What was one way that the United States government encouraged western settlement?

Students will examine a variety of documents that reference reasons why Americans living in the East migrated west of the Mississippi immediately before, during, and right after the Civil War. Documents cover the mining industry, new inventions used on the Plains, the growth of the railroad, the Homestead Act, and the Cattle Kingdom.

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Suggested Teaching Instructions
Suggested Sequencing
Introduction
Sourcing Questions
Comprehension Questions
Historical Reasoning Questions
What are ways the government encouraged settlement?
What were the United States government Reasons for westward expansion?
How did the United States government support white settlement in the West?
What is one way the American government ensure expansion to the West Coast?

Suggested Teaching Instructions

Objectives

Students will analyze primary sources to uncover reasons for expansion, and learn how motivations changed over time. For grades 7-12. Approximate time needed is 45 minutes.

Instructions

This activity can be used to introduce a unit on westward expansion. Alternatively, this activity can be completed gradually by a full class over the course of a unit, or used as a review at the end of a unit.

Begin by asking the class to hypothesize why Americans may have wanted to move west in the middle of the 19th century. Discuss general reasons that humans leave one place to move to another, as well as the particular cultural and political climate of the United States during this era. Ideas may be recorded for later reference.

Open the sequencing activity as a class. Look at a couple of the documents more closely. Ask students if anyone can identify and explain any of the documents they see without further examination. Ask for suggestions as to which documents are “earlier” and which are “later.” Students should be able to explain their presumptions. (To bolster students’ confidence and willingness to make informed guesses, remind them that at this point it is entirely appropriate to make a guess with scant evidence because they have not yet done any careful examination.)

Choose one of the documents used in this activity to model document analysis. Ask students to synthesize the information they have gathered and answer: “What can this document tell us about that time in history?” Remind students to replicate this close analysis of each document they open before they begin to move any of the documents. Ask them to work as a full class, in small groups, or individually for more advanced students, to put the documents in the correct chronological sequence according to their creation dates.

When students have placed all documents in the correct sequence, they should compile a list of possible reasons that Americans moved westward at this time:

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
The discovery of wheat strains adapted to grow in the climate of the Plains.
New inventions allowing them to adapt to life on the Plains, such as the windmill and barbed wire (students may need to speculate as to why homesteaders needed these)
Adventure and the lure of the “Wild West”

Now ask students to determine which reasons pulled migrants to the West earlier and which influenced travelers later.

Students can continue their study of westward expansion by completing a companion activity contrasting the experience of Western settlers with the experience of Native Americans in the West.

For more information about the featured documents, follow the links below.

To the extent possible under law, National Archives Education Team has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to "Reasons for Westward Expansion".

Use this primary source text to explore key historical events.

Suggested Sequencing

Use this Primary Source once students have an understanding of manifest destiny and western expansion to have them analyze the incentivization of moving westward under the Homestead Act.

Introduction

The Homestead Act was passed to encourage the settlement of new western frontier lands. In addition to the development of this land, with the Homestead Act, people were encouraged to establish small, independent farms. The Republicans in particular advocated this position, because it fit their vision of the founding principles of the United States—a vision closely tied to that of the Jefferson Ian “yeoman farmer” as the ideal American. Jeffersonians, in turn, reflected John Locke’s view that property is acquired when a person mixes his or her labour with nature, improving it for his or her purposes. The Homestead Act sought to economically develop the resources of the American frontier while encouraging personal development in those who would serve to expand American democratic principles.

Sourcing Questions

What had changed in the United States during the nineteenth century that created a need for a Homestead Act?
How might the Civil War have played a role in the conditions of the Homestead Act?

Vocabulary	Text
section(n): Under U.S. land surveying, a square mile. A quarter section was 40 acres of land	Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the first January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands . . .
cultivation(n): the act of using land to grow crops and raise livestock; farming	That the person applying for the benefit of this act shall, upon application to the register of the land office in which he or she is about to make such entry, make affidavit . . .that such application is made for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and that said entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not either directly or indirectly for the use of benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever; and upon filing the said affidavit with the register or receiver, and on payment of ten dollars, he or she shall thereupon be permitted to enter the quantity of land specified: Provided, however, That no certificate shall be given or patent issued therefore until the expiration of five years from the date of such entry. . .
title(n): a legal document giving the holder full ownership of a plot of land	And be it further enacted, That no individual shall be permitted to acquire title to more than one quarter section under the provisions of this act; and that the Commissioner of the General Land Office is hereby required to prepare and issue such rules and regulations, consistent with this act, as shall be necessary and proper to carry its provisions into effect; . . .Provided, That nothing contained in this act shall be so construed as to impair or interfere in any manner whatever with existing preemption rights; And provided, further, That all persons who may have filed their application for a preemption right prior to the passage of this act, shall be entitled to all privileges of this act: Provided, further, That no person who has served, or may hereafter serve, for a period of not less than fourteen days in the army or navy of the United States, either regular or volunteers under the laws thereof, during the existence of an actual war, domestic or foreign, shall be deprived of the benefits of this act on account of not having attained the age of twenty-one years. . . .
	That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to prevent any person who has availed him or herself of the benefits of the first section of this act, from paying the minimum price, or the price to which the same may have graduated, for the quantity of land so entered at any time before the expiration of the five years, and obtaining a patent therefore from the government, as in other cases provided by law, on making proof of settlement and cultivation as provided by existing laws granting preemption rights.

Comprehension Questions

What conditions did applicants have to meet to receive land under the Homestead Act?
Under this act, how much land could the applicant receive?
What was required by those who received land grants?
What was forbidden of those who received land grants?
How long must a settler have lived and farmed on the land grant before receiving title to the land permanently?
What limit was placed on those who received land grants?
Based on this language, could women become landowners under the Homestead Act?

Historical Reasoning Questions

Explain how the granting of arable land served the national interest of the U.S. government.
Explain how the Homestead Act illustrated a continuity of American republican principles.

The Homestead Act of 1862 https://www.nps.gov/home/learn/historyculture/upload/mw,pdf,homestead%20act,txt.pdf

What are ways the government encouraged settlement?

To further encourage western settlement, Congress passed the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862. It gave state governments millions of acres of western lands, which the states could then sell to raise money for the creation of "land grant" colleges specializing in agriculture and mechanical arts.

What were the United States government Reasons for westward expansion?

Suggested Teaching Instructions.

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..

How did the United States government support white settlement in the West?

The Federal government responded with measures (Homestead Act, transcontinental railroad) and military campaigns designed to encourage settlement, solidify Union control of the trans-Mississippi West, and further marginalize the physical and cultural presence of tribes native to the West.

What is one way the American government ensure expansion to the West Coast?

To encourage this process, Congress passed the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act in 1862. The government also constructed and maintained forts that assisted in the process of westward expansion.

Westward expansion