What Encouraged People to Migrate West?

• Economic conditions

  From 1837 to the mid-1840s, there was an economic crisis in the East and South. Banks collapsed, and people lost their jobs, businesses and savings. Many looked to start a new life in a new part of the USA.

  
• The Gold Rush of 1849.

  • In 1849, 100,000 people left the East for California because gold had been discovered there.
  • Most of these prospectors did not become very rich, and often settled as farmers.
  • California’s population and economy grew, as the government had hoped. This helped the USA’s economy recover.

  
• Farmland in Oregon


  People were drawn to the excellent farming land in Oregon (especially with the tough economic conditions in the East). The government encouraged people to move to Oregon in the 1840s. In 1841 they funded an expedition by John Fremont to map the Oregon Trail and convince people that the move was achievable.

  
• The Oregon Trail

  • The Oregon Trail was a route across Indian Territory and through the Rocky Mountains to Oregon.
  • It was the main route used by migrants to the West – 400,000 people used it until it was replaced by the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.
  • The first migrants to travel the Oregon Trail with a covered wagon were missionaries in 1836. They went there to convert American Indians to Christianity. In 1843 a group of 900 made the journey (the “Great Emigration”).
• “Manifest Destiny”

  This was the belief that white Americans had the right to populate all parts of America because it was God’s will. Americans saw it as their duty to make all of the country productive and civilised.