The Oregon Trail was traveled by over five hundred thousand people between 1841-1869. Many people wanted to travel on the Oregon Trail in hope of better health. They did not bring many supplies; they only brought the bare necessities. The pioneers traveled in covered wagons, called prairie schooners, pulled by oxen. The journey started in Independence, Missouri, and ended in Oregon City, Oregon. The trail went through many states, including Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Kansas, and mountain ranges, including the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas. The pioneers also passed many milestones, including Courthouse Rock, Chimney Rock, Independence Rock, and Soda Springs. Even though the travelers faced dangers, such as Indian attack,
In the beginning of the novel, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Mabel is constantly represented as an awful mother when described by her daughter, Cora. Mabel spends her whole life on the Randall Plantation before one day running away, leaving Cora behind. Cora perceives this as an act of selfishness and is furious that Mabel didn’t say goodbye. Cora thought “it was incomprehensible that Mabel had abandoned her to that hell” (Whitehead 98). If the plantation was bad enough for Mabel to leave, it must be just as bad for Cora
Settlers and miners traveling
The Death Trap Trail During the early 1800s, a 2,200 trail was used to travel from Oregon to Illinois(or vice versa) for Americans migrants to claim land and settle on the other side. Fur trappers and traders laid out the trail and were the ones to establish it. Migrants used the trail to seek a better life on the other side. The use of this trail was one of the important events of our American History.
During the Klondike Gold Rush (1896 to 1899), the Chilkoot Trail operated as the main transportation route into Canada’s interior. The Chilkoot Trail was the most direct, popular, and least expensive compared to other overland routes to reach Dawson City in the Yukon. If prospectors could not afford a carrying outfit for their possessions, they faced the back-breaking task of carrying their own essentials over the summit of the Chilkoot Pass and to lakes Lindeman and Bennett. The Chilkoot Pass faced frequent cloud cover, bad weather, and deep snow. “Blizzard-like conditions often closed in for days at a time, trapping travelers in an areas lacking both tree and sustenance” (Gates 1994).
— Virginia Reed, daughter of James Reed. A tragic story of the Donner party is a very harrowing adventure through the journey of the big group and how about half of the people lived to tell the tale. On April 16, 1846 nine wagons were reported departing from Springfield Illinois on a journey of what is now called the Oregon Trail. Formerly known as the northern trail there were a lot of advantages and disadvantages to the Oregon trail there was more land and wonderful
The trail of tears was a tretrous journey that the native Americans took. Because the Americans would promise land, then take it back. First off it was approximately one thousand miles. The five different tribes were the Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, and finally the Creek. They traveled from deep in the south to present day Oklahoma.
(2013). The Oregon Trail. Retrieved from: http://www.historyglobe.com/ot/otmap1.htm This is an interactive website used to explore the Oregon Trail. Students open the page to a map of the U.S. in 1843.
The unbearable experience during the Trial of Tears was significantly atrocious for the Cherokee. A Cherokee woman named Elizabeth Watts described this ordeal as “more than tears” and as “death, sorrow, hunger, exposure, and humiliation” to the Cherokee; even Private John G. Burnett said he “witnessed the execution and the most brutal order in the history of American warfare.” Eliza Whitmire, who was enslaved by the Cherokee, described the difficulty as “filled with horror and suffering.” First off, the trail was dangerously cold and hot during the seasons. It was fatally cold during the Winter; unbearably hot during the Summer.
In conclusion, the westward expansion was one of the most important times in American history but one of the hardest for those who made the journey. The settlers had to go through a lot of hardships to get a new life in the west. The Gold Rush helped bring people to the west and populate California so it became a state. People such as Sacagawea helped Lewis and Clark helped explore the new terrain and make maps so people could live there. Even though the pioneers got diseases, had conflicts with the Native Americans, and had to travel for long periods of time in a ship or covered wagon, they never gave up hope.
Railroads were created to help transport cattle and other products. Villages and towns where built by the railroads as well for easy access. They found gold in California and the first catalog was created by Mr. Sears. The Wild West was as violent as they said.
After years of waiting and preparing we started on the journey to the west. We made our way to Independence, Missouri to go on the Oregon Trail which was laid by traders and trapers. While there I became familiar with George Wilson who was also a working family man. A lot of families left together making the trail busy and causing jams..
The families came together to form what was called a wagon train in May 1846. Another reason for the Americans movement westward, was the belief in manifest destiny. Manifest destiny was the belief of the United States expanding towards the California coast. It was also because the views on religious freedom, were nowhere near as strict as they wear on the East
While making this gruesome travel more than 4,000 Indians died from disease, starvation and treacherous conditions. This travel became known as the “trails of tears”. These Native Americans were not how white settlement described them. Many of the tribes adopted Euro-american practices and created their own communities with schools and churches, even developed their own languages and created bilingual newspapers.
In the 1840s, travelers had to eat dead horses and mules that died of exhaustion while pulling wagons. In modern day, people can stop at a restaurant for food along the way. In present time, people also have hotels to sleep in and to bathe in while traveling, but people traveling to Oregon had to sleep outside on the ground and had to bathe in
Before the 1800s, there were two early roads, Forbes and Wilderness Road. In 1811, the National Road known as Cumberland Road was built to reach Western settlements, because they needed a road to ship farm products that connect East and West. The National Road passed thousand of wagons and coaches. John F. Stover states in American Railroads, “The rich agricultural production of the country, the small but expanding factories of eastern cities, and the largely untapped natural resources of the nation-all of these called for improvements in transport. ”(Stover1)