davy Crockett objected to Indian removal.

Frontiersman Davy Crockett, whose grandparents were killed by Creeks and Cherokees, was a scout for Andrew Jackson during the Creek War (1813-14). However, while serving as a U.S. congressman from Tennessee, Crockett broke with President Jackson over the Indian Removal Act, calling it unjust. Despite warnings that his opposition to Indian removal would cost him his seat in Congress, where he'd served since 1827, Crockett said, "I would sooner be honestly and politically damned than hypocritically immortalized." The year after the act's 1830 passage, Crockett lost his bid for reelection. After being voted back into office in 1833, he continued to express his opposition to Jackson's policy and wrote that he would leave the U.S. for the "wildes of Texas" if Martin Van Buren, Jackson's vice president, succeeded him in the White House. After Crockett was again defeated for reelection, in 1835, he did go to Texas, where he died fighting at the Alamo in March 1836.

Renegade Cherokees signed a treaty selling all tribal lands.

John Ross, who was of Scottish and Cherokee ancestry and became the tribe's principal chief in 1828, was strongly opposed to giving up the Cherokees' ancestral lands, as were the majority of the Cherokee people. However, a small group within the tribe believed it was inevitable that white settlers would keep encroaching on their lands and therefore the only way to preserve Cherokee culture and survive as a tribe was to move west. In 1835, while Ross was away, this minority faction signed a treaty at New Echota, the Cherokee Nation capital (located in Georgia), agreeing to sell the U.S. government all tribal lands in the East in exchange for $5 million and new land in the West. As part of the agreement, the government was supposed help cover the Cherokees' moving costs and pay to support them during their first year in Indian Territory. When Ross found out about the treaty, he argued it had been made illegally. Nevertheless, in 1836 it was ratified by a single vote in the U.S. Senate and signed by President Jackson. The treaty gave the Cherokees two years to vacate their lands. In June 1839, after the Cherokees had been forced to relocate to Indian Territory, several leaders of the so-called Treaty Party, who'd advocated for the New Echota agreement, were assassinated by tribe members who'd opposed removal to the west.

Martin Van Buren ordered the roundup of the Cherokees.

During his two terms in the White House, from 1829 to 1837, Andrew Jackson was responsible for putting Indian removal policies in place; however, he left office before the 1838 deadline for the Cherokees to surrender their lands in the East. It was Jackson's presidential successor, Martin Van Buren, who ordered General Winfield Scott to forcibly evict the Cherokees. Scott's troops rounded up thousands of Cherokees and then imprisoned them in forts in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Alabama. During these roundups, the Indians weren't given time to pack and family members, including children, sometimes got left behind if they weren't home when the soldiers showed up. The Indians were transferred from the forts to detention camps, most of them in Tennessee, to await deportation. At both the forts and camps, living conditions were bleak and diseases rampant, and an unknown number of Cherokees died.

The Trail of Tears wasn't just one route.

The first group of Cherokees departed Tennessee in June 1838 and headed to Indian Territory by boat, a journey that took them along the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. Heat and extended drought soon made travel along this water route impractical, so that fall and winter thousands more Cherokees were forced to trek from Tennessee to present-day Oklahoma via one of several overland routes. Federal officials allowed Chief John Ross to take charge of these overland removals, and he organized the Indians into 13 groups, each comprised of nearly a thousand people. Although there were some wagons and horses, most people had to walk.

The route followed by the largest number of Cherokees-12,000 people or more, according to some estimates-was the northern route, a distance of more than 800 miles through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and into Indian Territory. The last groups of Cherokees made it to Indian Territory in March 1839. A century later, Route 66, the iconic highway established in 1926, overlapped with part of this route, from Rolla to Springfield, Missouri.

Not all Cherokees left the Southeast.

A small group of Cherokee people managed to remain in North Carolina, either as a result of an 1819 agreement that enabled them to stay on their land there, or because they hid in the mountains from the U.S. soldiers sent to capture them. The group, which also included people who walked back from Indian Territory, became known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Today, the group has approximately 12,500 members, who live primarily in western North Carolina on the 57,000-acre Qualla Boundary.

The Cherokees rebuilt in Indian Territory.

In the first years after their arrival in Indian Territory, life was difficult for many Cherokees. However, under the leadership of Chief Ross the tribe rebuilt in the 1840s and 1850s, establishing businesses and a public school system and publishing what was then America's only tribal newspaper. When the American Civil War broke out, the Cherokee Nation found itself politically divided. Ross initially believed the Cherokees should remain neutral in the conflict, but there was a faction who supported the South so the chief made an alliance with the Confederacy, in part to try to keep the Cherokees united. Ross soon grew disillusioned with the Confederates, who had abandoned their promises of protection and supplies to the Indians. Ross spent the rest of the war in Philadelphia, where his second wife had a home (his first wife died while walking the Trail of Tears) and Washington, D.C., trying to convince President Abraham Lincoln that the Cherokees were loyal to the Union. Ross died of illness on August 1, 1866, having served as principal chief for nearly 40 years.

The U.S. apologized to Native American groups in 2009.

In December 2009, President Barack Obama signed a bill that included an official apology to all American Indian tribes for past injustices. U.S. Senators Sam Brownback of Kansas and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota led a bipartisan effort to pass the resolution, which stated: "the United States, acting through Congress...recognizes that there have been years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes." However, the resolution did not call for reparations and included a disclaimer that it wasn't meant to support any legal claims against the United States.

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At Least 3,000 Native Americans Died on the Trail of Tears

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In 1830, at President Andrew Jackson's urging, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in order to free up land for the nation's expanding white population. The act granted the president the power to negotiate treaties with Native American tribes to relinquish their lands east of the Mississippi River in exchange for unsettled lands west of the river.

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In this video segment adapted from American Experience: "We Shall Remain," reenactments help tell the story of how the Cherokee people were forced from their lands in the southeast. The U.S. government initially promised the Cherokee and other Native American tribes that if they could assimilate into European Americans lifestyles, they would be considered equals.

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By Stuart Thornton

Friday, January 21, 2011

On April 3, 1860, a rider named Johnny Fry departed on horseback with a bag of mail from St. Joseph, Missouri. He headed west on the first leg of a 2,000-mile route across the continent. The mail arrived in California in nine days and 23 hours. This was the first ride of the Pony Express.

The current president of the National Pony Express Association, Les Bennington, compares the advent of the legendary Pony Express to a more recent advance in communication. "The Pony Express was the e-mail of 1860 and 1861, because it would make the trip in the summer months in 10 days," he says.

Before 1860, mail from the eastern United States sent to the west coast traveled by stagecoach on the Butterfield Overland Mail Trail, a 4526-kilometer (2,812-mile) route through the present-day states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The Butterfield Overland Mail Trail ended in San Francisco. From Missouri, the trail swung south to avoid regions of the west that were frequently covered in snow during the winter months. Delivery took around three weeks.

Mail was also carried by ship down the eastern seaboard, over the Isthmus of Panama-a narrow strip of land that links North and South America-by train, and up the west coast of Central America, Mexico, and California by boat. That route took an even longer time.

"That would take probably two to three months, so the mail was old-and the news was old-by the time it got there," Bennington says.

Riding the Pony Express

Studded with 153 stations, the Pony Express trail utilized 80 riders and between 400 to 500 horses to carry mail from the settled Midwest to the new state of California, which had experienced a surge in population after the 1849 Gold Rush.

In fact, the western end of the Pony Express was the B.F. Hastings Building in Sacramento, near where gold was found years earlier. In the large building, the Pony Express office shared space with the California Supreme Court and Theodore Judah, the engineer who is largely responsible for the planning of the first transcontinental railroad.

Riders for the Pony Express carried the mail in saddlebags along the trail for about 120 to 160 kilometers (75 to 100 miles) before transferring the mail to another rider at a home station. Home stations could vary from a nice shelter, like a hotel, to a more primitive rest stop such as a dugout near a creek. The more elite home stations were usually located along the eastern route, which had stable urban areas. The west was still being settled with permanent residents, and western home stations were often spartan.

Along their section of trail, riders would stop every 16 to 24 kilometers (10 to 15 miles) to hop onto a fresh horse at the four to six relay stations on their leg.

Jackie Lewin, the executive director of the St. Joseph Museums and the co-author of On the Winds of Destiny: A Biographical Look at Pony Express Riders, says that most of the riders were small, lightweight men around 20 years old. The most popular rider associated with the mail company is William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who later became known for his Wild West stage show. There are some historians who dispute Cody's claim that he was employed for the Pony Express, however.

Pony Express riders rode over rugged terrain that included passes high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but Lewin believes the most difficult part of the trail was its desert regions.

"I would say the hardest section would be the Utah Territory, which would be today's [states of] Utah and Nevada, because it was pretty isolated and has extreme temperatures," she says. "That's the area where the Paiute Indians attacked the line."

Even though riders from the Pony Express had to deal with everything from tornadoes to bison stampedes, the greatest difficulty for the mail carriers occurred in May of 1860 with the eruption of the Pyramid Lake War. A flood of white settlers seeking silver in Nevada brought the newcomers into conflict with the region's native inhabitants, the Paiute Indians. The Paiutes, who realized that the settlers would permanently disrupt their way of life, began attacking Pony Express stations in the area. The Pyramid Lake War caused the Pony Express to suspend operations from Carson City, Nevada, to Salt Lake City, Utah, for a month.

"The company had to rebuild stations and restock them," Lewin says. "It cost about $75,000. It really did hurt the company."

Bennington, president of the National Pony Express Association, says that the station keepers of the Pony Express, not its riders, were most susceptible to attacks by the Paiute. "We had quite a few station keepers killed," he says. "We know one rider was killed by Indians. Overall, we didn't lose many riders that were actually carrying the mail. There were some other ones that were killed just defending the stations."

Yet it wasn't conflict with the Native Americans that caused the demise of the Pony Express just 18 months after it first began delivering mail. Rather, it was a technological development: the construction of telegraph lines that ended up sewing the west to the rest of the nation. This development had actually been expected by the owners of the Pony Express, who always viewed the service as a temporary one.

Legacy of the Pony Express

Even though the Pony Express had a relatively short run, it has secured a prominent position in the history of the American West. Bennington, whose organization has conducted a re-ride over the Pony Express Trail every year since 1980, is still in awe of the Pony Express riders 150 years after Fry's first ride.

"It was no small undertaking when you start to look back and see what these people had," he says. "I mean there's no place colder than on the back of a horse when it's brutally cold. You gotta keep in mind they didn't have down-filled jackets or hats made for snowy conditions."

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Pony Express, the city of St. Joseph, Missouri, hosted a Buffalo Bill Look-a-Like Contest, some Pony Express re-enactments, and a parade with the Budweiser Clydesdales. In addition, the National Pony Express Association embarked on a special 150th anniversary ( sesquicentennial) re-ride of the trail.

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By Stuart Thornton Friday, January 21, 2011 On April 3, 1860, a rider named Johnny Fry departed on horseback with a bag of mail from St. Joseph, Missouri. He headed west on the first leg of a 2,000-mile route across the continent. The mail arrived in California in nine days and 23 hours.

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history/history of the united states/exploration and expansion (1783-1860)/westward expansion/oregon trail

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WatchKnowLearn - Free K-12 educational videos

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Free K-12 educational videos ... organized. Tens of thousands of excellent, educational videos in a huge, intuitive directory. Organized, reviewed, rated, and described by teachers. Ideal as a supplement to a curriculum or for independent study. Designed for teachers, students, parents, homeschoolers, educators ... and all life-long learners!

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Table of Contents

1. France in the New World

2. Louisiana Territory Changes Hands

3. Louisiana Purchase Negotiations

4. Legacy of the Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 brought into the United States about 828,000 square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. What was known at the time as the Louisiana Territory stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west and from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Canadian border in the north. Part or all of 15 states were eventually created from the land deal, which is considered one of the most important achievements of Thomas Jefferson's presidency.

France in the New World

Beginning in the 17th century, France explored the Mississippi River valley and established scattered settlements in the region.

By the middle of the 18th century, France controlled more of the present-day United States than any other European power: from New Orleans northeast to the Great Lakes and northwest to modern-day Montana.

In 1762, during the French and Indian War, France ceded French Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain and in 1763 transferred nearly all of its remaining North American holdings to Great Britain. Spain, no longer a dominant European power, did little to develop Louisiana during the next three decades.

Louisiana Territory Changes Hands

In 1796, Spain allied itself with France, leading Britain to use its powerful navy to cut off Spain from America. And in 1801, Spain signed a secret treaty with France to return the Louisiana Territory to France.

Reports of the retrocession caused considerable unease in the United States. Since the late 1780s, Americans had been moving westward into the Ohio River and Tennessee River valleys, and these settlers were highly dependent on free access to the Mississippi River and the strategic port of New Orleans.

U.S. officials feared that France, resurgent under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, would soon seek to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico. In a letter to U.S. minister to France Robert Livingston, President Thomas Jefferson stated, "The day that France takes possession of New Orleans...we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation."

Livingston was ordered to negotiate with French Finance Minister Barbé-Marbois for the purchase of New Orleans.

Louisiana Purchase Negotiations

France was slow in taking control of Louisiana, but in 1802 Spanish authorities, apparently acting under French orders, revoked a U.S.-Spanish treaty that granted Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans.

In response, Jefferson sent future U.S. president James Monroe to Paris to aid Livingston in the New Orleans purchase talks. In mid-April 1803, shortly before Monroe's arrival, the French asked a surprised Livingston if the United States was interested in purchasing all of Louisiana Territory.

It's believed that the failure of France to put down a slave revolution in Haiti, the impending war with Great Britain and probable British naval blockade of France - combined with French economic difficulties - may have prompted Napoleon to offer Louisiana for sale to the United States.

Negotiations moved swiftly, and at the end of April the U.S. envoys agreed to pay $11,250,000 and assume claims of American citizens against France in the amount of $3,750,000. In exchange, the United States acquired the vast domain of Louisiana Territory, some 828,000 square miles of land.

The treaty was dated April 30 and signed on May 2. In October, the U.S. Senate ratified the purchase, and in December 1803 France transferred authority over the region to the United States.

Legacy of the Louisiana Purchase

The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory for the bargain price of less than three cents an acre was among Jefferson's most notable achievements as president. American expansion westward into the new lands began immediately, and in 1804 a territorial government was established.

Jefferson soon commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, to explore the territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase.

On April 30, 1812, exactly nine years after the Louisiana Purchase agreement was made, the first state to be carved from the territory - Louisiana - was admitted into the Union as the 18th U.S. state.
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Louisiana Purchase - Definition, Facts & Importance | HISTORY

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The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 introduced about 828,000,000 square miles of territory from France into the United States, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. Explore the facts about this important acquisition and its lasting legacy on Thomas Jefferson's presidency.

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WatchKnowLearn - Free K-12 educational videos

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Free K-12 educational videos ... organized. Tens of thousands of excellent, educational videos in a huge, intuitive directory. Organized, reviewed, rated, and described by teachers. Ideal as a supplement to a curriculum or for independent study. Designed for teachers, students, parents, homeschoolers, educators ... and all life-long learners!

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Louisiana Purchase, 1803 (Primary Documents of American History: The American Revolution and the New Nation, 1775-1815) | Web Guides, Library of Congress

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A Web guide to resources at the Library of Congress, as well as selected external Web sites, on the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, considered to be the greatest real estate deal in history. The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France at a price of $15 million, or approximately four cents an acre.

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200 year anniversary of purchase

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Two hundred years ago today, the United States bought perhaps the biggest real-estate bargain of the millennium, the Louisiana Purchase. Signed in Paris on April 30, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty gave the fledgling United States 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for a mere $15 million -- or about 4 cents an acre. The incredibly favorable terms of the deal prompted Gen. Horatio Gates to exclaim to President Thomas Jefferson: "Let the land rejoice, for you have bought Louisiana for a song."

Although the purchase more than doubled America's land mass, Jefferson's original plans had been far less ambitious. Anxious to secure a shipping route on the Mississippi River, Jefferson had originally instructed his envoys, Robert Livingston and James Monroe, to offer France $10 million for the port of New Orleans.

But Napoleon, who was abandoning his plans for expansion in America in favor of empire-building in Europe, offered the United States the whole territory instead. Fearing that Napoleon would revoke the offer, Livingston and Monroe closed the deal before they could even inform Jefferson.

The Louisiana Purchase faced strong opposition from Jefferson's political opponents in the Federalist Party, who argued that the deal, made without the consent of the Senate, was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, Jefferson held firm in his plans for western expansion, and the Louisiana Purchase Treaty was ratified in the autumn of 1803. That same year, the Lewis and Clark expedition set off; it would soon help delineate the riches and boundaries of the property the United States had just purchased.

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The Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase

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Two hundred years ago today, the United States signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty. For about 4 cents an acre, America more than doubled its size, helping fulfill Thomas Jefferson's dreams for westward expansion -- all without the firing of a single shot. All Things Considered commemorates one of the sweetest real-estate deals of the millennium.

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Several articles on several subtopics

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Westward expansion, the 19th-century movement of settlers into the American West, began with the Louisiana Purchase and was fueled by the Gold Rush, the Oregon Trail and a belief in "manifest destiny."

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On a gloomy December afternoon in 1803, a boat crept along the banks of the Mississippi River and landed at the mouth of the Wood River in what is now the state of Illinois. A group of men climbed out and began to set up camp under a dark canopy of oak trees. Suddenly a violent storm moved in, pelting the area with snow and hail.

The men didn't turn back though. Instead, they hunkered down and spent the next five months here preparing for the trip they were about to embark on,in which poor weather would be one of the many dangers they'd face.

Among these men were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, co-leaders of an expedition tasked with exploring land that the United States had recently acquired. Their trip would turn into an epic 8,000-mile-long trek-and the first big step in the United States' westward expansion.

LET'S MAKE A DEAL

When Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States in 1801, the country basically stopped at the Mississippi River. France controlled much of the land to the west of this waterway.

President Jefferson wanted to acquire the Port of New Orleans, in what is now the state of Louisiana, from the French. Its prime location made it a key spot for trade. In 1803, Jefferson made what's known as one of the greatest real estate deals in history: the Louisiana Purchase.

After negotiations, France agreed to sell the entire city of New Orleans, which included the port, to the United States for $10 million; they threw in the rest of the territory they owned for an additional $5 million. The agreement-which gave the United States approximately 828,000 square miles of land-almost doubled the size of the nearly 30-year-old nation.

The United States only paid about three cents an acre for the land, which stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west and from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Canadian border in the north. Spain still owned much of the southwestern part of what's now the United States, stretching from the area that would become Texas to present-day California.

Purchasing this enormous amount of land was one thing, but exploring it was another. Jefferson wanted to plan an expedition to investigate the territory. He called the proposed mission the Voyage of Discovery and began assembling a team of explorers called the Corps (KOR) of Discovery. The president chose Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark to lead the expedition. Lewis, President Jefferson's personal secretary, was an officer in the United States Army and spoke several Native American languages. Lewis recommended Clark-a retired officer who had served alongside him in the Army-as the expedition's co-leader.

WAY OUT WEST

In the spring of 1804, Lewis, Clark, and dozens of other men left St. Louis, Missouri, by boat. They traveled westward through what is now Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

In November they reached Knife River Village in present-day North Dakota. There they met a young Shoshone Native American woman called Sacagawea (Sa-kuh-juh-WEE-uh) and her fur-trader husband, Toussaint Charbonneau (Too-SAHNT SHAR-bon-oh). The couple joined the expedition as interpreters, translating the language of the local tribes for Lewis and Clark's men.

Sacagawea didn't just serve as an interpreter during the trip, however. She helped Lewis and Clark's men obtain essential supplies and horses, identified edible plants and herbs, and prevented hostile relations with other tribes simply by being with the group-all while carrying her newborn baby on her back.

After meeting Sacagawea and her husband, the Corps traveled west from North Dakota, 15 to 20 miles a day on foot and by boat, toward the mountains. Day after day, the exhausted, freezing team braved rough rivers and perilous peaks, getting by on very little food. They wouldn't see the Pacific Ocean until November 1805-over a year after they first left Missouri.

COMING HOME

After a long winter waiting out the bad weather, the Corps was able to start making their way back east in March 1806. After returning Sacagawea and her husband to North Dakota, the remainder of the Corps arrived back in Missouri in late September, more than two years after they started their expedition.

Lewis and Clark's team mapped uncharted land, rivers, and mountains. They brought back journals filled with details about Native American tribes and scientific notes about plants and animals they'd never seen before. They also brought back stories-tales that made other Americans dream about heading west.

Many Americans did more than dream. The great westward expansion was about to begin.

Text adapted from The Journals of Lewis and Clark; The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today; and Sacagawea

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How Lewis and Clark-along with a Native American guide, Sacagawea-explored the newly expanded United States

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A variety of information

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Before the resort town of Cannon Beach, Oregon, a Tillamook tribal village-NeCus'-sat along the tiny brackish bay where Ecola Creek crosses the sandy beach. The Lewis and Clark Expedition journals provide a tantalizing but fragmentary glimpse of this community.

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Latest Additions The Trail Eastern Beginnings → Down the Ohio → Up the Mississippi → Winter at St. Louis → Starting Up the Missouri → Past the Omahas → Among the Yanktons → Crossing the Lakotas → Winter at Fort Mandan → Along the Northern Reach → Portaging the Falls → Gates of the Rockies [...]

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The Gold Rush Impact on Native Tribes | American Experience | PBS

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The native tribes of California saw themselves as stewards not owners of the land. The white settlers who arrived during the Gold Rush brought a different view.

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Major "Strikes" in the California Gold Rush | American Experience | PBS

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An astounding amount of gold was pulled from the ground during the California gold rush.