Table of Contents
What happened to the West after the Civil War?
Soon after the Civil War ended in eighteen sixty-five, thousands of Americans began to move west to settle the land. The great movement of settlers continued for almost forty years. The great empty West, in time, became fully settled. The discovery of gold had already started a great movement to California.
Why did people settle in the West after the Civil War?
Gold rush and mining opportunities (silver in Nevada) The opportunity to work in the cattle industry; to be a “cowboy” Faster travel to the West by railroad; availability of supplies due to the railroad. The opportunity to own land cheaply under the Homestead Act.
Why was Westward Expansion Significant?
To Jefferson, westward expansion was the key to the nation’s health: He believed that a republic depended on an independent, virtuous citizenry for its survival, and that independence and virtue went hand in hand with land ownership, especially the ownership of small farms.
How did Western settlement affect Native Americans?
Westward expansion caused Native Americans to lose their traditional resources, including the buffalo, homelands, hunting grounds and sacred land. Native Americans were confined on reservations, forbidden to practice their religions and they lost their traditional dress and customs.
What happened after westward expansion?
This expansion led to debates about the fate of slavery in the West, increasing tensions between the North and South that ultimately led to the collapse of American democracy and a brutal civil war.
Why was the West so important during civil war?
Soldiers who served in the West saw their wartime actions as important and connected to Union and Confederate war efforts farther east. These are just two of the thousands of enlisted men who served in the Union and Confederate armies in the Southwest and who were proud of their service in the region.
When was the West settled?
July 4, 1776
Western United States/Dates settled
Why did people settle in the west after the Civil War?
The United States encouraged settlement in the West during and after the Civil War. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave families up to 160 acres of land if they agreed to live on it for five years. The completion of the railroads to the West following the Civil War opened vast areas of the region to settlement and economic development.
What was the settlement like in the Wild West?
The romanticized perception of the Wild West differs extensively from the reality of western settlement, but in some aspects mirrors the true western lifestyle in the post-Civil War period. Native Americans and cowboys, for The United States encouraged settlement in the West during and after the Civil War.
Where did people move to after the Civil War?
The West grew dramatically after the Civil War. As the 20th century began, that growth continued. People leaving the Midwest and joined by European immigrants moved farther West into the High Plains and interior West. Nearly a million people, many of them farmers, migrated into Washington, Oregon, and Idaho between 1900 and 1910.
What did the railroads do to the west?
The completion of the railroads to the West following the Civil War opened up vast areas of the region to settlement and economic development. White settlers from the East poured across the Mississippi to mine, farm, and ranch.