Push/Pull factors and Early Explorers of Great Plains
- Created by: Megan Smyth
- Created on: 08-12-13 20:07
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- American West: Early Explorers and Push/Pull factors
- Push and Pull Factors
- Poverty/ Unemployment: 1837 depression (Banks failed and many savers lost money)
- Religious and social persecution - Mormons; Europeans emigrated West
- 'Tall Tales'
- 'Word of mouth' and newspaper reports said West had fertile lands, good hunting grounds, and gold/silver
- Publicity campaigns exaggerated 'Grow pumpkins as big as barns and maize as tall as telegraph poles
- Railroad company's 'booster campaigns' also exaggerated
- Artists depicted West as a 'Paradise' with abundant fertile land
- Eastern overpopulation and land prices; Land becoming expensive due to growing population = high demand
- Cheap Land in West - Government set land prices low to encourage migration
- Homestead Act 1862 - registered claim 160 acres, After 5 years $30 ownership certificate
- Timber Culture Act 1873 - not always enough land, claim to further 160 acres if half planted with trees
- 'Manifest Destiny'- 'God-given Duty' to occupy and govern all of America
- Chance to start a new life
- Earliest White Explorers = Mountain Men, fur trappers (beavers for the European clothing industry) and Government explorers surveying land
- Pioneered routes such as the Oregon and California Trails = would become crucial to settlement of West
- Trappers sometimes worked with Native Indians and some adopted their way of life. Traded guns and alcohol, but brought diseases (e.g. smallpox) and STD's which they passed on.
- The Donner Party (1846)
- 60 wagons and 300 migrants led by brothers George and Jacob Donner left Independence (Missouri) on way to California
- At Fort Bridger, brothers led similar group of about 80 migrants, intended to take short-cut
- Lost 4 wagons and 300 cattle in Desert. Got to Sierra Nevada Mountains in Winter, trapped in snow and blizzards. Food ran out = starvation.
- Some went to get help, but their food ran out as well. Both parties resorted to cannibalism to survive
- When Donner Party rescued, almost half had died
- Push and Pull Factors
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