The
Surge West
Summary
Name:
The
westward movement of the American population occurred in _____________________
of settlement. The first began early in the nation's history, resulting in the
statehood of ___________________, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio, all of which
were admitted to the Union between 1791 and 1803. With the Louisiana Purchase the US doubled in size, opening up new regions to
exploration and settlement. Once the _______________ ended, expansion began in earnest.
The government was eager to enlarge the Union, and, accordingly, six new states
joined the Union between 1816 and 1821: Indiana, Mississippi, _________________,
Alabama, Maine, and Missouri.
Settlers
of the west, called pioneers, usually migrated as families and settled along
the rivers of the West in order to facilitate trade. Pioneers often settled
among others who hailed from the same areas of the East, or shared similar
customs or religion. For instance, Indiana was overwhelmingly populated by
southern migrants. As a result, many New Englanders chose not to settle there
and instead moved on to Michigan, which became primarily populated with former
New England residents. Even before there were organized cities and towns, there
was a strong sense of _____________________ and____________________ in the
West. Inhabitants met regularly to participate in sports and hold fairs,
parties, and "hoedowns," or dances.
There
was a measure of rivalry between East and West, which was ever-present in the
minds of many western settlers. Easterners thought westerners were ___________________
and _________________, and westerners in turn chided the East for its soft and
luxurious lifestyle. The identity of the West grew up around the ideals of
simplicity, openness, and honesty. This identity was universally known
throughout the settlements, and the westerners strove to support it with
actions, consistently trying to demonstrate their simplistic _______________________
to easterners and the eastern press, which painted the west as the domain of
the unintelligent and backwards.
The
federal government encouraged western expansion throughout the early nineteenth
century. Most prominently, soldiers had been promised western lands in return
for enlisting in the American army during the War of 1812. A total of ________________________
acres were dealt in this manner as "military bounties," and many
soldiers moved west at their earliest convenience to find arable land for
farming after the war's end in 1814. Furthermore, in ______________________,
Congress authorized the appropriation of funds for the formerly postponed
project of construction of a National Road, which by 1838 reached Vandalis,
Illinois, and was widely used as a connection to western lands.
Commentary
In
1806, Zebulon Pike journeyed into the Rockies of what is now southern Colorado
and sighted the peak now named for him. The Lewis and ____________________
explored land in the Far West. Both of these expeditions returned East with maps
of the explored territory and stories that quickly became exaggerated into the
legend of the West, which enticed many an easterner to risk the uncertain
journey to the little known territory.
The
first settlers of the West, who in settling opened the west up to further
settlement, were entrepreneurial _____________________. In 1811, John Jacob
Astor of New York, founded Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon
as a center for the fur trade. In the 1820s and 1830s, fur trading grew up all
along the Missouri river. Some white fur traders became legends in their own
time for their astounding feats of bravery in surviving harsh conditions to
gather and sell furs. These "______________________" included Jedediah
Smith, Kit Carlson, and _____________________. All of them became intertwined
in the legend of the West.
Ordinary
settlers did not flock to the West in the hopes of finding adventure. The
typical migrant sought a greater measure of _________________________. Indeed,
it was not until the spread of canals in the 1820s and 1830s, or railroads in
the 1860s, that settlers would even venture from the shores of the major rivers
of the West. To most Americans, "the West" still referred to the area
between the __________________________________________ and the Mississippi
River. Before 1840, few ventured into the Far West. Knowing that the average
migrant wanted stability and security, newspaper reports and pamphlets aimed at
describing the West to easterners usually stressed the bountiful __________________________
of the region over its perils and sometimes harsh conditions. A legislator from
the Missouri Territory wrote east in 1816 in efforts to encourage migration
that in the territory of what is now the Midwest, "there neither is, nor,
in the nature of things, can there ever be, anything like poverty there. All is
ease, ____________________ and comfort." This description demonstrates the
desire on the part of the federal government and the evolving western governments
to encourage the settlement and development of the west, which they thought
could serve as a great bounty to the nation as a whole.
The
rivalry between East and West was a result of the sharp contrast between
western and eastern life. Indeed, life in the west was rough, with only a
sprinkling of elegance amid a vast sea of ____________________ and ______________________
with few modern amenities. The exchange of insults between East and West had a
profound effect on western identity. Westerners prided themselves on their
simple manners and were not only hostile to the decadent East but also
intolerant of other westerners who demonstrated pretensions to gentility.
Anyone who acted as if they were above the masses was ostracized, and even a
politician who rode to a public meeting in a ____________________ instead of________________________
lost votes.
Vocabulary
1. Facilitate-
2. Primitive-
3. Uncouth-
4. Enlist-
5. Entrepreneurial-
6. Intolerant-
7. Ostracized-
8. Gentility-
9. Pretensions-
10. Obstacle-
11. Squatter-
12. Preemption-
13. Subsistence
farming-
Important people
1. Zebulon
Pike-
2. Lewis
and Clark-
3. Jedediah Smith-
4. Thomas
Jefferson-
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