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http://oregontrail101.com/

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As in the eastern states, as more and more people moved into an area, Native Americans were generally forced from their lands. Some entered into treaties to retain specific portions of their homelands, while others engaged in armed conflict. Disease continued to kill untold numbers of Native American people, as new germs arrived with each wave of settlers. Finally, the United States government had settled on a policy of “Indian removal,” meaning that Native Americans had virtually no legal rights to any of their ancestral lands, and U.S. Army troops were often involved in relocating people against their will. Specific events, such as the Gold Rush in California, caused Native Americans to take an active stand to preserve their homes and ways of life. This escalated tensions, and resulted in armed conflicts in a variety of places. By the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Native Americans were faced with numerous challenges, and their legal status had diminished considerably.

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Describe the impact of westward expansion on Native Americans.
AKS 56c

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The telegraph, developed in 1832 and perfected over the next decade, revolutionized communication. No longer dependent on anything more than a wire to deliver messages, Americans were able to “talk” to people far away through a simple transmitter and code. As the nation moved west, messages could be sent quickly and effectively, removing the fear of being “cut off” from the rest of the country for potential migrants

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While the use of steam to create motion has been in use since ancient times, the modern steam engine came about in the early years of the 19th century. Used for a multitude of applications, the steam engine allowed power to be generated away from water sources and also created the possibility of moving, self-powered devices (locomotives, automobiles, etc.). The steam locomotive made cross-country transportation of goods and people possible. It also contributed heavily to the population of the western territories/states, as people could travel safely and quickly, and needed supplies could be obtained.

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Developed at the end of the 18th century, steamboats in America were first used commercially in the 1810s in New York state. Since steamboats powered themselves, and were not reliant on variable winds, they could travel on a consistent, predictable schedule. They were also able to travel against river currents, making them particularly useful for local transport of goods. As technology improved, steamboats moved onto the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, improving transportation for commerce throughout the young United States.

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Describe the impact of the steamboat, the steam locomotive, and the telegraph on life in America. AKS  56b

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Mexico gains independence from Spain. California is under Mexican control, but government is loose because of the distance from Mexico City. Mexico opens the California coast to foreign trade and American vessels begin to trade with Californians.

1839 | Swiss immigrant John Sutter arrives in California. He applies for Mexican citizenship and is granted 50,000 acres. At the junction of the Sacramento and American Rivers, he builds a fort.
1846 | The population of California consisted of about 6,900 Californians, 700 foreigners (mostly Americans) and at least 300,000 Native Americans.
May 13: The United States and Mexico go to war over a disputed area in Texas.
1847 | Yerba Buena is renamed San Francisco. By the end of the year, the city has 200 buildings and 800 inhabitants.
August 19: John Sutter and construction foreman James Marshall make plans to build a sawmill on the American River at a place known to the Native Americans as "Culloomah."
September 14: American troops led by General Winfield Scott capture Mexico City.
1848 | January 24: James Marshall and Peter L. Wimmer discover gold in the tailrace at Sutter's new sawmill on the American River. "It made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold," Marshall recalled later.February 2: The United States and Mexico sign the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo, bringing a formal end to the war. The treaty gave the U.S. the land from Texas to Oregon, and completed the American vision of Manifest Destiny -- one nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The brig Eagle brings the first three Chinese workers to San Francisco.
March 15: The Californian reports gold is being found "in considerable quantities" at Sutter's sawmill. San Franciscans are skeptical of the news.
March 18: The California Star reports the non-Native population of San Francisco is 575 males, 177 females and 60 children.April 1: Sam Brannan prints a six-page extra edition of his newspaper, the California Star, describing an "immensely rich" gold mine in the Sacramento Valley. A mule train was organized to take copies of this edition east to the Missouri frontier, with the hope of encouraging immigration. April 7: John Sutter notes in his diary that Sam Brannan visited the mines.
May 12: Sam Brannan sets off gold fever in San Francisco when he waves a bottle of gold dust and shouts "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!" Brannan will see huge profits at his merchandise store at Sutter's Fort. Chum Ming, a Chinese merchant, heard the announcement and immediately wrote home to his cousin, Cheong Yim, asking him to join him in the bonanza and to bring help. Chum Ming then headed for the gold fields.
May 29: The Californian writes: "The whole country from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the sea shore to the base of the Sierra Nevadas, resounds with the sordid cry of 'Gold, gold, gold!' while the field is left half-planted, the house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of shovels and pickaxes."
June: News of the gold rush reaches the Hawaiian Islands.June 14: The California Star suspends publication because the staff goes to the gold fields.
July: California's military governor Richard Mason visits the gold region in early July. He writes a report about the large amounts of gold being gathered and sends a sample to Washington. Mason judges that the 4,000 men in the gold district were collecting up to $50,000 a day. "I was surprised to learn that crime of any kind was very infrequent and that no thefts or robberies had been committed in the gold district. All live in tents, or bush houses, or in the open air and men have frequently about their persons thousands of dollars' worth of this gold." Mason reports that more than half of the miners in this first year are Native Americans, exploited by whites.
Early August: News of the gold mines reaches Oregon and migrants begin moving south.
August 18: News of the gold reached Chile via the brig J.R.S., which docked in Valparaiso after 64 days of sailing from San Francisco. The news didn't generate much excitement until the schooner Adelaide arrived from California on September 12 with gold dust worth $2,500. An estimated 5,000 Chileans arrived in San Francisco during the first six months of 1849.
August 19: The New York Herald prints an item about the discovery of gold in California.
September 14: More announcements of the gold rush are published on the East Coast of the U.S., including an issue of the Philadelphia North American that runs a letter from an alcalde (Spanish official) in California saying, "Your streams have minnows and ours are paved with gold.
"October: Mexican migrants begin to arrive in California for the gold rush.
November 28: A ship carrying $500,000 in gold bound for the U.S. Mint leaves San Francisco.December 5: Based on the report from Colonel Mason, President James K. Polk confirms the discovery of gold in California in his State of the Union Address. The President writes, "The accounts of abundance of gold are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service." Thousands of people, including Franklin Buck, a clerk in New York, are swept up by gold fever. "Have you read the account from there about the Gold?" he wrote his sister in Bucksport, Maine, "I have seen letters from Captains whom I know, who write that their men have all run away and are digging up $20 a day, PURE GOLD, for some of it has been sent home. It has created a real fever here."December 28: Chilean Vicente Perez Rosales departs Valparaiso aboard the French ship Staoueli. He and his party are bound for San Francisco and the gold rush.By the end of the year, an estimated 5,000 people were mining in California. The entire non-native population of California is estimated at 20,000.Australians hear about the gold rush when the Sydney Morning Herald reprinted some articles from the Hawaiian paper The Polynesian about the discovery.
1849 |
January 11: The New York Herald reports the stories of gold in California have "set the public mind almost on the highway to insanity." Capitalizing on the fever, ship owners announce departures, merchants begin pushing the sale of India rubber boots, tents, money belts, medicine, gold testing and gold washing machines. Those on the coast begin looking for a ship. Those inland contemplate the overland routes. Men organize themselves into companies, paying equal amount and pooling together to buy the goods for the trip. They borrow money, mortgage homes, spend life savings.
January 17: Franklin Buck writes to his sister in Maine, "The docks are crowded with fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters and sweethearts, and such embracing and waving of handkerchiefs and 'I say Bill! If you send me a barrel of Gold Dust don't forget to pay the freight on it!' One fellow who went in the Brooklyn, threw his last five dollar piece ashore. Says he: 'I'm going where there is plenty more!' It beats all! ... this California fever."
January 22: The Alta California becomes the first daily newspaper in California.
February 3: The Raleigh Register runs an advertisement for women to go to the Gold Rush and get a rich husband, titled "A Chance FOR A LADY." Other efforts to encourage women to go to California include Mrs. Eliza Farnham of New York's attempt to organize a ship of intelligent women over the age of 25 to sail to San Francisco to meet miners. Editors in the east praised her efforts, but the plan failed.
February 17: One hundred and twenty-two men of the Hartford Union Mining and Trading Company set sail for California. They arrived in California in September. Within a year, the statistics for the company stand as follows: twelve men out of original 122 are dead (10%); 26 have returned home with approximately $1,280 each; 77 have stayed in California, averaging $1,239/man in earnings.
February 28: First regular steamboat service to California is inaugurated by the arrival of the Pacific Mail's steamer California.
March 6: Hiram Pierce leaves Troy, New York, and takes a train to New York City. From there, he sails to Panama, walks across the isthmus, and then gets a boat to San Francisco.March 18: Twenty-year-old Alfred Doten and the other members of the Pilgrim Mining Company depart Plymouth, Massachusetts. Doten sails around Cape Horn to get to San Francisco for the gold rush.Mid-April: Some 30,000 gold rushers are congregated in the outfitting towns along the Missouri River, all waiting for the prairie to firm up adequately and grass to grow high enough to feed their animals on the long journey to California. Cholera was rampant in the camps.May 1: Luzena Stanley Wilson and Mason Wilson pack their wagon and leave their cabin in Missouri. With their two small sons, they set out on the overland route to California.
June: Americans traveling around Cape Horn by ship for the gold rush begin to arrive in San Francisco.
June 12: At a mass meeting, the citizens of San Francisco agree on the necessity of electing delegates to a convention to form a government for Upper California.Summer: Southerners are using slave labor in the mines. Editorials and statements by Southerners express the belief they were entitled to take slave property into lands seized in the Mexican War.
July 15: Members of the Hounds, American ex-soldiers, attack tents in the Chilean district near Jackson and Dupont.
July 16: Sam Brannan demands that the Hounds be arrested. Two hundred and thirty volunteer policemen are deputized by the newly-formed Law and Order Party and make the arrests.July 25: After 77 days of traveling, Hiram Pierce arrives in San Francisco.
August: Americans traveling overland in caravans from the East begin to arrive in California.
September 1: The California Constitutional Convention begins at Colton Hall in Monterey. Forty-eight delegates draft the first state constitution. Under constitution, California will enter the Union as a free state. In Washington, D.C., there is heated debate over slavery.
October 2: Alfred Doten sails into San Francisco.
October 31: More than 45,000 letters are piled up undelivered in San Francisco's post office. Clerks barricade themselves in to protect themselves from the crowd.November 13: California voters approve the State Constitution.
December 31: The population of California is estimated at 100,000 including 35,000 people who came by sea, 3000 sailors who deserted ships and 42,000 who came overland.There are an estimated 40,000 people mining in California by the end of 1849. The entire non-native population is estimated at 100,000.

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Gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, California, in 1848, and the resulting gold rush sent people from around the world to California, hoping for instant wealth. Many reports of how easily gold could be obtained were exaggerated, and thus many migrants found themselves in an unfamiliar land with few prospects. Fortunately, California’s mild climate encouraged a variety of economic activities and the area’s population boomed. In 1850, California became a state. For more information on the Gold Rush, and its impact on the millions of lives that it touched, visit:

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At the same time, politicians in Washington looked to end three decades of shared ownership of the Oregon Territory with Great Britain. The British proposed a northern border drawn further south than President James K. Polk and his supporters preferred. However, facing war over Texas, few in Congress were willing to risk additional armed conflict. In 1846, Congress ratified the British treaty, and gained the Oregon Territory for the United States. Many Americans had already moved to the territory (using the overland Oregon Trail) following reports of abundant fertile land for settlers.

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Not included in the Louisiana Purchase was the desert Southwest, most of which was part of Mexico. Texas had declared itself independent and sought to join the United States. One of the major events of the Texan war for independence was the Battle of the Alamo, fought in 1836 in San Antonio. After a long siege by Mexican forces, Texan independence fighters made a “last stand” at the Alamo. A more numerous Mexican army defeated them, but “remember the Alamo” became a rallying cry for the remaining months of the independence struggle. In 1846, Texas became an American state, which Mexico saw as a declaration of war. The resulting Mexican War lasted until 1848 when Mexico gave up all claims to Texan lands (including portions of modern New Mexico).

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Far to the north and west of Texas, the United States and several other nations vied for the Oregon Country: the land north of California and west of the Rocky Mountains. The territory was variously claimed from the sixteenth century by Spain, Russia, Britain, and the United States. However, by the mid-1820s, only the American and British claims endured. The two nations agreed in 1818 to a "joint occupation" of Oregon in which citizens of both countries could settle; this arrangement lasted until 1846. |
Map showing region claimed by both the United States and Britain until 1846, including Vancouver Island to the north.

The Oregon settlers from the United States and Britain were very different groups. The British were chiefly fur traders associated with the Hudson's Bay Company, while the Americans were a more eclectic lot. American settlement began in the 1830s when Protestant missionaries moved into the Wilamette Valley. Their accounts of the fertile soil of the region spread rapidly to the East and spurred a massive migration of thousands of American families westward along the Oregon Trail. The resulting population disparity along with an overall decline in the fur trade, convinced the British government to work for a negotiated settlement to the Oregon issue.

As with Texas, popular opinion over the Oregon Country was divided. Whereas Texas territory would have added proslavery representation in Congress, any potential states formed from the Oregon Country would be free states. Accordingly, Northerners were the chief advocates of acquiring as much Oregon Country as possible.

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Describe territorial expansion with emphasis on the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the acquisitions of Texas (the Alamo and independence), Oregon (Oregon Trail), and California (Gold Rush and the development of mining towns). AKS 56a

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Students should explain the reasons for the Westward Expansion:

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Students should explain the reasons for the Westward Expansion:

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The intent of this standard is for students to understand the rapid growth of American territory in the first half of the 19th century, and describe the impact of this growth on those living in that territory.