What caused westward expansion in the United States?

University of Southern California ^ | February 28, 2008 | Unknown

[Bender2]

Fort Sill?

An old cuz of mine was a Marine back during Nam and he went to artillery school at Sill. He was one the last, he says, to pop a cap (a 280mm non-nuke cap, that is!) on Atomic Annie. I shutter to think of what his military career would have really been had my old cuz had more than eight toes!

[LibertyRocks]

That was my first thought as well... Yearning for true freedom...

[Political Junkie Too]

Because the Americans didn't want to see this continent go the way of Europe with dozens of smaller sovereign states constantly at war with each other? Wasn't "Manifest Destiny" about ensuring that this continent was under one rule?

-PJ

[Paulus Invictus]

I always thought it was Lewis and Clarke, the Mormon trail-making exodus and the Gold Rush that caused it, plus the lure of free land in Oregon etc.

[eyedigress]

My aunt in Birmingham was busting on me in a serious way at my Grandmothers funeral. Somwhere in our conversation she said “we still have grits down here”! Hell, I’m in TN.

[SpringheelJack]

I read a story on a genealogy site which said 2 brothers of my direct ancestor were leaders on the first wagon train to go through Donner Pass after that disaster. I only found it one place years ago and have not been able to find it since.

If you're interested, a good book to check into would be George R. Stewart's "The California Trail". From a quick skim of the text, the leader of the first wagon train after the Donner Party would seem to be Charles Hopper, though other groups arrived soon after on his tails.

[AFreeBird]

My ancestors started their westward trek before the Revolutionary War

Same here. Started out in Wiltshire England way way way back. Made it as for west as Indiana, which was pretty far West when they made it here. Now it's just part of the Midwest.

Oh well. Not really missing Kalifornia.

[JewishRighter]

“What caused westward expansion in the United States?”

That’s easy: the influx of liberals on the east coast.

[TruthWillWin]

Gold and blonds on the beach.

[fish hawk]

Indian Casinos?

[Centurion2000]

Homestead Act. 640 acres of free land (if you were married) is a powerful inducment to get people to move and settle down somewhere.

[big'ol_freeper]

Yup. Spent my first four years in the Army at Mother Sill. Atomic Annie’ll give you as much fire power as you need...big gun. It sits right up there by post headquarters.

[Conspiracy Guy]

We Alabamians are a tough bunch.

[Rte66]

Mine mostly came west in the mid- to late 1700s, too.

Of my four grandparents

.England to VA to MS to IT/OK
.England to VA to KY to IT/OK
.Scotland to VA to AL to OK

And much later (1800s):

.Germany to PA to OH to OK

First settlement in TX was in very late 1940s. First and only child born here in my direct lineage was *moi*! Haven’t stayed here the whole time, however - I am *bi-statual* - the *other state*? You guessed it - Boomer Sooner.

One of my KY relatives introduced the bill to the US House to ratify TX’s annexation as a state in 1845. I figure that counts! (Except on the 2nd weekend in October.)

[Ditter]

Sounds like our families were very similar. As near as I can tell, the families moved west every other generation. People like that didn’t leave very big tracks and it hard to know exactly. I do know that the earliest branch to arrive in Texas were listed in the
1st census of Texas taken in 1835. They came with John Bevil into east Texas several years before that. Wish I knew more.

[Rte66]

Oh, I know a lot about mine. Both grandmothers were in DAR, and one was in Colonial Dames and the other in Daughters of the Confederacy, so both had to have lots of documentation.

I know the most about my paternal-paternal lineage, as my dad got interested in it before he died and I did quite a bit of research on it and got BIA cards for both of us, after a man gave us a report he wrote on my great-grandfather.

Indian Territory was pretty small in 1858 when my g-g-gf first moved from Miss., so there was a lot written about the family and in-laws in the Chronicles of Oklahoma.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the grandmothers’ papers in my possession and whatever I’ve had otherwise was lost two computers ago. Some of it is still online, so I should probably gather it again after I switch to a newer non-virused one (this one is bad and will be gone soon).

[Ditter]

Our children were all 3 adopted so when they were young (and the older generation was still alive) I didn’t make a big deal about heritage. If they had decided they wanted to search for their heritage on their own, it would have been OK but if my search had kicked off their search and what they found had disrupted their lives, I would have felt terrible. As it turned out they didn’t care about their heritage.

[investigateworld]

The economy of the South was pretty much wiped out by 1865. In digging through old newspapers from the mining camps of the desert, 1870 onwards, one will often find a comment "so and so took his new bride to meet his family in (insert various southern states here).

I suppose somewhere on the net, there are statistics showing economic output from the losers of the CW dropping to ?

[MamaB]

I have come to a great conclusion. This was not a true story so someone who knew more about this family had it taken off the Internet. One was said to be the wagonmaster and the other was the blacksmith. That may be the reason I can not find the story anymore. Will just have to wait and see.

[Rte66]

Which, of course, gave rise to telling these westbound nomads to “get thy kicks on Rte66!”