Key Question 2: Moving West

DIDN'T SETTLE...

• Was a dangerous job
• Almost exclusively men 
• Rendezvous meeting once or twice a year
• In complete solitary 
• Had a job to do 
• They were trappers

END...

• Hardly any more beavers
• Guides became pioneers
• Unfashionable not wanted in france

1849

• Myth:- $1000 a pay - could earn your fortune in a week - practically walk on gold 
• Reality:- $3 a day - by 1853 all surface gold way gone - lost money - resulted to mining - gambling 
• Gold fever= settlements abandoned

PROPAGANDA

• Saloons, Tool sellers, Travel companies = positive outcomes 
• Government manivest destiny

FIRST SETTLERS

• Goulds 
• Sagars
• Donners:-went to calofornia -split in two (camp on plains) (cut through black hills) - became snowed in ( ran out of resources//cannibalism ) NO MOUNTAIN MEN

PROBLEMS

• Extreme weathers-sun stroke -temperature 
• flooding rivers 
• lack of resources
• wagons break
• Indian attack
• lost
• Buffalo stampede
• disease

Joseph Smith

• 14 years old became the founder of the church of the Latter day Saints
• 1823 Had a visit from Angel Moroni (God) 1830golden plates in his garden, asked his friend t write down what it said= book of mormon
• He was imprisoned more than 30 times ~actively tried to covert people stopping manifest destiny

Kirtland 1831-1837

• In Ohio had 1000 members
• 1837- economic crisis meant banks collapsed people blamed mormons & drove them away

Missouri 1837-1838

Navoo 1839- 1846

• Fled from Illinois not liked at all 
• Renamed Navoo
• 1844- Joseph received a vision from God to practise polygamy, was not welcomed by every mormon- certainly not Americans
• 27th June Smith killed in prison where him and his brother were being detained

Brigham Young

• Took over from Joseph and directed the movement of 16,000 Mormons to Salt Lake City in Utah (1846-1852)

SUCCESS

• Young said no private ownership of land = equality
• Allocated resources by need- everyone had what they would use = organised and resourceful
• Distributed skilled workers evenly in each town in Utah to spread the skills to develop towns
• Young was govenor of Utah now free to build KINGDOM OF GOD AND EARTH = free from persecution
• Perpetual Emigration Fund= recruiting and converting building the religion

FAILURE

• Didn't hav enough money = economy too low
• Schooling was poor = no education = bad jobs 
• As result of 1848 war- American government gained Salt lake from Mexicans-- tried to set upown state ( DESERET ) this was rejected
• US goverment passes an ANTI_POLYGAMY law in 1862// 1896 Utah became an American state had to accept this law

Types of people

• Poor people from East 
• Civil war ex soldiers
• Free slaves - emancipation proclaimation 

Homestead Act 1862

• Rewarded 160 acres to families who would farm and plant trees

Timber Act 1873

• Gave an additional 160 acres if families planted 40 acres of trees

Desert Act 1877

• Awarded 230 acres of unfertile desert land if farmed and planted trees

PROBLEMS:-

• Can't farm- hard earth (prairy grass had thick roots never farmed on before)
• Hot weather 
• Lack of resources
• Lack of water 
• Locusts
• Wildfires
• Dead crops (can't survive harsh climates)
• Indian attacks
• Buffalo

SOLUTIONS:-

• Timbre Act 
• Sod busters
• WInd pumos 
• Intercontinental Railway
• Spaced out crops
• Turkey red wheat 
• Reservations
• Barbed wire