Westward Expansion

Who?

• Commercial Farmers• Plantation Farmers• Native Americans• Empresario• Homesteaders• Entrepreneurs• Mormons• 49ers

How?

• Travel Via Sea• Ships would travel around the tip of South America to West Coast

• Land routes• Between 1840-1860 approx. 300,000 made the journey

• California = 200,000• Oregon = 53,000• Utah = 30,000

• Length of trip 4-6 months• Cost of Transportation• $400 for wagon and gear• Death rate of journey 5%

Why?

• Religion• Mormons

• Free Land• Gold

Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints (Mormon Church)

• New leader• Brigham Young

• Goal: Freedom from religious persecution• Migration to Utah began in 1847

• By 1848 5,000 settlers had migrated to Utah• Utah became a state in 1896

Land

• Free land in Oregon Country• White, male citizens over 18 could

receive 320 acres of land• Married couples 640 acres Land had

to be occupied for four years and improved

• 2.5 million acres were given out to 7,000 people

California Gold Rush

• 1848 – Gold discovered outside of Sacramento• Population explosion• 1848 – 14,000• 1852 – 225,000

California Gold Rush

• Prospectors initially worked alone• 49ers could earn $50 day• Two months wages in a northern

factory

• 95% of prospectors were male• Prospectors came from all over

the World• Mid-1850s = 20% of prospectors

were from China

Compared to NC Gold Rush

• 1799, John Reeds children found a 17-pound gold nugget.• Lode mining: In 1825, Matthias Barringer of Montgomery County

discovered gold in veins of white quartz.• These Veins were called “loads, and stretched underground. • Lode mining took more money, men, and machinery than surface

mining. • Lode mines began to develop across the state.• The North Carolina Gold Rush was the first gold rush in American

History. Until the California Gold Rush of 1849, NC was the gold mining center of the United States.

Consequences of the Gold Rush

• Thousands of workers moved to the Piedmont of North Carolina.• Brought new skills and technology to the state.• A lot of permanent settlements were established around Charlotte.

1848

• Dorthea Dix visits North Carolina • Studied the health of mentally ill patients (Lobbied the state legislature to

pass a bill to fund special hospitals where mentally ill can be taken care of properly)

NC

• 1836: Edward Bishop Dudley, First Governor of North Carolina.

• William Holden (At the age of 25, in 1843, became editor of the North Carolina Standard, a Raleigh Newspaper)

• Manhood Suffrage: the right of white males to vote even if they did not own property. 1857, law passes, requiring politicians to become more responsive to the needs of the people.

Railroad “Iron Horse”

• Wilmington & Weldon Railroad 1840• Raleigh & Gaston Railroad, First Interstate Railroad