IV The Westward Movement

American development involved moving toward the west. The Westward Movement referred to the movement of people from the settled regions of the United States to lands farther west. It began soon after the first English colonists reached North America in the early 1600's. In a little over 200 years, American settlers moved west across what was called the frontier. By 1848 the United States stretched unchallenged from sea to sea, a distance of nearly 5,000 kilometers. This westward movement was one of the most influential forces to shape North American history and had an important impact on American institutions and American characters.

Louisiana Purchase of 1803

People from France settled in the Louisiana Territory in the early 1700s. In a secret treaty in 1762, France gave part of the land to Spain. In 1800, France and Spain signed another secret treaty. Spain agreed to give the Louisiana Territory back to France. By this time, the United States had won its independence from Great Britain. The Mississippi River formed the western boundary of the United States. Only Florida in the east belonged to Spain. The United States, led by President Thomas Jefferson, nervously watched the dealings of Spain and France. America's main concern was the port city of New Orleans which stood at the mouth of the Mississippi on the Gulf of Mexico. Whoever controlled New Orleans controlled trade on the river.

President Thomas Jefferson determined to gain control of New Orleans. In 1803, he sent James Monroe to France to negotiate the purchase of the port city. At that time, France faced a series of troubles, including the threat of war with Great Britain. The French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, worried that Britain might seize Louisiana if war broke out, so he decided to sell it to the Americans. In April 1803, the French made an astonishing offer to the American officials in Paris. France would sell to the United States not just New Orleans but all of the Louisiana Territory which was about 2,100,000 square kilometers of land, stretching west of the Mississippi River all the way to the Rocky Mountains. France's price for the Louisiana Territory was$15 million dollars. In December 1803, the United States took control of Louisiana and raised the American flag in New Orleans.

The Louisiana Purchase was the most important accomplishment of Jefferson's presidency and was the biggest land deal in American history. It doubled the size of the United States and opened the door for America's westward expansion. Later, all or parts of 15 states were carved from this vast region.

Indian Removal—The Trail of Tears

In 1830 with the encouragement of President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed a law called the Indian Removal Act, which required that the Indians living east of the Mississippi River should move to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. This territory later became part of the state of Oklahoma.

Most Indian tribes did not want to leave their land. It was their spiritual and physical home. But the government sent in the army to force tribes to move. The plight of the Cherokees（切罗基人）of Georgia is a case in point. Under several treaties with the United States, the Cherokees had been recognized as a nation. They had developed a written language, adopted a constitution, and elected a legislature. In 1828, however, gold was discovered in Cherokee territory. The Georgia legislature ordered the seizure of their lands. The Cherokee resisted through legal action and took their case to the US Supreme Court. And they won! But President Jackson ignored the Supreme Court ruling. He directed the U.S Army to capture all the Cherokee they could find and force them to move. The US Army followed the president's direction. The Supreme Court did nothing.

This was an incredibly sad time in American history. During the winter of 1838—39, the Cherokees, along with some other Indian groups of the region, were forced to leave their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia and marched more than 1,600 kilometers to their new home in the Indian Territory that is today known as Oklahoma. The impact was devastating—an estimated 4,000 of the 15,000 Cherokees died during this forced migration. This tragic chapter in American and Cherokee history became known as the“Trail of Tears.”This process of uprooting had been going on for a long time. By 1840, most Indians had been forced from their lands east of the Mississippi River.

The Forced March

Moving West—Addition of Territory

Between 1845 and 1848 the United States rapidly pushed the national border to the Pacific Ocean, increasing its territory by more than 3.1 million square kilometers, more land than was added by the Louisiana Purchase. It acquired these lands in three great chunks, through annexation（合并）, diplomacy, and a war. This acquisition of land was probably the most important step taken by the U.S. government in encouraging westward expansion.

Many Americans believed it was the destiny of the United States to control all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In 1845 the United States annexed Texas, which had been an independent republic since winning its independence from Mexico in1836. In 1846 Britain handed over the Oregon Territory in a treaty. Also in that year, the United States went to war with Mexico. The war aims of the United States were to gain the Mexican provinces of New Mexico and California and to keep the war as short as possible.

After almost two years of fighting, the Mexican Government agreed to sign the American-Mexican Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo on February 2,1848. Out of this important treaty came the newly created territory, which later became the states of California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Mexico also relinquished its claims to Texas. With the addition of California and New Mexico, the United States stretched from ocean to ocean.

On December 30, 1853 James Gadsden, U.S. Minister to Mexico, and Santa Anna（1794—1876）, president of Mexico, signed the Gadsden Purchase in Mexico City. The treaty settled the dispute over the exact location of the Mexican border west of El Paso, Texas, giving the U.S. claim to approximately 76,800 km2of land, which is almost as large as Pennsylvania, in what is now southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, for the price of $10 million, about thirty-three cents an acre. With the acquisition of this territory, the United States had reached its present continental boundaries. The nation had fulfilled its manifest destiny.

The Gold Rush of 1849

Victory in war with Mexico, along with purchases and treaty agreements, expanded the United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Once the United States gained control over large areas of the West, Americans began moving into these lands in ever increasing numbers.

One event which drew people to the West was the discovery of gold in California. This discovery was made in January 1848 by James Marshall, a worker at John Sutter's sawmill in California's Sacramento Valley. News of Marshall's find quickly spread throughout the nation.

Gold fever brought a huge wave of people into the West. In 1849 over 80,000 people, known as“Forty -Niners”, traveled west to the California gold fields. New Western settlements sprang up almost overnight. Although many of the newcomers returned home after the uproar died down, enough stayed to establish California as a state just two years after the gold rush began. More than $1 billion in gold was mined in California. This money helped build railroads and factories, establishing America as a nation of industry.

The Transcontinental Railroads

With explosive growth in population on the Pacific Coast, there was a need to connect these distant communities with the eastern states. The answer seemed to be a railroad linking the two parts of the continent.

In 1862 Congress agreed to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to two corporations to construct the railroad. These companies were also given millions of acres of Western land to sell in order to pay back the loan. With the help of thousands of Irish immigrant laborers, the Union Pacific Railroad was built westward from Omaha, Nebraska. At the same time, the Central Pacific was built eastward from northern California, edging（逐渐推进）over the Sierra Nevada through the efforts of Chinese workers imported for the job. In 1869 the two railroads joined at Promontory Summit, Utah.

Over the next 20 years, other transcontinental railroads were built. By the 1890s a web of steel rails covered much of the West. The growth of railroads encouraged westward expansion more than any other single development.

The Significance of the Westward Movement

The westward movement is of great significance in the American history. It added more than three million square miles to the nation's territory. For many Americans, the West represented freedom, hope, and a fresh start. It has produced great wealth and has supplied enormous resources to others in the nation and the world. The westward movement helped turn the United States into a large, powerful and wealthy nation. Many of the trends set in motion by westward expansion continue.