American West

PROBLEM

• Finding food ----------- SOLUTION: Be nomadic
• Climate Extremes ----------- SOLUTION: live in tipis
• Wind ----------- SOLUTION: tipi design 

• Warm in winter/cool in summer (climate)
• Easy to move (nomadic)
• Made of buffalo skin
• Strong design (wind)

• Different bands would hunt together
• Strong leadership from chiefs and councils
• Clear roles for men and women
• Survival skills taught early to children
• Exposure
• Polygamy
• Punshiment of rule breakers 

ONE OF THE FIRST PULL FACOTRS THAT ENCOURAGED WHITES TO MIGRATE TO THE WEST

• Idea that whites had superior culture
• Idea that God supported white mirgration
• Idea that whites had duty to convert the savage indians
• Idea that destiny of whites was to take over all of America 

PUSH FACTORS

• Effects of economic depression (unemployment)
• Overcorwding

PULL FACTORS

• Cheap land 
• Reports from ther West 

• Crossing the plains (Indians, storms)
• Crossing desert (water)
• Crossing mountains (roads, snowstorms)
• Crossing rivers
• Lack of proper maps and routes

Why did the Donner Party meet disaster?

• Left a month late
• Had too little food
• Mistakenly took short cut
• Blizzards came early

• Led by mountain men
• Good stock of food
• Spare parts
• Safety in numbers
• April departure
• Sticking to known routes

Brigham Young's careful organisation (1846-7)

• Pioneer band
• Winter quarters (dividing the journey into two steps)
• Rest camps
• Division into groups led by captains and lieutenants

• They found water (irrigation ditches from mountains)
• They solved land problems (fair distribution, private ownership)
• They attracted new settlers 

BUT

• Failed to get full independence
• Mormons schools were poor

• Free land 
• Transcontinental railroad
• Overcrowding in the East
• American Civil War
• Reservations