Directions:

1. Distribute the 2 halves of the “American Progress” painting graphic organizer.

2. Divide your class into 7 groups and assign each group one of the following:

Railroad workers

Exodusters

Mormons

49ers

Farmers

Native Americans

Cowboys

3. Give them 2 minutes to read the short description of their assigned role and why that group

was heading west.

4. Tell them they have 5 minutes to plan a short scene they will act out in front of the class

that will show the class who they are and why they are heading west.

5. Have each group act out their scene and then have students fill out the speech bubbles with

information from the scene.

6. Come up with a class definition of Manifest Destiny and add this to the top left of the

painting.

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In 1827, Joseph Smith helped establish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York. Later, Smith

and his followers moved to Illinois and grew to more than 20,000. However, the group came into conflict with

locals who protested against the Mormon practice of polygamy or having more than one wife. Smith was jailed

for a dispute with a local newspaper and an anti-Mormon mob broke into the jail and killed him and his brother.

Smith’s successor decided it would be safer for

the group to move further west beyond the

boundaries of the US. In 1847, thousands of

Mormons travelled by wagon across the Rocky

Mountains until they reached the Great Salt Lake.

Here the Mormons stopped and awarded plots of

land to each family based on its size. This area

eventually became the state of Utah and its capital

Salt Lake City.

As settlers pushed west, Native American communities were greatly affected. Most Native Americans maintained

strong cultural connections to their ancestral lands. Some fought against whites to keep their territory while others

began to assimilate (become part of) white culture.

In the early 1830’s, settlers in Illinois were pressuring the Sauk Indians to move west.

Chief Black Hawk led a rebellion against the US and The Black Hawk War soon spread

into Wisconsin. It finally ended with the massacre of most of the Fox and Sauk tribes in

1832.

In 1851, the Cheyenne, Sioux, and other tribes signed the Treaty of Ft. Laramie with

the US government. This agreement gave Native American tribes control of most of the

Great Plains in agreement not to attack settlers. While this treaty brought several

years of peace, eventually white settlers pushed into this land as well.

One of the greatest attractions of the west was the land itself. In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act which offered up

to 160 acres of free land to settlers. The law required three steps: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of

title.

Anyone who had never taken up arms against

the U.S. government, including freed slaves,

was 21 or older or the head of a family, could

file an application to claim a federal land

grant. The occupant had to live on the land for

five years, and show evidence of having made

improvements such as building a home and

farm. More than 600,000 families took

advantage of the Homestead Act and moved

west.

In 1889, a major land giveaway in present-day

Oklahoma attracted thousands of people who

claimed more than 2 million acres in a single

day’s land rush.

In 1848, gold was found at Sutter's Mill in Northern California. Word of the discovery spread quickly across the US and the

first prospectors started flocking to the state in early 1849. Eventually, the news of gold brought some 300,000 people to

California from the rest of the United States and abroad. Of the 300,000, about half arrived by sea and half came from the

east overland on the California Trail and the Oregon Trails

The gold-seekers, called “forty-niners” (as a reference to 1849), often faced

substantial hardships on the trip. At first, the gold nuggets could be picked up off

the ground. Later, gold was recovered from streams and riverbeds using simple

techniques, such as panning. Gold worth tens of billions of today's dollars was

recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home

with little more than they had started with. Many more people became rich by

profiting off of the 49ers themselves. For example, Levi Strauss sold denim jeans

to prospectors and James Folger sold coffee, both of which became dominant in

their industries.

The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. San Francisco grew from a small

settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by

1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California.

As Native Americans were forced off of the Great Plains, cattle ranchers moved in and created big business.

American settlers learned to manage large herds of cattle from the Mexican vaqueros. American cowboys wore

chaps which came from the chaparreras or leather

coveralls of the vaqueros. The Spanish “bronco

caballo” became a bronco. Cowboys were soon

leading herds of longhorn cattle for hundreds of miles

to railroad stations north and east for sale. The

longhorns were accustomed to living on dry

grasslands like in Southern Spain, and the climate of

Texas was a close match.

Cowboys and vaqueros led millions of cattle from

Texas up the Chisolm Trail to Kansas, where meat

packing centers would process and ship beef across

the country by rail. One cowboy might lead 250-300

cattle for the long trip north after a roundup in Texas.

It was difficult and dangerous work. Stampedes, river

crossings, and lightening were all a threat.

Manifest Destiny was the belief in the 1800‘s that the US was destined by

God to expand across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific

Ocean.

After the annexation of Texas in 1845, most Americans believed the entire

continent belonged to America. The country was seen as bringing light to

the darkness. Democracy, new inventions, and the American way of life

were considered more progressive than the interests of Native Americans

or Mexico. Telegraph wire and railroads soon made communication and

transportation easier as well, so longer distances were not seen as such a

burden.

Canals were the dominant form of transporting goods up until the 1860’s when the invention of the railroad

rapidly changed the shipping of goods. Railroads could transport goods much faster and during winter when

canals might freeze. Consequently, many Irish immigrants got jobs working to build railroad track across the

Great Plains.

Railroad work was hard, and management was

chaotic, leading to a high attrition rate. Management

puzzled over how it could attract and retain a work

force up to the enormous task. Water-borne illness

was often a serious concern. Personal hygiene was all

but unheard of. Most troubling were fears of the

Native Americans across whose land the laborers built

their road. There were Native American snipers, raids,

livestock rustlings, scalpings, and burnings all along

the railroad right of way. Indian sightings sufficed to

spook men, and line surveyors did not always return

from their routes. News of the slaughter of troops at

Fort Philip Kearny on December 21, 1866, “the

Fetterman Massacre,” was enough to convince many

a worker there were better ways to earn a living.

Exodusters was a name given to African

Americans who left the south and headed west

before and after the Civil War. Racial oppression

and rumors of the reinstitution of slavery led

African-Americans to seek a new place to live.

Many settled in Kansas because of its fame as the

land of the abolitionist John Brown. The state was

reputed to be more progressive and tolerant than

most others.

The name “exodusters” came from the word

“exodus” as in a mass migration out of a place.

The Exodusters continued coming to Kansas

through the summer of 1880; then the movement

died out.

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