U.S History HELP PLZ!!!?

Question

During the 1830s and 1840s a great number of people moved westward. Why did those people choose to risk everything and what did they hope to find at the end of their journey? How successful were they in achieving their objectives?

Answer 1

Manifest Destiny had been around since earlier presidents than the 1830s and 1840s, but what you did not have prior to that is too many people living in too small a space.  So in a pendulum swing away from factory work and tenement living, Ameicans began to define their own happiness by living on their own terms, being their own boss, and having more than a second story walk-up in h**l's Kitchen or Irishtown or Chinatown to call home.  With a little money and a little courage, you could own 40 acres, farm it yourself, and live in a town where you could be known by all.  Think of Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie.

Of course, once we filled up the rest of the country and the West was full of big cities and Chinatowns too, the pendulum for personal happiness swings back the other way to group living and corporate / factory work

Answer 2

manifest destiny.they wanted to live on their own with no rules,plus they we looking for places to settle were they could hit it rich.well they started a war with the native Indians,if u call that successful

Answer 3

They chose it to see if anything lied beyond where anyone has ever been. Many were succesful but almost half of them died ont he journey. They were very succesful and later settled there.

Answer 4

Well they all wanted fairness and equality and to move out of the slave movement and what vnot. for more information check out a book called "Westward Ho!" That book will tell you everything you need or just look up those terms in your history textbook.

Answer 5

It was manifest destiny, however, it was a number of things (including some political).

1.  During that time, California and the Oregon Territory were owned by separate countries (Britain and Mexico, OR Spain (I am unsure of the time period).  With more Americans populating the area it would make the transition of those territories into America much easier than having hostile people.  Britain didn't take it quiet well and we almost went to war for the Oregon Territory (ever heard of 59-40 or fight?  Those are the latitude and longitude of the Oregon Territory.  Luckily, we didn't go to war.)

2.  The east was becoming overpopulated and the chance of acquiring a more prosperous life in the west was high.  I'd move for more land and a better life, too.  Wouldn't you.  I wouldn't do it with wagons, but hey, use what you got.

Answer 6

This is a simplified list of United States territorial acquisitions, beginning with American independence. Note that this list primarily concerns land acquired from other nation-states; the numerous territorial acquisitions from American Indians are not listed here. This list excludes U.S. protectorates (like Nicaragua from 1912-33) and territories like Liberia from 1822-47.

The 1783 Treaty of Paris with Great Britain defined the original borders of the United States. Due to ambiguities in the treaty, the ownership of Machias Seal Island and North Rock remain disputed between the U.S. and Canada; other original territorial ambiguities (including the Northeastern Boundary Dispute and the disputed Indian Stream territory) were resolved by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842.

The Louisiana Purchase, completed 1803, was negotiated by Robert Livingston during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson; the territory was acquired from France for $11,250,000. A small portion of this land was ceded to the United Kingdom in 1818 in exchange for the Red River Basin. More of this land was ceded to Spain in 1819 with the Florida Purchase, but was later reacquired through Texas annexation and Mexican Cession.

West Florida was declared by President James Madison to be a U.S. possession in 1810.

Tristan da Cunha was the first, albeit short-lived U.S. overseas possession. This remote South Atlantic island was first claimed in 1810 by Jonathan Lambert from Salem, Massachusetts, who died in a boating accident in 1812. During the War of 1812, the U.S. used it as a naval and p****y base against British shipping. The island was abandoned after the war and annexed within months by the British, along with Ascension Island, in order to prevent the French from establishing bases from which to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte from Saint Helena.

Red River Basin, acquired in 1818 by treaty from the United Kingdom, namely the Anglo-American Convention of 1818.

Answer 7

The way communications were, they were almost totally lacking, one could be a HUGE failure where you were living but you could move about 50 miles westward and statr anew. It was like getting an entire new start with your life. No one really cared who who were before it was what you did in your

new location which counted. The westward movement allowed those people who had lost everything they had owned due to a "Business Panic", or what we today calla Depression to start anew out west. This was true especally in 1818 and 1836. Immigrants at first from Western and Northern Europe were offered a new life by buying the cheap

land and starting their own farms. It is true many died going west, diease and weather problems, getting caught in blizzards or floods, killed many but to many it was worth a chance. It was the start of the American Dream, " The Land of

Opportunity", unless of courde you were an American Indian .

For the Indians it was a continuation of a disaster.

      Hope that helps.

      Packers.

Answer 8

Fredrick Jackson Turner is a man very well known for producing something known as the "Frontier Hypothesis"

The movement westward was sparked by a belief in "Manifest Destiny" - the belief that the United States should control all of North America.  

Why?  The west provided economic opportunity.  In 1842, there was a gold rush in California, and thousands of Americans and other immigrants flocked to the area in  search of gold.

The west also allowed for the United States to become more powerful as a nation.