Settlement of the WestChapter 9 Section 1

Objectives

• Trace the settlement and development of the Spanish borderlands.

• Explain the concept of Manifest Destiny.

• Describe the causes and challenges of westward migration.

Early Western Settlers

• Spain founded New Mexico in 1598 but the area grew slowly.

• In 1765, there were 9,600 Hispanics, located mainly around El Paso, Santa Fe, and the Rio Grande Valley.

• Settlers were threatened by nomadic tribes on horseback, primarily the Apache.

The Spanish had founded Texas as a buffer zone to protect the towns and mines of Mexico against nomadic raiders. In 1760, there were only about 1,200 settlers, mostly around San Antonio.

Development was slow. By 1821, New Mexico still had only 40,000 settlers.

The Spanish built a mixture of missions, ranches, and fortified military presidios to protect against Indian attacks.

A Spanish mission in Arizona

Spanish Territory, 1820

California

• In the 1760s, a few small settlements served as a buffer against Russian traders moving south from Alaska.

• Father Junípero Serra, a Franciscan priest, set up a string of missions to convert Indians.

• When Spain left in 1821, more than 18,000 Christian Indians lived in the missions.

The belief that God favored U.S. expansion westward to the Pacific.

Expansionists saw Mexican independence as an opportunity to take New Mexico, Texas, and California.

Manifest Destiny

Expansionists did not care about Mexicans or Native Americans, whom they saw as inferiors to be pushed out of the way.

Southern expansionists also hoped to add new slave states to strengthen their position in Congress.

Mountain Men

• Blazed trails across the Sierra Nevada into California.

• The Mountain Men crossed the Rockies seeking beaver pelts.

• They established fur trading routes later followed by wagon trains of settlers.

Western Trails

• The Oregon, Mormon, and Santa Fe Trails were popular routes west.

• Between 1840 and 1860, 260,000 settlers crossed the continent.

Groups of 10 to 100 wagons and 50 to 1,000 people left Missouri in early spring for an uncertain future.

•The 2,000-mile trip took several months.

•They by passed the dry Great Plains and the deserts of the Great Basin.

•Emigrants faced exposure, starvation, disease, poisoned streams, and hostile Indians.

•The Donner Party resorted to cannibalism to survive blizzards in the Sierra Nevada.

Native Americans

• The federal government sought to protect settlers by restricting the Plains Indians.

• Settlers traveling west generally avoided the Native Americans.

• The Plains Indians attempted to cling to their nomadic way of life, but their future was limited.

• In 1851, the Treaty of Fort Laramie restricted Native Americans from areas near wagon routes.

Westward Migration, 1840s

WesternTrail

Number of

SettlersDestination When

California

Trail2,700 California 1842–1848

Mormon Trail 4,600 Utah 1847–1848

Oregon Trail 11,500 Oregon 1842–1848