Factors Encouraging the Migration west
- Created by: NHEESOMGREEN
- Created on: 28-05-18 06:34
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- Factors encouraging migration west
- Economic conditions in the East
- 1837: an economic crisis in the East and South
- banks collapsed, people lost savings, businesses failed and many lost their jobs.
- push factors to make a new life in another part of America
- Unemployment was very high and wage cuts were up to 40%
- push factors to make a new life in another part of America
- Unemployment was very high and wage cuts were up to 40%
- banks collapsed, people lost savings, businesses failed and many lost their jobs.
- 1837: an economic crisis in the East and South
- Farmland in Oregon
- Promise of free, rich farming land in the Rocky Mountains was a powerful pull factor.
- sea-route was expensive, long and very dangerous
- needed an over-land route that wagons could travel: most land was flat, except for the Rockies etc. mountains that acted as a barrier.
- sea-route was expensive, long and very dangerous
- The Oregon Trail
- The only practical way for migrants to get across the mountains with wagons.
- replaced as the main way of travelling West by the first Transcontinental Railroad, 1869
- Government help
- Provided $30,000 for an expedition to map the Oregon trail and publish reports
- John Fremont: made the Oregon trail exciting and achievable, making it manageable.
- Provided $30,000 for an expedition to map the Oregon trail and publish reports
- Promise of free, rich farming land in the Rocky Mountains was a powerful pull factor.
- The Gold rush of 1849
- April 1849: 100,000 left the East to travel to California because gold had been found in the Sierra Nevada
- most were unsuccessful, so they stayed and became farmers.
- California's population boomed and its economy grew rapidly: prospectors needed equipment, food, drink and entertainment, attracting new people.
- Consequence
- promoted the image of the West as the place where individuals could make success of their lives, get a new start, and be free and independent.
- Farming in California grew: became a major exporting capital
- money from the Gold Rush helped pay fr the First Transcontinental Railroad on 1869.
- April 1849: 100,000 left the East to travel to California because gold had been found in the Sierra Nevada
- Manifest destiny
- The belief that it was god's will for white people to take possession of the whole of the USA and make it productive and civilized.
- carried the sense of an inevitable process: like a scientific law of God's will.
- Economic conditions in the East
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