Directions:
1. Distribute the 2 halves of the “American Progress” painting graphic organizer.
2. Divide your class into 7 groups and assign each group one of the following:
Railroad workers
Exodusters
Mormons
49ers
Farmers
Native Americans
Cowboys
3. Give them 2 minutes to read the short description of their assigned role and why that group
was heading west.
4. Tell them they have 5 minutes to plan a short scene they will act out in front of the class
that will show the class who they are and why they are heading west.
5. Have each group act out their scene and then have students fill out the speech bubbles with
information from the scene.
6. Come up with a class definition of Manifest Destiny and add this to the top left of the
painting.
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In 1827, Joseph Smith helped establish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York. Later, Smith
and his followers moved to Illinois and grew to more than 20,000. However, the group came into conflict with
locals who protested against the Mormon practice of polygamy or having more than one wife. Smith was jailed
for a dispute with a local newspaper and an anti-Mormon mob broke into the jail and killed him and his brother.
Smith’s successor decided it would be safer for
the group to move further west beyond the
boundaries of the US. In 1847, thousands of
Mormons travelled by wagon across the Rocky
Mountains until they reached the Great Salt Lake.
Here the Mormons stopped and awarded plots of
land to each family based on its size. This area
eventually became the state of Utah and its capital
Salt Lake City.
As settlers pushed west, Native American communities were greatly affected. Most Native Americans maintained
strong cultural connections to their ancestral lands. Some fought against whites to keep their territory while others
began to assimilate (become part of) white culture.
In the early 1830’s, settlers in Illinois were pressuring the Sauk Indians to move west.
Chief Black Hawk led a rebellion against the US and The Black Hawk War soon spread
into Wisconsin. It finally ended with the massacre of most of the Fox and Sauk tribes in
1832.
In 1851, the Cheyenne, Sioux, and other tribes signed the Treaty of Ft. Laramie with
the US government. This agreement gave Native American tribes control of most of the
Great Plains in agreement not to attack settlers. While this treaty brought several
years of peace, eventually white settlers pushed into this land as well.
One of the greatest attractions of the west was the land itself. In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act which offered up
to 160 acres of free land to settlers. The law required three steps: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of
title.
Anyone who had never taken up arms against
the U.S. government, including freed slaves,
was 21 or older or the head of a family, could
file an application to claim a federal land
grant. The occupant had to live on the land for
five years, and show evidence of having made
improvements such as building a home and
farm. More than 600,000 families took
advantage of the Homestead Act and moved
west.
In 1889, a major land giveaway in present-day
Oklahoma attracted thousands of people who
claimed more than 2 million acres in a single
day’s land rush.
In 1848, gold was found at Sutter's Mill in Northern California. Word of the discovery spread quickly across the US and the
first prospectors started flocking to the state in early 1849. Eventually, the news of gold brought some 300,000 people to
California from the rest of the United States and abroad. Of the 300,000, about half arrived by sea and half came from the
east overland on the California Trail and the Oregon Trails
The gold-seekers, called “forty-niners” (as a reference to 1849), often faced
substantial hardships on the trip. At first, the gold nuggets could be picked up off
the ground. Later, gold was recovered from streams and riverbeds using simple
techniques, such as panning. Gold worth tens of billions of today's dollars was
recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home
with little more than they had started with. Many more people became rich by
profiting off of the 49ers themselves. For example, Levi Strauss sold denim jeans
to prospectors and James Folger sold coffee, both of which became dominant in
their industries.
The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. San Francisco grew from a small
settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by
1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California.
As Native Americans were forced off of the Great Plains, cattle ranchers moved in and created big business.
American settlers learned to manage large herds of cattle from the Mexican vaqueros. American cowboys wore
chaps which came from the chaparreras or leather
coveralls of the vaqueros. The Spanish “bronco
caballo” became a bronco. Cowboys were soon
leading herds of longhorn cattle for hundreds of miles
to railroad stations north and east for sale. The
longhorns were accustomed to living on dry
grasslands like in Southern Spain, and the climate of
Texas was a close match.
Cowboys and vaqueros led millions of cattle from
Texas up the Chisolm Trail to Kansas, where meat
packing centers would process and ship beef across
the country by rail. One cowboy might lead 250-300
cattle for the long trip north after a roundup in Texas.
It was difficult and dangerous work. Stampedes, river
crossings, and lightening were all a threat.
Manifest Destiny was the belief in the 1800‘s that the US was destined by
God to expand across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Ocean.
After the annexation of Texas in 1845, most Americans believed the entire
continent belonged to America. The country was seen as bringing light to
the darkness. Democracy, new inventions, and the American way of life
were considered more progressive than the interests of Native Americans
or Mexico. Telegraph wire and railroads soon made communication and
transportation easier as well, so longer distances were not seen as such a
burden.
Canals were the dominant form of transporting goods up until the 1860’s when the invention of the railroad
rapidly changed the shipping of goods. Railroads could transport goods much faster and during winter when
canals might freeze. Consequently, many Irish immigrants got jobs working to build railroad track across the
Great Plains.
Railroad work was hard, and management was
chaotic, leading to a high attrition rate. Management
puzzled over how it could attract and retain a work
force up to the enormous task. Water-borne illness
was often a serious concern. Personal hygiene was all
but unheard of. Most troubling were fears of the
Native Americans across whose land the laborers built
their road. There were Native American snipers, raids,
livestock rustlings, scalpings, and burnings all along
the railroad right of way. Indian sightings sufficed to
spook men, and line surveyors did not always return
from their routes. News of the slaughter of troops at
Fort Philip Kearny on December 21, 1866, “the
Fetterman Massacre,” was enough to convince many
a worker there were better ways to earn a living.
Exodusters was a name given to African
Americans who left the south and headed west
before and after the Civil War. Racial oppression
and rumors of the reinstitution of slavery led
African-Americans to seek a new place to live.
Many settled in Kansas because of its fame as the
land of the abolitionist John Brown. The state was
reputed to be more progressive and tolerant than
most others.
The name “exodusters” came from the word
“exodus” as in a mass migration out of a place.
The Exodusters continued coming to Kansas
through the summer of 1880; then the movement
died out.
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