The Westward Movement 1832-1889 - Unknown

[Preface] v I The Land and the People [Frémont Crosses the Sierras] 1 [Colonel John Frémont Describes His Expedition] 1 [The Desert Barrier] 5 [Sarah Royce Crosses the Desert] 5 [A Tour on the Prairies] 8 [Henry Ellsworth Accompanies Washington Irving Across the Plains] 8 [The Indians] 11 [Francis Parkman Describes the Dahcotahs] 11 [The Trappers] 13 [Isaac Jones Wistar Endures a Hard Winter] 13 [The Emigrants] 16 [Francis Parkman Encounters a Wagon Train] 16 II The Conquest [To California by Sea] 19 [Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Visits the Coast of California] 20 [A Day with the Cow Column] 22 [Jesse Applegate Herds Cattle on the Oregon Trail] 22 [The Donner Party Starves] 25 [Virginia Reed Murphy Survives a Terrible Ordeal] 25 [Mark Twain Rides the Overland Stage] 28 [A Memorable Account of Stagecoach Travel from Roughing It] 28 [The Coming of the Railroad] 31 [Walt Whitman Writes of the Continental Railroad] 31 [Samuel Bowles Travels on the Union Pacific] 32 III The Mining Frontier [The Discovery of Gold] 35 [Walter Colton Describes the Effect of the Discovery] 36 [Eldorado: Bayard Taylor Visits the Mining Camps] 37 [Mark Twain Doesn’t Strike It Rich] 40 IV The Ranching Frontier [The Long Drive] 44 [Andy Adams Encounters Rustlers] 44 V The Farming Frontier [Homesteading in the Dakotas] 50 [O. E. Rölvaag Pictures the Norwegian Settlers] 50 [The Land Rush in Oklahoma] 55 [Hamilton Wicks Races to Guthrie] 55

The picture on [page 1], George Catlin’s “Buffalo Hunt on Snow Shoes,” was reprinted through the courtesy of the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art. The picture on [page 19], “The Meeting of the Rails,” was reprinted through the courtesy of the United States Bureau of Public Roads. The picture on the [cover]; the picture on [page 35], of gold mining in California; the picture on [page 44], of Texas cattle being driven to the cattle rendezvous; and the picture on [page 50], of plowing on the prairies west of the Mississippi, were reprinted through the courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Preface

It is hard to fix a beginning date for the Westward Movement, unless we start with 1492 and Columbus’ first voyage of discovery. In reality the entire history of the New World is a movement of Europeans to the Western Hemisphere. In earlier booklets in this series we have dealt with the migrations of pioneers from the Atlantic Coast to the land beyond the Appalachian Mountains. We also have covered the expedition of Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Coast in 1805 and the annexation of Texas in 1845. This booklet is primarily concerned with the region beyond the Midwest, the high plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevadas, the deserts, and the fertile Pacific Coast.

Restlessness and mobility have always been distinguishing characteristics of the American people. Revolutionary War veterans settled in Ohio or Kentucky and lived to see their children move on to Missouri or Texas. Their children’s children pushed farther west to the Pacific Coast over the Oregon Trail or sailed around Cape Horn to join the gold rush in California. The westward movement still goes on, as a glance at the latest census report will quickly show. The difference is that nowadays the immigrant can arrive in California in a few hours by jet from New York, pan his gold on the assembly line of a company making guided missiles, and sleep in a cabin with a barbecue grill and a swimming pool in the back yard.

This booklet begins with descriptions of the land and the people in the Great West before the Civil War. This was a period of exploration and conquest. Until they saw for themselves, people could not believe the plains were as broad, the deserts as hot and dry, and the mountains as rugged and high as they really were. Every day was an adventure, some of which ended disastrously. But the West was conquered and the continent spanned by trail, by stagecoach route, and finally by railroad.

When one speaks of the frontier, he must keep in mind that there was more than one frontier as the West filled up. There was, first of all, the frontier of the explorer and trapper. These men had no more effect on the land than the Indians who had roamed the mountains and plains for thousands of years. Next, there was the mining frontier, which brought mushroom growth to specific areas like central California or Denver, Colorado, but left untouched the vast areas in between. Then there was the ranching frontier which created cow towns and cattle trails. Finally, there was the farming frontier, which changed the face of the land unalterably and filled the gaps left by the miners and ranchers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface